Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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T-minus 27 days to DEADLINE.

Manhattan, New York. June 9th, 2014.

The video clip of Dr. Kellis's press conference was grainy, largely due to it having been recorded on a cellular phone—and not, Robert Stalnaker noted with a scowl, one of the better models. Not that it mattered on anything more than a cosmetic level; Dr. Kellis's pompous, self-aggrandizing speech had been captured in its entirety. "Intellectual mumbo-jumbo" was how Robert had described the speech after the first time he heard it, and how he'd characterized it yet again in communication with his editor.

"This guy thinks he can eat textbooks and shit miracles," that was the pitch. "He doesn't want people to understand what he's really talking about, because he knows America would be pissed off if he spoke English long enough to tell us how we're all about to get screwed." And just as he'd expected, his editor jumped at it.

The instructions were simple: no libel, no direct insults, nothing that was already known to be provably untrue. Insinuation, interpretation, and questioning the science were all perfectly fine, and might turn a relatively uninteresting story into something that would actually sell a few papers. In today's world, whatever sold a few papers was worth pursuing. Bloggers and internet news were cutting far, far too deeply into the paper's already weak profit margin.

"Time to do my part to fix that," muttered Stalnaker, and started the video again.

He struck gold on the fifth viewing. Pausing the clip, he wound it back six seconds and hit "play." Dr. Kellis's voice resumed, saying, "—distribution channels will need to be sorted out before we can go beyond basic lab testing, but so far, all results have been—"

Rewind. Again. "—distribution channels—"

Rewind. Again. "—distribution—"

Robert Stalnaker began to smile.

Half an hour later, his research had confirmed that no standard insurance program in the country would cover a non-vaccination preventative measure (and Dr. Kellis had been very firm about stating that his "cure" was not a vaccination). Even most of the upper-level insurance policies would balk at adding a new treatment for something considered to be of little concern to the average citizen—not to mention the money that the big pharmaceutical companies stood to lose if a true cure for the common cold were actually distributed at a reasonable cost to the common man. Insurance companies and drug companies went hand-in-hand so far as he was concerned, and neither was going to do anything to undermine the other.

This was all a scam. A big, disgusting, money-grubbing scam. Even if the science was good, even if the "cure" did exactly what its arrogant geek-boy creator said it did, who would get it? The rich and the powerful, the ones who didn't need to worry about losing their jobs if the kids brought home the sniffles from school. The ones who could afford the immune boosters and ground-up rhino dick or whatever else was the hot new thing right now, so that they'd never get sick in the first place. Sure, Dr. Kellis never said that, but Stalnaker was a journalist. He knew how to read between the lines.

Robert Stalnaker put his hands to the keys, and prepared to make the news.

***

Robert Stalnaker's stirring editorial on the stranglehold of the rich on public health met with criticism from the medical establishment, who called it "irresponsible" and "sensationalist." Mr. Stalnaker has yet to reply to their comments, but has been heard to say, in response to a similar but unrelated issue, that the story can speak for itself...

When will you Rise?
Tags: deadline, mira grant, pandemic time, zombies
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  • 45 comments
Oooooooooooooooooooooh!

Urk. He's a weenie. I'm sure every scientist has a non-altruistic reason for trying to help people.

Thank you, you are making the wait somewhat easier. Thank you so much.

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En dashes for the win! I didn't even notice until you mentioned it.

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phoenixsansfyr

6 years ago

lysystratae

6 years ago

phoenixsansfyr

6 years ago

kengr

6 years ago

punctuation

kateyule

6 years ago

I think I'm due for a re-read. The hubby has finished Feed and I can snag it back from him.
*shakes a fist at sensationalists; go play with th' zombies already!*

Or: Beth can see where this is heading... (And does hope that you will be able to bind all these into a Something, Someday.)
This is good. I can see Stalnaker (love that surname) as one of the pre-Rising journalists Georgia looks up to.

I just bought the Cleo De Nile/Deuce Gorgon Monster High set. I blame you. ;-)
He's actually mentioned in one of Georgia's blog excepts. Mostly musing that Kellis gets the blame for KA, but that no one mentioned Stalnaker's role in events leading up to the Rising.

kengr

6 years ago

layangabi

6 years ago

ravenclawed

6 years ago

vixyish

6 years ago

You are getting me so excited about this book! 27 days never felt so long...
This is SO not about zombies. But, zombies make it love nonetheless. *grins*
I'm pondering the nature of good and evil. (Why not?)

It might easily be said that the creators of this plague are evil, but they are scientists seeking to relieve human misery, or journalists seeking to ensure justice. But so many died as a result of these good intentions.
amazing! what you are doing with these stories is the best idea ever! can't wait until deadline comes out :)
Thanks for this. Will I be able to get Deadline in the UK on D-day or will it come out later?
If you haven't pre-ordered yet then you may have a wait, last I looked Amazon UK had sold out and were waiting to be allocated a new batch. The same happened with at least two of her other books.

You could try Forbidden Planet (whose prices are usually about the same as Amazon and sometimes lower). They tend to get books in for release day, but again tend to sell them fast. (Hmm, it isn't listed on their webpage. But that doesn't mean much...)

Or Waterstones, who have it listed and say it's expected in 28 days (not sure when it's updated, so that may have been days from yesterday).

seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

keristor

6 years ago

Man I hate the media, and what they do to pretty much everything scientific. *shakes fist of rage*

That is all.
Agree to this!
These little snippets are scaring me though they are fun. Feed scared the hell out me.
Loving these, they give great background and make the whole thing so much more scarily real. Thank you.
Somehow, the fact that the people in these little stories are just ordinary folks, trying to do more or less what they think is the right thing, makes them both chilling and very sad.

I am in Chile studying their health care system's response to major disasters, including pandemics. Given how much more money we spend on the problem, it's kind of sad how far ahead of the US they are in simple things, like convincing people to get flu shots. The problem with this field is that every so often I want to decide its time to give up, because mankind probably deserves our inevitable extinction.
I'm raising my hands in the air for this book!
Moooooooooooooooooore!
Is there going to be one of these every day until Deadline? If so, this may make waiting for the book a little easier. Not much, just a little. I can't wait!
"This guy thinks he can eat textbooks and shit miracles,"

Looool! XD
Stalnaker is contemptible for his contempt ... and that makes it all the more tragic that he thought he was doing the right thing.
I don't think he thought he was doing the right thing at all. I think he was just looking for an angle to sell papers, and right or wrong be damned.

paradisacorbasi

6 years ago

OMG!

So excited. And just in time for my birthday.

drcpunk

May 12 2011, 05:49:36 UTC 6 years ago Edited:  May 12 2011, 05:50:06 UTC

Hm. Having read up to the current (T-20) day, I'm wondering what sort of press conference this was. I mean, given exactly how aware Dr. Kellis is of all that can go wrong if he cuts corners, he doesn't seem the type to give a huge "I've got a miracle cold cure" three-ringed circus press conference at this stage.

And not only was Stalnaker not actually at the conference, but he's getting a grainey cell phone clip.

And, given what few words Stalnaker is using, and that he's taking them utterly out of context... just what was Dr. Kellis actually saying, and to what kind of audience?
It was a private press event for medical press only, to try to drum up more funding for the research.

drcpunk

6 years ago

seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

What beef does Stalnaker have with the medical community? Sheesh!