Congratulations Stem Cell Research Beneficiary!

Stem cell research is a fucking miracle of modern science, even if its mascot is a horrifying embodiment of medical waste.  In the debate on stem cell research, we all too often overlook the people whose lives are saved by these new medical techniques.  You're one of those people who has benefited so tremendously from medical advance, and so today, we'd like to highlight what's going on in your life.

Your knee will feel like it's going to break as it slams into the hood of the car, but the bone and cartilege will hold.  It'll hurt, though.  A lot, and rightly so: you'll just have leapt from a third story window on to the hood of a late 90s Japanese sedan of indeterminate make.  You'll need a second to gather yourself before you roll out of the indent you left in the car hood, grab the duffel bag full of money you throw off of the now-crushed cab of the car and start limping down the street.  After you get your rhythm going, you'll slide the magazine out of your pistol to check your ammunition.  Eight rounds will be left.

You'll have fired five so far.  Two of them went into the branch manager's knees, one of them went into the chest of a security guard, and two of them are wedged somewhere in the ceiling of the bank offices.  Given the volume of the sirens converging on the other side of the building, eight probably won't be enough to deal with the police coming your way.  It might be enough to buy you a little time, if you spend it right, but it won't be enough to get you away.  So as you limp you'll keep your eyes open, looking for some new way out, something you overlooked before.  You'll be halfway down the alley, on your way to main street when it comes to you: a sewer grate with a prybar next to it.

You'll have to drop the bag for a second to get the grate open, but your legs and spine, ruined less than a year earlier, now strong, fearsomely strong, will hold true.  The steel will rise easily, and the bag.  The bag will tumble down the sewer entrance and you'll follow it, bandanna tied around your face, grate closing behind you as you descend.

Inside the sewer, the stench will be overwhelming.  Your eyes will water at first, but you'll think about those medical bills, about your wife, waiting for you at home, about the agony she endured during the decade when you couldn't move, the agony you endured, the agony your family endured.

Your new legs will surge beneath you and the money, even though it'll have some extra water weight on it from its time in the sewer water, will feel lighter somehow.  You'll feel like your legs are already healing from your fall, like they've made you some sort of superhuman creature.  As you walk in what you hope is the direction of your house, you'll mutter to yourself.

"God bless stem cell research.  And damn the expense."

You'll give the bag of money a pat for good measure.

Congratulations Stem Cell Research Beneficiary!