Halfway back - Bruno, Steve and Fiona's adventure against zombies that may not be zombies and the secret behind them

by Marios Amontaristos

  “But the plants would end very soon. And then what? They would just run around in the city looking for food? They would tear everything down,” Fiona said contradicted.

  “And they would continue doing so even after being killed, because they would regenerate,” Dr Courant added in a warm tone that didn't match the content of his words.

  “You say it like it's something good,” Steve said.

  “Let us tell you a story, boys and girl,” Dr Courant said. “After I finish, you can tell me if it's something good. So, about 11 years ago, when Juana and I were much younger, we had a boy. A very clever little man, very lively, a good and polite child. We always had time for him, we were teaching him many things, he could speak French, Spanish and English because we were speaking to him in these languages since he was born. He was a good student at school and he had many friends. We were very proud of him, because, even after accomplishing many scientific achievements, we felt that our best achievement and contribution to society was this small genius. Really, do you remember how he figured out how to fix this problem we had with internet, even when we couldn't?” Dr Renedo was forcing herself to smile so that she wouldn't cry. She nodded when her husband asked her if she remembered, but she couldn't speak.

  Dr Courant saw that his wife was struggling. “Are you OK?” he asked her. “Have some water.” He opened the plastic bottle and gave it to her.

  “Continue. I'm OK. Thank you,” she said. Dr Courant stroked her back and he went on. “When he was 7 years old, he fell ill suddenly. The doctors couldn't find what was the problem. We took him to the best scientists we could find, in France, in England, in Germany, but they had no idea. Probably it was some kind of unknown virus. But we couldn't find out what it was. Unfortunately, it took our little boy away no more than 26 days later.”

  Bruno, Steve and Fiona were listening speechless. There was actually nothing to say and it was obvious that they were sympathizing with the pain that Dr Courant and Dr Renedo had experienced.

  Dr Courant continued. “For one month, we were existing but we weren't living. We were speaking very little, we were eating very little, we wouldn't go anywhere. Our brains were effectively out of order. And then, one day, I remembered something that a doctor in England had told us, about stem cells and how we could experiment, but we couldn't find any and we didn't have the time we needed. Besides, probably the problem wouldn't be solved with stem cells.” Dr Courant paused for a bit and looked at the eyes of the three students who, in combination with their recent experiences, they were eager to hear the rest of the story.

  “As you know, as you claim to be biologists, stem cells have the very useful ability to turn themselves into whatever we need them to be. They have been known to regenerate damaged cells and improve the health of people with conditions as severe as paralysis. So, I thought, what if we could turn the cells of the bones into stem cells and make them regenerate every cell of a body, bringing it back in its whole shape, alive and in full health? It sounded crazy, but what was really crazy was the way our son was taken away from us. I would do anything to have him back and I'm not one of those who wait for miracles to happen. I prefer to make them happen myself.” Dr Courant drank some water. He was passionate about his story.

  “I started experimenting. I wondered what could make the cells behave like stem cells and start creating muscles, blood vessels, nerves and skin around a bone. I tried many times on chicken or mouse bones. I tried to inject the substances I had created to the bones, I tried to immerse them in liquid. Juana asked me what I was doing after some time that she saw me working intensively. I explained to her and immediately she asked me what she could do to help me. We were not a team, with one and powerful purpose. We tried in many ways, we failed, but we couldn't stop. Even when it looked like we weren't even close, we insisted. If there was a way to do it, we were determined to find it and if there wasn't, we would create it. Anything else was out of the question.

  Until one day, we saw something happening. Something was forming around a chicken bone, we weren't very sure what it was, but we were finally having results after two years of continuous work. We were so full of hope after that! We kept on working, even more. We developed a machine that emitted rays in a way that resembles wi-fi and we saw that something like muscle tissue was starting to form around the leg bones of a chicken. And that was all. It didn't go any further.”

  “But the miracle happened when we put the skeleton of a rat in this box here and we started shooting continuously our rays on it. In the next six hours, a full rat had developed and started running in the box. We fed it and it ate with lots of appetite. We were so excited! We finally regained our hope! After all this time of trial and error, all driven by our need to have our son back.”

  “Wait a minute,” Fiona said. “You say that by shooting some kind of rays on the dead bones, you turned them into stem cells and they started creating back everything as long as there was the skull to contain the brain? This doesn't make sense.” Fiona got caught in a moment of innocence.

  “It doesn't make sense, but we made it, didn't we?” Dr Courant answered, in a friendly but patient manner which implied that maybe Fiona shouldn't push him more.

  “But how is it possible to cause the cells to change behavior like this?” Fiona insisted.

  “The same way female athletes take steroids to perform better and they also develop masculine characteristics, the same way male athletes take steroids to increase their muscles and they also shrink their genitals, the same way both female and male athletes take steroids in order to become better in what they do and instead of this they get heart attacks and die. Only that, instead of injecting our inventon or giving it orally to the skulls, we used rays. Do you have a few months so that I can actually explain it to you in detail? Because I don't have that much time. There is something more urgent and I would like to finish the story I began, without further interruptions, if you don't mind of course.” Dr Courant was annoyed once again and trying to calm himself down, because it was important that the students knew what he had to say. He took a sip of water and took a deep breath. He didn't want to get mad at the kids who, after all, were students and it was perfectly normal to have questions. Who wouldn't under such circumstances?

  “You said something about the skull. How did you realize that the skull is the most important part as it is indeed the only part from which a new full body can generate?” Dr Courant spoke to Steve primarily, but he expected an answer from the others too.

  The three looked at each other. Steve nodded indicating to Bruno and Fiona that he was about to explain. “We had some trouble with zombies that attacked us, but we killed them with some weapons that we took from our neighbor, who also became a zombie, don't ask me how, I don't know.” Bruno and Fiona looked at each other with faces that were struggling to remain straight but they were dying slowly inside because of the crudeness of Steve's words, especially in front of the doctors, who had been through this kind of agony. “After an attack, we had shot off the arms and a leg, only to see that the zombie itself had been whole again but the limbs were still there.” Bruno was thinking how many wars would be avoided thanks to Steve's lack of will to become a diplomat.

  “But what gave us the confirmation we were asking for, was when we went to the super market and saw the headless chickens while the fish were alive and moving at the fish section. It gave us a pretty clear picture,” Fiona said.

  “What did I tell you? They are brilliant,” Dr Courant said to Dr Renedo. “Although, I'd rather you didn't refer to these people as zombies, since they have nothing to do with zombies as we know them by the popular culture. By changing their name, you think that you have an alibi for killing them, but what you actually do is killing a fellow human being.”

  “Who is trying to eat us,” Fiona said. “I was bitten badly by some of these humans, Dr Courant. I suppose that these rays of yours helped my wounds heal in a couple of hours and also cured my myopia and Bruno's, um
mm, monoballness (Steve burst into laughter which he cut short and Bruno looked at Fiona in an 'are you fucking kidding me?' way) and so many other people's problems. Correct?”

  “As correct as it can get, dear,” Dr Courant said in a satisfied, almost proud manner, leaning a bit forward in a 'you're welcome' gesture. “Now, to continue with the story, after we brought back the rat, it was time for the most important moment of our lives and many other lives as well. We went to the cemetery and took a permission to unbury the remains of the boy. Imagine how lucky we were, that we hadn't cremated him! There would be no cells to regenerate! It was like I knew somehow that this day would come.”

  “Although we were almost sure that we would be successful, there was still a fear that it wouldn't work and there was also the pain that had woken up when we went to the cemetery and in our minds came all those horrible moments we had been through. We couldn't afford to fail. We had invested too much of ourselves to it.” Dr Courant took a deep breath and hugged his wife with his right arm. He kept here there as he went on with his narration.

  “So, there we were, pointing our machine to the little skeleton and standing there, watching. We couldn't sit, we couldn't talk, we couldn't move. We stayed there for six hours and it was like watching a flower blossom as his body was forming again and it looked so healthy, so perfect... And we wondered if he would be the way he was before leaving us, but he wasn't.”

  “At least he was breathing. He was very scared at the beginning. When we saw him moving, we rushed towards him and hugged him, but this startled him and he bit his mother. It was a very hard and deep bite, but Juana couldn't be happier and neither could I. The feeling of having back a loved one that you considered lost, has a beauty so enormous that can only be compared to the insufferable pain of losing that loved one. I just cannot describe it to you.” Dr Courant was breathing heavily as he was hugging his wife, who was smiling and wasn't even trying to wipe her tears of joy as she was living again those happy moments that Dr Courant's story had brought back to her mind.

  “So, we realized that he needed to eat. That's very normal, all those new cells had to be fed in order to stay healthy and keep working and developing. After all, he was just a child.”

  “As we could realize and as you already know, our seven-year old was essentially a newborn and we had to treat him as such. But since his brain was more developed than the brain of an actual newborn, as well as his body, it was easier for him to learn the basics and soon enough he could speak again, use the bathroom, eat without aid, read and write. He had no memory of the past but he was returning slowly, we was being himself again. We couldn't be happier than that. But there was more to come,” Dr Courant said before drinking some more water.

  “You are tired, let me tell them about the machine,” Dr Renedo said. Dr Courant closed his eyes and nodded while swallowing the last sip. “After Yves woke up and we fed him and he started feeling calmer, we put him to bed for his first sleep. And then we realized that the part of my arm, where he had bitten me, was absolutely fine. No blood, no scar, nothing. In the beginning we thought that probably he hadn't bitten me at all and we had imagined all this because we were too tired or too happy, but two days later Yves hurt his knee badly when he fell clumsily on the floor after stepping on his shoelaces. After treating him on the spot, we turned the machine towards him while we sat next to him. In about an hour, his knee was perfectly fine and we knew that maybe we had something extremely important that could help a lot of people in real need and not just fix a scratched knee.”

  “So, why didn't we share with the world this incredible invention?” Dr Courant asked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Flashback

  In the waiting room of the office of the health minister of Greece, there are a few people looking tired. They are there for various personal issues. Three of them are smoking as if they are at home with nobody around. This lack of respect for the others would be shocking for Dr Courant if he weren't already shocked by the way his offer to the governments of France, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Holland and almost the whole Europe, hadn't sent him to the Balkans, in the corner of the continent that is not quite famous for the untouchable governments that get elected by the people. After having his offer rejected or after receiving outrageously unacceptable counter-offers in Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia, he decided to try his luck in Greece, even if he had grown tired.

  He was lost in his thoughts when a woman's voice asked “Dr Courant?” with a very intense and trilled “r” and a pronunciation of his name that wasn't very helpful for him to understand that she was calling him. Only the third time did he realize that nobody else was responding and he looked up. “The minister will see you now,” said the woman and showed him the door.

  Dr Courant entered the office, which was stinking. The minister was sitting behind his desk, in a huge chair, smoking. He didn't bother getting up. He put out his cigarette in a big, round ashtray, already full of cigarette butts, and he just stretched his arm to reach for a handshake when Dr Courant approached. “So, Dr Courant, in what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” That trilled “r” again. This conversation wouldn't be easy.

  “I won't waste your precious time Mr minister. I have something that can be the beginning of something wonderful for the people of Greece and the whole world,” he gave his rehearsed introduction, trying to hide his disappointment for the expected outcome. “I have invented a machine that heals people and even brings the dead back to life. Before you kick me out like you would with a crazy man, I have proof which I can show you right now,” Dr Courant said as he took his laptop out of his bag and put on a video that was showing in fast motion the head of a chicken starting to form a new body and in the end it started moving.

  “This is the head of a chicken that was recently cut off. After exposing it to the rays of my machine, its body started forming again and when it was fully formed it started breathing and moving and looking for food. And this is just a sample. I was able to bring my son back to life and he was dead for some years!” Dr Courant was sounding genuinely excited once more. He couldn't stop being proud of his enormously important success and it was his favorite part of the presentation.

  “But that's not all it can do. It can also heal you back to perfect health. No matter what you have. Cancer, paralysis, broken bones, multiple sclerosis, everything. Many people can be saved by my machine,” he continued.

  “I have heard about you and your machine,” the minister said, who was listening carefully all the time. “Some say that you are crazy, but others believe you.”

  “How about you, Mr minister?”

  “I believe you too, Dr Courant. But can you tell me the purpose of your visit to all the ministries and eventually to ours, here?” It was obvious that, behind the smoke and the poor manners, was an informed person. If he weren't, he wouldn't be a minister after all. How he used his information, was a different, sad story.

  “I want to give you the patent for the machine, but only under one condition. I don't want any money, I don't even care about my name being known. I just want you to manufacture as many machines as possible and offer their services to all people in Greece and everywhere else for free. Nobody should ever pay for something like this. Reassure me that you will do it and I'm giving you the necessary papers right now and I can even help you personally while the machines are being built. What do you say?”

  The minister smiled bitterly and shook his head. “You are a good and very intelligent man and I will talk to you openly, in a way that I would never talk to other people. Unfortunately I cannot accept your offer. Do you realize what you want to do? Do you know how many big wallets will suffer if these machines are built? And these wallets don't like to suffer. Do you think that you can fight the pharmaceutical companies? Do you think that they want you to cure cancer while they earn so much for creating medicines for chemotherapy?”

  Dr Courant was li
stening to nothing new. All the other ministers had told him the same things, more or less. “Besides, it's not in our best interest to have so many people alive. A big population means a lot of riots and demands and unemployment and we cannot control this. We cannot create jobs and resources to keep everyone happy. We have to get rid of some of them, so that the others can be more easily controlled. Why do you think that we decrease their wages but we increase their taxes? Because we want them to live more and better?” Dr Courant couldn't help being shocked every time some minister spoke to him like this.

  “That's why I'm telling you, go back to France and your family, stay safe and don't get into those things. I wish I could help you in a way, but I'm just an employee. I don't take decisions. I only have this advice to give you. Go home and take care of yourself and don't bother about the other people. You can only find trouble this way.” The minister had pronounced “trouble” as “trumpl”, but Dr Courant had stopped listening to him long ago. He was trying to keep his thoughts in order and he needed to try his luck elsewhere, even though he couldn't expect much. By the time the minister ended his talk, Dr Courant was already planning his trip to the USA.

  When he arrived back to his home in Paris the next day, there was a mess in the lab. All machines and computers and glass tubes were broken in pieces, as if they had been trampled by horses. Dr Renedo came and hugged him and she looked relieved to see that her husband was well and so did young Yves, who had already started to talk.

  “What happened here?” Dr Courant asked.

  “Three hours ago, two armed men came and they kept us still. Another one appeared and asked where was our machine. I didn't say anything, but they entered the laboratory and started breaking everything. They didn't want to take the machine, they just wanted to destroy it and they did. And they said that if I called the police, they would harm you. I'm sorry I couldn't stop them. I was afraid that something bad would happen to Yves or to you and I can't lose any of you again.” Dr Renedo started crying and Dr Courant hugged her. He was very calm, even though he was boiling with anger inside. But he knew exactly what he had to do.