Spoon River Safe House: 06/25/07 (Edmund at St. Teresa)(edit)

Edmund sat at the desk, absently chewing his thumbnail, while he scanned the data streaming across his desktop's monitor. He found himself wishing, for about the hundredth time, that they would at least let him smoke in his own office. The whole world was dying of the flu and there was still a concern about secondhand smoke? Christ.

He stretched his ample frame back in his chair until it groaned, his hands laced behind his bald pate. At five foot eight and pushing two hundred pounds he was being awfully hard on the office chair's plastic rollers. He sat forward and rubbed his vaguely cherubic face vigorously with the heels of his palms. This was the third time he had gone over his most recent report to the CDC. He wasn't worried that any of those idiots would catch a typo but this secured transmission was about to become a historical document and he didn't want to be remembered as the guy who spelled vaccine wrong.

That was the kind of thing Jay Leno would have had a field day with if he hadn't succumbed to the flu back in May.

Edmund smiled. They had done it. They had a cure for the flu and more. They had come to the rescue in the nick of time, just like that mad bastard Windish said they would. He was about to become immortalized with the likes of Sauk and Fleming. He wondered what the elitist assholes that kicked him out of Harvard Medical would have to say about that.

He wondered what the historians would have to say about the fact that he had been sitting drunk on his couch, watching an old rerun of Night of the Living Dead, when the solution to defeating EC319 had struck him like a thunderclap.

Mainly he wondered why Windish was running late. The man had his faults but tardiness was not one of them. The corners of Edmund's mouth turned upward and formed a faint smile. He had definitely been tardy the day the two men first met back in mid March.

He had been working in Atlanta as a consultant with the CDC during the early stages of the flu. This was back in March when the CDC had thought they would be able to keep things under control by telling folks to wear dust masks and wash their hands a lot (sorry Mr. Leno). It was a gravy job and the pay was outstanding, nearly to the point of being ridiculous. It had also freed Edmund from the various pharmaceutical companies he freelanced for and despised.

It was an early Friday afternoon and he had been leaving Mulligan's, one of downtown Atlanta's finest dives. His head was humming from a nine beer lunch and he was nearly an hour late getting back to the lab. Definitely gotta remember to grab some Altoids, he thought as he made a beeline to his car.

He had been in the process of trying to make the key to his apartment open the door to his charcoal gray Taurus when a quiet, compelling, and oddly comforting voice behind him spoke.

"Sir, may I have a moment?"

Startled, Edmund dropped his keys. He bent to retrieve them a bit too quickly and cursed vehemently when his head made violent contact with the Taurus' door. The recoil, and the nine beers, would have sent him backwards on his ass if the voice's owner hadn't caught and steadied him. He shook off the helping hand and bent once again to get his keys. This time, with an exaggerated care reserved for drunks and the elderly, he was successful. He turned to face the owner of the voice.

"Can I help you?", he asked, knowing full well he wished to do no such thing.

The man standing in front of him was in his late forties and well built. At six foot tall, the stranger's faded blue eyes looked down at Edmund from under a blond-going-on-grey flat top. His internal alarm system immediately began blaring. This guy was government, all the way from his shiny black wingtips to his tailored black suit. Government meant they hadn't bought his bullshit promise that morning. Government meant he was about to get busted for drinking during work hours again. Government meant he was fucked. Goodbye CDC.

"Edmund Campion?", the man asked and, although the inflection was there, it wasn't really a question at all.

"That be me", answered Edmund in an attempt to be glib he immediately wished he could take back. God, he had to reek of Budweiser.

The man smiled and his face broke into a thousand laugh lines. He reached out and grabbed Edmund's hand and began to shake it heartily.

"Dr. Campion", he said, "My name is Micheal Windish. How would you like to help save the world?"