The very large, shabbily-dressed man walked up to him and said, "Okay, Doc. Just sign here for me."
He scrawled his signature on the delivery form and handed it back. "You know, it's none of my business what you do on your own property, but I ain't never heard of no one building themselves an underground grain elevator."
Rather than bother trying to explain it to him, he just said, "I appreciate it, Hank. Thanks for bringing my supplies all the way out here—again."
"No problem." He checked the signature block then said, "Folks all you say you's the smartest guy ever what come through this town, but buildin' a grain silo underground don't make a lick of sense." He shoved the paperwork in his pocket and said, "I know you're this brain surgeon and ever-thing and I'm just a dumb hick who works for a hardware store, but I'll take street smarts over books smarts any day." The heavyset man hiked up his bib overalls and straightened his ball cap. "Okay, then. I reckon that's it for this week then, right Doc?"
"This should do it for a while, Hank. Thanks again and give my best to Alice, okay?"
"Will do," he said. He slowly made his way up into the large truck and fired it up. "Oh, Alice said I need to make an appointment with you. She thinks my cholesterol's too high or somethin'."
"Just give the office a call, Hank. I'll be glad to check it out for you."
Hank waved then fired up the diesel engine before turning the big rig around and heading back to town.
Doctor Micah Christiansen had been back in his hometown of Dalton, Georgia, for a little over a year and bought a farm out near Haig Mill Lake. He'd graduated from high school there some 24 years ago with a 4.0 GPA and also been a star athlete and the school's quarterback in a town where football was king.
Micah started dating Harper Andrews, the cutest girl in school and head cheerleader, during his junior year. They'd been one another's first and she was devastated when he'd told her he was going 'all the way' to Atlanta to go to college. Harper had no intention of ever leaving Dalton and she never had. Two years later she married Jimmy Edmonds, a classmate and athletic rival of Micah's who went on to not only join the police force but to become chief of police in the town of some 33,000.
Micah graduated from Georgia State University magna cum laude with a degree in chemistry before going to medical school across town at Emory University. When he left, he began his residency in internal medicine at nearby Emory Hospital. By the time he was finished, he went on to further specialize in infectious diseases eventually taking a job at the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control—a perfect fit for both Micah and the Center.
He turned thirty a month before starting at the CDC and in just ten years, at the age of 40, found himself the youngest person ever appointed Director. He was highly respected by his peers and had, as they say, earned his spurs. Specifically, he'd done some of the most cutting-edge research ever in identifying the most likely location and strains of flu virus while working his way to the top of the influenza division within the CDC in five years.
To the uninitiated, the flu was nothing but a bad cold. To those like Dr. Micah Christiansen, who knew the truth, it was a deadly killer that claimed almost twice as many lives per year in the US alone than drunk driving. Most were elderly or very young, but it was indeed a killer. But those relatively low numbers applied only to typical years when whatever strain of flu predominated wasn't overly virulent. What fascinated Micah were those rare years when the flu, or influenza as it is more correctly called, became a deadly killer as it went from being an epidemic to a pandemic. But not just any pandemic, but a highly virulent, highly contagious form of the virus infecting—and killing—human beings on a massive scale at the global level.
An epidemic occurs when an infectious disease rapidly spreads to many people. A pandemic takes place when the epidemic goes global. An virulent epidemic, if confined locally, might be more deadly than a mild pandemic. However, the thing that scared the hell out of Micah Christiansen was a highly virulent strain of influenza that could rapidly spread around the globe killing perhaps several billion people. Thanks to air travel, that was now a very real possibility no matter how unlikely that might be.
There had been very serious, very deadly outbreaks of influenza in the past. The worst recorded case took place in 1918-1919 when a strain known as the Spanish Flu rapidly spread around the global infecting between 20% and 40% of the world's population. Some fifty million people died worldwide with around 675,000 deaths in the United States. The least deadly pandemic hit in 1968-1969. It originated in Hong Kong and the strain was known by that name. Micah knew the world was long overdue for a killer strain and that was what motivated him to work day and night trying to prevent it.
Micah's primary work centered on developing an extremely accurate algorithm for predicting pandemics and his efforts were well-received and highly respected by everyone working within the infectious disease community. His work had been so good he'd been able to pinpoint the precise strains and area of origin for the 2013-2014 flu season. As a result, there were fewer deaths and fewer cases of influenza that year than any year in history. His work had earned him the Nobel Prize in medicine and the tidy sum of $1.25 million, money he was now using to construct his 'underground grain silo' when he wasn't at his private practice in downtown Dalton.
His profession troubles began when he finished a three-year study just before being appointed Director of the CDC. Just two months before his appointment, he'd found something in the data that had rocked him to his core. If the data were correct, the world could expect an unprecedented, virulent outbreak of influenza within a decade. As if that wasn't frightening enough, his data showed that there was an extremely high likelihood of the two most deadly known strains of flu virus combining into a kind of super strain that had the potential to rapidly kill up to 70% of all human life on earth.
Naturally, he said nothing to anyone else (with one exception) knowing he had to re-run the data several more times to be sure. If anything was wrong during the input phase, then the results would tainted. It was the old idea of GIGO—garbage in, garbage out. Making any claim of this kind, especially as the Director, could induce panic on a global scale and he wasn't about to throw away his career or his reputation without rock-solid evidence.
He was re-running the data a second time when the president personally asked him to come to Washington DC for a meeting. To say he was surprised to learn he was being asked to head up the CDC was an understatement in the extreme. It was a job he'd never sought out and definitely wasn't one he even wanted. But sitting in the Oval Office proved to be very intimidating and Micah had said, "Yes, Mr. President," when he was asked. What he didn't say was a single word about his new and biggest fear.
After a third re-run confirming what the first two runs had said, Micah broke into a cold sweat. No, this didn't necessarily mean anyone was in any immediate danger. It didn't mean the worst-case scenario was going to happen that year or even in the next five years. But there was a 92% probability a pandemic that something very serious would happen within a ten-year window. He thoroughly understood statistics and knew full-well there was a small chance nothing on this scale would happen at all. Ever. However, the 92% figure was absolutely accurate and it clearly meant there was a 92% chance of a pandemic. Most worrisome, it was a 92% chance of massive, global, pandemic with the possibility of dramatically changing civilization as we know it. With just three in ten humans left alive, he shuddered to think what the world would like in the aftermath of this kind of global catastrophe.
Initially, he shared the data with just one other person, a younger doctor on his team named Vanessa Williams. He'd interviewed over two dozen internists with a specialty in infectious diseases since heading up the influenza division, and he'd hired only three of them. Vanessa was without doubt the most qualified of the trio who'd been brought on board. He'd never admit it, but the fact that she was as beautiful and gracious as any woman he'd ever met hadn't hurt her chances. Even so, he knew he'd have hired her regardless of her external packaging. It was just such a pleasant bonus to have someone that attractive and upbeat working side by side with him six or seven days a week.
Vanessa's love of medicine and dedication to the control of infectious diseases rivaled his own, and it was that kind of dedication that drew his admiration. She was not only beautiful, she was incredibly intelligent, and doggedly determined. There had been many times where he'd put in a 16-hour day and as he got ready to go home, he'd find Vanessa buried in a microscope or a pile of computer printouts.
"Go home. Get some sleep," he'd told her around the time he was getting ready to begin work on this potential super pandemic.
"Micah. You startled me," she told him. Her smile had the ability to melt him instantly and Christiansen wasn't exactly a softy. But it wasn't just her smile. It was her...everything. She was quite possibly the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She wore her dark hair shoulder length and basically straight with a slight wave in it. Her soft, shiny hair surrounded an incredibly beautiful, flawless face with almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, perfectly clear, smooth skin, and a pair of soft, full lips that framed a gorgeous smile. And her body was every bit as amazing as her extremely attractive face. Add to that her always-pleasant nature, and it was no wonder he'd found himself thinking about her more often as time went by. Being a very good-looking man himself, very few women had ever intimidated him, but Vanessa Williams was one of them.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to sneak up on you, Vanessa. It's after midnight. Don't you at least want to go home and shower and change clothes?" He even loved the way she dressed. She obviously dressed for herself as she and everyone else were too busy to worry about impressing anyone. Her style was elegant and classy but never pretentious. She was professional but also soft and feminine. This day she was wearing a pale-yellow, long-sleeved cashmere sweater and a knee-length, white linen skirt, three-inch heels, and gold jewelry. Micah had never asked but felt sure she could have pursued a career in modeling, but like him, the thing that drove her, the thing that inspired her, was her work.
"I can take a shower here and I have a change of clothes in my locker." She smiled again and said, "But thank you for looking out for me, Micah. As far as bosses go, you're about as good as they come."
He smiled back and told her, "Well, as doctors go, you're about as good as they come. In case I haven't told you lately, I'm very proud to have you on our team."
She sat up and smiled again. This time she turned toward him. "You know, I've never once heard you say 'mine' or 'I'. Everything that goes on here is 'we' and 'us' and 'the team.' That's one of the many thing that makes it such a pleasure working for you."
"You mean working with me, right?" he said with a smile. He wasn't sure whether or not it was appropriate but he decided to say it anyway. "So why is it we've never had dinner together yet?"
She tilted her head slightly and said, "Well for one, you are my boss. Secondly, we work pretty much all day, every day so I'm not sure when we could fit it in. And perhaps most importantly, you've never asked me." She smiled at him again then said, "Good night, Micah," before going back to the pile of data in front of her.
Like him, she was a Georgia native and like him, she'd graduated from Emory but seven years behind him. Like him, she'd managed to grow up in the South without developing a thick, southern drawl. He knew from her personnel file she was single and from Georgia, but other than that, knew almost nothing about her personal life. Maybe that was a good thing. Vanessa was right. Both of them were at work almost all the time so what kind of personal life could they possibly have outside of the office?
He decided to table the question for later when he realized that she'd done it to him again. He glanced down silently praying the bulge in his expensive gabardine pants wasn't visible. Satisfied that his secret was safe, he grabbed his keys, his overcoat, and his briefcase so he could get home and with any luck, grab a hot shower and still get four or five hours of sleep before going back and doing it all over again the next day.
When he got in the next morning, she was still at her desk only now she was wearing a very pretty white blouse and a black skirt and a different pair of heels. He tried not to stare but he couldn't help but notice the gold jewelry had been replaced with a single strand of white pearls and he was again aware of the effect she was having on him.
