Sean followed Julia Thornton down the empty hallway, discontent festering in his gut. It had been a gamble using Julia's pet foible to negotiate the terms of his suspension. He should be thankful for the reduced sentence, but all he felt was the sting of injustice. Just when he had renounced his bad attitude and turning into a new leaf.

”Hey!” Winona caught up with them scowling, “You can’t speak to my son alone. I won’t let you intimidate him.”

“Mrs. Cook,” Julia stopped and turned with a sigh, “I suppose I’d need your permission for this anyway. I wasn’t trying to bully your son, just offer him a week-long internship at my firm.”

”What,” Winona stared bemused.

”I’ve heard about your think tank,” Sean frowned in surprise, “but why would you want me? You just suspended me, for crying out loud!”

”I don’t give a shit about your suspension, Sean,” Mrs. Thornton waved a hand dismissively, “What I care about is hiring kids with the right mindset before they are irrepairably ossified by the crappy education system.”

”Crappy... how dare you,” Winona began heatedly, "You are a board member..."

"I meant no insult to our school district, Mrs. Cook," Mrs. Thornton smiled, not very convincingly, "but our curriculum was designed to churn out factory workers for the industrial revolution two centuries ago. It's not that good at creating students who can think on their feet. The only reason I attended Sean's hearing was to see if I could track down this so-called Collection Agency."

"To bring them to justice?" Winona's scowl softened.

"To offer them internships ofcourse," Julia grinned unpleasantly, "These delinquents demonstrate more innitiative and specialized skill than many adults. But as elusive as their club is, I'll settle for Sean."

"You would reward hooligans?” Winona began to hyper-ventilate, "What kind of board member ..."

"What sort of internship?" Sean interrupted hastily.

”Zero Sum is founded with a singular principle,” Julia clapsed her hands behind her, “of making a profit from defusing military conflict around the globe. To that end we hire the best and brightest. We are occasionally consulted by the State Department, but we mostly focus on hotspots that are... unprofitable for the major powers to get involved. Your task will be to keep tabs on one of our teams in the field.”

”I’m still not sure what a highschool junior can contribute in foreign policy,” Winona muttered dubiously, placing a possessive hand on Sean’s shoulder, “Don’t get me wrong, my boy is pretty studious...”

”Mrs. Cook,” Julia shook her head, “I’m afraid I haven’t been clear. I am not looking for experts, we have enough of those on call. What I need is students who can see beneath the surface of things... who can perceive the world not as random events but as a dynamic structure that can be modeled. He won’t be the first highschool junior working with us. Hmm... let’s see... a question for you Sean. Suppose your assignment is to predict the next conflict by monitoring which countries are stockpiling arms, how would you go about it?”

”Um... it depends,” Sean bit his lip, “does stockpiling lead to war?”

”Most conflicts are preceded by one or both sides stockpiling,” Julia commented.

”That’s not what I asked,” Sean shook his head, “The question isn’t whether most wars are preceded by stockpiling, but whether most stockpiling is followed by war.”

”Um... what?” Winona looked confused.

”Conditional probabilities, mom,” Sean explained, “sound sort of similar when expressed in everyday language, but they’re really not. When countries get into an arms race, the cost of war goes up, which should in theory discourage war. We only observe the wars that break out, never the ones that don't. Of course wars are preceded by stockpiling. But how many instances of stockpiling actually lead to war? The latter is a subset of the former."

”It’s hard to slip something past you, isn’t it,” Julia cackled and turned to Winona, “That’s what I was talking about. Seeing past the fog of human language, and thinking in math. I think your son might fit into our little group better than you imagine.”

”Will he be in any danger?” demanded Winona.

"He won't leave our premises," Julia assured her. She didn't actually answer mom's question, Sean noted wryly.

"What's in it for me?" Sean sounded hopeful.

"There's a class-action lawsuit initiated by parents of students present at the Fuller Dynamics tour disaster," Julia smiled, "but you haven't joined in despite being the most injured party. Perhaps you are filing your own lawnsuit, which would make sense, but I get the impression Richard has convinced you to stay silent. What does he have on you? Legal threats? Did he offer you a job at his factory when you graduate? Did he offer to recommend you to a college of your choice?"

Juia laughed at their expressions, "Did I mention that I can recommend you to any college you may want? I am on speaking terms with most admissions officers in Connecticut. Sean, if you are still a good fit for us after college, there's a lot of money to be made in putting out international conflicts."

"I'm in," Sean nodded, looking at his mom.

Julia smiled and pulled out a business card, "Show up at 8AM tomorrow."

"Wait, that's at New Haven," Winona pursed her lips, "I won't have time to drop him off before work."

"Think about it," Julia shrugged, "I need to go now. It was nice meeting you. Wish it was under better circumstances."

They stood for a moment, staring at Julia's retreating back until startled by footsteps behind.

"Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing the last bit," Melissa Lambert smiled apologetically, "I commute to New Haven. I could drop off Sean and pick him up."

"Oh... no, we couldn't impose..." Winona shook her head.

"It's the least I can do," Melissa shrugged, "after Sean took the time to help my daughter's soccer team."

"Too soon to say if I actually helped," Sean muttered self-consciously.

"Very well, Mrs. Lambert, I appreciate it," Winona nodded, "It's only for a week and it'll keep Sean from moping around the house. I'll text you our address."

"Oh, please call me Melissa," Mrs. Lambert waved, "See you at eight tomorrow morning, Sean."

A dreary grey fall drizzle greeted them as they got to the main entrance.

"My umbrella won't fit both of us," Winona instructed, "Wait here. I'll get the car."

"I need to hit the restroom," Sean nodded, heading back inside. Winona shook open a compact umbrella wielding it like a shield toward the parking lot, stepping around puddles.

The lunch bell pealed. Sean grimaced in self-pity. Now he'd have to fight the great herd for restroom access. And risk making his mom wait and triggering her temper. He quickened his paced, turning into a short wide corridor that teed into another long corridor featuring boys' and girls' restrooms at either end. A trio of boys appeared at the intersection trading banter, pausing briefly as a girl joined them from the other direction. Sean stumbled, noticing Jason, Tiffany and two more of his posse. Jason's surprise morphed into rage.

"You little shit," spat Jason, "there's no end to the grief you've ..."

"Mind-wipe me again, you fucking pig," snarled Sean, "and you'll find out what grief really means."

Tiffany stood behind Jason, arms folded with her usual look of disdain. Except her eyes pleaded boring into Sean's, a never seen vulnerability that took his breath away. She seemed heartbreakingly pretty now...

"No idea what you mean, degenerate," Jason's anger twisted into a cold sneer, "But I heard you'd been suspended for vandalism..."

Sean lost it. It was just too much to stand here taking smug denial from the prick who'd framed him. Sean punched his face with his good hand, or tried to. But Kyle Green was faster. The junior-varisty quarterback was taller than Jason and a head taller than Sean. Sean was body slammed into the wall, his head bouncing off the drywall. His right arm was firmly pinned by Caleb Guthrie, the last member of the posse. Seam groaned, his ribs creaking as Kyle gently applied pressure to his chest with his elbow. The corridor suddenly buzzed with students heading to the restrooms, giving them a wide berth, their eyes wide but averted. No one dared snitch on the Fuller scion.

"Anyone tell you not to pick a fight when outnumbered with a broken arm, shithead?" Jason eyed him thoughfully as if studying an especially stupid insect.

"Want us to teach him a lesson, Jay?" Kyle grinned, "No need to get your hands dirty on this sorry excuse."

"I'd like that, thank you very much," Jason smiled without humor, "And no need to hold back. No one will believe him after the stunt at the lab. He's had it coming for a long time. Make him regret the day he laid eyes on my sister."

Jason walked away, pausing, "You coming, Tiff?"

"No, I want to... watch," Tiffany smiled, licking her lips. Jason chuckled as he exited the corridor.

Sean squeaked in pain as Kyle punched him in the exact spot that the goons of the Collection Agency had tenderized. Tears blurred his vision and he blinked to clear them. Tiffany looked concerned. Sean burned with shame at the pity that marred her lovely disdain. Contigency plan... he'd collected intel on all known threats within the school, which included not only members of the school board but also Jason's posse.

Kyle "Nutcracker" Green: top athelete, built like Hercules and dead ringer for actor Idris Elba which made the girls swoon... focus Sean, holds grudges, hates being suckered...

Caleb "Bookie" Guthrie: math whiz, unofficial loan shark, ran betting pools online, lawyer dad, savvy enough about the law to avoid overtly illegal stuff...

Too late, he was pinned like a bug and Kyle was about to punch him again. Sean couldn't take much more of that. It was going to end in internal bleeding which was potentially fatal. Sean felt real fear now, rage and adrenalin draining out. He saw Tiffany deliberately rub the side of her neck, her eyes staring at Sean, then flicking to Kyle. It jogged Sean's memory. Injury... Kyle had incurred an injury on the base of his neck not long ago, on his left side.

"Don't make the same mistakes my dad did," Sean gasped, "don't get suckered, Kyle."

"The heck you croaking about, bitch?" Kyle frowned, fist poised to strike again.

"Caleb is conning you with his lottery," Sean winced, "Word is, you shelled out sweet moola for a ticket."

"So?" sneered Kyle, "Winner gets a boatload of cash, and most get consolation payments. The average payout is the ticket price. I can't lose, only breakeven."

"Doesn't work that way," Sean chuckled painfully, "What you should care about is the median payment, not the mean. The mean is skewed by the single big winner. Most players get far below the ticket price. It's a long tailed distribution..."

"Wait... what?" Kyle turned on Caleb, "Is this true?"

"Um... no... I mean... yes... technically, it's implied by the rules..." Caleb stammered. Kyle punched Caleb in the face. Caleb yelped and staggered, releasing Sean's arm.

"Hey... where do you think you are going?" Kyle turned back to Sean, as Sean's right hand chopped into his neck. Kyle yelled clutchng his neck, moaning. Sean ran. As he sprinted round the corner, he saw Tiffany hand over tissue for Caleb's bloody nose, but her face was staring at him in amused respect.

"What took you so long?" demanded Winona in the car.

"Lunch hour, mom," shrugged Sean rubbing his belly, his mind on Tiffany.

#

Sean walked up to his attic bedroom, after his mom dropped him off heading to work. He lay for a while on his bed staring at the ceiling. The brief euphoria of outwitting Jason's mooks and from seeing Tiffany faded, replaced by dejection. Jason had won. Framed and suspended for a week. He frowned as the doorbell chimed, wondering who it could be. He spotted a black BMW in the driveway, visible through the bedroom window. Probably not a salesperson. He sighed and dragged himself back downstairs to open the door. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Elliot, Fuller's butler and head of security, looming over the doorway.

"Go away," yelled Sean, slamming the door on Elliot's steel-toed boot, "I'll call the cops, I swear."

"Master Sean, please," Elliot sighed, "I just want to talk."

"What about?" demanded Sean incredulously, "Have you come to finish off what Jason started?"

"It's about Miss Judith," Elliot continued after a confused pause, "She's been taken ill this weekend."

"What happened... is she Ok?" Sean swung open the door to stare at Elliot, "And...um, why are you telling me this?"

"Can I come in? I'm not carrying firearms I swear," Elliot held a backpack, "I'll try not to overstay my welcome."

Sean nodded after a moment, his shoulders slumped as he uneasily led the way to the living room. Elliot followed behind like a big cat, silent and predatory. The couch creaked as the manservant lowered his frame into it, his cold eyes studying Sean.

"My principal is unaware of this visit," Elliot opened the backpack and pulled out a binder, "I'm displaying a serious breach of trust by having this conversation. I hope I can count on your discretion."

"Where's Judith?" Sean demanded.

"In hospital," Elliot bowed in shame at the violation of privacy, "after contracting viral infection. Her condition is still... critical."

"Critical?" Sean stared, his heart beating faster, "what sort of virus? I assume it's not just the flu, as nasty as that is."

"The doctors are having trouble pinpointing the diagnosis," Elliot shook his head, "but they agree it's an unknown virluent strain that attacks the skin. As far as they can determine, it is not airborne. Miss Judith has been placed under Level 3 containment. The CDC has been notified."

"Shit... oh shit," Sean's stomach dropped.

"I'm here to consult you on Miss Judith's science project," Elliot handed over the plastic binder. Universal OncoTech proclaimed the logo. A sticker in bright red font warned of the dire consequences of disseminating confidential corporate information.

"Um... what?" Sean opened the binder:

Prototype Universal Kit for Cancer Treatment

Proof of Concept using Oncolytic Adenovirus to Target Skin Tumors

Judith Fuller

Judith's name was followed by the list of experts guiding her school project, including research doctors at Universal OncoTech and her AP Bio teacher at school. It seemed that Universal OncoTech, one of New England's rising bio-tech firms, had been acquired by the Fuller Consortium a few years ago. Nothing like having a dad who could lend you one of his companies for your science project. Sean closed his eyes, giving the impression of weary disinterest, as he touched the cover page. His breath hitched as his mind absorbed the info dump.

"Bloody heck," Sean looked up at Elliot, "you think Judith was infected by her science project."

"A glass container shattered when her prototype glitched," Elliot nodded, "and some of its contents splashed on Miss Judith. Three days later she fell sick. She insists she washed her hands immediately, but it's possible not all of the contaminant was removed. Her advisors, however, insist the experiment was engineered to specifically target cancer cells and could not possibly infect healthy tissue. Franky, I am skeptical of their denials given the liability."

Letting the boss's kid accidentally infect herself with a supervirus probably wouldn't look good on the resume either.

"I'm truly sorry, and I hope Judith recovers quickly," Sean was sincere, "but I'm not sure what you want from me."

"The dispenser arm on Miss Judith's prototype dropped the concotion she'd instructed it to make," Elliot ignored Sean's objection, "causing the vial to shatter. Two of the lock nuts on the robot arm had come loose. When I reviewed the design, I learned that both these fasteners and only these fasteners had to come loose to cause the dispensed vial to break. And before she lost consciousness Miss Judith confirmed she had personally tightened all fasteners to spec."

"You think it was sabotaged?" Sean barked incredulously, "You really think someone sabotaged Judith's science project to infect her? Why would anyone do that? Not all accidents are conspiracies... nuts do vibrate loose on machinery, you know."

"Much less so with lock nuts," Elliot shook his head and sighed, "It's my job to protect my principal and his family. And Mr. Fuller has made many enemies given the nature of his business. It would be remiss of me to not consider the possbility of sabotage. I need your help in understanding Miss Judith's prototype, to determine how reasonable my suspicion is."

"Then get an independent biotech expert, for goodness sake," retorted Sean, "I'm just a highschool kid. What do you think I can tell you?"

"Mr. Fuller has forbidden me from hiring outside experts," Elliot said stiffly, "He thinks paranoia has ruined my judgement. And blames himself for permitting his daughter to play with fire. And the CDC has taken possession of the prototype after I finished examining it. But the point is... Miss Judith completely revamped the design a month ago. As luck would have it, Universal OncoTech - being already experienced in directed evolution - was able to guide her. But Miss Judith said it was you who inspired her to incorporate Darwinian evolution in the first place."

"I inspired her?" Sean was taken aback, "Um... she talked to you about her hobbies?"

"Miss Judith is a prodigy and a saint who wants to save the world from all disease," Elliot nodded reverently, "but she doesn't have anyone to talk with on her level. Oh, she has plenty of people who praise her with lip service, but no one who takes the time to understand what she is trying to achieve... not her family... not her friends. Until you came. That's why I'm here."

Sean swallowed his embarassment. He made a show of skimming through the pages in the binder, "So, um... where do you want me to start?"

"Just give me the short version, sir," Elliot gestured encouragingly.

"Well, the idea of directing evolution to fight cancer is not new," Sean began, "Late-stage tumors can mutate sufficiently to survive whatever drugs you throw at it. An ideal cure would constantly adapt to the tumor to kill it. Suppose you start with a tumor cell sample. Then let's say you take a flu virus, and make a million strains of it to throw at the tumor. Some of those viral variants will have the right shape to target proteins specific to the tumor. Take the strain that look promising... rinse and repeat until you get a strain that's exceedingly good at eating tumors. Bingo, instant cure. Well, not quite, but it's a start. As the tumor mutates, just take more samples and keep evolving the virus until the tumor is all gone."

”Won’t the virus cause the flu, though?” Elliot frowned.

”If you do it right, by the time you are done, that is no longer a flu virus " Sean smiled, "It can no longer target the proteins in your nasal passage, only the protein unique to the tumor. We have changed its tropism into an oncolytic virus."

"Elegant," Elliot nodded thoughfully, "but surely it's not as simple as that?"

"You're right, it's not," Sean flipped through the binder, "and you made a good point. While the new virus has a taste for tumor, there's no guarantee it won't eat healthy tissue also."

Sean tapped a photo illustration in the binder. A transparent cylinder half the size of a billiard's table. Hundreds of petri dishes on stacked turntables. A dozen radiating robot arms terminated in slender appendges that turned inwards, like an inverted bug scratching its own belly... a monstrous hound sheathed in metal lay belly up, limbs wiggling in air, chainsaw teeth screaming in anticipation... Sean massaged his forehead to rub the image away.

"Are you alright, sir?" Elliot's cold eyes held a hint of curiosity..

"Um... as I was saying," Sean continued, "there has to be safeguards to make sure the oncolytic virus can only eat tumors. By mixing healthy tissue with every tumor sample, we can select for strains that attack only tumor and not healthy tissue. That's how Judith's gizmo is setup. These optical probes keep an eye on the tissue samples. And that's not all. This probe here - call it the tropism probe - monitors the evolving viral strains for protein sensitivity. You would normally need a state-of-art biotech lab to pull this off. Judith's genius was in automating and miniaturizing an entire lab into a gizmo that could be leased to hospitals. Cancer treatment automated and customized to each patient."

"Sounds sensible," Elliot nodded grudgingly, "which brings us back to my question. Assuming Miss Judith's automated laboratory did work as intended, how did she get infected? Suppose for argument's sake, you intended harm to Miss Judith through this device... how would you go about it without revealing your hand?"

"Doesn't seem possible, " Sean stared at Elliot, then at the photo of Judith's automaton, " not when each tumor sample is surrounded by healthy cells to act like canaries in a coal mine. Besides, how many people had access to Judith's prototype anyway? Apart from the lab staff at Universal OncoTech?"

"I'm discreetly looking into the backgrounds of the staff," Elliot looked pensive, "but they aren't the only suspects. On more than one occasion Miss Judith has brought over groups from school to promote her work. Her teachers, her friends, her friends' friends, her brother's friends. In short, anyone who showed the slightest interest."

"Now you're shitting me," Sean gaped, "You suspect someone from school? Why?"

"Mr. Fuller has many business rivals," Elliot went on reluctantly after an awkward pause, "who stand to lose billions for every contract my principal wins. The Gibbs family, for instance. If anything were to happen to Miss Judith, it would devastate her father... make him falter on strategic business moves. It's not beyond reasonable doubt that one of their children..."

"You think Romeo, excuse me... Reginald Gibbs is trying to get Judith killed?" Sean choked down a hysterical laugh, "Her freaking boyfriend? What's this, daytime soap opera? Why couldn't it be GORGON? I nearly got killed in their attack, for goodness sake."

"Humor me, Master Sean," Elliot lips tigtened, "I cannot comment on the nature of Miss Judith's relationship with Master Gibbs. I did initially consider GORGON though. But the saboteur has gone to great lengths to make it seem like an accident. That's not GORGON's modus operandi."

"The safeguards are hard to beat," Sean frowned at the counterintuitive puzzle Elliot had thrown at him, "unless... you disable just one of the safeguards, say, the tropism probe and..."

Sean gurgled against Elliot's choke hold. The butler had moved so fast that Sean felt a fist tightening around his neck collar before he'd regsitered Elliot leaving his chair.

"You have three seconds before I break your neck," Elliot hissed, "Which student did you pay to sabotage the probe?"

Elliot relaxed his stranglehold slightly, seeing Sean's face turn purple.

"You fucking moron," Seam gasped, "I care about Judith..."

"Your rivalry with Master Jason gives you enough motive," grated Elliot, "And I never told you the... what did you call it... the tropism probe had been damaged."

"Would you rather kill me, or catch the real perp?" Sean spat in the butler's face.

"I beg your pardon, Master Sean," Elliot straightened after a second, pulling out a handkerchief to dab at his own face, "My concern for Miss Judith overrode my judgement. It won't happen again. I was being... unprofessional."

The manservant shuddered at the last word, reaching into his backpack. He handed a series of photos to Sean. A magnified image of the tropism probe and its needle. The micro-capillary stainless steel tube had been carefully crimped shut at a couple of spots, the damaged surfaces showing a knurled impression that might have been left by small pliers.

"I admit I'm still confused, Master Sean," Elliot sat down, "How would damaging the tropism probe allow the rogue viral strain to evade the other probes that monitor the tissue samples?"

"This is just conjecture," Sean had a faraway look, "but when you use an optimizer like evolution to spit out a design, it's kind of important to specify exactly what you want. Otherwise you end up with... unexpected results. Like when you breed for hens that lay the most eggs in a coop, you might be selecting for the most aggressive hens that aren't really productive but which bully the other hens into producing less. That's actually happened. Sabotaging the tropism probe might do something similar."

"I... see," Elliot frowned, "but..."

"By disabling the tropism monitor but leaving the optical monitors intact ," Sean drummed fingers on the arm rest, "the saboteur may have selected for a strain that doesn't attack healthy tissue immediately but infilrates it."

"Infiltrate?" Elliot raised a brow.

"Insert itself into the cell DNA," Sean explained, "Viruses can infect cells by two modes. Directly attack them by the lytic pathway. Or integrate into the cell genome via the lysogenic paythway and wait for an opportune moment to strike. A ticking timebomb, like HIV. The optical probes wouldn't catch that."

"But how could the saboteur be certain what he'll get?" Elliot protested, "Seems rather random."

"The mechanism of evolution is random," Sean shook his head, "but the end result is not. A given selection pressure drives a population towards a particular design, by simply killing off the variants that don't measure up. Whales sort of look like fish, but they aren't closely related. Same environment, different species converging towards the same form. Maybe the first optimized strain might eat only cancer. But sooner or later Judith's luck would have run out. Nasty piece of work, she is."

"Who?" Elliot looked confused.

"Mother Nature, murderous bitch," Sean chuckled darkly, "That's what evolution is.... murder on the scale of species. The optimizer God that shapes all life is without mind or mercy. Not the sort of God you want to cross in a dark alley. And if you summon Her, you better be careful what you ask for."

"Thank you for you assistance, Master Sean," Elliot stood up, looking startled, "I will pass along your... conjecture to the doctors caring for Miss Judith."

"One more thing puzzles me," the manservant stopped and turned, "With all respect to Miss Judith's abilities, if a 16 year old can engineer viruses..."

"...why aren't we all dead, already?" Sean guessed, "Any idiot can create a super bug. Heck, evolution is doing that all the time anyway. Ever heard of antibiotic resistant bacteria? But like most things, its a tradeoff between virulence and transmission. The more deadly it is, the faster it will kill its victims and die out before it has a chance to spread. A super bug is self-defeating."

Elliot nodded and made his out. Sean stood at the doorway after Elliot's departure, staring with eyes that brimmed with unshed tears, his body shaking. All Judith had wanted was to prove herself by saving the world. And someone unspeakably monstrous had used that to try to kill her.

END OF CHAPTER