Then Arya told Simone’s tale. A tale of desperation and heartbreak. Betrayal by Simone’s body. Treachery by her own brother. Stalwart support from her wife Grace. The miracle of having stasis arrest the progression of her disease until a new medication came available. How, when she came out of stasis and proved to be dying like she’d thought—her body failing in multiple fashions—a second brief stint of stasis let the doctors get treatment lined up to stabilize her. Then the wonder of a treatment that was actually working!
Arya glanced at the two women, then turned back to the crowd. “Simone was discharged yesterday and when Grace heard we were having a celebration tonight she brought her down to join the merriment.” Arya looked down at Simone, “And, how are you doing now?”
“I still feel weak and puny…” she let the silence draw out, then smiled broadly, “but so much better. My latest scan shows my tumor’s just melting away. I want to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. Your technology sent the grim reaper back to the hell he comes from. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Another thunderous cheer erupted.
Sophia’s arm stole around Emmanuel’s waist. He looked down at her and thought she looked gobsmacked. He leaned closer and whispered, “You proud of your son?”
She nodded, then said, “And you. After all, you both work for this amazing company.”
Yeah, but what I do is as nothing compared to what your son’s accomplished, Emmanuel thought, glowing with his own pride.
***
Grace and Simone were sitting on their porch eating takeout and watching the sun go down when Grace’s phone rang. She glanced at it, not intending to answer, but then saw it was Carl Welch, Simone’s brother. She turned the phone so Simone could read the screen.
Simone left the phone on the table and pressed the “accept” icon. She pitched her voice a little lower like Grace’s and said, “Hello?”
Simone put the phone on speaker, so Grace easily heard Carl say, “Time’s up, bitch. You’ve gotta produce Simone in court on Thursday. I suspect that’s not gonna go so well for you.”
Simone leaned closer to the phone and, somehow overcoming the weak threadiness her voice still had from her illness, said, “Oh, I’ll be there, asshole. And I’ll be happy to confirm to the court that I did indeed intend to write you and Kary out of my will.”
“Simone?” Carl said hesitantly, an edge of alarm in his voice.
“Yup. It’s your ex-sister. I’m feeling fine, thanks. It’s the ex-sister who told you spending the way you were would eat right through your own inheritance. It’s also the ex-sister who doesn’t want to share her inheritance with the ex-brother who tried to have her murdered.
“Good-bye. Hopefully forever.”
The End
Hope you liked the book!
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Author’s Afterword
This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I’ve always been partial to science fiction that poses a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically plausible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Essentially you ask, “what if” something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world?
I think the rest of the science in a science fiction story should be as real as possible.
Therefore, in this story, the central question continues to be what if someone invented a way to stop time in a certain volume of space-time, thus creating something that’s—in the tropes of science fiction—often called stasis.
Stasis is not a new idea in science fiction. Niven’s “slavers” used it to escape from bad situations into the future. In Vernor Vinge’s The Peace War, people who threatened the authoritarian government were “bobbled” in stasis fields to get them out of the way. In both of these SF universes, the stasis fields are indestructible but—to the best of my recollection—they are only used to protect oneself from destruction (Niven) or also to punish offenders by sending them forward in time (Vinge) and are always spherical. Sometimes stories by other authors offhandedly use stasis for the preservation of food or people, but they usually ignore the presumed mechanical properties. Those stories seldom delve into other changes that would derive from an ability to stop time within a space.
A major thrust of this fourth book relates to the mind-boggling medical applications of stopping time, even briefly. For chronic, slowly-progressing diseases it could be used to halt the progress of the illness until medical science has developed a cure. A short-term form of that’s used in this story to keep Simone Welch alive until a new monoclonal antibody is approved for ovarian cancer. Monoclonal antibodies are created by growing millions of plasma cells (which generate our antibodies) in culture. They choose a plasma cell that puts out a particularly potent antibody against a disease, then clone it and grow that cell in huge quantities, extracting the antibodies and using them against germs or cancer cells. While monoclonal antibodies are a real treatment for some cancers, the especially effective Arvinzamab (the names of many monoclonal antibodies end in “mab”) in this story is imaginary.
Of interest, after this story was written, but before it was published, President Trump received a cocktail of such monoclonal antibodies for his own case of Covid-19.
Obviously, stasis could also be used to halt the progression of diseases where we don’t know whether a cure will be developed. Those patients would have to go into stasis hoping that someone will keep an eye on the medical progress for that disease and bring them out of stasis when there is
