“Jack,
bring me a drink.” Frank yelled meekly from his bed. I went into the kitchen and found his
French Press and made him a cup using Death Wish Coffee. He always travels with this in his
suitcase. Once he found his bag of
Death Wish had been removed from his luggage and he turned right around and flew
back home. The manufacturer claims
it has 200% more caffeine than typical coffee. This chemical seems to be important to
Frank’s ability to wake up. Frank
likes his coffee with Demerea sugar and whole cream. When he is in dire need he often drinks
the whole cup down like an alcoholic.
This
was one of those mornings.
“Jack,
bring another,” he said after emptying the first cup in about four seconds.
“Yes
sir. Do we have anything special to
do today?”
“Don’t
know. Any good
emails?”
“One
from Lady Jude, two from your editor, one from that Sir Terrance, one from
–“
“Read
Lutts’s.”
“Dear
Mr. Huntington,
If
your current assignment allows you to take a bit of time off I would like to
invite you to come see my research lab in Maidstone. Contact my secretary, Mr. Banks at the
email below. He will arrange a car
for you.
T.
Lutts”
After
reading the text I asked my master if he wanted to reply.
“After
I shower. Read me off what is known
about Lutts’s lab.” Frank started
to undress and walk to the shower.
As usual I just followed him keeping the normal human buffer distance of
four feet.
“It
is a big place situated on an old estate of 4000 acres. The lab is underground and west of Len
Castle which Sir Terrance often uses as his primary residence. He stays there about 38% of the time
which is more than he stays at any of his other four domiciles. Over 130 people work at the lab. It consists of four underground floors
and so there really is not much to see from the surface. In fact, the three visible parts are in
the same Tudor architectural style of the castle. They look like Castle towers and
ramparts.
The
lab has been the home to much of Lutts’s work after his initial burst of
discoveries made while he was a student at Oxford. The two big discoveries that he was able
to commercialize was his cure of cancer and spinal cord repair. It was at the Maidstone Lab that he
perfected how to grow a functional human heart from stem cells that would not be
rejected by any recipient. That
revolutionized treating heart disease because it became the norm to just replace
any heart that showed any sign of disease.
To date it has earned his subsidiary Cupid Bio Industries over 17 billion
dollars. Cupid Bio was the last
company he started and in fact there has been no new discoveries from his lab in
four years.”
“Interesting. He seems to be in the news all the time,
but no new inventions?”
“None
and no new patents as well.”
“I
wonder if old Sir Tarrance has something new to show me?” I didn’t answer that
as I recognized Frank’s talking out loud to himself. He hates it when I used to answer
them.
Frank
muttered, “That’s enough” and closed the shower door. I went to set out his clothes. I got into the habit of doing that in
order to stop Frank from wearing the same clothes two days in a row. After all, I have my professional
pride.
When
Frank got out he told me to call the secretary and arrange the visit. He ended his directive by saying, “Make
it as soon as possible – anything to get me off this damn kidnap
story.”
Five
minutes later I informed Frank as he sat down to the breakfast I prepared for
him I told him a car would be sent to pick him up at 7:00 A.M. next
Monday.
“Damn,
did you have to have them start so damn early?”
“Sorry
Mr. Huntington, but that was the only time offered and it sounded like they
offered it as a take it or leave it deal.”
“Hmmm,
I hope this doesn’t turn out to be just one of those damn corporate show and
tell that they show to every Tom, Dick and Harry or second grade class field
trip. That would suck. I would rather keep looking for that
damn Princess. Any news on her
Jack?
“Not
much. The Arch Bishop of Canterbury
has asked the faithful to pray for Princess Marianne’s safe
return.”
“Fucking
good praying will do. What they
need is some new leads. No new
leads, Jack?”
“None,
Sir.” The truth is that there
had never been any real clues or leads at all to the story. Mostly just tons upon tons of media
speculation. There was nothing
found at her royal flat. There was
no ransom note or postings on YouTube by any radical groups demanding something
for her release. I could understand
why Frank was so upset at being put on this assignment. It gets boring repeating rumors
generated by the media to keep the public interested until some other news event
shifts the fickle focus of the media.
According to my studies any news story involving a personality, such as a
movie star or singer, will keep the media busy for about 6.5 days. The more famous the individual the
longer the press will stay focused on the event. When Princess Diana died the world media
kept her story in the forefront for 28 days. When an old starlet dies the average is
about 3 days of media focus. The
best time to die is during the months of July and August where such news will
get an extra day or two due to the low amount of news.
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