Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

you been out of medical school?”
    Sarah cocked an eyebrow. What kind of a question was that? How did that have anything to do with the amazing discovery they made?
    “I graduated from medical school going on eight years ago now.” She didn’t mean for it to happen, but the tone in which she answered screamed something more along the lines of
how is that relevant?
    Maven’s eyes shot up. They were narrowed, and if Sarah hadn’t known better, she would have thought she was about to blast her with fatal laser vision. Without taking her eyes from Sarah, Maven flipped another card. She didn’t even look down at it.
    “So, Dr. Bridgeman,” she said through the gritting smile she had plastered onto her Botoxed face, “would you care to tell our live audience about your amazing breakthrough?”
    “Certainly.” Sarah forced a smile. “The Chimera Project was originally started with the intention of discovering the reasons behind human chimerism. That’s when a fetus in utero absorbs its twin. It causes one person to have two different sets of DNA. In the research process, we stumbled onto the fact that these medical phenomena can have mixed immune systems as well as mixed DNA. My partner…”
    “Dr. Nicholas Patton?” Maven interrupted her.
    “Yes, Dr. Patton. May I continue?” Sarah leaned forward and took another sip from her mug, hoping no one saw the grimaced look on her face. Maven was beginning to grate on her last shred of nerves. “My partner and I were discussing the subject one day, and I remembered an article in a medical journal that discussed how mixed chimerism might be used to eliminate the risk of rejection in organ transplants and the need to take antirejection medications. Our research shifted, and after working on this for several months, we discovered that if you induce a mixed immune system in transplant patients before the transplant, there is a 99 percent chance that the host body will accept the donor organ with zero rejection.”
    “Uh huh.” Maven sat back, the smug look still on her face. In her mind, no doubt, Sarah just went from being a plain, boring, barely pretty nothing to the smartest woman on earth, and the hatred glowed on her face like a neon sign. “So how do you induce this ‘mixed immune system’?” Maven lifted two fingers on both hands and crooked them in the air. Sarah could feel her blood beginning to boil.
    “The ‘mixed immune system,’” Sarah said, mimicking Maven’s gesture, “is induced by basically turning off the white blood cells that contribute to the rejection process. The serum is an organic compound that stops these cells from immediately going to work. In addition to turning off these cells, it introduces a completely different groups of immune system cells that help the organ feel at home, if you will. By the time the original cells kick in, the body has accepted the organ as its own. FDA approval is in the works as we speak. This is a wonderful achievement for the medical community and transplant patients.”
    “So do you hope to profit from this discovery? This will no doubt make you a very rich woman at the ripe old age of,” Maven looked down at her blue card, “thirty-three.”
    Sarah had officially had it. She was tired of Maven’s insinuations and putdowns. Most of all, she was tired of her I’m-better-than-you attitude. Questioning her motives and her integrity? That was the last damned straw.
    “Who do you think you are, asking me questions like that? Do you think just because I’m young, I must be some airhead who got through medical school by being a kneepad princess? Do you really think I devoted that much of my life to finding something that could save thousands of lives only for the money?”
    Sarah got up and pulled the mic pack from the back of her waistband and jerked it off her jacket lapel. Maven was furiously motioning for the camera to cut, and it wasn’t until that moment Sarah remembered they were on a live show.