Running With the Pack Read Online Free PDF

diligent sci-tech rep he tried to be, on the lookout for snappy, comprehensible articles free of algebra or chemical symbols. Medicine wasn’t his area, so what drew him to this piece? Simply that long-distance plane travel often tended to set his teeth on edge, start up aches and twinges in his back fillings. Something to do with the cabin pressure, he wasn’t quite sure. Did it matter that his crowns had been fitted at ground level, where the PSI would be different? Perhaps the whole thing was psychosomatic, a displacement of some unconscious phobia to do with long-distance air travel. There wasn’t really anyone he could ask: no one he knew seemed to suffer the same problem. Unconsciously, Hayden stroked his jaw as he read on past the headline.
    According to the text, scientists from the University of Hong Kong —using a groundbreaking mixture of ancient Chinese herbal lore and cutting-edge stem cell procedures—had come up with a paradigm shift in the treatment of dental problems. Initial trials of the new medication, a simple rub-in gel, had exceeded all expectations, and already there was said to be a flourishing black market as small pirate gene-tech labs churned out their own bootleg versions of the remedy. A side-bar explained the science part. The genes which controlled first and second dentitions in the human—milk teeth through wisdom teeth—had been identified several years previously, in the wave of slipstream discoveries subsequent to the Y2K breakthrough on the human genome. The Hong Kong scientists, experts in the field of transgenics, had concentrated their efforts on the so-called genetic switches which . . . Here Hayden paused, distracted by a slowly increasing sense of no longer subliminal apprehension.
    He’d been grinding his teeth, ever so slightly, as he read. He knew this was something he did, not just in his sleep but when concentrating; both his girlfriend and his dentist had told him so. Now, if he clicked his top molars against his lower, he could feel . . . what was that? He tongued around furtively inside his mouth, inserting a finger once he was sure no-one was looking in his direction. There, just at the back . . . oh, great. Of course. Naturally. Six weeks on business in the Far East, and a wisdom tooth cracked clean down the middle.
    It had been the Bombay mix back in the departure lounge, he recollected glumly; no doubt about it. He distinctly remembered chomping down on the bulletlike roasted chickpea as his flight had been called, that suspicious splintering feeling he’d put to the back of his mind amidst all the check-in anxiety . . . that was the culprit, all right. Super. He didn’t even like Bombay mix that much. Maybe he could sue Heathrow for the cost of the treatment.
    Dismally he manipulated the injured tooth back and forth, feeling the broken surfaces grind together like shattered crockery. The tactful, near-subliminal voice of the flight attendant at his shoulder made him pull out his finger with an audible plop. “Have you got any painkillers?” Hayden asked, knowing in advance what the answer would be. Regret-fully, the attendant explained the airline’s strict policy with regard to passenger medications. Hayden nodded despondently, and stared out of the window at the cumulus clouds below. They looked like brilliant white molars in the cerulean gums of some unimaginably huge sky-troll.
    The first actual sensations of pain had kicked in just prior to landing, after some four hours of incessant fiddling (tongue and fingertip) and an ill-advised glass of ice-cold mineral water. On the shuttle in from the airport his cheek had begun to puff out; once in his hotel room he’d hooked open his mouth in front of the bathroom mirror, fearing the worst. And finding it, in spades. Hard up against the gum-line there was a lump roughly the size and colour of a cherry tomato. It was hurting so badly, Hayden suspected it might actually be throbbing, visibly and