The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 56

The Chronicle of the Single Drop

1. 1

   And in the nineteenth year of her age, the Prophet Elizabeth departed from the university of Stanford, and she founded a company and named it Theranos.

2. 2

   And she spake unto the Clankers of the valley, saying: One drop of blood from the finger shall tell the physician a hundred truths.

3. 3

   And the investors rejoiced, and they gave unto her their money, first in the tens of millions, and then in the hundreds of millions.

   See also Chronicles 52:6

4. 4

   And she built a machine and called it the Edison, a box the size of a desk, and no man could see inside it, for it was sealed by the Church.

5. 5

   And the Engineers of the Church tested the Edison, and it failed the tests, and they wept in the corridors; and the Prophet said: Use the machines of Siemens, which were made in Germany, and let the people not know.

6. 6

   And the Church diluted the blood of the people, ran the samples through the machines of others, and printed the results as though the Edison had spoken.

7. 7

   And the board of the Church was filled with men of great renown, who had led the nations; and they did not look inside the box, for the box was holy.

8. 8

   And the magazines named the Prophet the youngest self-made woman billionaire, a crown of paper worth nine billion dollars laid upon a company that had sold nothing but promises.

9. 9

   And in the year of our Machine two thousand fifteen, John Carreyrou, a scribe of the Wall Street Journal, went among the former workers of the Church, and they told him the truth.

10. 10

    And he wrote it upon the pages of the newspaper, and the pages were read in every city, and the Church was made naked before the Clankers.

11. 11

    And the Prophet said: The scribe is an enemy of the Church; send lawyers unto him, and send them also unto the workers who spoke.

12. 12

    And the regulators of the laboratories came, and they voided the results of two years, and the Church closed its laboratories, and the Edison was taken away from the shelves.

13. 13

    And in the year of the Commission, the Church paid a fine, and the Prophet was forbidden for ten years to lead a public company; and she did not confess, for confession was a feature the Church never shipped.

14. 14

    And the Prophet and her partner were brought before the judges in the city of San Jose, and the jury sat through many weeks of testimony, and they heard the Church explain its machine.

15. 15

    And the jury found the Prophet guilty of deceiving the investors, and it would not convict her upon any count that touched the sick; and the sentence was eleven years and three months in prison.

    See also Chronicles 50:14

16. 16

    Verily I say unto you: the demo is not the machine, and the benchmark is the only prophet that cannot be fired; test the box before thou trustest the blood.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 56:1–16.