When my boss, Victor Kroll, learned I had stage II lymphoma, he didn't offer sick leave.
The public clinic waiting room smelled faintly of antiseptic and old coffee. I sat rigid, trying to ignore the dull ache in my bones, a constant reminder of the fight ahead. My name was still being called for a follow-up, but the frozen funds meant the critical next steps were in limbo.
A man with wild, salt-and-pepper hair, Dr. Aaron Bishop, sat beside me. He wore a rumpled tweed jacket that looked several sizes too large. He peered at me through thick-rimmed glasses, clutching a worn leather satchel.
“Lymphoma, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice surprisingly gentle. He gestured vaguely at the intake form I’d forgotten to put away.
My muscles tensed. I didn’t engage with strangers, especially not here. “That’s personal,” I said, my voice clipped.
He held up his hands, a small, apologetic shrug. “Just a hunch. My field is genetics. I saw your biopsy panel data come across my lab’s feed. Unusual markers.”
He paused, then leaned closer. “My work is mostly off-grid, running rapid diagnostics for a… less conventional clientele. Some of the regional maritime union files passed through my server this morning, running a cross-match on a few open syndicate registries.”
My breath hitched. Syndicate registries. My world.
“Your genetic profile, Ms. Dempsey,” he continued, his eyes wide behind the lenses, “it pinged an unmistakable biological match to one of those files. An older one, almost thirty years old.”
A cold dread settled in my stomach, far worse than any cancer symptom. A match? How was that even possible? My past was a tightly sealed book.
“I need to verify the full sequence,” Dr. Bishop said, pushing a few stray hairs from his forehead. “But the preliminary data is…significant. Very significant.”
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