by Liahona West
“Well, she lied.”
“Yeah. I get that now.” She chewed on her lip, scratching at her wrists until Bannack stopped her with a touch. “You can continue.”
“The drug was extremely experimental, and we didn’t know if it would work, but recent testing had given us a strong possibility the nanites would successfully attach to a host if they were immuno-compromised. You see, they were programmed to always be healing the human body. In a healthy subject, they would die because they had nothing to do.”
“That’s why,” Eloise looked at her palms, “I’m able to keep them in my body and Seth isn’t? I’m immuno-compromised.”
Henry nodded. “Partly. He’s still an odd case. We used your parent’s nanites to inject you and because you are their daughter, they recognized both sets of DNA within you, making themselves at home in your body. This never would have been achieved had we used the original nanites. As for Seth, without examining him, I would hypothesize the nanites do heal him, but since they have nothing more to do, they die, and because his disease is degenerative, his body goes right back to breaking down. Again, this is completely speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.”
“So, there’s nothing that can be done for him?”
Henry put up a hand. “Not quite. Once you recovered, we knew Joy would catch wind and attempt to simulate your circumstance, so Amanda, Merrick, and I planned to destroy every last thing we all worked to build. Not only to save you but, hopefully, countless other lives.” He hung his head. “Their death and our failure to prevent that outcome has haunted me ever since.”
“Hold up,” Sibyl adjusted in her seat. “Then what’s Joy been using to brainwash everyone? The facility was destroyed.”
“It was. Amanda and Merrick had me remove fifteen vials of their serum and replace it with the originals in the fridge, knowing Joy would try to recover them and they wouldn’t work as expected. Apparently, she did, because Graham has informed us that people have lost their memories. I’m not completely sure, but I think Joy may have found a way to continue her work, except Amanda and Marrick aren’t around to share their DNA, so she's doomed for failure. Only you remain. The key.”
“Me?” Eloise leaned back, her head spinning.
“Yes. You are their daughter and without your blood, your DNA, she cannot create a true serum. It will wipe memories as it has been doing. However, from what I remember of the nanites your parents created, if you use your blood mixed with the nanites, Joy’s off-brand ones will be targeted and removed, allowing Amanda and Merrick’s nanites to renew the memories of the patient, and, possibly, allow Seth’s body to heal. The best way I can describe it is similar to white blood cells—Eloise’s nanites—bonding to viruses—Joy’s nanites—to eradicate them.”
“So…” Luke scratched his head, his face scrunched, and sighed. “You’re saying that…that Eloise’s blood plus the nanites can heal the people with memory loss and reverse Seth’s disease, but not the serum minus Eloise’s blood?”
“Yes.”
Luke exhaled, and his cheeks puffed. “Alright. People can’t donate their blood to just anyone, though. She’d have to be a…” Luke glanced at the ceiling for a moment. “…universal donor.”
“I am,” Eloise said. As a child, upon learning her blood type during her hospital stay after the car accident, she thought it was a bit of a super power to be able to give her blood to anyone she wanted.
Quiet fell throughout the house. Eloise sat with her hands under her thighs, staring at her feet, while she tried to understand everything Henry had shared. Her parents making a new serum. Her blood, not just the nanites, being the key.
It was a burden.
“What about Seth?”
Henry and Charlotte smiled in unison.
“Hi, Eloise.”
Her heart leapt into her throat and she nearly choked on it when she heard Seth’s voice. It was different. Deeper. Stronger. She turned, slow, and looked straight at him. He was sitting in a pink living room chair, smiling.
“S-Seth? You’re…”
“Alive? Yeah, I am. The Marchant’s have been…taking care of me. They’re pretty great.”
“Tell me everything.”
After Eloise rushed over, she got a better look at him. He had more color to his skin, and she realized he was slightly darker than before, probably from a combination of being outside and his natural skin tone. Seth looked stronger, too. His chest had widened, his arms and legs thickened. Not by much, but any change from his skeletal body was huge.
“It’s been about a month since…I left. Graham overheard…my mom talking about hurting…Mason and he came to talk to me, to…ask me what I wanted to do.” Seth looked at his hands and forced them to relax. “I decided to leave. Graham…left to find answers but he told me that when he…came back, I should be ready. No one knows about…this place. I’m safe here. Charlotte has…been helping me outside and with exercises and look what I can do!”
Seth stood on unwavering legs and Eloise, crouched on the balls of her feet, toppled over. Seth laughed.
“Pretty cool, right?”
“Uh…yeah. It is.” Eloise couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. She hugged him, and he felt good. Strong.
“This means I’m getting…better! I stopped believing it could…happen, but now I can actually…do things like I used to!”
Seeing him well and excited brought tears to her eyes but still put her on edge. As their conversation died out, Seth, with Charlotte’s help, walked over to the dining table with a partially complete puzzle. Alice joined him.
Eloise watched them enjoy each other’s company, excited to have him alive, terrified when her sickness would force them to switch places. No longer would it be Seth’s death by disease, but hers. No one could seem to figure out what she suffered from. Guesses, sure, but not even Soora, a highly skilled doctor at the nation’s top medical hospital Before, could figure it out. Some days she was fine, others she was bedridden and sweating, her entire body in pain. The running hypothesis was the nanites were malfunctioning because of the lightning strike. They would keep her alive but also slowly kill her.
She stood, walked outside and sat on the swing suspended from the porch roof. A few minutes later, the door swung open and closed.
Bannack sat next to her. “You’re worried about Seth.”
“I’m worried about everything. I feel like we’re on borrowed time with my sickness and Seth’s disease. Eventually, it could be a year from now, it could be tomorrow, but someone is going to find us and snitch to Joy.”
“Seth is stronger than he used to be.”
She looked at Bannack as tears formed. “I know and I’m mad at myself for not being able to enjoy it. He’s not a skeleton anymore. I’m glad, but I have this pit in my stomach that won’t go away. I need answers! Not knowing is eating me up.”
“How about this: we go back inside, and we’ll talk to everyone, get their input, and come up with a plan. Sound good?”
With much effort, Eloise nodded. “Something is better than nothing.”
Back at the house, Eloise sat with Sibyl, Luke, Bannack, Henry, and Charlotte. Seth had moved away from the puzzle table and was in the far room, silently reading a book. Alice was upstairs.
“I want to talk to you,” Eloise said and looked to the room Seth occupied then bit her lip, “because I’m concerned about Seth.”
“But he’s been doing amazing.” Sibyl’s brow wrinkled. “Why are you concerned?”
“I’m worried because he’s getting better. When I started working with Joy, he was really sick. So sick that he suffered from seizures and couldn’t talk very well.”
Charlotte chimed in. “Those are becoming less frequent in the past week. His strength has increased, not decreased. I can feel it when I work with his legs. And he’s gaining muscle faster than any human should.”
“So,” Luke put his fingers to his lips
, paused, then splayed them on the table in front of him, “he’s not going to die, and he has super healing abilities?”
“It would seem so,” Charlotte said.
Luke still wasn’t convinced. “Not-t possible.”
Eloise watched the floor, thinking. The only thing that could heal him this fast are the nanites. But they don’t work. So, it can’t be them, can it?
“Or his nanites have awoken.”
Everyone looked to Henry. He couldn’t see the reactions people gave him, but Eloise knew he could hear it in the silence because he smiled with one side of his mouth.
“I can’t confirm this hypothesis unless I run some tests but the only explanation it seems we have is the nanites Eloise gave him, combined with the exercises Charlotte has been doing, fresh air, and diet, have all contributed to the awakening of the nanites.”
“What’s happening to me?”
Eloise turned to the sound of Seth’s voice. He was sitting forward on the chair, a thick novel on his lap, and his eyebrows close together. She knew he worried. So much change was happening to his body no one could prepare for, but she knew she loved him enough to help him find out.
Anything was a step up from emaciation, and to experience his body going from skeletal to looking like an actual teenager with muscles in only a short while had to put a strain on his mental state.
It was Henry who spoke first. “We aren’t sure, but we have to go back to the facility to find out. Run some tests.”
“I don’t want to go back…home.” Seth balked. “I don’t want to…see my mom ever…again. She’s so mad right now.”
“We understand, honey,” Charlotte said. “If we’re going to find out what’s going on with your body, and fix it for good, we want to run some tests to get answers. Is that okay with you?”
Please say yes. She needed to know, especially if he could finally live a normal life. She wanted it so badly for him.
“I don’t know,” Seth said after a few moments. “Can I think about it?”
“Not too long,” Henry said. “We need a decision soon.”
Seth nodded and looked down. “Okay.”
Charlotte fidgeted in her seat and then stood and looked to Bannack, Eloise, Sibyl, and Luke. “We have some empty bedrooms upstairs. You’re more than welcome to stay the night. I’ll set out some old clothes, and Alice can boil some water to draw up a bath, if anyone needs one.”
Taking his gnarled stick in one hand, Henry stood gracefully and tapped his way to the kitchen. “If anyone is hungry, we have leftover bread Alice made herself, some eggs you’re more than welcome to gather—I heard the hens out back lay clucking about an hour ago—and some goat milk waiting in the brook that runs beside the house. Help yourself. If you need me to start a fire, let me know.”
“Honey,” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You haven’t started a fire in years.”
Henry ignored his wife. “I may be blind, but I’m not incapable of getting soot on my hands. Alice will show you where the eggs and milk are. I need to talk to a man about a horse.”
“A man about a horse?” Eloise whispered to Sibyl who shrugged.
Luke piped up. “He’s going to the bathroom.”
“Where are you going?” Eloise asked.
Luke, standing between the living room and kitchen, shrugged a pointed thumb over his shoulder. “Well, first I’m g-going to get some of the milk Henry talked about. Then I’m using the warm bath water—I can g-get that myself—and then drink the cold milk while soaking my sore body. Would you like to know what…what I’m going to do with my rear end later on, too?”
Alice giggled, and Sibyl scrunched up her nose.
Eloise chuckled silently. “Ew. No thanks.”
From beside Eloise, Bannack raised his hand and laughed. “I would.”
Luke turned red and walked away.
***
The next morning, Bannack and Luke walked in the door as Eloise slid the apple pie into the brick oven just off the porch. Seth was sitting on a stool at the counter inside with his entire head in the large mixing bowl, lapping up the last little bit of pie filling, and jumped at Boatswain’s excited barking. Sibyl, her mom, and sister were out caring for the animals.
“Look!” Seth held the bowl out. “We made…pie!”
“Awesome, dude.” Bannack waved at Seth and smiled. His kindness made a vast difference for Seth’s mood, who had been happy all day after having a long, late-night conversation with Bannack.
Eloise wiped her fingers on the towel, chuckling, and turned around. Her hand shook, and she clenched it, worrying the sweat on her brow was not from the oven but another bout of her illness. She couldn’t let Seth see. The decision to leave Henry’s needed to be completely his own and not dictated by anything or anyone else. Eloise flexed her hands and put on a smile. “Hey, guys.”
Luke plopped on the couch. His grunt was almost a yelp and his feet jerked into the air as Boatswain leapt onto his stomach.
Seth laughed, then lowered his gaze. He’d been doing it a lot. “Do you think…I should go…back? She’s probably…lonely.”
“Don’t you dare.” Sibyl walked in from outside, carrying a basket of lettuce, swiss chard, and collard greens. “Don’t let your mom, or anyone else, choose for you.”
Behind her came Charlotte with a tied and defeathered chicken carcass and Alice, feathers in her hair, holding two glass jars of milk. They each took their turns placing the food on the counter and when Sibyl released her French braids from the bandana she was wearing to keep them off her neck, she looked Seth dead in the eyes.
“You are not responsible for Joy’s choices. Whatever is going on is because of her, not you. This is your decision. Don’t let your mom’s voice guilt trip you into doing anything for her you don’t want to.” Sibyl waited until Seth nodded his agreement and then patted the carcass, her words trailing off into sing-song. “Now, I need help with this chicken and no one seems to be willing…”
Seth’s eyes lit up. “Can I help with dinner? I’ve never seen a dead chicken before.”
Everyone laughed. Sibyl brought the carcass over to him and showed him how to stuff the cavity with rosemary, thyme, and apple slices. Eloise watched, a smile stuck on her face. The room swayed. Her hand flew to the armrest of the couch.
Don’t faint. Don’t faint.
The sensation faded as fast as it had come, but she knew what it meant.
Damn it.
Panting and keeping the sound as quiet as possible, Eloise caught the concerned eye of Bannack. She shook her head to tell him to stop worrying, and he nodded as if he agreed.
After working for several minutes to prepare the chicken for the smoker, Seth dried his hands on a towel, and went with Charlotte to begin his exercises. She massaged his legs, helping the tight muscles to relax and started moving his legs, coaching Seth on how to breathe through any uncomfortable sensations.
“If anything hurts too much,” she said in a low voice, “let me know, okay?”
Seth nodded.
They continued for an hour, having built up his endurance from the ten minutes he could do originally before becoming too tired. When they finished their training, Seth grabbed a towel to dab at the sweat on his forehead, and scanned the room, chewing on his lip. His eyes paused on Eloise.
“I have an announcement,” he said, and put the towel on the counter. “I…think I’m ready to go back. I want to know what’s…happening to me.”
“Are you sure?” Eloise asked.
“Yeah,” Seth straightened his shoulders. “When can we leave?”
“After dinner, if you want,” Eloise said. She turned to everyone and they all nodded or voiced their agreement. She looked back at Seth and braved a smile. She couldn’t see him very well, as if a fog had covered her eyes. “I need to try the Seth Special.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Bannack
The facility was empty, yet a
n odd feeling lingered in the halls, almost as if they were whispering: ‘Turn around. Go back.’ The lanterns in the naturally dark hallways were completely cold. This put Bannack on edge. When Eloise grabbed his hand, he jerked away from her, terror making bumps on his skin raise. A rapid wave traveled from his arm to the top of his head.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’re dripping sweat.”
“So are you.” She truly was, and he worried. She’d been fine since they had arrived at Henry’s. Sickness was due to rear its ugly head. “I’d feel better if we had to fight our way in. We shouldn’t have come here. It’s too easy and I hear people in here, Elle. Whispers and movement. But I see nothing.”
Light from the torch blinded Bannack when Sibyl came close. “In here, guys.”
The room he entered had a single, large window in it, which allowed for a flooding of light, and had a metallic and moonshine scent to it. Someone had recently sanitized the room.
Charlotte and Sibyl helped Seth to the empty bed. While they prepped the needle and vial to collect his blood for testing, Bannack stood close to the door, listening for footsteps.
“Hey,” Eloise said and leaned against the wall. A thick layer of sweat dripped down her scar and Bannack’s stomach clenched. Her next words were heavy, as if she struggled to breathe. “Still uneasy?”
“I wish they would hurry.” Bannack watched Charlotte remove the butterfly needle from Seth’s arm, and Sibyl handed him a cloth to hold on the puncture wound. Luke turned around, saw Eloise and Bannack, then walked over.
“Do you guys feel as helpless as I do?” He asked.
Bannack stayed quiet, still jittery from his suspicion that something waited for them. He stared at the floor, arms crossed, and chewed on the inside of his lips, then jumped at the loud grinding of metal chair legs on the linoleum floor when Charlotte sat down. Henry talked her through using the microscope and locating the nanites.
