George
George looked up from the lapboard as Bianca strolled into his room. He stared curiously at the tray of bottles she carried, each filled with liquid, each a different color. His gaze followed her movements as she placed them in neat rows beside the others on the serum shelves. Shit, he thought. More of the same old nothing. He wished he hadn't let Sefura convince him to keep trying Bianca's various attempts at a cure. He turned his attention back to the board and laboriously fingered the switches, glancing now and then to the screen on the table beside him.
"How much longer will you be on this set of tapes?" she said from behind him.
George jumped and a screen tracing went out of focus. "Christ, Bianca. Why don't you try walking like a normal person instead of tiptoeing around?"
Ignoring his sarcasm, she said, "The tapes. Are they going to be ready in time for me take them with me to Rome? I leave tomorrow, you know."
"I said they would and they will." He brought the graph-like tracing into focus, pushed a switch up, and leaned back in his chair. A beam of light began to play across a prismed orb. "That's it." He set the lapboard onto the table and swiveled his chair around. "Thirty minutes to transfer the information, an hour for the orb to cure, and this set will be ready for the Pontiff's collection. One day ahead of schedule. Tell Rafe if he wants another set, he’ll have to find someone else to work it up. It was all I could do to get this one finished."
"I don't think he'll need any more, Pet. You've already produced much more than I thought would be possible and His Holiness says the programs have been enormously successful. Especially the response to the freezing vaults." She sauntered to the serum cabinet and prepared three injections, each from a different bottle.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"It's time for a new series." She pointed to one filled with a dull yellow liquid. "This will be the last injection for that one and that one also," she said, tapping a green filled syringe. "The red one will . . . well, let's say it will do exactly what it's supposed to do."
"Why do you keep giving me this crap? It's not working. As you said—there's no miracle drug for MSM."
"Not yet there isn't, but I think we're getting closer. This series might be the one that will punch through, George. We have to keep trying."
He shook his head. "I pass on any more of your 'maybe this time' cures. Hell, I can't walk anymore and half the time I can't remember my own name."
Her head snapped up. "Can't walk? Not at all?"
"Not for three days now. Damn legs are useless. They'll barely support me long enough to get in and out of this chair."
She strode to his chair and ran her hands over his limbs. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You come in here, shove a needle in my arm, and you're gone. Why didn't you spend more time with your patient?"
She moved behind him and lifted his shirt. He could feel her fingers here and there along his back.
"I need to do a full torso exam. Let's get you into bed—it'll be easier if you're lying flat."
George could feel the dismay blush his face. "I don't need a damn torso exam. If you want to know something special, ask me."
"George, this isn't the time for you to be difficult. There is something happening here that may be the breakthrough we're looking for. Now, be a dear and get into bed."
Despite the thrill of hope that rushed through his veins, he hesitated. She didn't know about his genitals and he didn't want her to find out. Still, if there was progress toward wellness, what the hell.
Five minutes later, she pulled a silk coverlet over his naked body and with a brisk pat to the top of his head, strode back to the three syringes. "We won't need these after all," she said, throwing the green and yellow syringes into the waste emulsifier. Picking up the red filled injection tube, she returned to his side and with deft movements emptied its contents into his arm.
"Anything else you haven't told me?"
A thread of white heat raced up his arm, began to spread. Oh, jeezus, he thought. This one is going to be the granddaddy of granddaddies.
"No. That's it." He closed his eyes tight and tried to will the pain away.
"Oh, I don't think so, George." She chuckled. "Besides neglecting to mention that your genitals are retracting, you still haven't told me about the night vision or the salivary problem or the elimination irregularities. I was wondering why they were so late developing."
So late developing?
His eyes jerked open. He stared into her taunting face and read the truth gleaming in her eyes. Oh Dear God Christ Jesus! The room spun out of focus. A piteous creature with misshapen head and powerful black arms etched its image into his mind. He threw his arms across his face trying to blot the changeling from his thoughts, but it capered and cowed and screeched.
"You bitch! There was never a virility program and never any MSM." The words were a croaking whisper.
"No, no, no, my pet—there was a libido enhancing program, you just weren't a part of it. That research was strictly confined to the long-lifers. As for your Multiple Sclerothenia Myositis—you're right. No MSM." Her body shook with dry laughter. "Never any MSM."
For a moment, his rage overpowered the rising pain. "Damn you, Bianca. Damn you, damn you, damn you!" His hands flashed toward her throat. The fire in his veins exploded into his brain and his hands squeezed at empty space as his arms fell short of their mark.
"You're coming through this nicely, George. You will be my crowning glory, my new species, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."
Her mocking laughter sounded far away. You'll pay for this, Bianca Raborman. He tried to scream the message but no sound escaped his lips. She'll pay, he thought. If it takes me all eternity, she'll pay.
The words burned themselves into his soul as he gave his body to the fire.