When To Quit

By M.J. Milner and Thaw Malin

As a world renowned virologist Dr. Dawson Curgalff finds herself on the edge of a life overwhelmed. The one true love of her life, a nuclear research physicist has resurfaced with a mad scientist plan to force governments to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction. She has been enlisted to be the hostage spokesperson announcing this plan to the world and this puts a gigantic "KILL ME" sign on her back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483518053

Book preview

Oppenheimer

1

A Dead Cat In The Box

It is not necessary to complete each level in order to move to a higher level. Even if your work is not complete it is important not to quit but to move higher if you can see a way to do so. Don’t quit just because you are stuck or your work is not perfect. It may be sufficient, if not wise to go back later with full understanding of how to move even higher by finally finishing a lower level. This actually creates a greater, broader strength that can sustain the elevated height that you have imagined.

Bradford Ramsden

When To Quit

My life fills a number of shoe boxes in my mind, each event with a snug cover and neatly labeled. I had not revisited this memory in decades. It is tucked way in the back. The man standing near the elevator doors is discretely armed and in a glance he recognizes my face. He smiles and looks behind me at the next guest. No time to lose-security requires quick thinking diligence. To this group I was transparent and predictable. Not a threat. People reach a point in their lives where the refining and distribution of personal events demands fierce attenuation. I was reaching mine. My public identity was a known entity, carefully crafted over time. As the door to the private elevator pinged open I had the unnerving feeling that my future was unexpectedly lurching into the unknown. I had too many issues pressing in on me and felt that I could walk away and none of them would matter. Most of my life had been devoted to only one thing- preventing humanity’s first total population collapse. I was not alone in this task and was part of an exclusive, well financed club.

I had won a Conway when I was only a young woman of 22 for my work in astrophysics. My mind was then drawn to the first real, intellectual love of my life- virology. I had stayed in that discipline. When you find a science that fascinates you it pulls you in, not unlike a python and a bunny. At the same time I had secretly developed a dangerous hobby which if known could unhinge any reputation overnight. People always hate it if you sin differently from them. The camera in the elevator was high resolution and in the other corner was a redundant, concealed lens. Perhaps the fact that I looked for one and then the other would later be data mined. I was not afraid of being hunted.

Arriving at the top floor I walked down the hall to the crowd buzzing in the great room. The corridor seemed to have shrunk somehow in the span of time since my last visit. The distance seemed shorter. I had learned many things since then. Betrayal is as old as the first friendship and often requires guile and sudden,certain, lethal action. Acting on demand as a premeditated killer in an unpredictable way in single moment of time within a freely falling frame of reference can change history . It certainly changes individual history. The unhinging of the door to insanity for instance. Unless of course somebody saw it coming. If one can predict such a moment of change and know what to do it is possible to define the outcome of an entire species. If you don’t see it coming, you miss your chance to change history. Sometimes one died because of this oversight. This was the point of interest. History is determined by who kills, not who lives. Crazy people often destroy themselves.

My mind was wandering as I walked down the center of the hall. This reunion brought many experiences of the past slightly out of the fog. A moment in history had been seen thirty years ago and only one person actually knew it was coming. I felt that I personally was at a crossroads and point of shift ; that moment of stepping off the edge when your weight converts to lift. This was an intuition, a living moment of new awareness. I did not know why. Humanity was also in the crosshairs of a moment that had arrived. If you are going through hell , keep going. Regardless of what you think is happening it is important to press on to let your life develop momentum. I realized my own momentum recently had slowed dramatically. Of course when that slowing began I wasn’t even aware of it because of pride, hormones and of course ambition. That is the nature of viewing your own history too closely.

In this moment I felt like I had just started a new, dangerous adventure but I didn’t know much more than that. The sounds and smells in the room reminded me of sundown in the jungle. The darkness enfolds the unprepared fastest. Fear hides in the lengthening shadows. Being engulfed in darkness can have a calming influence. This room did contain the darkness of the human spirit even though it pledged otherwise.

I knew war- the laws of violence on an elevated scale. I was a war scientist in many ways. The equations on the four resistance responses predicted the precise force of the reaction but not exactly the vector of the direction. But still, knowing that there could be a a single, directed, fifth reaction was extremely valuable. Betrayal might be that prime indicator of the fifth reaction and that might mean sudden death- but who ended up dead was always the variant. When scientists fight wars extreme caution is required. How we fight is never predictable but always feeds the curiosity. The first and second responses were always transparent- they were mostly about logistics and movement- not exactly fun but trying to camouflage the obvious was a singular and underrated skill that becomes intensely interesting when you suddenly see the shape through the pattern. The third and fourth reactions always involved engagement, some unexpected use of killing technology, final resources and urgency. These responses could be largely predicted- the focused intensity of them if fully energized to a single point could win the day but that never happens without a visionary. The fifth reaction always came from the inner best core of final tactic. That was when humanity positively glowed.

Whatever command and control that was still protected by a perimeter won or lost the war. The penultimate best and final shot tremble was planned, strategically focused, surgically precise and always had a wild element of hate, revenge, denial and the unpredictable. Whether it was a coupe de gras or a dead cat bounce could not be known until the activation was applied. Consequently the last countering move had to have all those elements and other finalizing hybrid variants. I had developed a reputation for knowing how to execute these last engagements. I was hated. I was very good at my hobby. After you kill the snake do not throw away the stick.

As I walked down to the end of the hallway I thought of my victories and near death experiences. Over time people who hold power imagine losing it and their final response should the worst occur. This interesting form of paranoia runs throughout history and woe to those leaders lacking such vision. The threat of what they had planned always fascinated. Fear always trumps greed. Sometimes a premeditated plan or deep deception is conceived and put into sleeper mode. Other times the bluntest of cudgels is displayed openly for all to admire and wonder at. Before all hope was gone the magic card always appeared, secret and sudden. Knowing this- a response of certainty- had to be planned. This bumping of wills could easily result in a massive population collapse for humanity. The more I gained in field experience the more certain I became of it. My resolve to stop an act of stupidity increased daily. My wooden heels clicked on the granite floor as I approached the gigantic library where my peers had congealed. The closeness of their experiences compacted their histories and the density of success. I smiled to myself. Each of them had the same approximate task. Each of us was trying to identify and avoid that historical moment that would wipe out the human race.

Even as I had flown to this event a killing had occurred. I was to learn shortly that the shot was a clean one through the head. There was no pain involved as requested. There could be no uncertainty, as the high velocity explosion of pink mist had lingered in the air for seconds after the shot was complete. Had I seen this with my own eyes I would have known that they had gotten a shot off a microsecond before. The mercenary sniper knows nothing of the why only the who. The kill was a certain one and immediate payment was expected. In that moment, as I traveled I had felt a quiver in the ether of the universe. When you live on the edge of webs vibrations can bring retribution. I did not know what it was at the time but I had felt it. It was more of a shimmer than a vibration. A spider watches with its body. My body was drawn into the making of the moment. I was uneasy.

A single word had been typed- iif- passworded and then sent off to trigger the preemptive notifying wrench that would hopefully end the whole process of mischief this person had been up to. At long last it would be over and the client would be happy. There had been many mistakes and wild twists but finally it came down to one moment in time. The problem had been found, absolutely identified, tracked and dispatched. It was impossible to know if this betrayal had been predicted. Genuine moments of history are rarely attended by the people who planned to change them. Death sometimes came suddenly-without explanation and with extreme force.

And yet, deception. Loyalty,dignity and honor are not afterthoughts- they are everything. I learned shortly that first you had to know exactly what you were looking at. The battle between dignity and humility always obscures vision. After all- emotions, I believed were specific memories that had been blurred by space, time and multiple recollections. My focus narrowed as I entered the room, like an osprey on a trout.

2

Persistent Memories

Before undertaking any science, the effect of human nature, especially your own, must be taken into account. Any scientific inquiry-especially a laboratory experiment- must depend upon science and science alone. Eigenstates can commutate and change eigenvectors. Once a cat is dead the principle of dissipative structures goes into effect immediately. Mathematical balance must be the final proof. Whether a cat is alive or dead is always uncertain. If you know where you are it is not certain you know at that moment which direction you are really heading, or how fast. Failure to fully comprehend this is quitting before you begin. You can know one but not both at any given point. Let your results be open to uncertainty.

-Bradford Ramsden

When To Quit

Shortly after I entered the main room I overheard the terrible news. Brad was dead- he had been shot and our host would be announcing the news later in the evening. My emotional structure completely slumped. I had loved him at one point in my life to a point of almost being consumed and then he was just gone. We has discussed the Arabic notion of "ya’aburnee"or You bury me. neither of us had wished to live without the other. It had been engulfing love and I really hadn’t gotten over it. I needed much more than the overheard, mumbled news about this death. Recently I had been dwelling on the idea that sharpest emotions are actually, intense specific memories that have been brought out of focus by the passage of time- and a certain moment tries to refocus them back to a parallel, incumbent experience. I had been obsessing on this idea.

We had eaten a relaxed and extravagant dinner. I ate little. Our host wasn’t present due to the frail nature of his health. Afterwards we had met in the library again. Time drives the wise into the corners. Our little after dinner/love fest indicated that principle was intact. Like myself, these were powerful people- we had little time and we were all in demand. Even with each other. Unlike the other 35 people in the library chatting over drinks I was unwisely in the center of the room chatting with my dinner mate. The information I had overheard began to haunt me. I was undone. My dream was now dead. We had all just finished a splendid repast and I felt drained, empty- broken. Our host was about to join us. His birthday was less than a year away and he would be turning 100. He was looking for results in his unique, patient way. That had been the bargain. Mr. Conway, our patron entered the room on the arm of a young nurse. The dark library paneling and the hardwood floor hadn’t seemed to have aged- I knew I had- but it had the the timeless quality of great wealth. A path of granite passed along one edge in a graceful curve. Somehow, to me it seemed to be a more intimate but less elegant room. I found the fact that 14 people were missing to be a sharp point of interest.

Fifty people had left this same room in 1976 when our benefactor-disgusted with his life and his own wealth-had cut his fortune in half and given each of us 10 million dollars and told us to head off a population collapse. Within a cosmic context some of these people had serious gravity-more than a few were active black holes-and several were gas and ice filled comets of frangible orbits. Conway had charged us to change a fundamental aspect of the world that would head off a disaster for our species. He had not expected to live to a hundred so he had picked from a broad range of interests and talents and gone back to his business. The selection process had been secret, unique-unfathomable. We were all young and within a 7 year age spread. There were guidelines but we had not heard a word about his expectations since. His view of the world was dark and he made his money by manipulating fear. He was very good at it. A few decades had multiplied those fears exponentially. Now there was more money to be had and most of the pack had returned to the cave. There were now even more ways that humanity was exposed to that offered oblivion-an absolute end point.

By our very natures and inclinations some of us had met in the early years of the Conways but growing up has its disadvantages and we had all-as far as I knew-gone our separate ways. In some strange way we were competing for and with change, I guess. My early focus and fame had been on AstroPhysics. Through the tutelage my grandfather and several bookish summers I had mastered Non Euclidean Geometry before entering high school. I was drawn to the stars, advanced mathematics and to Quantum Theory. I had spent a full twelve years being raised by my grandfather, a retired soldier. He taught me many things a young girls should never know and I had always loved him for that. He had held nothing back about the real world. Including of course, his unlimited love of aphorisms.

In my freshman year in college I had published a paper that had created a very big academic stir. My theory was that there might be a type of particle that had no mass and passed through all matter and because of extreme gravitational lensing a convergence of these particles might be able to be detected-if they even existed- by looking for them at a spot opposite the earth and the moon during a total eclipse. My thinking was that they carried information across space and time. Exactly while everyone was looking at an eclipse I choose to look at a convergence point on the other side of the earth and see what was there when the sun, the moon and the earth were all lined up. My reasoning was that the gravity and mass might produce some kind of a small detectable effect and I calculated the exact point of focus. I did the math and figured that by being filtered through the sun and then the moon and then the earth- the laws of general relativity as they relate to gravity- would force a particle such as this to form as a visible manifestation in a very brief congealing event. I thought that, perhaps- there might be intergalactic sprites brilliant flashes of space lightning- rebalancing some unknown cosmic electrical field but discarded the idea. As a back up theory I posited that there might be another event point on the opposite side of the sun if the particles passed in reverse through the earth, moon and sun. I had calculated the imaginary curvature incorrectly. Of course this event would be almost impossible to see as it would be on the other side of the sun when it occurred but I felt it was worth looking for. I calculated both spots and a handful of telescopes and one satellite focused in. People were interested in the idea. I was a college undergraduate at the time and for some reason Brad had volunteered to be part of my investigation.

We met briefly had a very intense affair and became lovers at a distance. Later when I began my work in virology we had taken two field trips to Africa. At the time Brad was a research physicist but really hated to be apart from me. My paper- The Quantum Blink-A MacroMechanical Moment explaining my math and the theory was published well in advance of the eclipse and some astronomers photographed something at that one spot and something very similar at the other -a few detected nothing . I found a mistake in my math but never told anyone. The focus beyond the sun could not be observed exactly but they looked in that general direction- for a visual clue to the rate of change, or Delta. Comparing the images of the two showed that they were arcing and almost identical and ephemeral. I named the curving phenomena the Lens of Logan’s Ringlets because the picture reminded me of my sister’s curly hair. My niece-also named Logan- had the same ringlets but with a tighter curl. She was one of the early in vitro babies. Scientists of a more professional ilk tried the word subtrinos but later-after I had won my Conway-they all decided that they weren’t sure about anything but that the math and physics were correct. There may have actually not been anything. Then after the debate raged in the mathematics journals it was decided perhaps I should be considered for a Field’s medal. Too young and a woman I was passed over and my work gathered academic dust. My interest in virus history then drew me into that study and my mind moved from divergent to convergent mode. You could say I went a little bat shit.

As this young woman I had been drawn to war and away from academic struggles to the effects of war on children. When you are in your twenties intention and the future are rarely clear. My speciality was to explore in the field for the reservoir host of zoonotic viruses in nature. Eventually the world had ground my dreams into a bureaucratic powder. My journeys into countless hinterlands in search of these ancient virus homes were of intense interest only to extreme virologists and the bulk of humanity looked away. It was mostly bats and caves. Over time I had grown to understand that the death of mankind might exist in the blood of a minor ape species or a colony of bats that had been forced out of their natural habitat for the first time in a million years. The outbreak of battles between warlords in these remote areas provoked outbreaks. These remote areas were dangerous- and not just because of the animals and the viruses.

I had been shot a number of times, physically beaten on numerous occasions and raped three times over the years. The gang rape had been the worst. Somehow I and my love of the heavens and the slime of the earth had survived. Around my waist I always wore a belt that had folded flaps in the center of my back. This belt could be used as a sling and I could knock out an armed man from fifty yards if I had time to ready it. I always carried a rock in my pocket. My secret hobby was rescue and murder but people thought I occasionally innocently retrieved war orphans. Warlords knew better. I had often killed and I had often fought but I had never admitted to either. Like most soldiers I had been forced by events to eventually kill without discipline. These are actions you never talk about but always relive. After the sixth victim it had become easy for me and because of the trauma of war I passed into the realm of a partisan although I had never publicly admitted it. Officially I was not a combatant and there was no evidence of my partisan activities. I was the Astrophysicist/Virologist who had turned humanitarian. I was funded and refunded. I embezzled money to keep my own private band of mercenaries constantly operating in the field. Did people think that these children were voluntarily released by warlords? Were all of them rescued without any casualties? Will a soldier surrender the 14 year old daughter of his enemy? War is a meat grinder. No one cares who you are or how you are described. War uses the parts of people to grease its own gears until the machine becomes so large it seizes up. Egos feed on dying dreams of freedom. The dead are best left where they lie. When the weight of ghosts becomes too great soldiers sometimes voluntarily join their burdens. War is not to be taken lightly. One does not curse the giant Nile crocodiles until one is across the river.

Now I was almost sixty and as 2016 pushed on I was worn- my heart had plowshine. I had helped thousands but for the last ten years I had felt empty; the only action that was not an exercise in futility was an exercise in futility. I don’t even own a telescope now. I had access to an electron microscope but lived in very spare conditions. Each war is fought by soldiers, has a civilian price and usually ends up as an ongoing misery. Conway, as he preferred to be called, in his own way, had tried for over forty years an end run on human nature and was curious to see if his experiment had worked. I had impacted lives and changed some of them but humbly I had to admit the world was much the same. Blood was endless apparently. The universe had changed but earthlings hadn’t. I had been briefly but privately treated for PTSD but had moved on- hardened and accepting of the facts of war. By some miracle I had avoided AIDS. My gaze had gone off into the distance beyond the horizon. Sometimes it unnerved people. My face was fey but my eyes were the color of falling tears. There was a violence in its rigid calm. If you wanted to save children you had to kill men. It was that simple. If you wanted to stop a virus you had to know where it lived. That was simple. Someone had to go in. The generation behind ours was struggling with materialism and the mess we had made of things. In many ways they were dying in the shade. I knew this seemed pinpointed to them but really it was the constant state of history. This mixing of host and victim- this lust infection of the blood had a pulse that ran deeper than intention.

Conway had changed dramatically and the thin white parchment skin was stretched taut across the blue veins of his face. He entered the room. His clipped hobble was flat and measured but in a way proudly certain. His knees really didn’t work too well. The nurse took over the lead as he led her into the room, somewhat unsteadily. Her eyes were on his every move. The clinking of ice and mumbling converged on him and came to a silent, smiling pause. His nurse supported his elbow. As we gathered around a various and strong melange of primal human scents merged into a powerful cloud. I was aware of an electrical attraction and repulsion as these forces were compelled to tighten and compress- and repel. It wasn’t cosmic-I knew cosmic-this was power and greed, exquisitely human. I might be the only person in the room who could physically kill everyone. These were the ones that killed remotely. Their hands and hearts were soft. I smiled sweetly now from the edge- not willing to get too close to anyone. The hush cascaded....

I have spoken to most of you privately and I just wanted to tell you that your efforts have made a huge difference.... Conway paused and cleared his throat vigorously. His brown eyes twinkled as he scanned the faces before him. We obviously pleased him and although we had barely kept in touch with each other we knew that there was a lot of success in the room. Most of his money had not been wasted. But had he achieved his goal?

You are all to be congratulated for having succeeded in your self-appointed tasks. Some of you I followed- closely and proudly- and others of you achieved some measure of distracted success and that was to be expected. Seven of your group died and some of them left a legacy that will continue on, I had not anticipated any of you predeceasing me but I suppose that is the natural order of things. Many of you will not reach my age. I think you all know that two of you committed suicide. For that I am sorry....

Conway hung a genuine pause on the group. He cleared his throat again.

Some of you may know that five of you failed and were corrupted by the money. I am truly sorry for that, as I thought I had chosen better. The last of the missing- Bradford Ramsden, he paused with a voice on the edge of breaking, disappeared from sight almost immediately and was found murdered this morning....

Rumored but not expected. Not accepted by anyone. My inhale was the sharpest as I had known him personally. My peers shuddered. I knew suicide and murder because I knew soldiers. I knew the cost of edge dwelling. I looked around at them as Conway continued. No one singled my gasp out; I blushed slightly, my eyes furtively glancing for detected exposure..

It is sad and I have to admit I was disappointed that his life would end so tragically and that there was almost no trace of my funding. Dawson, he addressed me directly, our eyes meeting I believe you knew Brad back then. Had any of you been in recent contact with him?

I shook my head and the room shrugged off the question in the negative as Conway’s eyes traveled the room. My dinner partner gently touched my forearm.

William Stephens,-Liam- we liked to call him- had a stare that betrayed a very deep thought. He was standing next to me with his fingers still lightly hanging on my arm. During our dinner I had sat next to him and Veronica Calogero had been on my left. Liam now looked me in the eye with a sideways glance and then broke away from my gaze lowering his eyes. I wondered if he had known Brad well and my mind tried to replay our dinner conversation. His tale had flowed during dinner and Veronica Calogero, the agronomist had pulled the details from him. I have always been an attentive listener. I had always liked farming. Many viruses entered our species through farms.

Liam’s quest had started with malaria in Vietnam and slowly been sucked into a very focused head-on collision with AIDS. I had done some hunting during that time for the AIDS reservoir host. I had been in the Gulu, Uganda region traveling the rivers exploring ape populations to no great effect. I learned he had at the same time studied medicine and biology but his greatest skill had ended up as an international communicator and fundraiser. He had led the way in international and business cooperation against the HIV virus, when it was not popular.. Oddly my work although fruitless at the time now was the foundation of an intense effort to isolate this same wild reservoir host. The feces samples I had collected over the decades were now invaluable because of the DNA. Liam and his organization had suffered in the early years but by the mid 1980’s his had become the breakout group. He had not mentioned Brad during dinner. His focus at the moment now was on something more personal as was mine.

As our eyes met again neither one of us could hold back that one, tightly squeezed tear just barely creeping out of the side of one eye. He saw mine and I saw his. We both let the single tears hang, unfalling.

I could tell that the people in room had been transformed in the past decades into an amalgamation of differentiated leaders. My specialty had become working with virus wild reservoir hosts with a subspecialty in rescuing orphans from war zones. In the entire room there were 35 other very obsessive choices about how to prevent the population collapse. We had all learned quickly that you could not fix death or power and that when the potential was snuffed out of either one you only had the choice of moving on with what remained, but with wildly different rules. Death and power abhor choice. In other circumstances I could easily kill with my bare hands a number of people in this room if they had posed a threat. Who people thought I was varied but in the field I was different-very different. I smiled at the thought. I pondered for a minute about Brad while Conway concluded his remarks and then everyone broke away for coffee or cocktails. He was satisfied with our efforts but not surprised that the problems had grown as the solutions slowly moved forward. He probably considered the world was a tiny bit safer but not substantively changed. He was thanking us now and inviting us to his birthday bash. And of course a lot more money. The bet was still on. Liam and I intersected with a butler and grabbed a glass each of white wine as we moved generally in the same direction Conway had gone when he had finished speaking. Time to blow out the candles.

Brad had been one of the first and may have actually been the only love of my life. We had met at a conference that was about the earliest AIDS outbreak in Africa and had been drawn together in our undergraduate years because of my astronomy investigations and because of our passion and I have