An hour later, Kristen deposits a few drops of my blood in a test tube. They break through the surface of a clear liquid and slowly sink to the bottom, dissolving to thin pink ribbons. Her eyes flash to mine, then settle back on the contents of the test tube, which she’s holding close to her face. With one quick flick of her wrist, she swirls the tube. My blood and the clear liquid mix and, by some chemical reaction, the solution slowly changes color, turning a muted shade of green.
A satisfied smile spreads over Kristen’s lips, and all I can do is wonder how in the world she can do any of this in an improvised lab. I don’t know much about DNA tests and developing cures, but it seems to me those things are too complicated for the likes of this place.
“Did it work?” James asks, his voice vibrating with excitement.
“Did you doubt it?”
James laughs a hearty laugh, and I’m taken aback by how different his face looks. His gray eyes sparkle, his teeth flash, white and straight. I do a double-take and wonder if he’s much younger than I’ve always imagined.
He clasps a heavy hand on my back and almost knocks me off the tall stool where I’m sitting. James fetched me from the eating area a few minutes ago and dragged me in here without an explanation.
“Did what work?” I demand. They are using my freaking blood, the least they could do is explain why I continue to be their lab rat.
“Marci!” Kristen says my name like an exclamation. Her face is bright, making her look younger too. I don’t dare guess what this is. Instead, I worry about the fact that she’s being nice to me for the first time in forever. “Marci, your blood . . . your blood may have finally given me the answer.”
My gaze flashes back between James and Kristen. The answer to what?! The question plays inside my head over and over, though I’m unable to ask it out loud.
“I’ve been struggling with designing a vaccine and a cure.” Kristen sets the test tube in a small rack. She peels off her rubber gloves and throws them in a red, biohazard box. “But you,” she takes her hands to her head, then pulls them away as if to indicate an explosion, “you have opened new paths I hadn’t considered.”
I lick my lips. “Wait a minute. I just talked to you like two hours ago and now you’re telling me that you’ve figured out a cure? That’s impossible . . . how?”
James chuckles. “It’s her ability, Marci. She has worked for years in developing it, and it’s now at its cusp. She has enhanced her senses to help her in this task. She has modified her occipital lobe to increase her spacial intelligence and see patterns more easily. She also modified her sense of smell, and it is now highly advanced. She can perceive subtle differences in substances and know exactly what’s missing. She can detect diseases like cancer through her sense of smell alone.”
What?! Impossible! That’s my first thought, then I have to shake my head to dispel my doubt. I’ve heard of dogs capable of smelling cancerous cells in patients, so I know it’s possible, especially for a Symbiot bent on curing the worst plague that has ever attacked the human race.
My heart begins to beat at a million miles per hour.
“No, I haven’t figured out a cure, not yet,” Kristen says. “But now I know exactly what I need to do. It was only a matter of time before, but now,” she chuckles, “now the time is nigh.” She finishes with a dramatic flair and an exuberant smile. She has been fighting this much longer than me. If I’m excited, then she’s exultant.
“So . . . did you smell something in my blood?”
“No.” Kristen shakes her head. “I’d examined your blood before, there’s nothing unusual in it as far as scent goes. Mostly iron like everyone else’s. It was the new information you brought, combined with examining your DNA under a new light plus ideas I’ve played with for several years.”
I want more but this is all she gives me. My annoyed look must say it all because she tries to placate me.
“It’s hard to explain. It has to do with antivirals, antiparasitics, vaccines, nano-trappers, and the way they all work,” she says, talking as fast as my heart is beating. “It also has to do with the high levels of serotonin in your brain, and the way you separated your DNA from the agent’s, in spite of the embryonic-level infection.”
“The what?”
She ignores my confused question. She’s too excited to hear anything besides her own thoughts. “I’d like to think I would have stumbled upon the discovery eventually, but this will certainly speed things up.” She walks to a large microscope, looks into it and tinkers with the settings, murmuring under her breath.
I give James a “some help here” look.
He shrugs. “She won’t listen to anyone when she gets like this. We should let her work. C’mon.” He ushers me past the tent’s zippered door.
“So what do I do now? Do I go back?” I know my work at Whitehouse’s is important, but the few hours I’ve spent here have flipped a switch inside of me that I’d left untouched for a while.
James shakes his head. “Things are changing rapidly. I have to talk to the other cell leaders. Our plans need to be fluid and, after this, it might be unwise to send you back without further discussion. The risks may outweigh the benefits at this point.”
An irrational mixture of joy and relief fill my chest. I want to stay, even if there are things I could still do from Whitehouse’s headquarters. I look over my shoulder. Kristen looks distorted behind the clear, plastic walls. “Can you explain what she was talking about?”
“Nah, she barely made any sense when she first told me. We need to let her work. This is what she’s good at. Her mind works like a dynamo, especially lately.” He circles a hand over his temple.
“She’s tweaked something in her brain that has sent her to another level. I’m afraid she’ll start thinking of me as a preschooler when all this is over. She’ll be too smart for her own good.” He gives an unamused chuckle.
I stop at the threshold, before stepping out into the sleeping area. “Do you think it will ever end?”
James turns to face me. There is a certain look in his eyes that reminds me of my father. His storm gray eyes search me and seem to look right through my armored exterior. “It will. One way or another. And if I know Kristen, it’ll be soon. Maybe it’ll begin tomorrow.”
I wait for a smile to indicate he’s joking, but he’s dead serious.
“Tomorrow?”
“Notice I said begin. Even with a cure and vaccine, it won’t be easy. There are too many people infected. A great number of them, including you and I, have been carrying this parasite for years. There’s no telling what a cure would do to us. So no, it won’t be overnight. But we have plans in place to distribute a vaccine and a cure.” His gaze falls to the floor, but I’m sure he’s seeing a spot beyond this old warehouse. He is far away, lost in a memory, perhaps. “I have to believe that it will end, that we’ll defeat them. I made a promise once, so I have no choice but to keep it.”
My throat goes rigid with emotion. I can sense this is no idle promise he’s talking about. It means a lot to him, too much even.
The paternal look is back in his eyes. “You remind me of her. Always have.”
God.
Does he have a daughter? Did he lose her?
Please, no!
I don’t dare ask.
“It’s the reason I made so many mistakes with you,” he continues. “I wanted to protect you. I guess I never learned my lesson. We all make our own decisions and, in the end, we can’t truly protect anyone.”
“W-who?” I manage to ask in a broken voice.
“My sister.” James’s eyes shine, even in the pale lighting on this side of the warehouse. To my surprise, he pulls out his wallet and shows me a small picture. “Her name was Farrah. She died when she was fifteen.”
The girl in the photograph is beautiful, with shoulder-length brown hair, a happy smile, and James’s gray eyes.
“I miss her every day,” he says with a sigh, then puts the wallet away.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t be. She was brave, like you. She lived and died on her own terms.”
I nod, thinking there is no better way, wishing someone will say that about me when I’m gone.
“This might seem like a strange question, but . . . ” he breaks eye contact, clears his throat.
His sudden self-conscious behavior is strange, and I can’t imagine what he’s about to ask.
“After it’s all over, I thought that maybe you would like . . . a family.”
My breath catches. Tears rush to my eyes and, just like that, I’m undone. I blink rapidly to avoid crying, but my tears are too many and they spill onto my cheeks, warm and salty and ripe with incredulity and an odd sort of happiness.
I have no words. They haven’t made any that match such an offer. So I do the only thing I know to do. I take a step forward and wrap my arms around his waist. He feels like a solid wall of certainty and safety. He feels just the way Dad used to feel.
He holds me, accepting my silence, and this unusual gesture that is a better answer than words could ever shape.