by Hana Starr
“I...” She bit her lip. It was a foolish thing to ask now, so long after she had gained the knowledge of it, but now that it was out there that she knew, she needed to ask, “how is your pain level? Is there anything that I can do to lessen it? What about-” Faer rested a finger against her lips, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of their lips.
“Your concern warms my heart, Anne Claire.” She pressed a kiss to the finger against her lips, and they let it fall. “But my pain is minor compared to others whose symptoms have advanced past mine. There is an herbal supplement from my home world that I have been brewing into a tea that helps soothe the pain. I can function just fine.” They laughed in such a light way about their suffering that Anne Claire wondered if they were being completely honest with their pain levels but opted not to press the matter further; if Faer really wanted to talk about it, they would open up to her in time. Or she could just cure the damn thing so they never felt pain again. That worked, too.
“Alright, then,” she said with a nod as she stood. “Get these in to the generative apparatus and get us some organs to test with, yeah? I'll ready the scanners.” Faer nodded, and she turned to take care of her own task. There was a kind of mundane comfort that came with preparing lab equipment for a test. She even found herself humming softly as she set up the computers, the machines, prepped the tools that would be used on the organs themselves, and took the time to steady herself. This was another day that she was going to help people with – she could do this. They could do this, she corrected herself, stealing a glance at Faer as they worked. The both of them, together, would find a solution to this problem.
Faer came back just as she was finished with the prep, several duplicate organs in glass testing dishes on a large metal tray ready for their experiments. They set them down on the exam table, and she waited for him to begin to tell her what to do; this was their lab, after all. That, and it was hard for her to shake the feeling that she was back in med school waiting for the instructor to tell her what she did wrong. That wasn't exactly helping things.
“I shall be following your instruction on these proceedings, Anne Claire,” Faer said when she hadn't started yet. She blinked in surprise. “As I have said, I have exhausted any possibility that came to mind when it came to testing. Even the thought to clone organs for testing had not occurred to me. So you lead, and I will follow.” Though it made sense, the feeling of being the leader of the two of them in the lab was still strange to her. All the same, she cracked her knuckles – a move that positively puzzled Faer – and began their noble work.
It was surprisingly easy to lapse into a comfortable working relationship with Faer, to let her old lab habits keep her going in this new and strange place. Their conversations were kind but professional, though she couldn't help but notice the extra warmth behind every word, every action as they began their tests. To Anne Claire, the most logical first organ to test was the colon – it was the organ most affected by the sickness, so it was best to understand both how and why it was being targeted. It would, at the very least, allow for them to definitively gather a sample of the growths themselves from a guaranteed source.
All of the symptoms that she found, if she were diagnosing a human, would point to cancer of the colon. What she was hoping for was to recreate the exact conditions of a cancerous cell reacting in the way that it would back on Earth. If it did that, she could, theoretically, generate a cure in the same way that she did back home and use the knowledge that she gained here to duplicate the results. That was what she was hoping for: a relatively straightforward solution that was presented to her because of the analogous nature of the Hakimme organs compared to humans. Though the rest of the body surrounding the primary organs of the Hakimme were vastly different, and they had additional organs that did things humans were unable to do, their primary organs were an almost one – to – one comparison to that of humans, an advantage that Anne Claire wanted to take advantage of as much as she possibly could.
“I have isolated a strain of the illness, as you asked,” Faer said, breaking the companionable silence they had fallen in. She turned to face them, pleased with the vial that held the sample that they had managed to take from the synthesized organs. She had to refrain from hopping in place; she was, first and foremost, a professional, after all.
“Excellent!” She beamed. “We'll inject it into colon sample three, and then test its reactions to the outside environment.”
“I confess, I do now know what that would accomplish, Anne Claire...” Faer frowned.
“Your people know me for curing a horrific illness on my home world, correct?” They nodded. “The symptoms your people are experiencing are very similar to a variant of that illness back on Earth. If I can recreate its reactions to outside stimuli, I'll know how to cure it. Theoretically speaking, of course!” She knew that she was rambling a bit again, and she genuinely didn't want to get their hopes up for nothing if what she was suspecting wasn't actually true, but she couldn't help it – her enthusiasm whenever she reached an epiphany of any kind always got the better of her. And, ultimately, disappointed her immensely when it was proven to be fruitless.
“I am unsure if that would work,” Faer noted quietly, as if they were trying to keep themselves from being too hopeful in the wake of her theory. “But I could certainly see where your idea came from. At the very least, it would provide a better place to start than where we were previously.” They shrugged. Carefully, they readied the strain of the illness into a syringe and injected it into the specified organ. Anne Claire tapped at the holo-screen on the computer, enabling its built in microscope to enhance enough on the colon to study it on the molecular level.
“I can see it taking hold,” she noted, watching as the cells of the illness latched onto and devoured the healthy cells of the colon. So far, so expected, but this was only the beginning of the tests.
“Is your theory still holding promise?”
“For the moment.” She made a swiping motion with her hand, willing the display screen to move off to the side. “But the real indicator to all of this,” she said as she picked up a scalpel lying on the tray beside her. “Is going to be this test.”
“I am unsure that one can perform any test of any kind with merely a scalpel.” Faer frowned.
“Simple,” Anne Claire reassured them as she brought the microscope enhancement screen back in front of her. Expertly slicing the colon and cutting down to the injection site, she watched as the cells multiplied at a significantly boosted growth when exposed to the air. Even to the point where a microscope was no longer required to see the cells forming a mass; amidst the pink flesh of the colon, an angry grayish tumor was forming rapidly. Faer gasped in alarm.
“That is what the illness would do when we attempted to perform examinations on the volunteer test subjects!” It was the most emotion she had heard come from Faer outside of their telepathic connection, and it alarmed her but also encouraged her at the same time; much like her experiment on the organ, getting a reaction meant she was doing something right, at least. “We would not have the time to operate on them because of the rapid growth – we would just have to sew the patients back up to avoid making it even worse!” She nodded.
“Cancerous growths respond to the air, and it allows them to increase their rate of multiplication.” She grinned. “It seems the Hakimme have cancer.”
“That hardly seems like something to be happy over.” Faer blanched in the face of her enthusiasm.
“Normally, I would absolutely agree with you. But!” she held up a finger. “I happen to know how to cure cancer. I am the one that created the cure, after all. I just need to apply slightly different things to the final stages of the cure...” she was already tapping away at the computer's holographic screen, frantically taking down notes and tallying up what was required for the cure. “Since you have a simulator that can test what the effects of the cure on the body that we can utilize before we put anyone at risk, then that's w
hat we'll use until we can perfect the formula and get rid of the cancerous cells without getting rid of anything else that isn't harming the body.”
“Is it truly that simple?” Faer asked incredulously. They seemed almost insulted that they had toiled for so long before. She didn't want to voice it herself, but she was surprised that they hadn't thought of this process themselves. Perhaps their problem solving operated in a different way than humans, and that was why she was so desperately needed.
“Oh, I'm over simplifying the process, of course,” she corrected herself with a wave of her hand. “There might not seem like that many steps, but each of those steps have steps of their own. Accounting for the technology at hand, it should take us...” she mentally calculated the time as best as she could. “...About three days?”
“Three days?” Faer clarified, their eyes wide.
“Three days.” She confirmed with a nod.
“I would be lying if I said that I wasn't eager,” they said. “We could get it done in even less time if I worked through the night and followed your instructions, correct?” She frowned.
“Well, I mean, yeah, but wouldn't that tire you out? I know your people don't require that much sleep, but still...” she frowned. “I don't like the idea of you suffering.”
“This illness is my suffering,” they said bluntly. Anne Claire flinched. “I would rather feel tired for a day and be done with it for all of my people than have to have us all endure agony longer than we need to.”
“A fair enough point.” She conceded with a nod. “Alright, I'll get the preliminary steps handled, test our projected results, and if everything holds true for my theory, then I'll detail the rest of the steps for you to follow through the night, and then we'll reconvene in the morning for the final stages.” They nodded in agreement, and she started on the first step: separating the molecules on the illness' strain. A task that took longer than she anticipated, but still less time than it would on Earth, but in the end, her efforts bore fruit: she was already starting to break down each part of the illness's strain, and having the computer scan it for its elements.
From there, she reverse engineered the strain and ensured that each piece would cause the cancerous cells would detach and die off from within, a process that she continued at until she felt her eyes burning. She hadn't realized how long she was at it, throwing herself at this damnable disease until something gave, until Faer rested their hand gently on her shoulder. She turned to face them, surprised at how close they were to her.
“You are tired.” It wasn't a question, but she was still yawning in response. “In my excitement, I failed to realize that it was just how late at night it was for Earth. You require rest.” They lightly stroked her hair away from her face. “Write down what I should be working on, and I will take care of the rest of it for tonight. We will finish up together in the morning.”
“In the morning...” she nodded in agreement, her eyelids feeling as though they were made of lead. How had she not realized that she was so tired before?
“Rest well, Anne Claire,” Faer pressed a kiss to her forehead and shooed her out of the lab. “I will see you in the morning, beloved.” Her heart felt light at the pet name, so light that she practically floated down the stairs and into her, 'house.' Momo was there to greet her, tail swishing happily as he meowed for more food. She tiredly fed him and made sure he had water before changing into pajamas and crawling into bed. She vaguely felt her faithful feline friend hop on the bed and nestle himself into the curve of her waist, but she wasn't aware of much beyond that before she drifted into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Chapter 14
When Anne Claire woke next, she managed to suffuse out a couple of things through the haze of her half-sleep: she had somehow managed to wake before the sun, and, perhaps in part because of that, she could feel the beginnings of a migraine building behind her temple. In spite of this, she forced her eyes open and practically tumbled out of bed. A heavy hand scrubbed away the sleep out of her eyes as she stood in the muted light of the sun that hadn't yet come up over the horizon just yet. She dressed plainly, in a simple dress that was practically swallowed by a lab coat that she rummaged out of her closet. She slipped on a pair of boots and made her way out to the living room.
She fed Momo, gave him a scratch behind the ears, and stepped out into the hallway, heading back upstairs toward the lab. She didn't even bother with her morning cup of tea; tea would be her reward for actually managing to do this for Faer and their people, once all was said and done. She pressed her hand against the same panel that Faer had used to access the lab the day before, vaguely hoping that they had thought ahead to grant her access. She hummed in relief when the panel turned green like it did yesterday, and the door opened with a soft hiss of hydraulic hinges.
As she stepped into the lab, she immediately spotted Faer, their back turned to her, tapping away at the holo-screen keyboard of the computer. From the looks of things on the digital display beside them, they had made great strides under her instructions, and she felt the hope that she had been working so hard to suppress swell inside of her as she neared them.
“Good morning, Faer,” she greeted with a warm smile.
“I am surprised that you are awake so early, Anne Claire,” Faer replied without turning away from their work. “I do not believe that the sun has even risen yet.”
“I don't think my mind could let me sleep too much, knowing you were going through all of this.” She stepped beside them, peering over their shoulder to see which step they were on. “Shall I take it from here? At the very least, you could take a seat and breathe for a moment.” She gently ran a hand down their back. “Goodness knows that you could use it, Faer.”
“That is kind of you.” They gave her a small smile. “I think I will take you up on that offer. I believe I can already feel the strain on my eyes.” She could see it, too; their eyes had taken on a magenta hue, and there was an air of tiredness about them that she wanted to do everything she could to alleviate. “Allow me to finish this step, and I shall happily hand it over to you.” She nodded, folding her arms over her chest as she watched Faer complete their task. Their hands moved as though they were water; their fingers danced across the keyboard, flicking screens of data and queued instructions for the machine that was creating the cure that Anne Claire had engineered around on the display to better organize them.
Her gaze drifted over to the machine that was acting out the commands that Faer was inputting into the computer attached to it. Its nearly noiseless whirring sounded akin to a cat purring and vaguely reminded her of Momo when he was getting his chin scratched. Its movements were quick and precise, its needles and scanners splicing and monitoring everything down to the molecular level. She took a quick glance at the steps and the formula that she had left with them, and noticed that there were some changes.
“There were a few variants that I had to correct for,” Faer explained as they settled into a chair beside her so that she could take over for the final stages. “They were merely variants present because of the minor differences in bodily makeup between Hakimme and humans. Thankfully, the computer compensated the rest of the formula's needed changes around those, so we are still on the same trajectory.” She nodded and turned back to the in-progress cure just as the machine stilled in its movements.
Taking a glance at what step was next, she was surprised to find that there were only three more steps to go before they needed to run a simulation of the end result to see how effective it was at ridding the body of the disease. As she readied the machine to splice in the genetic data needed to override the cancerous cells, she wondered how Faer had managed to fly through so many steps in so little time. Perhaps they were just a fast worker, but it was still alarming just how much they had gotten done in a scant few hours.
Still, it made the next steps significantly easier for her, so she supposed that she shouldn't complain; the quicker they got this cure synthesized, the sooner they could
end the suffering of Faer's people. When the injection was successfully spliced, she commanded the machine's claw to ease the vial through the finalization and sterilization process, the last steps before running the simulation of how the completed cure would affect the Hakimme's body. As she stared at the sterilization device whirring and wheezing as it worked to purify the cure, her fears and anxieties about this cure began to surface.
In a failure state for this version of the cure, best case scenario is that they run the simulation, and it shows that it does nothing to help the situation, and they're back at square one. Worst case scenario, they run the simulation, the simulation turns out fine, but then when they actually use it, some factor that both they and the simulation couldn't anticipate winds up creating some horrific, painful consequence for the Hakimme that made Anne Claire's stomach churn. She did her best to block it out – she saw, in the amalgamation of information that Faer had shared with her, that the computer that was going to process the simulation was near perfect, and the margin for error was almost a billionth of a percent – but it did little to soothe her worries.
It took almost an hour, but the sterilization and finalization of the cure's creation was complete, showing no errors and its end state was exactly as projected. Still, as she stared at the synthesized cure as the computer ran a simulation on Faer's saved genetic data and what the cure would do to them, she felt fear choking her throat; what if, what if, that billionth of a percent chance of failure happened? What if it cost her Faer, or if it cost Faer his people? The thought made her insides twist.
