“How is Mom now? Can you check?”
Cass pulled her handheld out of her purse and touched the screen a couple of times. Screams from the stage announced Polonius’s death. Paul still had two scenes before his next appearance. He shifted from foot to foot. The show had to go on, but if Mom was sick enough for Cass to come after him in the middle of a performance, he wasn’t sure what he should do.
Dad’s holo appeared next to an electronic map on a white wall. “Cass, did you find Paul?”
“I’m here, Dad.” Paul twisted to get into the handheld’s viewing range. “How’s Mom?”
“Still in ICU, still unconscious.” Dad opened his mouth as if he were going to continue, then shut it again.
“What’s wrong with her?”
Dad tugged at his hair. “That’s the thing; they’re not sure. As soon as the doctors found out we’re staff on the Sagan, they assumed she picked up a contagious new virus on the other side of the wormhole, on TwenCen Earth. I tried to explain to them that Joanna hadn’t been down to the planet in years, and that the genetic samples we get in the lab are the same species our Earth had in the twentieth century. Everything is the same, so we can protect ourselves against infection. But they didn’t listen.”
Something about what Dad said sounded odd to Paul, but before he could figure out what it was, Cass asked, “So, you think she got sick from something here?”
“That’s the only thing that makes sense. I don’t know if the colds you and Cass had are related to her illness, but you did all get sick at the same time.”
“It was right after Mom got those weird roses,” Paul said.
Dad raised his eyebrows. “What weird roses?”
Had he forgotten, or had Mom never mentioned it? Paul, with unease eating at his stomach, told him about the strange deliveryman and the unlabeled flower box. Mom had examined it before opening it, but what if her handheld was wrong? What if they’d unleashed a plague? Then again, he and Cass only had colds, and they were almost over them. But he supposed they could still relapse…
“We’d better have you two looked at, just in case. Get here as quick as you can.”
He disconnected before Paul could remind him Hamlet wasn’t over yet. As Osric, Paul was the one who invited Hamlet to his final duel. Osric didn’t have any lines until the end, so maybe Ramirez, the director, could put someone else in the role without ruining the play. Between Mom being ill and missing another performance, this day was as shitty as the Sagan’s refuse tank.
Cass tugged at him. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Not yet. I have to talk to the director.”
“But what about Mom?”
Paul swallowed his frustration. It wasn’t Cass’s fault he couldn’t be two places at once. He put his hands on his sister’s shoulders and smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. “Mom will be OK,” he told her. “They have more doctors and nurses down here than they do on the Sagan. Once they figure out what’s wrong, they’ll treat her faster than I can switch costumes. I’ll bet you ten credits she’ll be up and demanding to be released by the time we get there.”
Cass’s mouth relaxed a fraction, but not any further. What kind of actor was he if he couldn’t convince his own sister everything would be all right?
“Well, the sooner we leave, the better,” she said.
Actors called for Hamlet. Paul’s entrance was coming up. “After the next scene.” He scooped up his holoprojectors. “Come back here and don’t get in anyone’s way.”
He rushed to the wings, but Ramirez wasn’t in sight. The rest of the king’s attendants were already in place, and they beckoned him over. It would be faster to make his appearance and get offstage than to explain the situation.
“Osric, your costume!” someone whispered. The other actors grabbed his holoprojectors and helped him put them back on. As soon as they were in place, the controller in his neckband recreated the holo of a teal-and-silver doublet with fitted sleeves over his plain T-shirt. Frothy lace cuffs matched his collar. The lower half of his costume—gray breeches and black boots— was still intact, so it didn’t need to be fixed. The actor playing the king gave him a stiff nod and swept onstage, with Paul and the other attendants a few steps behind him.
It was easy for Paul to keep a grave expression on his face as the king spoke with Rosencrantz and Hamlet. The deaths in the play seemed more real than ever, even if it was hard to put himself into his character’s frame of mind. As soon as King Claudius directed his attendants to search for Polonius’s body, Paul crossed the stage and exited. Ramirez strode up to him with Cass in tow. He hoped he wasn’t going to get into trouble for letting his sister come backstage.
“Harrison, I hear your mother’s been hospitalized,” Ramirez said.
He swallowed hard to maintain a professional demeanor. “Yeah. I can’t stay.”
Ramirez’s expression softened, and she patted his shoulder. “I’m sure your mom will be fine. I’ll have Al-Jaber take your part. Break a leg, Harrison.”
She headed toward the green room. Paul sighed, then removed his face mesh. If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly. It seemed bad luck to even think about the Scottish play in a theater during a performance, especially with Mom in the hospital. “Where did they take her, Cass?”
“The hospital on Winfrey.”
“Be right back.”
Paul sprinted to the dressing rooms and grabbed his jacket, his handheld, and the case for his holoprojectors from his locker. A notice about his missed messages blinked at him, but he ignored it and requested an autocab. He tucked each holoprojector safely in its compartment, even though he wanted to rush. They were expensive and hard to get a license for, and he didn’t want to damage them. He made up the time by racing around to the front of the theater with Cass. Light fog made it difficult to see the path, and when a car pulled up, Paul waited for his handheld to confirm that this was his autocab before stepping forward.
Normally Paul enjoyed traveling around Chicago; since he only got to see it for six weeks every year, he never grew tired of the city. Now every block of skyscrapers and vertical farms, every throng of people at each intersection, even the monorail system running in its own lane, seemed to be another obstacle blocking him from the hospital.
“Mom’s going to be fine,” he reassured his sister. “She’s a fighter. She doesn’t let anything or anyone get in her way….”
He sat up as he finally realized what Dad had said earlier. “Cass, did I hear Dad right when he said Mom hadn’t been down to the alternate Earth in years?”
“Yeah.” She twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “But does that mean she actually went there? She’s a geneticist, not a time traveler.”
“Maybe the travelers needed her to collect some DNA.”
“But their own people do that. Mom says the process is so simple we could do it.”
Paul shrugged. “Maybe this sample needed special handling.” One of the main goals of the Sagan’s crew, besides studying history, was to improve genetic diversity on their Earth by sampling endangered or extinct species, like bananas and honeybees. The honeybees alone had revitalized agriculture and justified the cost of the space program. It would make sense to have a geneticist take charge of a rare DNA sample so it wouldn’t be ruined. He decided he’d ask Mom if she really had visited the other Earth when she was better.
About ten minutes later, they arrived at the hospital. Dad stood alone in the lobby. “Are you sure you’re OK?” he asked as he hugged Paul. “Maybe you should see a doctor too, in case this is something contagious.”
“It’s just a cold. Where’s Mom?”
“Still in ICU.”
“Is she any better?” Cass asked.
Dad shook his head.
Paul’s stomach sank as if someone had increased the force of gravity. How could Mom still be sick? Every time he’d been ill, the doctors in the medical unit dropped samples of his blood into a couple of
diagnostic chips and treated him a few minutes later. “Have they figured out what’s wrong with her? Did all their equipment get hacked, or are they all—”
“Enough.” Dad clamped his hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Her lungs are filling with fluid, but the doctors can’t figure out why.”
Shit. “Can we see her?”
“Yes, but you can’t go in her room. She’s still quarantined, and she’s on a ventilator.”
Dad led them down hospital halls that smelled faintly electric, like they’d been zapped with a sterilizer unit. The staff members they passed were too busy monitoring their handhelds or carrying medical supplies to say hello. After turning down a couple of corridors, Dad stopped at a window to a room. Paul stared at the woman inside lying motionless on the hospital bed. It took him a few seconds to recognize Mom with the tubes over her mouth.
Paul tapped on the window. “Mom? Can you hear me?”
She didn’t stir. Cass messaged Mom, but she didn’t reach for her handheld. Paul couldn’t tell if she was even awake.
A nurse checked his handheld and approached them. “You’re Joanna Harrison’s family?”
“How’s my mom?” Paul asked.
The nurse pursed his lips together. “We think it’s a viral infection, though we haven’t identified the species yet. Sequencing shouldn’t take much longer. We’ve given her a standard antiviral cocktail, so now we have to see how she responds. In the meantime, if we could get some more information from you…”
The nurse ushered all of them into an isolation room. After interviewing Paul and Cass, he asked for blood and skin samples, which they gave. He also wanted to know where they’d been since becoming sick. He frowned when Paul told him about performing at the theater. “That’s an epidemic just waiting to happen. It may be too late to quarantine you two, but the theater…I have to tell the doctors, stat.”
He hurried off without telling them if they could leave.
Oh, shit. How could this be real? How had his stupid little cold suddenly become the start of a plague? Paul could forget about working with Ramirez’s troupe next year—assuming no one else got sick because of him.
“Are they sure Mom has what we have?” Cass asked.
Dad shrugged. “All three of you got sick at about the same time.”
“But Mom’s been sicker than either of us,” Paul said. He scowled at a poster demonstrating how to avoid spreading germs.
“She’s not as young as you two.” Dad shook his head. “But she’s very healthy. There’s no reason to think she won’t recover.”
Paul checked the hospital’s website, but it didn’t list any information about Mom.
“They’ll only give you a patient’s status in person,” Dad said when he asked.
With nothing else to do but wait, Paul messaged his best friends, Yvonne and Scott, to let them know about his mother. To Yvonne, he added, “Please pray for her. I don’t know how.” It had worked for her own mother several years ago—at least, that’s what Yvonne claimed—so why not now?
Exchanging messages with Yvonne and Scott kept Paul occupied until a doctor arrived an hour later, struggling to keep the worry out of her expression. “I’m so sorry for the delay, Dr. Harrison,” she said to Paul’s dad. “We wanted to double-check the diagnosis.”
“How’s my wife?” Dad asked. “Did you identify the virus yet?”
The doctor’s frown deepened. “Do you and your wife work with mice or other rodents?”
“Not live animals, only DNA samples from all sorts of species.”
“But not viruses?”
Dad shook his head.
“Then, you don’t know how she picked up a hantavirus?”
“What’s that?” Cass asked.
“A virus normally found in rodents. It can infect humans, but usually only through direct contact with rodents or rodent waste products. So Paul didn’t start an epidemic by appearing onstage today.” She turned to Paul and Cass. “We’ll test your samples for the virus, but since your symptoms were milder, I’ll be very surprised if it shows up in you two.”
Paul set his handheld on standby. “Can you cure it?”
She broke eye contact, staring at the same poster he’d studied earlier. “This strain is mutated. Our antivirals aren’t as effective against it. Plus, it’s more virulent than normal. If you’re right about when she was exposed, it’s progressed to the second stage very quickly. She’s now in what we call respiratory distress. Assuming she recovers, she may need a lung transplant.”
Dad blinked for a couple of moments before saying, “I can arrange that. Joanna is part owner of Golden Helix. She used to work there, right before I met her.” His voice wavered. “They…they’ll have stem cells from her on standby. Never thought we’d need them so soon.”
Neither had Paul. All along he’d thought they’d just had colds. How could things have gotten so bad so quickly?
The doctor took a deep breath. “You can sit with her if you like.”
They all nodded, and soon they were gathered in Mom’s room. Her eyes lit up briefly, but she couldn’t speak. Cass offered her handheld to her, but she didn’t take it. Dad crouched down next to her head and murmured to her for a few minutes, then retreated to the far corner of the room to make some calls. Paul couldn’t hear his conversation over the ventilation machine and Mom’s labored breathing.
Paul sat next to her, unsure of what he should do. She’d closed her eyes; would it bother her if he talked to her? Maybe he should let her rest. It seemed too final to say he loved her, and anyway, she was too determined to let a measly little virus bring her down.
“You show that virus who’s boss, Mom.” He gripped her hand, trying to will strength into her. A wave of dizziness crashed over him, and he almost blacked out. “Tell it you’re going to tear it apart base by base if it doesn’t leave you alone.”
Cass smiled for an instant, but Mom didn’t respond.
They sat there without speaking until several lights on the machines turned red. As an alarm pounded in Paul’s ears, doctors and nurses poured into the room. Some of them bent over Mom and the machines, while others hustled Paul, Cass, and Dad out of the way.
“Just stabilize her,” Dad pleaded. “Golden Helix can have new lungs for her in two days—”
Paul strained to look at the red lights on the machines surrounding his mother, but he had no idea what they meant, other than bad. One doctor performed CPR, while another pulled out a cart of more equipment from the corner of the room. A nurse drew a blood sample and injected it into her handheld. She showed it to the second doctor; he pulled out sensors and plastered them all over Mom’s forehead. He even turned her head and stuck more sensors on the nape of her neck.
What is he doing? Paul shivered. He had an urge to rush forward and grab Mom’s hand again, but Cass clung to him so tightly he couldn’t move.
Paul lost track of how long the doctors worked on his mother before the nurse drew and tested another blood sample. When she showed the results to the doctor, he beckoned Dad over. They conferred in whispers before the doctors broke off CPR and removed the equipment.
“Is Mom better?” Cass asked.
Dad returned and placed his hands on their shoulders. “Paul, Cassandra, there’s no easy way to say this.” He swallowed. “Mom’s lungs…just gave out. She can’t get enough oxygen in her system, and…all we can do is let her go.”
“No! You can’t!”
Paul took a couple of steps toward the bed, but Dad grabbed his arm before he could reach the medical team.
“It’s in her living will, Paul.” His voice was rough, as if it hurt to say the words.
Paul suffered himself to be led away, but everything felt unreal, as if he were still on stage and witnessing a fake death.
To keep reading, please check out the story on Amazon!
About the Author
Sandra Ulbrich Almazan started reading at the age of three and only stops when absolutely required to. Alth
ough she hasn’t been writing quite that long, she did compose a very simple play in German during middle school. Her science fiction novella Move Over Ms. L. (an early version of Lyon’s Legacy) earned an Honorable Mention in the 2001 UPC Science Fiction Awards, and her short story “A Reptile at the Reunion” was published in the anthology Firestorm of Dragons. She is a founding member of BroadUniverse and a long-time member of the Online Writing Workshop for Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror. Her undergraduate degree is in molecular biology/English, and she has a Master of Technical and Scientific Communication degree. Her current day job is in the laboratory of an enzyme company; she’s also been a technical writer and a part-time copyeditor for a local newspaper. Some of her other accomplishments are losing on Jeopardy! and taking a stuffed orca to three continents. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband, Eugene; and son, Alex. In her rare moments of free time, she enjoys crocheting, listening to classic rock (particularly the Beatles), and watching improv comedy.
Sandra can be found online at her website, blog, Twitter, and Facebook.
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Acknowledgements and Dedication
A Note from the Author
Bonus Material: “The Mommy Clone” Sample
Bonus Material: Twinned Universes Sample
About the Author
Lyon's Legacy: Catalyst Chronicles, Book One Page 13
