Why Doesn't She Tell Anybody?!
Adagio Dazzle pored over screenful after screenful of data, her lightning fast mind analysing it, condensing it to its most salient points, and making connections — connections between everything.
She hummed a tune while she worked — a tune she hadn't sung in years. Her voice had never returned to how it had been back then, before the Rainbooms, but after everything that had happened since, she wasn't sure she even wanted her voice back — it would only lead her down the path of temptation — temptation to wield its power. She knew what she was doing now was for a far greater good.
"The answer has to be in here," she muttered, quietly yet with a confidence she hadn't felt since her defeat at the Battle of the Bands.
She looked up at the framed photos of all the people she'd loved and lost in her thousand years on Earth. A millennium's worth of friends, colleagues, masters, servants, lovers, and rivals, that she'd lost to this dreaded disease.
As she cross-checked today's results against last year's, a smile grew upon her face. This is it, Adagio… she thought, the moment you've been waiting for.
She'd reached a staggering conclusion. By infusing the cyclophosphamide manufacturing machine with the small traces of Equestrian magic still present in her shards of shattered red crystal, the drug had become many thousands of times more effective, and side effects such as hair loss, anaemia, infertility, nausea and vomiting, would be a thing of the past. The drug was so effective that just a few drops in the water supply for a major city might be able to prevent cancer there for a generation.
If there was any discovery in the history of medicine which called for a celebratory cappuccino, it was this one! No-one is going to remember cancer at all by the time I am done!
Adagio locked the screen on her laptop and strolled over to the coffee machine that the department head had recently had installed for all the researchers. It had been a smart decision — Adagio and her colleagues were big coffee drinkers anyway, but the nearest source of that sweet, sweet caffeine was the post-graduate dining hall, five minutes' walk away. Adding together the walk there, queueing time, waiting for the drink to be made, paying, and the walk back, getting a cup of coffee could take a researcher away from the lab for as much as twenty minutes. The coffee machine had increased the lab's productivity measurably, so the bosses were happy; and employees got free coffee, so they were happy too. Even if it wasn't the best coffee in the world.
Adagio placed the Best Siren mug that Sunset Shimmer had bought her for her last birthday into the right position and waited for it to be filled with steaming hot liquid. She breathed in deeply as the air filled with that delicious aroma that only freshly made espresso could bring. Frothy steamed milk soon followed, and Adagio sprinkled the drink with a dusting of cinnamon from a pot that one of the secretaries had kindly brought in for everybody to share.
She sat at a desk not too far away from the coffee machine, and pulled over a scrap of paper to do some quick back-of-an-envelope-style calculations.
With the remaining shards of crystal from her amulet, she calculated that she ought to be able to magically enhance enough drug manufacturing machines to cover between a third and a half of the Earth's population. She would need to convince Sonata and Aria to give up their shards too. But she didn't imagine that would be a problem — they'd been so supportive of her change of career, and the two of them had given up on ever restoring their siren powers — now that they'd found love with each other, what need was there to be adored by strangers? Adagio sighed happily, thinking about her own similar epiphany when she and Sunset had admitted their feelings for one another. With all three amulets, she should easily be able to cover the Earth's seven and a half billion inhabitants.
Adagio scratched her head for a moment. There was something wrong with these calculations.
"Of course!" she said out loud. "The Earth's population is growing. By the end of the century, it's expected to hit eleven billion." Adagio scribbled out a couple of numbers and replaced them. She frowned. It would be a stretch, but they might be able to cover it.
There was something still wrong.
Almost ten million people worldwide die each year from cancer. Saving those lives would increase the global population still further. She crossed some of her calculations out and performed a few estimates. Twelve billion people? That seemed less likely. The frown on Adagio's face grew deeper.
But the calculations still seemed incomplete.
Globally, over a hundred billion dollars are spent on cancer research each year, to say nothing of the money spent on treatment. If cancer had a simple cure, that money would be diverted elsewhere, no doubt into curing other diseases and preventable causes of death. Without knowing which diseases would be targetted, and how effective the research in those areas would be, Adagio could only take a wild guess at the number of lives that would be extended. But a global population of thirteen or even fourteen billion seemed likely.
Adagio sighed. There was no way the amulets would be able to protect at many people from cancer — the world would be divided into "haves" and "have nots". No doubt it would be the poorest nations — the ones who have suffered so much in the past and are most deserving of relief — that would miss out. And not just miss out on the cancer cure. With that many people there would be increased demands on food, drinking water, fuel, and even living space. There would be riot, war, suffering… Adagio could hardly bear to think about it.
This was not what the world needed. The world wouldn't be able to cope. The world needed small, incrememental improvements to cancer treatment.
Adagio finished the last of her coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste of the grounds at the bottom of the mug before putting it in the sink. Somebody else could wash it — she was not in the mood.
She walked over to the cyclophosphamide machine, and yanked the crystal shard out from the back, just as one of her colleagues came into the lab.
"Hi Adagio! You're here early!"
"Hey Moondancer! Not early." Adagio yawned. "Very late!"
"You pulled an all-nighter?!" Moondancer exclaimed.
Adagio pocketed the shard. "Yeah."
"So any luck with those numbers?"
Adagio shook her head. "No. No significant changes." She could fudge the numbers later.
Moondancer sat at her desk and started her computer. "Well, keep trying. Your research seems very promising, even if I don't quite understand the techniques you're using."
Adagio nodded and walked back to the little kitchen area, put her hands in her pockets and then started fiddling with something behind the coffee machine.
Moondancer came to join her. "Thought I'd make a cup of coffee while the computer starts up. It takes ages to boot." She put the You Are A Big Deal mug Twilight Sparkle had given her into the coffee machine and waited for it to do its thing.
Moments later a beeping sound alerted her that the coffee was ready. Adagio watched as Moondancer grabbed the mug and took it back to her desk, reading something intently on her screen.
Moondancer took a sip of her caffè latte and smiled. "Hey Adagio, is it just my imagination, or has the coffee gotten a lot better lately?"
Adagio shrugged. "I don't know. Must be using a different type of bean."
