Shaun stood there for a moment like the world’s biggest lost kid, hands hanging slack at his sides and face trapped in that look of flummoxed confusion that usually came right before he punched something. Then he shuffled over to take the seat that Dr. Kimberley had abandoned. I reached out and took his hand, squeezing it with all the strength I possessed. My grip was still good: The problems ravaging my body weren’t affecting my hands. Not yet, anyway.
“Cloning is a complicated science,” said Dr. Kimberley. “Some people still think it should be impossible, for both moral and logistical reasons. It takes a human body nine months to grow in the womb, and another twenty years to finish maturing. We condense that process into the span of less than a year, using hormones and growth stimulators and yes, controlled cancerous cells. The cancer is why this sort of thing would have been impossible before Kellis-Amberlee: We need the potential and power of tumorous growth to force a cloned embryo to adulthood, but without the virus to come in and shut it down, it would result in a completely unusable outcome. That being said, there’s a lot of strain on the maturing clone body. Things our bodies did over the course of years, theirs did over the course of weeks. There’s no time to slow down, or recover, or adjust for weaknesses that might otherwise be missed.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” demanded Shaun. I squeezed his hand and he turned to look at me, eyes bleak with terror and despair.
“Just listen, okay?” I asked. “That’s what I need you to do right now. Listen. Learn the facts, and then we can talk about them when she’s done.”
“I don’t like this,” he said.
“I don’t either,” I said. “We still need information before you get angry at the doctors who are trying to save me, all right?”
“All right,” he said, after a long pause. He squeezed my hand, and turned his attention back to Dr. Kimberley. “I’m listening.”
She smiled. Not with happiness: with resignation, and acceptance that whatever was about to be said, she was going to have to live with the consequences of having been the one to say it. I tightened my grip on Shaun’s hand. His temper was sometimes impressively bad, and he didn’t always have the best impulse control, especially where I was concerned. Alaric and Mahir had both had some really unpleasant stories about things he’d done while I was dead, mostly involving slamming people up against walls and occasionally breaking noses. I didn’t want him to punch anybody, or anything, and so I held on tight, and kept him with me. I just wanted him with me.
“Georgia’s organs were put under immense strain while she was being grown, and were further damaged by the CDC during her conditioning and preparation,” said Dr. Kimberley. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but we removed some biological time bombs from her system shortly after we removed her from CDC custody. They were based on the venom of a creature called the ‘sea wasp,’ and they both put additional pressure on her organs and left some residual traces of themselves behind. She is suffering from a condition called hyperkalemia, which means the potassium in her bloodstream is elevated. Now, normally, her kidneys would be doing most of the work to fix this. Hyperkalemia can be fatal, but it doesn’t usually get this advanced.” She stopped, looking like she wasn’t sure how to continue.
Dr. Abbey had no such qualms. “Her kidneys have basically shut down,” she said flatly. “They’re at maybe twenty percent function, and we’re having a dialysis machine brought in. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous that is.”
Dialysis had been routine before Kellis-Amberlee made blood one of the most frightening substances on the planet. Filtering the toxins out of my bloodstream meant risking the activation of the virus sleeping in my veins. It was unlikely—only a very small percent of dialysis cases ever had to deal with that particular complication—but it wasn’t unheard of.
Shaun bore down on my hand until it felt like the bones were about to give way. I didn’t tell him to stop. This was a sharp, external pain, and compared to the things my own body had been doing to me, it was nothing. It was almost pleasant to have something else that I could focus on. “We’re not keeping her on dialysis forever. You’re right that you don’t have to tell me how dangerous that is. She’ll amplify. She’ll die.”
“And since I don’t have my reservoir condition to protect me anymore, that’s a bad scene,” I said. “I still think I get a vote here, Shaun. You remember that, right? That I’m the one who gets to make the final call about my treatment?”
He shot me a half-alarmed look. “I do, but—you know how bad this is, don’t you? This could kill you.”
“Thing is, not doing it will kill me. Sometimes you have to roll the dice if you want to win the game. And she’s not done.” I turned back to Dr. Abbey. “You need to tell him the rest.”
“You mean the part he really isn’t going to like? Oh, sure, I had nothing better to do with my time today. Getting yelled at by your asshole boyfriend is exactly what I needed to make my life complete.” Dr. Abbey paused to dig her fingers into the fur atop Joe’s head, gathering her thoughts, before she looked at Shaun and said, with perfect clarity and calm, “I told you her kidneys have basically shut down. What you may not realize is that they’re going to continue failing. That means that even if there were no other risks associated with dialysis, it would still be necessary to keep her breathing until we can reach the next stage of her treatment.”
“Her liver has also been compromised,” added Dr. Kimberley, who must have been feeling left out. “It’s not as damaged as her kidneys, but that’s not saying much. As to why this is all happening at once, when her kidneys started to go, they put more pressure on the rest of her system, and any weaknesses that had been waiting to show themselves began to manifest. Which is a good thing, in a way. It means there aren’t likely to be any more nasty surprises lurking. It just means…” She stopped.
Dr. Abbey didn’t say anything. Both of the doctors who were working to keep me alive just looked at me, and I realized that they were waiting for me to explain the next steps to Shaun. It made sense. He was less likely to be angry with me than he was with them; he loved me, and he just wanted me to be okay. Making myself the target of his distress was the safest thing for everyone. I still felt a little bit like I was being thrown to the wolves.
I pulled my hand out of his and sat up straighter in the bed, trying to look imposing, trying to look like I wasn’t as upset as he was. It was hard not to resent the fact that I needed to be strong for him, even though I knew that he spent a hell of a lot of time being strong for me. “Do you remember Dr. Shoji?” I asked.
“I do,” said Shaun. “He’s still with the CDC, isn’t he?”
“Technically, he’s with the EIS; Joey quit the CDC a long time ago,” said Dr. Kimberley. “More importantly, he’s still a friend before he’s anything else. He’s your friend. He’s my friend. He’s the President’s friend.”
Ryman’s term in office was nearing its conclusion, but as long as he held the White House, we could at least be sure that the United States government wasn’t going to hunt us down for shits and giggles. That was a small mercy. “He’s coming here.”
“What?” Shaun’s eyes narrowed. He turned to glare at Dr. Kimberley. “Why?”
She licked her lips nervously, eyes darting from side to side before settling on Shaun. Sounding almost apologetic, she said, “I want you to understand that this wasn’t part of a nefarious plan, Shaun. This was all about the medical science, and about understanding how a simple neural map had been able to become so strong. There was the possibility that Kellis-Amberlee was bonding with people on a genetic level, through the same process that has happened throughout history, and that it might thus be absorbed and become less dangerous, and we needed test models for that…”
“That is some Resident Evil bullshit,” said Shaun. “What did you do?”
“They didn’t lose all their samples when the Seattle lab went up, and even if they had, they would have still had all the blood she”—Dr. Abbey gestured toward me—“donated at the various checkpoints and checkups between her escape and the two of you getting the fuck out of Dodge. They’ve been cloning Georgia ever since she ran away.”
Shaun went very still. I put a hand on his arm.
“No more neural maps,” I said. “No more implanted memories. None of them have been allowed to wake up.” At least that was what Dr. Kimberley had told me, and I needed to believe her; I needed to let myself believe that this was a genuine rescue, and not a deal with the devil.
“Mostly, we’ve been working with isolated systems,” said Dr. Kimberley. “Tissue analysis, infection analysis, even a few maps of the process via which a reservoir condition takes hold. We’re learning a lot. We’ve been utterly respectful, I swear.”
“Did you ask permission?” asked Shaun mildly. I recognized the danger in his tone. “I mean, did you like, e-mail her or something and say, ‘Hey, can we keep playing with your genetic material, just to see what happens’? Because if you didn’t, I’m not sure you can call what you did ‘respectful.’ True to form, maybe. You science assholes, you never care who gets hurt, do you? You just want to see what you can do. How far you can push it.”
“Since she’s offering to save my life, could you maybe stop with the recriminations for five minutes and listen?” My voice cracked. I felt bad about that. I wanted to stay strong, serene, the girl who could handle anything. But I was scared out of my wits, and I needed Shaun to focus. I needed him to be in my corner, not just on my side. “Please. I’m begging you here. Just listen.”
“Sorry.” Shaun rubbed his face with one hand. “I’m listening.”
Dr. Kimberley took a breath to steady herself, and said, “Dr. Shoji is bringing the supplies we need for a full transplant operation. Since all cloning is done under sterile conditions, we don’t need to worry about conflicting strains of Kellis-Amberlee; Georgia’s infection will be the only one present, and will spread into the new tissue. There’s a chance, given her previous reservoir condition, that she may develop a new reservoir condition following the transplant. She’ll be monitored the entire time. She’ll have three of the best doctors in the world working on her.”
“Is either of you a surgeon?” Shaun demanded.
“Joey is,” said Dr. Abbey. “He’s fully licensed and has been practicing within the last five years. He only takes cases that interest him. People would kill to have him operate on them.”
It was my turn to frown. Something wasn’t adding up. “Then what were you working on with Dr. Shoji when you were both at the CDC?” I asked. “What would you need a surgeon for?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. There was no way the truth could be worse than the things my imagination could come up with.
“I’m a virologist who works in genetic engineering,” said Dr. Abbey. She was sidestepping the question: I could hear it in her voice. “Joey is also a virologist, but he specializes in the impact of the virus on the body, not in the virus in its pure state. He genuinely wants to know what a disease will do to somebody.” She sounded faintly baffled, like this was an obsession that made no sense at all. “He’s been a licensed surgeon for the past twenty years. If there’s anyone you should trust to open up your sister, it’s him.”
Shaun went pale and didn’t say anything. I sighed.
“I don’t think he trusts anyone to ‘open me up,’” I said. “But since it has to happen anyway, please continue.”
“Joey is coming here with fresh, untaxed organs,” said Dr. Abbey. “He’s going to perform the surgery, stay long enough to be sure that Georgia is on the mend, and then get back to his very important work.”
Sometimes Shaun was faster on the uptake than I was, generally when our lives were on the line. “Dr. Shoji is with the EIS. Dr. Kimberley is with the EIS. Both of them are working on Georgia’s case. Neither of them can really afford to do this sort of charity case unless there’s good publicity in it for them. Dr. Abbey, who did you tell?”
“She told us,” said a voice from the doorway. We both turned. Mahir—older, thinner, with more gray at his temples than I remembered—offered a wan smile. “Alaric’s just parking the car and negotiating a ceasefire with Foxy. He and Maggie should be right in. Hello, Shaun. Hello, Georgia. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah,” I said, and smiled back. I couldn’t stop myself. It wasn’t possible. “It has.”