Dilation Chapter 1: Walker
Start from the prologue here. If you don’t have the premium Medium subscription, the first six chapters (and prologue) are available on my website.
The lecture hall was in an uproar of heavy debate as Denise Walker’s biology class broke into a controlled chaos. It was two weeks into the 2023 summer semester, and she was already enjoying it more than the regular academic year. Her students were lively and engaged. The course — Comparative Physiology of Marine Animals — fulfilled requirements for a few majors. Any student enrolled in the grueling Monday through Friday class during their summer break did so because they either wanted to or desperately needed to.
This summer marked the completion of Walker’s eighth year at Duke University. Starting right after obtaining her doctorate from Berkeley, her focus was on ecological biology — the interactions between organisms. Her first years at Duke had involved far more publishing than recent ones. The University had encouraged it, but over the past few years, she’d slowly increased her course load. Her new focus was to correct the issues she experienced in the greater academic community by teaching the next generation of scientists.
The sound of squabbling students amused Walker while she observed invisibly from the front of the small classroom. Unlike the larger introductory courses that took place in massive lecture halls, this course had a minuscule enrollment list, and much of the class took place in the field or in labs. On days they did have a lecture, it was in a normal-sized classroom with thirty desks facing a chalkboard. Students who took the class usually found the prospect of dirtying their hands appealing. They wanted to walk around in the marshes and examine aquatic life. They wanted to experience real science.
Nothing was more real than a roaring argument amongst thirty people with just enough information to have an opinion. The prompt she’d given them was: did octopodes have arms or tentacles?
“She wants us to overthink it!” said a boy whose name Walker hadn’t learned yet. In her large lectures, she never bothered trying to learn names. She’d eventually learn the ones who participated. For the small summer class, she was making a concerted effort to learn them all, but it was only Wednesday of their second week.
“Why would she even ask, then?” a girl in the front immediately countered. “Maybe the way their tentacles are structured makes them not tentacles?”
Walker waited to see if anyone didn’t fall into those two camps.
“I take it nobody read ahead?” she finally asked. Some of the students’ faces warped at the suggestion. In the regular semester, there were always a few students who read ahead, but for the compact schedule, she was just hoping they would keep up. “You don’t have to, but it means you’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s lab for an answer.”
Groans emitted from the bunch of young adults. Walker often ended her lectures with a discussion for them to engage in. It made days in the classroom less monotonous and kept the students interested.
As she began erasing terms from the chalkboard in giant, sweeping arcs, a tiny voice piped from behind her.
“Um…Professor Walker?”
She turned to find a short girl in a yellow tank-top, her dirty blonde hair tied in a ponytail and a tan book bag slung over her shoulder. Walker might actually know her name already…
“Courtney, right?”
“Yeah!” the girl said louder.
“What can I do for you?”
Courtney shifted her book bag. “Is the lab just in chapter three, or should we also look at four?”
“A very small part of three. It’s mostly contained in the second section,” Walker said; she suspected there was more. Early in her career, Walker had been a minor celebrity among the biological community. The majority of her students came and went without knowing otherwise, but the girl’s body language was telling.
“I read your paper!” Courtney blurted out suddenly. A faint rose color fled to her cheeks. “I mean, when it first came out.”
As vague as the statement was, Walker didn’t need to ask which paper the girl was referring to. In the summer of her third year at Duke, she’d written one on taxonomic classification, which was read more than the rest combined. Not for the content, unfortunately, but for the controversy in its wake. The paper criticized the taxonomy system, proposing modern, genetic-based alternatives. Walker outlined several problematic examples in the current system that were straightforward in those alternatives, the purpose being to display the unrivaled flexibility of a 21st-century system of organic classification — one that could adapt to included biological data without room for ambiguity.
Several members of the zoological community slammed it. They called her naive, unrealistic. Her academic critics pointed to hypothetical examples to paint her body of evidence as flimsy, even though her cited proof was grounded, thorough, and plentiful. They said she was trying to gain attention by being radical, labeling her as too young, despite her being over thirty at the time.
Those critics all happened to be elderly men. The result was a nationwide argument about sexism in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Several peers came to her defense and ratified her methods, but the debate overshadowed the contents of her paper, which ultimately vanished into a political void. From Walker’s perspective, her adversaries had won. Their goal was to bury her proposal, and they’d succeeded. It cost many of them their already piss-poor reputations, which seemed like an appalling level of schadenfreude.
That was her perspective — until she started receiving emails from young girls across the country who she’d inspired to pursue science, despite being told they couldn’t; from parents thanking her for being a role model; even from talk shows asking to interview her.
Duke loved it. They saw a 30% increase in female STEM applicants from the highest previous year, not to mention great press. Walker’s course load was removed in lieu of individual seminars, allowing her to continue publishing while satisfying the increasing demand for public appearances. The conversation moved onto major news networks where Walker was the default expert, introduced as “Professor at Duke University.” She even delivered seminars at other institutions in the hopes of providing a similar boost to Duke’s post-graduate programs.
With her hectic schedule, successive publishings weren’t up to the quality she wanted. It forced her to tackle easier topics, and for all of the discourse, the scientific community was still problematic. Every paper she wrote was assumed ignorant. After years of repeatedly punching the same brick wall, she became exhausted with it and stopped publishing. A year ago, she stopped doing appearances altogether.
In the time since, she’d been doing some light research that piqued her interest, but had no plans to write about it. Her full return to teaching also served to humble her. For all of the emails she’d received from inspired children, none of her students had so much as heard her name. Teenagers didn’t watch academic gender debates on CNN. Denise Walker was the scientific equivalent of a famous blogger…back when those still existed.
Without that shift in drive, Walker wouldn’t be standing before this future biologist in the yellow tank top. Courtney would only have been fourteen or fifteen when that paper was published.
“Impressive,” Walker told her. “It was a fairly dense read for high school.”
“There was a lot I didn’t understand the first time,” Courtney said. “But it was the reason I got into biology.”
All of that crap teachers say about this being why they do it…this is why Walker did it.
“That’s wonderful to hear!” Walker said. “Hopefully, I’m able to teach you something valuable this summer.”
The once-shy girl laughed loudly, as if the idea she could learn anything less than lifelong wisdom was preposterous. With a snort, she collected herself, crimson returning to her cheeks, and wished Walker a good day.
With the rest of the afternoon free, Walker sequestered herself to her small office. Soft, golden light bathed a desk overcrowded with books about reptiles and biochemistry. With the desk and file cabinet, there was enough standing room for a few people at most. Until this year, she had spent minimal time in the workspace.
For the past few days, she had been struggling to find quality data surrounding the manufacturing of antivenin. At this stage, it was barely more than a curiosity. She was interested to see what the most common difficulties were in creating it, and whether genetic similarities in the animals played a significant role in the manufacturing.
Creating antivenin — also called antivenom — was not the routine process people assumed. Antidotes weren’t created from the venom itself. Small doses were given to animals sporting natural resistances, and the host’s antibodies were synthesized to make the antidote.
The initial problem was that the host animal often died as a result of the venom doing its job. Tough animals like horses were a safe bet, but it wasn’t enough for them to simply endure the venom. Different animals created different antibodies, which may be harder to utilize.
Worse still, some venoms were too tricky to combat with these methods. It wasn’t until 2019 that a proper antivenin was discovered for the box jellyfish. At the time, it was one of the most dangerous venoms on the planet. Applying it to any animal killed the host outright without the creation of antibodies, making the venom impossible to combat. A solution was finally discovered in the same location all of the top antivenins were discovered — Australia. Researchers at Sydney identified which pathway the venom moved through, noticed it required a certain type of cholesterol to function, and used existing drugs to block the flow of venom rather than synthesize an antidote.
Walker was interested to see how similar the final process was for venoms of genetically similar animals. It harkened back to her dissertation — the inspiration for the paper she published in ’18 — but truthfully, she was just curious.
Rubbing her eyes, she leaned back from her desk. The sun had dropped behind some buildings across the walkway, leaving the sky a dark blue. She glanced up at the analog clock on the opposite wall — it was almost seven. Time had slipped away from her.
She got up and stretched, deciding what she wanted to take home with her tonight. A soft knock came from the door, followed by the airy voice of her colleague, Katrina Stein.
“Hello?” The younger doctor opened the door. Her dull red polo and tan slacks were covered by a lab coat. She was taller than Walker, with brown eyes set into a pale, round face, framed by shoulder-length brunette hair. Stein was also in biology, finishing her first year as an associate professor. Both her lab coat and polo were covered in some sort of gunk.
“What are you still doing here?” Stein asked.
“Staying clean. Bad day?”
Stein looked down at herself as if for the first time. “Oh, we did frogs today,” she said indifferently. She was teaching a couple of general biology courses during the summer. “I forgot I had slime on my gloves. Is there still any in my hair?”
“A little,” Walker stifled a laugh. Over the past year, they’d become friends outside of work. Stein was an undergrad during Walker’s bout with fame, and later referenced one of Walker’s other papers in her graduate thesis. It was hard to tell if Walker had turned Stein into her protégé, or if Stein had made Walker her mentor, but that’s pretty much what had happened.
“I texted you a little while ago,” Stein said. “Is your phone off?”
“It must have died — I wasn’t expecting to stay this late.”
“Well, I was going to see if you were up for getting a drink when I was done, but probably not now.” She gestured to the frog guts in her hair.
They walked to the parking lot, discussing their courses. Walker never had great advice on lecturing since she’d done so little compared to most professors. When Stein was ready to publish her own research, Walker would happily list off every problem to expect, but there was no point in scaring her this early on.
Walker made the drive home quickly to her small, three-bedroom house in Durham. She liked the area. It was semi-rural with some space between lots, but only a few blocks from town. The taqueria on the corner of her turnoff caught her eye, making her suddenly aware that she hadn’t eaten since lunch. She decided against eating out, soon pulling her electric sedan into the long, narrow driveway of her home.
She stepped out into the chilly air. Like most houses on the quiet street, hers was surrounded by a number of trees. The blue-gray paint of the exterior was contrasted by red brick at the corners. A few of the tiles on the roof were peeling, but it wouldn’t be a concern until the end of summer.
With a thud, she dropped her bag next to the coat rack and shed her lab coat, making her way to the kitchen without fully stopping. Long shadows fell over her indoor spice garden from the trees in her backyard. Gardening had never been an interest for Walker, but she’d spent so much time traveling during her career that she was blindsided by her sudden domestication. Being at home more had kick-started some primal urge to grow her own parsley, and her backyard was now home to a growing vegetable garden complete with dead tomato plants.
After staring vacantly into the fridge for a minute, she grabbed a carton of cherry yogurt to tide her over while she contemplated exactly how much cooking she was willing to do. The evening news had already started when she sank into the couch and flicked the TV on. Walker ate her yogurt, half-listening to the end of a report about a test pilot in Georgia — he survived. Her lab coat still held her cell phone, but as she looked towards the coat rack, it felt much too far. Anyone important could reach her at home.
Like every old soul, she had a landline.
On that thought, she reached over to the end table and checked her answering machine for messages. She took her empty carton back to the kitchen as they played, deciding to make something simple for dinner. Back-to-back messages from robo-dialers blended with the news, which was now discussing primary candidates for the 2024 election a mere seventeen months away. Her chef’s knife was halfway through a stalk of broccoli when the third message gave her pause. It was definitely not a robot.
“Dr. Walker, this is Defense Secretary Dennis Lauer,” the machine echoed as she put the knife down and returned to the living room, shutting off the TV and restarting the message. “Dr. Walker, this is Defense Secretary Dennis Lauer. We’re in need of your expertise in an urgent matter and short on time — ”
Her brow furrowed as the message played. Why would the secretary of defense call her? Could it be someone from the University — a student? In eight years at Duke, she’d never been pranked by a student. Not to her knowledge, anyway. The number was listed as blocked, and she had no idea what the current secretary of defense sounded like. She was only vaguely sure his name was Lauer.
“ — we’ll try your work and cell again. When you get my message, please remain at home. I’m sending two agents with a car and will be able to give you more information in person.”
If this was a joke, it was a confusing one. The voice continued as Walker fetched her cell phone from her lab coat and threw it on a charger. “I know this is inconvenient, and I apologize that I can’t explain more, but I assure you the defense of our nation is at stake.”
“Ha!” Walker laughed audibly. It was just too much to be taken seriously.
She stared at the answering machine in awe while her cell phone juiced up. Sure enough, there was a new voicemail from a blocked number half an hour prior — same person, same content, different message.
“ — head home as soon as possible and wait there. I’m sending two agents with a car — ”
The doorbell rang.
Walker paused. Someone was actually here. It was far too elaborate for a prank, but it still didn’t make much sense otherwise. In what scenario was her expertise needed for national defense? She went to the door, raising herself onto the tips of her toes to look through the peephole, hoping to find a college kid having a laugh.
Nope. Not a kid.
A man in a suit stood on her porch. He was a bit younger than her, but well past college age; average height, standing with excellent posture. His dark face was cleanly shaven, black hair buzzed closely to the shape of his head. If his general appearance didn’t make him look like a fed, the suit and sunglasses sold the image. He looked overly like a fed. As if he were auditioning for the role of Federal Agent in a cheesy TV show.
“Dr. Denise Walker?” the man asked, clearly knowing the answer. From inside his suit, he removed a badge in a small folding booklet, the letters DIA printed in block letters in the background. “Defense Intelligence Agency. You were told to expect us.”
She glanced over his shoulder to see a black Escalade with tinted windows backed into the driveway behind her car.
“Did I do something?” she asked, trying to get a read on the man behind the shades. He was like stone.
“No ma’am, your assistance is requested by the Department of Defense.” He spoke formally, but something still felt off.
“May I see your badge again?”
Without giving a reaction, he removed his badge and held it up closer. Walker’s sharp nose nearly touched the plastic cover as she leaned in to get a good look. She had absolutely no idea what a DIA badge was supposed to look like, let alone what a fake one looked like, but she had already committed to inspecting it closely. The badge looked as official as any other government identification she’d seen.
Given the suspicious nature of their encounter, she also hadn’t decided whether being a real federal agent made the man more or less trustworthy. She tried again to get a read on the agent’s inanimate, sunglass-hidden face. If he found her prolonged inspection annoying, he didn’t show it. She looked back at the badge to get a name, which was printed in bold letters on top of layers of microprinting and watermarks: FOWLER, ISAAC.
