by Schow, Ryan
“What do you mean, special?” Delgado said, stepping back.
“There is a specific protein combination in the DNA of the pituitary gland, a combination your species are incapable of accessing due to your body’s limited coding. This was done on purpose. The coding and arrangement of her DNA is similar to ours though, and it is accessible.”
“Okay, so what? She’s one of you now?”
“She has the potential to be similar, but not the same. Which is curious never-the-less.”
“How so?” one of the men behind Delgado said. His voice betrayed his weakened state. The doctor flicked those hideous eyes over Delgado’s shoulder, then slid them back on Delgado. Instantly the eyes turned blue. Delgado hadn’t even blinked and it just happened.
“In layman’s terms—” the doctor started to say.
“We are not laymen,” Delgado said.
“You are laymen when you consider the scope of your understanding in relation to the scope of ours, Dr. Delgado. As I was saying, ninety-eight percent of your DNA is non-coded,” the doctor said, “and the bulk of this non-coding is responsible for little or no biological function. In this child’s case, only ninety-one percent of her DNA is non-coded. Meaning she has extra biological equivalents. To put it plainly, her DNA is encoded to release a specific hormone in the pituitary gland that you have no name for because it is not found in the general population of your species. Less than one millionth of a percentile. Far less than that, actually.”
“Our species,” Delgado said, bothered the doctor kept saying this as if they were a disease, or a handicapped species. Not all of us are inferior, he was thinking. You smug bastard.
The doctor smiled, congenially, almost like he was reading Delgado’s mind. “Yes, Dr. Delgado, your species.”
“So you are an alien?” he asked. Bold, straightforward. To the point. He had been dying to ask the question since the very moment he heard of “those down below.”
“No,” the doctor said, “not alien.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor will I make it perfectly clear. What you must understand is this girl is very much different from your kind. Even the intelligent ones. But not necessarily in a good or productive way.”
“How is her pituitary gland relevant to this case?” Delgado said, backtracking. Really he wanted to know more about the doctor than Abby, but he forced himself to stay on point.
“This extraordinary young woman has the ability to connect with everything on this planet as if it were a part of her. Which it is. Consider your body, for a moment. You are in complete control of your arms, legs, eyes, mouth. But you aren’t in control of me, or this table, or those men behind you because they are not your body. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Delgado said. “Sort of.”
“To her, the entire world and everything in it is her body. She can control things the rest of your species cannot control. The hormone in her pituitary gland must be activated, though. Or not. As I said earlier, she is a curious one.”
“So she is like this because of this extra hormone produced in her pituitary gland?”
“That is one explanation. It is so much more complicated than that, though. What you have to know is having this extra hormone, and the supportive DNA coding, allows her to connect to things and people on far deeper levels. For a laymen species such as yourselves, the varying speed that solid matter moves makes interacting with and even controlling other objects impossible. But not for me. And not for her, given the right trigger.”
Delgado tried to grasp the possibilities. How in the world would the production of a previously unknown hormone make someone into what…a telekinetic?
One of the men behind her, one of the lab coats, he said, “So she has the ability to move objects with her mind?”
“If given the proper catalyst, she can do much more than that,” the doctor said. “She can become something your kind have never seen before.”
“Is that why she’s in a coma?” Delgado asked. “Because of her unusual DNA structure?”
“The electrical pulses in her body are misfiring. She is offline, to put it in simplistic terms. But it is more than that. She is not sure she wants to come back into this body. This is the real issue.”
“How do you know that?” Delgado said.
“She told me.”
“She told you?” he challenged. As if he couldn’t believe it.
“Yes.”
“So how do we fix her?” Delgado asked.
Turning his eyes and the full force of his soul on Delgado, he said, “My recommendation is that you kill her, and to do that you will need to take her head and her heart and separate them both from the body. All parts of her must be destroyed by fire. Fixing her will only confound your species.”
“Well I don’t plan on taking her head or her heart,” Delgado said, defiant.
“Her DNA structure was meddled with, Dr. Delgado, which means she will not be able to control herself at first. Maybe never. I have seen this before, so this is my firm recommendation.”
“I appreciate your time, Doctor.”
“Suit yourself,” the doctor replied. He slipped past Delgado and the two men, disappearing fully and instantly.
“What the hell is he?” Delgado said to the two men after the doctor was gone.
“He’s from the lower levels.” Meaning he could be anything. People refer to them as the aliens, but some rumors were contrary to this assertion. He even had confirmation from the doctor himself that they were not aliens. So what was he? Delgado might never know, that much he knew for certain. The way things were at Dulce, it was best to let such rumors fall on deaf ears, just become a six foot bubble. At least, that’s what he told himself.
Turning to Abby, he said, “Well I won’t be killing you no matter what that brain-melting freak show says.”
“So what are you going to do?” one of the men asked.
“Tell you to leave my lab. I don’t even know who you are or why you’re here. And don’t bother telling me because it doesn’t matter. Just get out.”
The left as he requested. Then it was just him and Abby.
2
From a temporarily vacated lab down the hall, he borrowed an ECT machine. Today’s version of shock therapy. Called electroconvulsive therapy, this method of treatment is essentially the doctor creating a machine-induced seizure meant to jumpstart the brain. ECT is often used in cases of severe depression or schizophrenia. If that thing called “the doctor” implied her electrical current was off, then he’d make it right. And if the doctor did in fact communicate with Abby’s soul, maybe the ECT would fail to work at all. Maybe she didn’t want to be back into her body.
Maybe dead was dead.
Before connecting her to the ECT electrodes, he got EEG and ECG readings, as well as readings on her blood oxygen levels. Throughout the process, he would monitor all levels. When he was ready, he gave her Brevital, which was used to induce anesthesia, even though she was already unconscious. If she woke during the process, she would never be the same again. He then gave her Anectine to relax her muscles. And finally he administered Atropine to inhibit salivation because it was just gross looking at an unconscious patient frothing and bubbling at the mouth.
Hooking up Somatics’ Thymatron System IV ECT machine was like getting in your Bentley and firing up the engine, the machine was that state of the art. Delgado placed the electrodes on both sides of her head (see: bilateral ECT), then set the pulse width, the frequency and the duration of the dosage in an attempt to reach one and a half times her estimated seizure threshold without a lot of guesswork. The method of determining the patient’s exact seizure threshold was called dose titration. It was the trial and error version of getting things right when you’re dosing the brain with direct electrical current. Much to his relief, Delgado found her threshold faster than planned. Then he began treatment.
The first shock had her body bucking.
Brayden an
d the Russian
1
“First off,” Brayden said to the offensive police officers, “if you want to question us, you can do so where we stand. We’re not going anywhere with you because there’s no reason for it.” Turning to Netty, he said, “Netty, film this, now.”
“Don’t film this,” the second officer said, pointing at her and using his most authoritative voice. At this point, it was so cold outside, Brayden could see his words as fog leaving the mouth.
“Yes, film this,” Brayden countered, more assertive. The way his heart was kicking in his chest, a heart attack might not be out of the question. “Film me, not the officers. Only me. You have my permission, not theirs, so keep the camera on me. Not on them.”
Netty took out her phone, began filming him. Other people around them—laughing, half-drunk, smitten people leaving the club, and some old dude walking down the street with a heavy coat on—they all stopped to watch. The cops’ eyes registered this almost right away.
Yes, they had an audience.
“We were the victims of a prank that startled and traumatized my friend here, and unless you are going to charge us with something, or arrest us, we’re not going anywhere with you.”
“Put that goddamn camera away,” the first officer snapped. He moved like he was going to take Netty’s cell phone. Netty countered him perfectly. She stood just outside his reach, telling him he could not have her phone. He looked embarrassed, irritated at being bested by a skinny blonde-haired Russian girl.
“Don’t touch any of the officers, Netty,” Brayden warned. “They’ll charge you with ‘assaulting an officer’ if you make even the slightest bodily contact.” He was looking right into the eyes of the first officer. The one hell bent on taking them in.
“I don’t intend to touch anyone,” Netty said for the sake of the camera and the officers. “Least of all these fine officers of the law.”
Brayden choked down the wet contents of his stomach to keep everything from roaring out of his mouth. And he clenched his already clenched butthole, even though being scared like this was exacting its physical toll. Forget that he was starting to sweat, that he had the worst cottonmouth ever, or that he could not stop the fear-shivers spreading like a virus to every part of his body. In that moment, what he wanted most, even more than to not feel the coward-like effects of not standing his ground, was to kiss Netty. That’s how sexy she was right now, holding her own with the cops.
For some reason, her courage fueled him. Fortified him with confidence. He kept at the officers with what he knew about the law. Things he learned from his previous troubles with the FBI.
“You have no probable cause that a crime is being committed here, officer, so you are not within your legal rights to seize my friend’s phone, and since you’re not charging us with a crime in the case of that disgusting prank in Laurel Court, we’re going to leave on our own accord, unless there are any more questions we can answer.”
“Looks like we’re doing this the hard way,” the first officer said. He removed his cuffs and went for Brayden. Brayden’s stomach curled into a hard knot.
“I have no intention of resisting arrest,” Brayden said, putting up his hands but backing up. “Nor do I wish to harm this officer.” He said this to the camera, but he was also talking to the officer because anymore, most cops are experienced at bending certain laws while grandstanding on probable cause. “I will not willingly come with you, however, unless you are arresting me. For you to suggest otherwise is a gross violation of my civil liberties.”
When he was arrested by the FBI for criminal trespass of a federal database for what the feds had described to him as purposes of cyber espionage, Brayden learned all about the law and how it pertained to him. His father made him study his rights and the rights of the feds against him as punishment for his behavior. Their lawyers worked tirelessly to establish a plea arrangement, and after graduation, Brayden would have to serve time working on the federal side of cyber security. He would be tasked with sealing the cracks in their cyber security network rather than circumventing them.
His father’s form of punishment, his knowledge about the law, it was now paying off big time.
The officer stopped cold, looked at his partner as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing and said, “Is this kid for real?”
“Furthermore,” Brayden said, “my father and Abby’s father are worth billions of dollars in real assets—”
“Are you bribing us?” the first officer interrupted, feigning shock and offense. Now Brayden got pissed. He hated the way these guys were trying to twist his words and violate his rights.
“No, you dumb fuck,” Brayden spat angrily and brazenly, which clearly annoyed both officers, “I am assuring you that if you violate our constitutional rights, your careers will be so over, it will be like they never started. And that’s before you are sued personally for not only everything you own, but for all your future earnings. You have no concept of the meaning of indentured servitude, but rest assured, if you proceed outside of the legal and ethical framework of the law, your life will literally be ours.”
His body vibrated with energy. Like he was high not on drugs but on power. If he put on tights and a cape, swear to Jesus, he was certain he could walk through walls or fly right then. Cuffs were put away. Harsh looks were exchanged. Brayden’s most glorious speech tasted like sunshine. Better still, it had worked. Holy crap, the only thing either officer said was exactly nothing. They just shut their offensive mouths.
“If you want to make the best use of our tax dollars,” he continued, but not all self-righteous and shit, “and they are our tax dollars that pay your salary, go and find the psychotic kid who did this. Bring him to justice. He’s the real criminal here, not us.”
Netty kept the camera on him, but dared to move it ever so slightly to face the two officers, who wore stunned, if not stupid looks on their faces. She panned back to Brayden, who felt triumphant. He was also doing everything in his power not to show it. It was best not to provoke the officers, lest they do something rash and unpredictable.
“Good evening, officers,” he said, holding their indignant gaze. He was no longer scared. Not one bit. To the girls, he said, “Netty, Abs, time to go.”
The three of them piled into Abby’s S5, with Brayden in the driver’s seat, Netty in the passenger seat and Abby stuffed in the back. They watched the two officers get into their police cruiser and crank the engine. Exhaust puffed into the cold air. Brake lights stained the dark night red.
“Oh, my God,” Abby said, her tone crackling with nervousness and too much energy. “That was un-freaking-believable!”
“I’m so wet right now!” Netty screeched as the SFPD cruiser pulled off the curb, and away from them. She leaned over, kissed him on the cheek, so close to his mouth their lips might have touched, but only barely. He couldn’t help smiling. In reality, he’d been pissed off enough and scared enough to act way more alpha male than he felt. Not that he would ever admit it. No way.
“Seriously, Brayden,” Abby said, all out-of-breath sounding. “That was so hot!”
And it was.
It was ballsy and dangerous, but he played his cards right and emerged victorious. Brayden, one. The fuzz, zero. Best of all, since they didn’t arrest Abby, there was no legal means to obtain her blood, i.e. her DNA. In that moment, when he was so scared it took everything in him to not crap himself, the only thing that mattered was protecting Abby’s DNA. Eventually the Giardino murder/suicide would be national news and he didn’t want her DNA floating on CODIS, the FBI’s official DNA database. Talk about an open and shut case! If they made the blood connection between Laurel Court and the Giardino case, both he and Abby would be heading to jail for a very, very long time.
2
Their drive home was all about him, how he got over on the cops. How they couldn’t sneak a word in edgewise because he was so totally owning them. It was when they were headed back to Netty’s place that Brayden
said, “So, Abby, I spoke with your father earlier today.”
Now they were both like, WTF?!
“I would’ve told you earlier, but I felt we all needed a break from reality, so I kept it on the DL. And we had fun, yes?”
“You should’ve told us,” Netty said. The exuberance in her voice was diminishing fast.
“That would’ve been selfish,” Brayden said, “and the old Abby knows I’m anything but that.”
“Still,” Abby said.
“Your father will be home in the morning. He booked a flight from New York to come and see you. I told him what happened.” There was pure silence.
“And?” Netty finally said.
“So me and Abby are heading back to Palo Alto to face him together. We need to go tonight.”
“Bullshit,” Netty said. “I’m going, too.”
“You’re not going,” he told her.
“The hell I’m not!” But she didn’t say hell. The way Netty dropped f-bombs, it always seemed like she did it in the most shocking and appropriate places ever. Like she had a knack for using colorful language without making herself look too trashy in the process.
“Fine,” he said, not wanting to argue. “As long as it’s okay with Abby.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Netty argued.
She had her head cranked all the way around and she was practically coming out of her skin with disbelief.
“Yeah,” Abby chimed in from in back in her best two-against-one voice. “She can come with us wherever she wants.”
Brayden lowered the temperature on the climate control system because it was suddenly getting too hot in there. Getting bitch eyes from two girls he’d just saved from jail was not his idea of a hero’s welcome.
The adrenaline dump taking place in his body was the way some guys describe doing downers. We’re talking inflamed face, the dry sucking of energy, an impossible physical exhaustion that was all but impossible to shake.
