***

Dr. Saddler relentless worked at her personal computer. She typed on with an almost blank stare into the screen. Then she turned in his rotating chair and looked in the microscope again.

"Sample 17, Positive. Sample 18, Positive. Sample 19...sigh...Positive."

Her head lifted from the microscope lens and turned herself back to the computer and typed. All results positive. It meant that Dr. Saddler's fifteenth experiment this week had been failure.

Dr. Saddler removed her glasses and cupped her hands over her face. Her confidence and hope had been crushed after these numerous failures to isolate the not-yet-named Z virus. Earlier during the month, it seemed that a cure was under way. But the virus had mutated, and she was growing more and more desperate as her father's health conditions worsened. More and more new symptoms appeared everyday. This was one tough virus.

Saddler finally took her hands down and stood up to stretch. Just then, her assistant came in.

"Oh! Good morning, Gloria," he said cheerfully. "Up so early?"

"Yes, Steve," she replied. She glanced at the wall clock. The hands showed 4:53am. She rubbed her eyes. "I didn't really any sleep last night," she continued.

"Yes, I can see that." He seemed to stare at her as if he had just realized her gloomy mood. He suddenly perked up. "Would you like some coffee? Breakfast? I can make great French toast."

"Thanks, but I really ought to return to my research again."

"Oh, okay." And with that, he left the room closing the door gently behind him.

Gloria returned to her work. Though she was desperately trying to work as quickly as possible, her lack of sleep and hope had dramatically slowed her down. Plus the work was extremely tedious.

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK...

The sound of a heavy truck moving just outside woke Gloria. She slowly rose, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Then she switched off all the electronic equipment and walked out the door into the long corridor.

The bleak echoes of her feet walking across the long hall prolonged her already prevalent depression. She then took the elevator up to the ground floor. When she opened the main door of the research center, a gust of cool wind blew on her face. The sky was still navy colored, and the sun had still not peeked above the horizon. Gloria walked down the pathway a few paces and then stopped. She turned around and looked at the research facility. A sign that still hung in the shadow of the early morning darkness stood at the edge of the roof. The BCL Research Center. For eleven years, she had worked there, never with the premonition that she might one day be fighting to save a family member's life. Now it was a reality.

A car suddenly sped by, breaking Gloria's deep thought. She continued her walk to her car and then drove back to her condominium.

Gloria dragged her feet across the hall from the elevator to her door. She looked at the numbers. 164. Her Asian neighbor had said something to her about numbers and bad luck, but her English was so poor that she could not decipher what she was saying. She took out her key, unlocked the door, and entered the room. After taking off her coat, she walked over to the window and opened the drapes and then bent over and switched the computer on. She walked over to the kitchen and filled a cup of coffee as the computer booted up. There wasn't a sound in the condo except for the beeps of the computer loading and the faint sounds of a lark outside.

She walked over to her computer as the computer digitally greeted her "Hello, Gloria." She sat down before the computer and double-clicked. The sound of beeps and static sounded as the computer dialed. She clicked a couple more times. "You've got mail!" the computer played. She opened up her e-mail inbox and it listed three new messages - one from a scientist in Atlanta, one from a friend working in at a pharmaceutical company in Palo Alto, and one from Mr. Westshire. She read through the first message. The scientist working on the same disease had discovered a way to relieve the symptoms of the patient, but not remove the disease. She clicked. The next message showed that her friend Rachael had just a drug that would slow down the virus invasion, but again not remove it completely. She clicked once more. Mr. Westshire from the BLC labs. He was the executive manager there. He was congratulating her on her work and told her to keep up the good work. She deleted this message. She then exited out and then turned off the computer. She immediately left and closed the door behind her.

She walked three blocks to the coast and descended down the stairs to the beach. She walked across the beach staring at her feet as she walked. The sun was already suspended right above the horizon. She walked across the cool sand down the beach, far into the distance.

***

The door opened. A man was sleeping under the blue covers. A large machine behind him showed a green squiggly line on a screen above a panel of buttons.

"Dad?" His eyelids began to move and then opened.

"Gl-Gloria?" Gloria smiled. She walked over and replaced the flowers in the vase. She then took a pillow out her shopping bag and added a fresh pillow under his head. The old man managed a weak smile.

"You look a bit sleepy, me dear," he said. "Have you been doing late night research again?"

"Dad, you know I must work with every chance I've got."

"Yes, but you need to keep healthy too. I love you. And I'm sure your mother sends her love from Heaven." Gloria began to tremble. Her eyes began to water. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

"I don't want to lose you, Dad!" she cried. "Not like I lost Mom!"

"Now, now. Don't cry. Whatever happens is for the best. Maybe...well, maybe... It'll all be okay."

A woman in white walked in.

"Mr. Saddler? It's time for your exercises now." Mr. Saddler nodded. He looked back to Gloria.

"Whatever happens is for the best." The nurse came over to the bed and helped him out of the bed, telling Gloria that her help wasn't necessary when Gloria had tried to help. Gloria watched as her father was slowly moved to down the hall and out of sight. She then left the room, exited the hospital, and walked to her car. It was now dark. The moon shyly peeked from behind the earth's shadow. The stars gleamed as if trying to show off all their might in the dark night sky. Gloria started the car and began to head back to the research center.

She drove staring straight ahead. Neon signs' and lights' glows reflecting off her windshield and windows move across the glass as she drove by restaurants and stores. She finally turned left and drove up a driveway into the vast parking lot. It was nearly empty. She parked in her reserved parking space, and walked to the main doors under the marquee. She took out a card and slid it through the slot in the security panel on the right door. There was a click. She pushed the door open and it locked behind her.

The hallway lights automatically turned on. She proceeded on to the elevators and slid her card into the slot and pressed the down button. As she waited for the elevator car, she thought about her father, about her mother. About the lovely times she had before her mother died. They were a family. She was an only child, but she had her parents and her friends. Most of "friends" had abandoned her over the last five years. Peter had been killed in a car accident when a drunk driver collided into his car. Brent had died two years ago by lung cancer. Vicki had been hit by a truck. And Rachael, the only remaining one, had moved to Palo Alto. Her mother had passed away, and now her father was likely to very soon too. Unless...

The elevator doors opened up with a DING. She stepped in and pressed B2. The doors closed and the elevator began to drop. Unless...unless she found a cure for his strange disease. Maybe she could stop this awful fate that had been putting misery in her life.

She walked down the corridor and into her laboratory. She switched on the lights and woke up the computer from its screensaver dreams. She began to work into the night. She created and examined samples. They were all positive, one after the other. After a couple hours, she slumped back in her chair and looked up at the wall clock. It read 11:52pm. She removed her glasses and put them in her coat pocket. She then stood up and walked over to another set of test tubes, samples, and other equipment from a previous research. That was about a virus from the rainforests of Brazil. A vaccination and a cure had both been discovered right here in this very lab, which was what promoted her to head researcher at the research center. She also had a financial supporter who was also later promoted. He later ended up as the assistant of this research. His name was Steve Westshire.

***

She continued to work into late into the night. The wall clock now read 2:35am. She drank her Starbucks coffee, looking from the computer monitor, to the microscope, to the sample containers, and back to the computer monitor, and then she drank her Starbucks coffee again.

Find the cure. Dad might die. Find the cure. Dad is going to die. Find the cure. Dad is dead. There's no hope. Why bother? There - FIND THE CURE! Thoughts spun around in her head wildly. She just couldn't stand it anymore. She had been a failure all this time. Her father was going to die, and it would all be her fault. Like Louis Pasteur! Nobody would say, "Oh, at least she tried." They'd say "She failed to find the cure and look, he's dead." No, no, no! This couldn't happen!

NO! She suddenly sprung from her chair causing the chair to fall over. It hit the table behind her that held the equipment left from the Brazilian rainforest virus from months ago, and the test tubes and vials flew all over the place. Sample containers flew open and slid off the table. The container with the medicine for the Brazilian virus slid across the table and fell onto the nearby table. Glass shattered all around her. Meanwhile Gloria fell back and off her chair, banging her head on the legs of the table and falling unconscious.

***

She opened her eyes. The wall clock showed 6:09am. She slowly pushed herself up and looked around. Bits of shattered glass lay on the floor. Puddles of spilled liquids lay on the floor. An acidic substance was eating away at half-broken test tube on the floor. She stood up and sat back in her chair. She put her hands over her face in despair.

"What have I done? What have I done?" She looked up and saw that a reaction had occurred in one of her samples. That's it! Of course! The cure for the virus from the Brazilian rainforest! The spilled liquid from the container that was the cure had mixed with a sample of the virus.

"This can't be!" She put her eye to the electron microscope and saw...the viruses were destroyed! She had found the cure! She began placing the information on the computer. She had spilled her last container of the cure, but she had all the information on how to create it on her computer. All she had to do was add some extra information, and then she would have a cure designed for the Z virus!

Suddenly her assistant stepped in. Steve Westshire. Also the executive manager at the research center.

"What's all that commotion?" he asked.

"I found the cure! I found the cure!" she exclaimed victoriously.

"You mean the virus is no longer a threat? We have a cure?"

"YES! I have found it! Eureka! No more research! Finally! A cure!"

"Wow! Congratulations! I...can't believe it! Make sure that it's the cure. It may not be the actual cure. It could've just looked like the cure."

"Oh I'm very sure it's the cure."

"Excellent! I must go upstairs now. We should alert everybody immediately." And then he was off and gone.

"A cure! Oh, a cure!" she cried happily. "Father, I can save you now."

***

Gloria ran out the elevator and down the hall to the office of Dr. Paddington, the head of the research center. His door burst open, and Dr. Paddington looked up from his papers.

"Oh! Sorry Mr. Paddington, but I have just found a cure for the Z virus!"

"Really? I thought you said that you were not even close."

"But I found it! I found it! I have the formula on the computer!"

"And how did you find it?"

"It was an accident! I spilled the cure of the-"

"But are you sure that it really works?"

"Yes! Here is the sample!" Dr. Saddler showed Mr. Paddington the sample. "Negative."

"So you have found the cure! We must notify our colleagues in the area! Hurry! Tell the others by e-mail!"

"Oh I will!" she replied fervently. And then she ran back down the hall and into the elevator. She got to her computer and began to send e-mail messages to everyone she knew. She sent out messages with the good news. She would send out the formula information as soon as she made some adjustments to it. Then she exited and returned to studying the cure.

***

Gloria worked and worked. Her watch suddenly beeped signaling a new hour. Her head turned to the clock on the wall. It showed 11:21pm. She wasn't hungry though. She had too much excitement to be hungry. Adrenaline pumped in her body. She was still excited over the discovery. She decided to go to lunch anyway, but she would check for responses from the ones she notified earlier. Click. Click. Click. Click. She then opened up her e-mail inbox. Three new messages. She opened up the first. Praise from a politician in Washington, D.C., but nothing of use. The second one was opened. A professor from a medical college in Massachusetts congratulated her and offered her help. She opened up the third one. There was a short message congratulating her and saying that a file was attached that could help in the formula. She curiously opened it up and...

An animated picture of the skull and crossbones suddenly appeared on the screen. The crude picture laughed in a two-frame animation as a computer virus finished downloading to the computer.

"NO!" Gloria screamed. She began to frantically click and type, trying to stop the virus. "No! No! No!" She tried using every bit of her computer genius to stop the virus, but nothing would work. And shutting down the computer wouldn't do anything because she was on a network. The virus finally finished its damage and removed itself.

Gloria opened up her cure formula statistics. It was empty. She went pale.

***

For the next two weeks, Gloria frantically tried to recreate the cure, but her only copy of the formula was gone, and she hadn't worked with it for a long time, so she did not remember it. Mr. Saddler's conditions grew worse when the virus had attacked another organ. He was dying, and Gloria was too hurt to admit it. She continued to research day and night for days and weeks.

Gloria's father died three weeks later.

Gloria was hit hard by this. Everyone at work tried to calm her down and told her not to work. Rachael flew in from Palo Alto to comfort her.

One week later, the computer virus was found to have been sent from somewhere in the network under a highly secure encryption. Soon after that, a worker overheard from a telephone call of Steve Westshire's that he had sent the virus. After an investigation, it was discovered that the Steve, the executive manager, had been profiting from Gloria's prolonged research from embezzled donation funds to Gloria's research. When Gloria discovered a cure, Steve Westshire panicked and sent the computer virus to extend the research.

Steve Westshire was arrested soon after this news, but he won in court, gaining exorbitant sums of money from it. He moved to an island in the Caribbean and was never seen ever again.

Gloria gradually fell into depression and could not come over the menacing qualm that suspended over her. Much sympathy came to her, but she did not want the attention, so she moved north to Canada. She disappeared one day after driving on the open road. Gloria was never seen again.

This sad story was told all over the nation, and in respect of Gloria Saddler and her father, the research center was named after her - The Saddler Institution of Medicine. Gloria had spent her last days trying to defeat the virus. While attempting to defeat the virus, another virus had defeated her.

***