‘Help,’ Ben said, running through the aperture at the other end of the bridge. ‘Someone help us.’
I snapped out of my astonishment and ran after him. I entered a sleek lobby. Everything in it was curvilinear and geometrically complex. Even the chairs were designed in honeycomb shapes that shouldn’t have been possible. Self-supporting structures that had to have been 3D printed.
A nurse and doctor came through a door on the other side.
‘She needs help,’ Ben said as they rushed over.
The nurse – a tall, muscular, rakish man in his mid-thirties with a windswept California tan and straw-blond hair – ran to the wall by an unstaffed reception desk and pressed a panel. It retracted to reveal a small closet, and he pulled out a platform that had no wheels. As he removed it from its holster, it powered up and hovered at waist height. He ran over, pushing the high-tech gurney ahead of him.
‘Put her down,’ he said. He had an American accent.
Ben lowered Beth onto the stretcher.
‘Run diagnostic,’ the doctor, also American, said. She was a slim woman in her forties and exuded intensity as she craned over the gurney.
It came alive with holographic imagery of Beth’s vital signs, scans of her major organs, and analysis of her bloodwork, and the doctor studied them all.
Ben and I followed the medics into a bay off the lobby. The dome-shaped room was constructed out of the same translucent plastic we’d seen elsewhere in the building, but the moment we stepped inside, the walls came to life with an extremely realistic forest scene. It was as though we were outside. There was a rocky brook nearby and water babbled over pebbles. Birds flew between the branches, chirping and whistling, and the wind ruffled the leaves. It was an unnerving experience to be suddenly thrust outside, but when I acclimatized to the simulation I found the environment soothing, which was the point I suppose.
The nurse pushed Beth into the centre of the dome and stepped back while the gurney diagnostics linked up with a larger system, and more data appeared in the air above my wife.
‘How long has she been gone?’ the doctor asked.
‘Two or three minutes,’ Ben replied.
It felt like an age, but he was right; it was only minutes since I’d watched Beth die for the second time in my life.
The doctor studied the displays. ‘We’ve got a cardiac arrest. Code blue. We need to restart.’
The nurse produced two pads from a small drawer in the gurney and pressed them onto Beth’s sternum.
‘Charge,’ the nurse said, and the hologram displayed the two pads accumulating energy. After a few moments, he gave a command. ‘Release.’
The hologram showed the pads discharge their energy into Beth, and a second or two later, the holographic representation of her heart started to beat.
I looked at Ben with tears in my eyes, and he smiled at me. I didn’t register it at the time, but when I reflect on that moment I realize there was a tremendous sadness about him.
‘We’ve got a pulse,’ the doctor said. She examined the hologram above Beth. ‘I’m also seeing stage-four lymphoma. How did it get this bad? What treatment has she had?’
‘Chemotherapy,’ I replied. ‘We also tried T-Cell engineering.’
‘Chemo?’ she asked. ‘T-cells? No one’s used that for a hundred years.’
‘They’ve been overseas,’ Ben lied.
‘Prep five CCs of Kryopeptide,’ the doctor instructed the nurse. ‘Do you consent to its administration?’ she asked me. ‘I assume you’re this woman’s partner.’
‘Yes, I’m her husband,’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘What is Kryopeptide?’
‘It’s a synthetic peptide delivery system that administers a gene edit to directly target cancer cells. It’s perfectly harmless. Do you consent?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Please do whatever you can.’
She manipulated the hologram, and replayed footage of me giving my consent. I looked around the room for a camera, but saw nothing other than the projection of the forest. The sun shone through trees and the dappled light fell on the tiled floor around us. It was a beautiful scene made more wondrous by what was happening.
The nurse touched part of the forest and a small patch of wall returned to its normal state. A plastic panel opened to reveal a robotic arm and a tiny reactor. It looked like an advanced version of peptide synthesizers I’d come across in the genetics lab at Keele. The robot’s tiny octopus-like metallic tendrils could be seen through a reinforced window in the small machine as it finished creating a dose of Kryopeptide. A green light flashed and a hatch opened at the top of the reactor.
‘It’s matched to her genotype,’ the nurse said as he extracted a vial from the device.
‘Good. Let’s administer,’ the doctor said.
The nurse attached a needle-less syringe to the vial and returned to Beth. He pressed the device against her neck and pushed a button, and the liquid in the vial permeated her body.
I edged closer and watched in amazement as her eyelids started to flutter. Was she regaining consciousness?
The hologram showed the Kryopeptide spreading through her body.
‘She’ll be in remission within an hour,’ the doctor said. ‘It will take a couple of days for the damage to be repaired at a genetic level, but after that she’ll be completely cured.’
Colour started returning to Beth’s face. I staggered and the nurse caught me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I sobbed. Never had I dreamed such a thing would be possible.
I wondered if I was hallucinating, if this was all a delusion brought on by grief. I turned to Ben for reassurance and confirmation.
But he was gone.