Meanwhile in Star City
The pain is better than the tremors, and making sure her family keeps the patent on her research is worth both the pain and the tremors. Every muscle in her body feel like it's full of ball bearings. Strong, but heavy.
Tara Strong is just one 19 year old among the population of Star City. Mom's a nurse. Dad's a mechanic. They live in New Jersey with her younger brother and sister. There's a postwar era house and two pets that contains them all, or did until Tara came to Star on a full scholarship to Star University. What makes Tara different is the the disease. For some reason, her muscles and nerves are starting to fail. They caught it early enough and they don't know what causes it. If she wasn't working at Elevast, she wouldn't have had access to the tools and the medical library need to find the disorder. It's nearly unpronounceable and eventually it will make her body incapable of breathing in, much less standing over a lab the lab bench she now enjoys.
She hasn't told that to the family back in Jersey. They demand she come home or that they'd back up and move here. They'd sacrifice that house, the dog, her brother and sister's meager college accounts, so she might get 5 years in agony rather than six months. Some days, she wishes the Pope would get a goddamn clue about some things and let good families of moderate means off the eternal hook. In the meantime, with nothing to lose, she's donating her body to medical science while she's still breathing and able to come up with ideas for how to stay that way.
About three months ago (4 after the diagnosis) a polymer compound starting showing great progress with being able to fuse to human tissue. The bosses were looking at body armor that could be grafted on. Tara saw a possible way out for her, MS sufferers, Parkinson's patients, and others with muscle and nerve disorders. So in her off time, she started working - living - here. She's adapted the formula so that it looks like it will fuse to damaged muscle tissue and repair it. Even better, the results show that the reinforced tissues can go through mitosis and create new, boosted cells on their own.
She wrote up her work, turned in all her note, as was Elevast's procedure, and submitted it for patent. At least her work could help someone. If it was lucrative, her family would be about to support themselves after she was gone.
A week ago, she found that all the data was missing. That's when she started the treatments. Thank G*d for her perfect photographic memory so that she could start from scratch in the lab for the formula.
Just today she found out that there was another person's name on the proposal and that the red tape machine was going into effect. She's not looking forward to seeing the son of a bitch either.
Tara Strong is just one 19 year old among the population of Star City. Mom's a nurse. Dad's a mechanic. They live in New Jersey with her younger brother and sister. There's a postwar era house and two pets that contains them all, or did until Tara came to Star on a full scholarship to Star University. What makes Tara different is the the disease. For some reason, her muscles and nerves are starting to fail. They caught it early enough and they don't know what causes it. If she wasn't working at Elevast, she wouldn't have had access to the tools and the medical library need to find the disorder. It's nearly unpronounceable and eventually it will make her body incapable of breathing in, much less standing over a lab the lab bench she now enjoys.
She hasn't told that to the family back in Jersey. They demand she come home or that they'd back up and move here. They'd sacrifice that house, the dog, her brother and sister's meager college accounts, so she might get 5 years in agony rather than six months. Some days, she wishes the Pope would get a goddamn clue about some things and let good families of moderate means off the eternal hook. In the meantime, with nothing to lose, she's donating her body to medical science while she's still breathing and able to come up with ideas for how to stay that way.
About three months ago (4 after the diagnosis) a polymer compound starting showing great progress with being able to fuse to human tissue. The bosses were looking at body armor that could be grafted on. Tara saw a possible way out for her, MS sufferers, Parkinson's patients, and others with muscle and nerve disorders. So in her off time, she started working - living - here. She's adapted the formula so that it looks like it will fuse to damaged muscle tissue and repair it. Even better, the results show that the reinforced tissues can go through mitosis and create new, boosted cells on their own.
She wrote up her work, turned in all her note, as was Elevast's procedure, and submitted it for patent. At least her work could help someone. If it was lucrative, her family would be about to support themselves after she was gone.
A week ago, she found that all the data was missing. That's when she started the treatments. Thank G*d for her perfect photographic memory so that she could start from scratch in the lab for the formula.
Just today she found out that there was another person's name on the proposal and that the red tape machine was going into effect. She's not looking forward to seeing the son of a bitch either.