The Daring of Man 9-10, pg 1
      Rain poured from the heavens and puddles splashed as the sleek black car forced a path through the foul weather. As it screeched to a halt at a red traffic light, the rain clouds parted for a moment to allow the fair and vibrant sun a moment of glory, its rays pushing aside the grim gray of the storm. Then they were back again, the burgeoning clouds breaking and sending another cascade of rain down onto the mortals below. The driver of the car looked up into the sky, past his furiously swiping windshield wipers, and rolled his eyes. Damn bipolar weather he thought. It can’t make up its mind.
      The light changed to green, and the car sped off, kicking up a splash as it made a sharp right. It pulled up in front of a mammoth building of glass and steel, and a tall, spare man in a dark suit emerged, a slim briefcase in one hand, an umbrella in the other. He walked quickly up to the building, and pressed a button next to the door. A security guard waved him through. After he had fully crossed the threshold, the tall man handed his umbrella to the guard without looking at him, and continued walking. He stepped into a private elevator and pressed a button for the top floor.
      The doors slid open a few moments later, revealing a luxurious room that resembled a suite more than it did an office. An extravagant leather reclining chair was positioned behind a desk across the room. Floor-to-ceiling windows of faultless glass behind the chair gave way to a stunning view of the surrounding cityscape, with the usual view of a brilliant ocean obscured by the raging thunderstorm outside. State-of-the-art television sets clung to the walls and showed various news programs all day long. The tall man slid into the chair like he was born to it and faced the elevator. He slid a laptop out of his briefcase and began typing furiously, dark brow furrowed with concentration.
      His name was Abraham Neronus, and he had not been around such luxury his entire life. Born to an alcoholic father who never wanted him, Abraham’s mother left him when he was three. He grew up in want, wearing used clothing purchased from thrift stores, and surviving off of his father’s meager unemployment benefits. His classmates bullied and ridiculed him for his spare frame and his cheap clothes, and Abraham had few friends. He found his outlet and his passion in the natural sciences. Graduating from high school top of his class, he attended university on a full academic scholarship, and afterwards worked as an assistant in a Boston lab trying to find a cure for HIV.
      The Daring of Man, 9-10, pg 2
      Three years into his work at the lab, Abraham married Maria Aggripine, the rich daughter of a famous California filmmaker who had moved east to study history at Harvard. They moved to Virginia together, and Abraham used his wife’s money to start up an antibiotic company specializing in research for cures to various viruses.
      Abraham Neronus became a household name when he patented an improved antibiotic designed to fight off pneumonia. His name made headlines when medical experts estimated that his cheaply sold antibiotic had saved nearly five thousand impoverished people unable to afford hospital treatment who otherwise would have died from the disease. Journalists and newspapers loved him, and the public adored him. He was heralded as the savior of mankind, the one sent to rid them of earthly disease. His drugs continued to save lives, first as he cured the common cold, and again when he developed a single medicine that could keep HIV at bay for months, although not cure it entirely. He was a national hero.
      Then the scandals hit. Abraham made headlines yet again when it was discovered that his company intentionally infected convicted criminals in order to test their drugs. He faced jail time when the drugs killed fourteen of these prisoners. The lawsuits and various court proceedings cost Neronus millions, but by that time it was too late. Almost every kind of antibiotic was produced, funded, or distributed by Neronus’s company, and his money and political influence managed to keep him out of prison. Even when his labs began infecting and testing elderly people with little or no brain function, nothing could be done. He was known to claim in media reports that the testings were for the greater good, and that the dozen or so criminals and elderly who had suffered “ill effects” from the drugs were making sacrifices to improve the quality of human life as a whole.
      Two years later Maria contracted severe lung cancer, and despite the best treatment that the world had to offer, she died after a battle of only six months. She had been Abraham’s strength, his support to rest on when the world turned against him, and her death nearly broke him. She had left him with a son of four years, but the boy was five before Neronus recovered enough to recognize him. Yet he never truly got over his wife’s death, vowing after the fact to spend the rest of his life fighting cancer, to let none of the proverbial rocks rest unturned as he sought a cure for the malignant disease.
      
      The Daring of Man, 9-10, pg 3
      Maria’s death turned Abraham ruthless. His company continued to sell antibiotics, but only as a means of funding his cancer research. The range of his test subjects broadened, from convicts and vegetative elderly to quadriplegics and heavy drug users. In his mind, none of these deserved to live when his beloved Maria had perished because of his failure to save her. Activists protested in front of his buildings and families of his subjects filed lawsuit after lawsuit against him. He didn’t care. None of it mattered to him so long as he found a cure.
      But with all his money, with all his connections and technology, he couldn’t do it. His research led nowhere. His teams followed leads for months that yielded no plausible result. Abraham’s fortune began to dry up, and as his political allies retired or failed to win reelection, the prospect of being shut down and imprisoned loomed ever closer. When his now-ten-year-old son, Jacob I. Neronus, was diagnosed with the same variety of lung cancer that killed Maria, it looked like this could be it: the event that broke the man. Abraham Sr had nothing new with which to treat the disease. He didn’t even have enough money left to get his son the same treatment he had given his wife.
      * * *
      There was a sharp knock on the door and Abraham looked up from his laptop, dark shadows of pain and loss under his eyes, and a hint of despair that glinted in his gaze. But when he called for the person to enter it was the same deep steady voice as always, unshaken by the calamities that had affected its owner.
      A short, squat man in a white lab coat walked through the door, his small eyes glancing nervously back and forth as they took in the desk, the windows, even the television sets which blared images of protesters outside several of Neronus’s distribution facilities.
      “Sit, Dr. Gode.” said Abraham curtly. The man sat, and stared nervously at his boss. Abraham arched an eyebrow, the disdain and irritation he felt for the other man clear in his eyes and face.
      “Well, sir,” the smaller man began. His eyes darted back and forth. “We’ve...ah...we seem to have made a breakthrough in the research.” He sat back, as if trying to disappear into his chair. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. This was not the first time the labs had made ‘breakthroughs’ in their research, and follow-up experiments for these breakthroughs had cost several thousands of dollars already, a large chunk of Abraham’s dwindling fortune.
      The Daring of Man, 9-10, pg 4
      The man gulped, and then at a gesture from his superior, went on. “It’s about your son, sir.” he continued, barely keeping from wincing as he said it. Then he finished in a rush. “Since you told us to take samples of your son’s cancerous tissue, we did, and we’ve found that miraculously his body is fighting off the cancer. It’s attacking the cancerous cells and keeping it from spreading throughout his body. We estimate that he might even be cancer free in less than eight months.”
      Abraham sat up at that, his dark eyes boring into his subordinate. For a moment, the sagging sorrow of his face was replaced with wonder and joy, and around the corner of his mouth there was the trace of a small smile. But the scientist wasn't finished.
      “As well, sir, if we were to, ah, take a larger sample of the boy’s tissue, say both of his infected lungs, we would almost certainly be able to discover the source of this remarkable resistance, even should it be just a genetic tendency in his tissue, and replicate and use this to cure lung cancer entirely. The defense may even prove adequate against all cancer.”
      The silence was oppressive. Abraham stared blankly at the other man, but then he suddenly understood. His brow darkened, and his frame stiffened. “My son would die.” he said.
      “But cancer would be cured!” said the smaller man earnestly. “It would be gone forever! Think of how much money you would make off of this! Think of how that public would view you! You would be a hero again, a--”
      “My son would die!” Abraham shouted, shooting to his feet. He heaved a deep breath, composed himself, and cast a level gaze at the scientist. “This is not a decision that concerns you right now. I will inform you of my choice. Leave me.” he said softly.
      The other man made no move to depart, only sat wringing his hands. Abraham slammed his hand down into the desk, making his computer rattle and leaving no chance for protestation. The scientist scurried out the door.
      Abraham sat down, his head resting in his hands. But he couldn’t sit still. He stood, walking over to the window and looking out into the storm. Lightning flashed, revealing his face, painfully contorted in indecision. Abraham turned, and faced the television sets, where activists marched with banners reading ‘No more killings!’ and ‘Down with Neronus!’ Abraham stared grimly at the sets, then opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a small framed photograph.
      
      The Daring of Man, 9-10, pg 5
      The man, woman, and child in the photo were strangers to he who now gazed at them. A toddling and chubby Jacob nestled next to his father, a man whose eyes shone with contentment and joy, his complexion deep and full of life. A slim woman stood behind them, dark hair framing an icy pale face punctuated by strikingly blue eyes.
      Maria Agrippine Neronus had been terrified of death. At first, Abraham had tried to keep the truth from her in the hopes that he would find a cure, but he was never able to resist her wishes. No one was. Growing up rich and with more than enough, and born with an indomitable will and unswayable desires, what Maria wanted, she got. The first time she asked her husband what her chances were, he told her the frank truth.
      The news almost killed her before the cancer did. Unable to be saved, Maria died in terror of what awaited her, and in fury at her husband for failing. She refused to speak to him in her last moments, and left him a failed and broken wreck, alone in the world.
      Abraham gazed down at the picture, looking from his wife to his son. A reporter had once told him it was easy to pursue the greater good from an isolated penthouse office. His face softened at the picture, as he seemed to meet the eyes of his wife.
      “I am steeped so far in blood,” he murmured to himself, “That returning is as tedious as going on.” Abraham pulled a cellular phone out of his pocket, and quickly dialed a number. “Neronus.” he said sharply, “Yes. Tell Dr. Gode to take whatever samples he sees fit. On my authority.” He hung up quickly, and left the phone on the desk.
      Six Months later

      A gaunt, emaciated man in an old suit ambled aimlessly along the sidewalk, his eyes blank and devoid of thought, and of any feelings except pain and despair. Pedestrians who saw him crossed to the other side of the street, making no effort to avoid seeming rude. His hair barely clung to his head, lying greasy and stringy across his scalp. His clothes, once of the highest quality, were now little more than rags clinging to his malnourished frame. The man staggered passed a medical center offering the cheap sale of what had been christened ‘the Neronus drug,’ and which could effectively combat and kill any sort of cancer forever, leaving no chance of its reappearance.
      
      The Daring of Man, pg 6
      Nobody knew how the famed Abraham Neronus had produced the drug, but it brought billions of dollars in revenue to his company. Most just assumed that it was the product of over five years of relentless research into a cure, following the untimely death of the delightful Maria Neronus due to lung cancer. Regrettably, the billionaire executive’s son had died of the very same cancer less than a month before Neronus’s company was reputed to have discovered the cure.
      The man collapsed as he passed the building, but struggled to his feet and continued to shuffle along the sidewalk to an alleyway next to the distribution center. He turned down the alley and walked a ways, before leaning against the wall. Checking to make sure that nobody was in the vicinity, the man pulled a revolver from a pocket within his stained jacket, his thin, frail fingers struggling to keep a hold on it. He pressed the gun to his head, leaning back against the cool brick wall of the alley.
      “I dared do all that may become a man, who dares do more, is none.” Abraham Neronus said as he pulled the trigger.