The Harvester

Hospital General Juan Maria de Salvatierra

Dr. Kinsley arrived in record time, he did not stop to fish in the Florida Keys as he had in the past. Upon his arrival at Manzanillo International Terminal, he could barely keep himself from breaking out in sweats he was so nervous. He worried the medical review panel he was meeting with the next morning would reject his proposal as the board at MIT had. He spent the afternoon rehearsing his speech and procuring rations for his stay off the Baja Coast.

The meeting ended abruptly. He had revealed the negative lab results of the donors to the doctors in Panama and they had reacted in precisely the same way as the grant committee. They had been extremely interested in his pitch, especially the positive lab results, however, they were very concerned with the cyclical pattern of death in the lab specimens. Dr. Kinsley was quick to point out to the board that his studies proved that one hundred percent of the mesenchymal cell recipients showed signs of age degeneration.

Denied by the board he was hurt. He felt overwhelmed with uncertainty. He was uncertain why the scientific and medical communities did not see past the harm that being a circulatory stem cell donor caused, life was full of choices. The fact that we as a society have a choice in saving one person's life over another is considered to be too taboo for the scientific or medical communities? Dr. Kinsley was uncertain why he never saw it the way they did, as murder. He was guilt ridden about how others viewed him for thinking that this was a revolutionary step in the field of stem cells and age degeneration. However, he was not in the least swayed by their opinions. He knew he must find another way to proceed. The rejection weighed heavy on him as he sailed on in his uncertainty.

By the time he had anchored in Punta El Pulpito, a beautiful point jutting out into the calm bay North of the town of Loreto, he knew that he was the only person willing to take part in this endeavor. He knew he must find an infant stem cell donor. The ill side effects suffered by the stem cell donors would keep parents from willingly signing up their child up for Dr. Kinsley's research experiment. No matter the reward offered for their services.

The beach communities along the western coastline of the Sea of Cortez are sparse, but the few that have eked out an existence have been established for hundreds of years. Most of the communities subsist by owning one skiff with an outboard motor. This boat and motor combo supplies the entire community with fish from the deeper parts of the Sea of Cortez as well as modernized supplies from the closest towns of Loreto or La Paz, depending on where the community is situated geographically. Dr. Kinsley believed someone within these small villages would be tempted to take him up on his offer. He would comb the villages for an expecting mother and present to her an offer she couldn't refuse.

So far the trip had been better than expected. Dr. Kinsley felt free of the burdens of everyday life at the lab, he began to relax and settle into the calmness and serenity of the landscape. The desert and ocean fascinated him, he became a child again while at sea. The villagers were helpful too, not in the search of a child for his experiment, but in the help of locating new and undiscovered caves and providing with hand made tortillas and local delicacies such as oysters and sea cucumbers. He spent his mornings in the caves collecting specimens, afternoons were always spent in the shade illustrating all of his new finds and in the evenings, Dr. Kinsley had taken to the exciting sport of shark fishing. He was becoming quite the angler and loved the way the shark filets tasted when grilled with garlic butter and lemon. His days were not focused on his plans to further his research, instead he was just happy to be alive and experiencing the beauty of the ocean.

He could hear the motor whining in the distance and the faint call for help. Dr. Kinsley hurried up the steps from the hull and saw the skiff coming to rest off his stern. A man from a nearby village had been bitten by a shark while harvesting pearls. Blood spewed and tissue hung off of the left calf and foot area. The doctor showed no sign of panic. The other villagers had quickly loaded the shark bitten man into the skiff and sped down the coast to where Kinsley had been anchored.

Dr. Kinsley went to work cleaning the wound. He stopped the bleeding by applying a tunicate. When the blood subsided he calmly began to stitch the wound. He was able to move the injured man and get his mutilated leg into a stable position. He fashioned a safe transport area for the victim on deck and pulled the anchor. They arrived in La Paz late that evening, the man received the blood transfusions that he needed to overcome the severe shock that had set in from the severity of the wound and the loss of blood. The doctor waited for the villager to recover for days. While he was in La Paz, Dr. Kinsley had restored his need to find a mesenchymal stem cell donor. He was motivated by a new urge within, the shark attack had reminded him that he too was mortal. He never believed the risk of the stem cell donor's life too great. This incident had brought him to disregarded the moral judgement that had been placed upon him by the others in his field of study. He intensified his search and upped his price, he offered $25,000 cash. He searched dive bars and asked around in brothels, churches, the poorest barrios he could find, he talked to more people in search of an infant child in La Paz than he had in all of his days in Mexico combined. The search ended up fruitless.

The day the villager got discharged from the hospital changed Dr. Kinsley's life forever. Wheeling the villager's chair down the hall, he caught a glimpse of his opportunity. He'd have to be quick, if anyone saw him it meant jail time. He'd heard a nurse talking to a doctor on her rounds behind him in the hallway, the voices were muffled as they walked into one of the rooms. Momentarily, he was alone in the hall. He calmly parked the wheelchair next to the wall. He was into the room and out in less than a minute. He walked through an open door, picked up the child up from an open bassinet, wrapped the blanket tightly over the infant's face and body and proceeded out the front doors of Hospital General Juan Maria de Salvatierra. He concealed the baby between the shrubs and the white stucco wall outside of the entrance.

Dr. Kinsley ran back into the hospital and calmly got to the chair before anyone but the villager had noticed his departure. He rolled the man to the waiting taxi, while the taxi driver helped the villager into the cab, Dr. Kinsley grabbed the stashed bundle and himself into the backseat of the car. A minute later, they were driving down the calm streets of La Paz, the pastel colored housed were bright blues, pinks, yellows, and greens, a red house occasionally dotted the lines of well kept homes. Dr. Kinsley's heart was racing, he had committed the first crime of his life. He checked over his shoulder for the rest of the drive expecting to see flashing lights. They pulled into Parque Marina Sur, he sprang out of the car and went straight to the slip in the harbor where he had docked. He left the villager in the taxi and asked the driver to help him get into his wheelchair. The villager was none the wiser of the afternoon's activities. The boat ride back North was smooth sailing.