Salby Damned (33 page)

Evie hurried to the lift, wishing it didn’t take quite so long to get topside, though grateful for the time to smooth over her hair and freshen up.

“Dr. Eebie. Yay!” said Holly.

“Hello, munchkin, how you doing?” she said, attempting a smile.

“Have you had breakfast and washed your faces?” Evie said, noticing they were dressed.

“Yes, Evie, done that!” said Tom triumphantly.

“They’ve been as good as gold, Evie, both had hoops on toast with soldiers and some juice, and Holly has given Polly her morning feed like a good girl,” Janey added.

“Can we see Naffam now, Dr. Eebie, I’ve not seen him for ages.”

“If we’re ready to go, then I think we should, don’t you?”

“Yay!” from both of them, with Tom also excited to see the facility below.

“Now, listen first. We are going to a very secret place and you must keep it to yourselves and not tell other people about it. Don’t wander off, Tom. It’s a huge place and you will get lost for hours. Don’t touch anything, and you’ll need to wear a facemask to see Nathan. No shouting or running and you must do as we ask while you’re there, no excuses. Dr. Kate Simmons will be there to help us through. You might find it upsetting, and if you do, you must let us know so that we can bring you back up here, okay?”

Both children nodded in response, understanding the seriousness of her tone, but eager to see Nathan. Evie led them through to the study and into the lift; she failed to close the wood panel doors in her haste. Tom asked which floor they needed from the two options and then he let Holly push the button. The shiny steel doors closed. The children could barely stand still during the descent, chattering between themselves.

Finally, the lift slowed to a halt, and as the doors parted, the children saw a huge circular room with pure white walls and numerous steel lift doors inset. In the middle was a large desk at which stood two burly-looking guards, both with shouldered rifles. Tom’s face lit up, instantly.

“Cooor! Look at those guns!” he said, staring at the men who smiled back; they knew of the visit.

“It’s, it’s very white, Dr. Eebie.”

“Yes, Holly. It has to be very clean in this place. We don’t want any more nasty germs to get in, do we?” Evie replied, ironically.

“No, no. Not germs.”

“Come on then, kids, this way. It’s quite a walk to where Nathan is.”

They made their way to the bio-lab rooms. Seeing Nathan through the glass wall, the children fell silent.

“He’s sleeping, Dr. Eebie. Naffam? Naffam? Are you sleeping?” Holly called.

“He cannot hear you, munchkin. He’s in a very deep sleep which we hope will help to make him better.”

“This place is awesome!” said Tom

Evie led them to the glass separator wall; she wouldn't take them into the lab itself. She put thick surgical masks over the children's faces, just to be on the safe side. They pressed their tiny hands against the cool glass, watching Nathan as he breathed.

The woman in the opposite glass bio-lab became agitated, sitting bolt upright with her hands frantically trying to move, but restrained by the leather straps. The children turned to see the commotion as the doctors rushed in to calm the woman.

“Mommy, mommy, mommy!” Holly yelled, as both children raced from Nathan’s lab window to stand at the glass wall.

“That’s our mum, Evie. You found her!” Tom said, hugging Evie’s waist.

“Mommy, I love you, Mommy! That’s my mommy, Dr. Eebie, in there!” said Holly and tears of joy ran down her face.

Realisation slowly dawned on Evie; it took a few seconds before her feet would actually move. The chances must be millions to one, she thought; then her brain kicked into gear again.

“Release her straps!” she said to the doctors, “She isn’t going to hurt us. Let her come to the glass to see her children. She’s their mother.”

They removed the straps, and within seconds, the woman had swung off the bed and kneeled at the glass, trying to touch the hands of her children through the thick clear wall; she wept with joy at seeing them. The kids cried too, sobbing as they pressed their hands and lips to the glass, covering their mother’s hands with only the barrier keeping them from their mum.

“Mommy has a poorly arm,” sobbed Holly.

“Yes, she does, but we’re hoping that she will get better soon, munchkin,” Evie assured her, trying to stem her own welling tears as she watched them.

Holly stood back a little from the glass and began to move her hands, forming shapes in between touching her lips and ears. Tom did the same as the mother formed similar actions with her own hands.

“What are you doing?” Evie asked, curiously.

“We’re talking to mum, of course,” said Tom, as if her question had been silly.

Click, the penny dropped.

“You’re signing, is that it?” Evie asked.

“Dr. Eebie. Mommy has poorly ears; she can’t hear anything so we use our hands to tell her that we love her. Lookie, see,” said Holly, forming the shapes for her mother to see.

The woman reacted by touching her lips and blowing a kiss to her daughter. The woman smiled with joy at her children's presence as Holly signed another message that Evie couldn’t understand.

“Mommy says I can kiss her arm better, Dr. Eebie. That’s how she makes us better when we hurt ourselves. Can I?”

“Can you tell your mommy what I’m saying? If I tell you, will you sign to her so that she understands?”

“Yes, we can do that!” said Tom, proudly.

“Tell her: Hello, Charlotte. My name is Dr. Evelyn Shepherd, and she has been brought here because of a very rare condition that she has which is harmful to you two. We cannot allow direct contact, but what I can do is get you to kiss Mommy’s new dressing for her arm, and we’ll put that on to replace the old one. Will that be okay?”

Holly smiled and nodded as she signed the details to her mother who clasped her hands together, as if in prayer, and mouthed a thank you that Evie could understand too.

Evie put on her white lab coat and facemask before entering the bio-lab. She removed the dressing from the arm wound having gestured for Charlotte to return to the bed. From the metal alloy drawers of the room, she took a clean gauze dressing, before entering the airlock towards Holly.

“Here we are, look. Give this a kiss, and you, Tom, then we’ll put those kisses on Mommy’s poorly arm to make her better,” Evie said, lowering the pad for the children to reach as they kissed.

They smiled as they watched Evie place the pad upon their mother’s wound. Charlotte didn’t flinch at the injury, which still looked very sore, even after it had been cleaned up with antiseptic liquid. Bandaging the gauze against the wound, Evie watched as the children signed to their mother, not sure what they were saying. For the first time in a while, Evie felt good, having witnessed the reuniting of the children with their mother. It was truly a miracle that they should have found her.

Arrangements were made to provide Charlotte with a pen and paper with which to write to the care team and doctors. She was able to tell them of her medical history and of how the virus made her feel, physically and mentally. It seemed that memories were difficult for Charlotte to recall—things she had done in childhood or events in her life—like the birth of her children.

She had been separated from the children when the shopping centre had been over-run with infected people; she had put them into an unlocked cleaner’s cupboard and run for her life, intending to return for them. Then, she'd been bitten on the arm by a child. After that, Charlotte didn’t really recall much; she walked for a long time, not knowing where she was or where she was going. She'd remembered bright lights and the tall fence of the base and a soldier who came for her.

Evie left Charlotte, having researched her life as much as she needed. The children continued to sign and they and their mother laughed together; it was good to see, Evie thought.

She made her way next door to check again on Nathan. The joy of the scenes in the other lab faded at the sadness she felt seeing him that way.

“Any change, Kate?” she asked, as the doctor checked the vital signs again.

“There are slight variations in heart rate and his blood pressure has dropped marginally. We’re compensating for it and trying to maintain a constant.”

“The virus is doing its work already, slowly breaking down his defences, and I don’t know what to do,” Evie said, fighting back the tears again.

“You should do what you do best, what people the world over admire you for. Go and be a microbiologist; get down to the nitty-gritty and tear this virus right back to the basics when you first engineered it. It has to have a weak spot and all we have to do is find it. If you can't find it, nobody can.”

“You’re right, I know you’re right. Self-pity won’t fix it. I’ll be in the lab if anything changes.”

Kate nodded as Evie left the bio-lab, heading for her own workstation. She told the children that she would be back for them in a few hours to take them for food.

Entering her lab, Evie sat looking at the computer analysis screen and began mentally to dissect the virus she had created. She examined the effect of variations in blood types, including the rarest known to exist, and ran simulations of the formula used in the serum, doing a very similar analysis to that Charles had done. There was something missing; something was needed to make the picture complete. After four hours of simulation after simulation, she stood, frustrated at the results from her machines, wondering if their programming was correct.

Evie decided to join the children, take them for some dinner and see if they could tell her anything they hadn’t already. She greeted them with a smile and waved to Charlotte through the glass. They turned, as they always had, running to her for a hug, and this made Charlotte smile as she looked on.

“Let’s go eat, Mummy needs a bath. She’ll like that so she will need an hour or two, okay?”

“Ummm, welllll, okay then,” said Tom, looking at his mother as he spoke.

“Can, can we come back after though, pleeeeeease, Dr. Eebie?” asked Holly.

“Yes, of course, you can, but you’ll have to let Mummy sleep too so we can’t stay too late. Alright?”

“Yay! Okay,” Tom said for both of them.

They waved to their mum, blowing kisses as they turned for the elevator. The children took off the surgical masks and handed them to Evie. The ride up was filled with the sound of excited children who'd found their mum again.

“Do you know much about your dad, Tom?” Evie asked.

He looked puzzled for a moment, cocking his head to one side, before answering.

“Not much really. Mum doesn’t talk about him a lot, and I don’t remember seeing him, though I probably did when I was very little.”

“Daddy has blue blood,” Holly chipped in.

“Holly, what do you mean?”

“Mommy has minus blood and daddy has plus blood; that’s what mommy says.”

“She means Mum is AB negative and Dad is AB positive. Mum calls it blue blood,” said Tom, explaining what Holly had meant.

“That must make you two very special indeed because you’ll each have a little of Mummy and a little of Daddy in your genes,” said Evie.

Holly looked at Tom’s jeans, cocking her head before looking at her own stretch bottoms.

“But I’m not wearing jeans!” she said, a little panicked.

“No, munchkin, not those kinds of jeans. G-E-N-E- S,” Evie said, spelling the word, “Those are the kind of genes that are in all living things. They form part of the cells and DNA that we are made of.”

“Ohhhhhh! So I’m not empty then?” said Holly.

“No, you’re not empty, honey, you have genes just like Tom and I do, like everyone does. It’s just that yours and Tom’s might be very special ones.”

The lift doors opened to the study, and Evie guided them through to the kitchen where Janey had prepared dinner for them all. The dining table was laid beautifully for them. Evie couldn’t remember the last time she had sat down to a full dinner in such a manner; most of her meals lately had been in the bustling cookhouse, usually in the company of hundreds of other people and usually talking shop.

They sat together like a family and even baby Gracie joined them, a roaring success, much to the delight of Janey.

“Can’t tell you how much I appreciate the dinner, Janey. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down to a meal like that and enjoyed it so much.”

“You’re welcome. It’s been quite a while since we had the chance to do it too, with all that’s been going on around us.”

“Right, you two, I have to shoot back down to the lab for a little while. I’ll come for you later this evening so that you can see Mum again. Okay?”

Evie hurried back to the study, with thoughts of the children’s DNA in her mind and eager to talk to Kate. She pressed the button to call the lift to the upper level and then waited as the lift made its way back down to the facility, almost half a mile below ground level.

***

Now hurrying to get to the lab, she caught her shoulder on the steel edge of the door, numbing her joint for a second before feeling returned. She could see Kate next to Nathan’s bed, checking the stats from the machines hooked up to him and comparing them with those taken hours before.