The End Came With a Kiss (21 page)

"Humanity is a hunter. All it understands is violence. You would have hunted us to extinction."

"And you thought it was a good idea to give a war-hungry race unkillable skin? That made sense to you?"

She scowls. "I don't know why I am bothering to talk to you."

"You're right. What's done is done. I'm sure you had your reasons, but your frail arguments won't bring my daughter back, or Harry's daughter. They're dead. But you can help me bring my wife back."

"I told you, there's no cure. All you can do is feed her till the change happens."

I launch to my feet. "I don't
want
the bloody
change
to happen! I want my wife back!"

"I don't know what you want me to say! My mother never worked on a cure. Her research was focused on making the compound transmittable."

"You mean the kiss?"

"No. The desire to kiss."

"What do you mean? The poison is in your saliva, but you don't have the drive that makes them kiss?"

"Yeah. I can look at Lau and tell you he's ugly."

Lau's head lifts. "Hey..."

"I'm not attracted to imperfection. I can choose who I want to love." She takes note of my doubting expression. "We are capable of love, Ben. Our emotions aren't dead."

I ignore her irritation. "So, how does it work? How does it kill you?"

"I don't know. I'm not a biologist."

"Do you have access to your mother's research?"

"Sure. I'll just fire up the internet."

"Um, Mr. Carter?" Lau's voice sounds uneven. "Your wife is waking up."

"What? So soon?"

She begins to squirm in her bindings, and a low growl vibrates in her chest and throat.

"Put her back under!" I run over and look down at her. "It's okay, honey, I'm here."

"It would help if I could put an IV in her."

An IV? I hadn't thought of that. If we keep her under, how will she eat? I hold her down. "Katherine, be calm. We're going to help you."

She is shaking now. Lau is having trouble getting the sedative into her arm.

"Give me that," I say, snatching it from him. I turn it in my grip and stab it into Kate's neck, just under the ear. Her movements slow and her eyes roll back in her head. I take out another pill, drop it into her throat, and massage it down. "These pills aren't lasting very long."

"I told you they don't..."

"I know what you said. Do you have anything stronger?"

"Two pills do the same as one. It's not a sleeping pill. It's a dreaming pill."

"Well can you make something I can shoot her with that has a sedative and the experimental pill in it?"

"Yeah. I can do that."

"Good. Because this is going to get old fast."

22

Through the soundproof glass of the middle chamber, I see James helping his father fit the metal barrier into the socket where the glass door once was. Luci sits on a mat of blankets Harry made as a bed for her in the corner. Lau continues to search for a counteracting mutagen at his worktable. And Ashlyn sits quietly in the spot I left her.

My task is to cover the glass between the isolation chambers with dismantled cardboard boxes. Lau believes it will be better for everyone if I put my wife in isolation, in case she wakes up screaming every three hours. The cardboard is so that when Katherine wakes, she doesn't feed Betty's paranoia and get her riled up, or scare her dog.

When I finish covering the wall six feet high with cardboard, I go back out through the decon chamber and carry my wife into her new living space. I have attempted to furnish it with everything I could find that resembled a household item, but it is still somewhat minimalist.

With care, I lay Katherine down on a blanket-covered workbench. She is still bound with duct tape, but I hope to change that, depending on how things go.

On the way out of the chamber, I switch the two-way call box on so I'll hear her when she wakes. As I exit and close the door, Harry's deep voice carries across the lab. "Um, you all need to see this."

He is picking Luci up under her armpits and setting her on the table beside her makeshift bed. James and Lau put down what they're doing, and we all go to see what has Harry spooked.

Luci's leg bandage is peeled back, and the leg is stained with blood, but the gash that had been there, is gone. "Her leg was cut wide open. I opened the wound with my own fingers," says Harry with amazement.

Why amazement? Disappointment or sorrow seems more appropriate. If she was exposed to the compound, then she will die like all the rest—although being dead won't affect her personality all that much. She already acts like one of them.

"Is she infected?" asks James.

Harry's big hands reach down and turn her head gently. "The birthmark is still there, on her neck."

This gets Lau's attention. "Now that’s interesting. This level of healing doesn't start till the end of gestation."

I join him in looking at the birthmark up close. "What are you saying, Lau?"

"I'm saying this is weird, but without doing up some blood work, I'm not sure how weird."

"Let's say it's really really weird. What are we talking about here?"

Lau's face appears astonished. "A cure," he says. "We're talking about a cure." He scurries off toward the med cabinets.

"Seriously?" says James coming in to examine the birthmark too. "How is she the cure?"

"At that level of cellular regeneration, to be able to heal a wound in just over an hour, she would have to already be dead."

"Are you saying she's a looper with a pulse?"

"Yes! And if she is, she might be the key to unlocking a way to allow the compound to work in a living host."

As we talk, Luci continues to stare vacantly at a point in front of her. Does she even know we’re talking about her? Is she capable of free thought, or is she just a vegetable, like the loopers?

I wave my hand in front of her face and snap my fingers. Her eyes shift and look at them.

"Are you in there, honey?"

Her eyes slowly slide back to where they were staring.

"She does act like them, but not entirely. I've seen her blink and I've seen her cry. The dead don't do those things."

"And she doesn't loop," adds Harry.

"That's right, she doesn't have the looping compulsion. So whatever this vegetative state is, it isn't the same as what the loopers have."

"Do you think you can fix her, Lau?" asks Harry in his deep baritone voice.

I notice the irritated expression Lau gets when someone asks what he thinks is an absurd question, but his eyes quickly assess Harry's giant stature, and his face drops. What he probably wants to say is something like, "How could I possibly know if I can fix her? I haven't even examined her yet?" But what comes out is a short, and surprisingly civil, "I don't know yet." But the words sound forced, and slightly robotic.

He pricks Luci's finger and squeezes some drops into a vial. "I also need a sample of tissue. Do you want to do it," he says, holding out a pair of fingernail clippers to Harry. "Just a sliver of skin. Maybe from the knuckle."

Harry takes the clippers, and draws her tiny hand up into his massive dark palm. "This will only hurt a second, sweetie, and maybe we can figure out how to make you well." With care, he lines the clippers up on the skin of her knuckle, and makes a quick snip.

She looks down, but no sound escapes her lips, and no emotion makes it to her face. She is aware of the pain, but unable to react to it.

Lau takes the blood and tissue samples and scurries away.

Even though it will heal in a matter of minutes, Harry grabs the first aid kit and puts a Band-Aid on the tiny wound.

I hear a grunt from the isolation room speaker. It's Katherine. She's coming to. I jog across the room and go in through the decon chamber. She is laying wide-eyed on the table, groaning and writhing in her bindings. I snatch up a needle from a tray at the door and go to her.

When she sees me, she begins to pant quickly, her eyes fixed. The muscles of her face tightening randomly. Does she recognize me? Does she understand that I am here with her?

I rub my fingers through her hair. This causes her to pant harder. Her eyes dart wildly, probably attempting to process where she is. Loopers use their environment so they must catalog what they see and match it to their motor memories. What will she do when she realizes nothing here matches anything she's ever seen? I imagine it will not go well. Thankfully, she won't be awake long. And, with a little luck, she may not be in this dead body much longer, either.

I bend down and speak softly in her ear. "Do you remember what you promised?"

Her panting slows. She is listening. I'm sure of it.

"I found it, Katherine. I found the cure. And when I call for you, you come back to me, okay?"

There is a subtle stutter in her breathing.

"Promise me, Katherine." I’ve said this phrase many times since the death of my wife, but here, on the brink of a cure, it produces an emotional response and a tear breaches my eyelid nearest her cheek. "Promise me you'll come when I call for you."

Her jaw opens fully, stretching the muscle, and closes. Opens fully again, and closes. Then, the growl begins.

With that I sink the needle into her neck and soon she is drifting away into the blissful comfort of her lucid loop.

23

The waiting is excruciating, but I think I have the best end of the deal. As I lay on my cot, looking out at the lab from the chamber where Katherine is, I can see Harry, James and Ashlyn all tossing and turning, partly because of the loopers scratching and pounding to get in, but I can tell by random looks of irritation from Ashlyn, that Lau is making no attempt to be quiet as he toils into the night. Although Katherine's waking is somewhat jarring on my nervous system, I at least have the luxury of the soundproof glass while she is sleeping.

I am startled awake several times. The intervals between doses feel like they’re growing shorter. I set a timer to check this hypothesis and settle back into another uneasy stretch of half sleep.

At one point Harry is awake, checking the metal barrier with a flashlight. At another, James is sitting next to Ashlyn on her bedding, talking. Lau is like a machine. I only see him in his cot when Katherine wakes me at six in the morning. My watch reveals that it has only been thirty-four minutes since the last shot. Her body is building a tolerance to the drug. At this rate, she will be immune to it within twenty four hours. When Lau wakes, I'll have to speak with him about creating a stronger sedative to mix with it. If I can't get her to loop, I'll have to keep her unconscious. She will not do well in this comfortable cage.

It’s after nine when Lau rolls out of his cot, his black hair stuck up like a giant cowlick. He grabs his toiletry bag and heads to the bathroom. There’s no shower or hot water, but at least the water is running and the filters have kept it reasonably clean. I imagine if it starts to look like the water at my house, Lau will take to using wet wipes.

When he returns from the bathroom, he raps his knuckle on the glass. I walk over and flick the switch on the two-way.

"I have some good news."

"I can use some good news," I say, leaving the connection open and exiting out through the decon chamber. Katherine just went down again, so I should have a few minutes.

"What's the news?"

The whole crew, even Ashlyn, are all seated around the center table. Lau takes up position at the end.

"I believe…" He looks from one face to the next, "that I have found a cure."

There is a noticeable sigh of relief from James and Harry, but Ashlyn's face remains as stone.

"As you may or may not know, the human body is 70% water. In the water of our bodies we have an acid-alkaline ratio called the pH, which is a balance between positively charged ions, or acid forming ions, and negatively charged ions, or alkaline forming ions. Balance is good, but over acidity is common in today’s fast food culture. So all of us have acids in the water of our bodies, except, apparently, this child. Her pH balance is nearly perfect."

"So this thing hates acids?"

"Sort of. When it enters an acid-rich environment, it produces a toxin that kills living tissue."

"And Luci's body didn't have any acid in it?"

"That's right."

"Then why did it kill her brain?"

"I don't think it did. I mean, without cutting her head open, I can't know for sure that the tissue of her brain isn't dead, but my guess is that it is more of an electrical short circuiting."

This seems to fire something up in James. "Like all the cells in her brain took on a negative charge! Well. Not all of them. Obviously."

"That's right. Massive sections have been shut off, or negatively charged."

"How do we turn them back on?" I ask.