I phoned an expert at Washington University in St. Louis and told him I was working on a piece about artificial blood. We roamed over the historical attempts before he told me, “It’s the Holy Grail of medical science.”

I underlined the quote in my notes.

“The words ‘artificial blood’ don’t really describe the current candidates,” he continued. “At best, they have only limited applications, like carrying and delivering oxygen or augmenting blood volume. We’re years away from something like true artificial blood.” When I didn’t immediately answer, he added, “Unless you know something I don’t.”

—

It was taking so much time to reverse-engineer scientific expertise that I asked one of the unpaid interns to research Rubicon Tech. When all he gave me was a sophomoric scrape of the Internet, I finally enlisted Lane, the new fact-checker. The other Bystander writers gave him such rave reviews, it felt foolish to let the resource go to waste.

A day before my flight to Florida, Lane caught me by the elevator. There was such a giddiness about him, he actually rocked on his heels. “I’ve got something for you.”

“I’m headed to lunch.”

“Can I join?”

A little more than I didn’t want to be friendly, I didn’t want to be rude, so I invited him to the Donut Shop. I ordered a coffee and one of their $1.75 BLTs. I don’t know what Lane ordered, but it arrived as gnarled corn beef and a pool of relish on a kaiser.

“What’s with this place?” he asked.

“It’s my spot.”

Lane scraped the relish off with a plastic knife and said, “Any particular reason?”

“Its total indifference to self-improvement.”

“Have you ever been to BurritOasis?”

“No.”

“Next time, my treat.”

I said, “Thanks for looking into Rubicon.”

He’d dismantled his kaiser and started carving up the corned beef.

“The subject is a bit of a departure for you,” he said. “Corporate medicine, serious stuff.”

“That’s true.”

“I’ve only ever seen you cover culture, in the New Republic and the Voice, except for a couple things for the Post-Intelligencer in Seattle.”

I revealed more surprise than I wanted to.

“I love your writing, Whitney, I’ve read every last word. I think you have a fascinating mind.”

I really don’t respond well to flattery, unless it comes from an editor in writing. I kept my head down, chewing through the rough white bread and jerky-like bacon. I popped a fallen scrap of iceberg lettuce in my mouth and it broke like a potato chip.

“So what have you got for me?”

“Well, there isn’t a whole lot out there,” he said. “But I think I found something that suggests a minor human resources problem.”