Chapter 27: Higher Education

After the two girls were seated in the principal’s office, Sarah was the one who spoke. “Principal Schott, thank you for meeting with us. A professor we know at Stanford passed along information that Stanford is considering offering us a special admission opportunity. It would involve one-on-one study with professors in subjects we want to study. We haven’t heard anything official, but we want to discuss our options here at Woodside in connection with taking university courses. We are thinking of only continuing robotics, cheerleading, the play, and robotics club. The robotics is the only one we would continue past Thanksgiving.”

Helen Schott closed her eyes and considered what Stanford was offering the two girls and what she could do to help them. That their taking classes at Stanford would reduce the disruption at Woodside was also a consideration for her. “After you complete the classes you are currently taking, I could authorize study at Stanford. State requirements for attendance no longer apply once you graduate or complete the proficiency examination. I checked on getting a special exception for the two of you to take the examination early, but they were unwilling to set such a precedent.” She paused and continued when Ashley nodded. “Do you want to take last year’s final exams in your courses so we can show you have completed them? I could then treat any studies you do at Stanford as we do with the advanced math courses you are taking. It would just be fiction to keep the state education people happy.”

The girls looked at each other.

“The news people will run with it when they find out.” Ashley’s statement caused Sarah to smile. “Mrs. Schott, much of what will be happening in the next few weeks will be to draw attention away from us, Woodside, and things we aren’t ready to make public. We expect in a couple of weeks the press will learn we aren’t attending classes here, which could draw some attention back to Woodside but only to find out where we are. If we continued with our robotics class, we could keep current with the team project and not be as obvious to the press that we are now studying at Stanford.”

“Could you be ready to take the finals later next week?”

“Yes.” Sarah knew they could take and pass them right now.

“It will take a while to set this up. A week at least. I will start working on it this afternoon.”

“Thank you and everyone else who will be helping us. We should have a meeting with everyone at Woodside to discuss what we are working on in December after we get back from Washington. Later we can have an open house where the students and faculty could learn more.

Ashley’s offer heightened Helen Schott’s curiosity about what the girls were involved in.

“Professor Stevens, I am Dr. May Flower.” They shook hands. “This is Dr. Barnaby Stanley, who is a Navy Lieutenant Commander.” As he shook Barnaby’s hand, Thad Stevens looked curious as to why the Navy was participating in the investigation of Mark Sawyer’s health. “And this is Mark Sawyer, who turned seventy this past summer.”

Professor Stevens observed Mark closely after they shook hands. The only sign of age was his gray hair, but he could see that at the roots it was turning blonde. The man in front of him closely resembled the older pictures of Mark Sawyer he had found on the internet and not either of his two sons who had features inherited from their mother. This man looked at least ten years younger than they did.

“OK, I’m convinced somehow Mark Sawyer has grown younger. Bringing me an imposter in for medical tests would be stupid. May, stupid is one thing no one has ever accused you of being. So where do we want to begin?”

Mark liked what he had seen of Professor Stevens. Very straightforward. “Would you rather be paid to run tests and supply medical diagnoses and opinions or would you want to be involved in the research into the cause of my turning young again?”

“I want to be involved in finding the cause and determining how to make this available for others, but it may take years.”

“Good. My granddaughter Ashley and I are committed to funding the coordination of research efforts. We see the research possibly taking longer than either one of us will live, so we are setting up a company to coordinate the research and the data generated. We also envision the involvement of researchers from many countries. We already have funding from the US government for some research projects here at Stanford. If you agree to some requirements, we can almost guarantee funding as soon as you can present a not too detailed proposal.”

“The ‘some’ requirements seem like a mighty important catch. There is already a lot of speculation on why you look so young.”

Commander Barnaby surprised Professor Stevens by being the one to answer. “Yes, it is. The main one is you may not discuss this work, publish, or otherwise let become known what we are going to tell you, what you may learn, or what you may even guess for at least a year and indefinitely for certain information until it is cleared. The work has a code name of Yellow Arrow and is top secret. We expect most of this to be made public in the next few months.”

“You have some idea what caused this?”

May laughed. Professor Stevens was hooked. “Good, you seem interested enough to be willing to help us with other areas we are looking into. Don’t try to guess, it is something you would never guess.”

Thad Stevens looked at the three people in his office. They all appeared sure he wouldn’t guess what they believed caused Mark Sawyer to grow young. It looked like the only way to find out was to agree to their requirements. “Do you have the papers for me to sign?” Barnaby opened his briefcase and handed Professor Stevens a small stack of papers. “Do I need to read through all of this?”

“No, once you learn what is happening, you will make sure you don’t lose an inside position working with our investigation. The first page where you have to fill out information about yourself and Yellow Arrow is mentioned and the last two where you have to sign five times is all I would need to read if I were you. If you talk in your sleep, you may want to tell your wife to let you know if you mention anything strange. Then bring her in to sign the same set of papers.”

Mark remembered many professors, especially medical ones, married fellow academics. “What does your wife do?”

“Joy does research on medicinal properties of plants. May, she mentioned she talked to you a few days ago about her research.”

“Barnaby, do you have another set of those papers, because Dr. Joy Bernelli is someone who could help us a lot.”

“Professor Stevens, would you fill out and sign those papers? Then we can give you a very short explanation so you can understand how fantastic and important this is. You should call your wife and invite her here. Then we can go into the long explanation where both of you can ask questions.” Thad realized Mark didn’t sound like a twenty-year-old.

After Thad quickly completed the paperwork, Mark offered his hand to him. “Glad to have you working with us.” Mark then sat down again and waited as Thad called his wife. When he hung up, Mark started to explain.

“This is just speculation, but then no one had been able to find any problems with it. Other than, it is too fantastic. We have also recently found more evidence of the non-medical side of our theory.” Mark paused, and Thad wondered if there was something he wanted to keep secret.

“What I’m going to say is way shorter than the usual introduction. I’m making sure all the things I leave out aren’t any of the major items.”

Thad realized how that could be a problem if the explanation was complex.

“The night North Korea attacked everyone, I fell asleep on the porch of our cabin in the mountains. I had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I hadn’t taken the news well and skipped out on the family trip to Hawaii. The United States was successful in stopping the North Korean attack against us except for two instances. One was the piece of the Standard missile which hit the plane with my family on it, which contributed to their deaths but didn’t cause it. The other was one of the warheads from a MIRV missile that was aimed at California. It was on the periphery of the blast of the nuclear warhead which destroyed the other warheads. It was irradiated, but the effect on the virus, which was the payload, may not have killed all of the virus. This payload landed near my cabin. I became sick, and I would have died if Sarah Pierce and her father, Jim, hadn’t gone to the cabin to tell me about the death of my family. Sarah is my granddaughter, Ashley’s best friend.”