Invasive Procedures

by Aaron Johnston

  He had waited too long, he knew. It had been a stupid thing to do. Too much time had passed since his last treatment.

  He took the vial in one hand and willed his mind to hold it steady long enough for him to get the cap off. Drops of precious saliva sloshed out and onto the floor before he was able to pour some of it into the palm of his hand.

  He set the vial down, careful not to tip it over and lose the rest of its contents, closed his eyes, and pressed his wet palm to his forehead, imagining the master giving him the saliva himself.

  21

  HEART

  Frank awoke coughing a deep phlegm-filled cough that squeezed his lungs so tightly and pained him so gready that he was sure for a moment that he was dying. A gentle hand on his shoulder and a voice in his ear made him think otherwise.

  “Cough into this,” the voice said, and Frank felt a bowl at his lips.

  He coughed again, a long chest-compressing cough that made his eyes water and left him gasping for breath. When it passed, he sunk back into the mattress, utterly wasted, the blood flowing back to his face.

  “I know it hurts,” said Monica, “but coughing expands your lungs and helps prevent infection.”

  Frank tried sitting up, but Monica stopped him with a delicate hand. “You need to rest. You’re healing remarkably and it’s probably safe to move around, but give the medication a moment to wake you thoroughly. You’ll be a little unsteady on your feet if you get up too fast.”

  He lay back and looked up at the ceiling, planks of polished hardwood upon which danced the flicker of firelight. “Where am I?”

  “Safe for now.”

  His mind was clearing. The operating room. The Healers. The restraints. Panicked, he lifted his arms and saw that leather straps no longer held him. He was free, but an IV tube was attached to one wrist.

  “Lie still,” said Monica. “Relax. Try not to excite yourself.”

  “Where am I?” he repeated, trying to get up again. A sharp pain in his chest hit him like a javelin and he fell back onto the bed.

  “Please,” she said. “You shouldn’t make any sudden movements. I think the staples are nearly ready to come out, but you don’t want to risk reopening the wound.”

  “Wound?” he said absently.

  “I’ll be back shortly. Do you think you can be still for a few minutes?”

  He was hardly hearing her. “What? Yes. I’ll be still.”

  “I’ve given you something for the pain, although if you’re anything like the others, the pain should go away soon.”

  “Yes,” he said blankly, staring up at the ceiling.

  Dr. Monica Owens left him, and it was quiet for a few minutes. Frank stared up at the ceiling as his thoughts began to organize themselves. In a moment, the fog of anesthesia lifted, and he felt awake.

  He turned his head to one side and saw the source of the light. A fire crackled softly in a large stone hearth nearby. The chimney above it rose a good fifteen feet before disappearing into the ceiling. The furniture around the hearth was rustic and inviting: a leather sofa, a Native American rug, an end table that appeared to be made entirely of deer antlers, a large stuffed chair with a matching ottoman. Throw blankets. Throw pillows.

  It was a cabin.

  Frank felt the urge to urinate and threw back the blanket that covered him. He wore a hospital gown tied loosely in the back. A catheter tube snaked out from under his gown and into a bag at his bedside. Wincing, he pulled out the catheter and slowly sat up on the side of the bed, his bare feet just touching the cool hardwood floor.

  He didn’t stand just yet. He still felt a little woozy.

  Beside him, several medical diagnostic machines beeped and hummed, monitoring his vitals.

  Looking behind him, Frank saw that he was not alone. There were four other beds in the room, each occupied with one of the persons he had seen in the operating room alseep on the gurneys. They were asleep now as well, and Frank wondered if they had remained in that state since he’d seen them last.

  A night-light shining in an adjacent bathroom caught his eye.

  Being careful to maintain his balance, Frank got to his feet. He took a step toward the bathroom and felt a tug at his wrist. He looked down and remembered the IV. He ripped away the medical tape and gingerly pulled the tube out of his vein. Once free of it, he dropped the tube to the floor and shuffled to the bathroom.

  By the time he reached it, he was feeling steady on his feet again. His hand found the light switch, and he squinted at the sudden brightness. He moved to the toilet, urinated, then went to the sink to wash up.

  The image of himself in the mirror startled him. His face was pale and thin, his eyes sunken. He hadn’t shaved in days. He moved a hand over his chin, feeling the stubble. He pulled down the collar of his hospital johnny and saw that there were bandages on his chest. He pulled the gown off over his head and looked at himself again in the mirror. The bandages covered his entire torso, beginning just below the armpit and winding their way down his chest to his navel. The skin immediately above and below the bandages had been shaven, suggesting that the entire area under the bandages had been shaved recently.

  He clawed at the bandage until he found the end of it, then began unraveling it.

  Yards of bandage fell to his feet. And the more he unwound, the more panicked he became, ripping it, pulling it away violently. When the last strip came free, Frank stood there naked, staring at himself.

  A heavily stapled surgical wound ran down the middle of his chest, beginning at the top of his rib cage and extending to the bottom of his breastbone.

  Slowly Frank raised a finger and touched the red, mostly healed scar. It was real.

  He reached behind his head and felt the prickly stitches of the surgical wound on the back of his neck.

  He bent down, grabbed the gown, slid it back over his head, and left the bathroom.

  Across the room a large wooden door with ornate carvings around its edges stood shut. He pulled it open. The hallway was dark and empty. Frank padded down it, moving cautiously, eyes shifting.

  Ahead of him a faint light spilled from a room and into the hallway. Frank stopped and listened for voices but heard nothing, then crept to the room’s entrance and looked inside.

  George Galen’s naked body lay flat on its back atop a wide stone table. Burning candles of all shapes and sizes surrounded him, and a few sticks of incense burned in the corner—though they did little to mask the smell of a decomposing body.

  Frank went to Galen’s corpse. The old man’s torso had been cut wide open. An incision had been made at the top of his chest and extended down past his lower abdomen toward his genitalia. Other perpendicular incisions had been made, allowing the surgeon to open Galen’s chest like a cabinet.

  Frank peeled back the flaps of skin, and it took only a moment to discover that George Galen was missing both kidneys, his liver, his right lung, and his heart.

  Frank felt nauseated. He pulled down the collar of his gown and looked again at the scar on his chest. Galen had said they wanted all of Frank but his heart. Frank felt sick. They had put Galen’s heart inside him.

  He shook his head. Organ donors only donate when dead. Only can donate when dead. George Galen had been alive.

  Yet here he was now, as dead as could be.

  Frank hurried out of the room, breathing heavily now, desperate to find an exit and a legitimate doctor to examine him.

  The front room of the cabin was just around the corner, and Frank ran to the door. He put his hand on the knob but hesitated. To his left was a window. He went to it and looked out. It was night, and Stone stood on the porch guarding the exit, a tranquilizer gun slung over his back.

  Frank crouched to avoid being seen. He couldn’t get out this way, not without help.

  He peeked through the window again. The moonlight made it possible to see for miles beyond the porch, but the sight wasn’t what Frank had expected. This was not the Happy Mountain Rest Home. Frank was somewhere
else. They had moved him. And all he could see in every direction was forest. No streetlights. No homes. Just forest and mountain peaks as far as he could see.

  “Thinking of taking a late-night stroll?”

  Frank spun around to see a curly-haired Healer in a black cape standing behind him.

  “I’m Lichen,” the Healer said gently. “You shouldn’t be out of your room. You need your rest.”

  “What did you people do to me?”

  “You’ve had a heart transplant.”

  It was true, then. They had taken his heart. Frank felt unsteady, weak in the knees. “Galen’s heart?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It was the prophecy. The prophet foretold his own death and rebirth as the beginning of the Great Healing.”

  Frank’s knees began to wobble.

  “Would you like to sit down?” Lichen said, offering a hand.

  “Get away from me,” Frank said ferociously, pushing the man’s hand away.

  Lichen remained calm, his expression blank. “You’re angry now because you don’t understand what the prophet has given you. You don’t understand your own potential. You haven’t seen what the prophet can do to people, how he empowers them, makes them stronger, more resilient, more like what we were intended to be.”

  “More crazy, you mean.”

  Lichen laughed softly. “I can see why you might think that. Had the prophet not healed me, had I not seen and felt the power he holds, I would not have believed myself. And once I was healed, he made me even stronger. Watch.”

  Lichen removed a penknife from his pocket. He opened the knife blade and in one swift movement sliced a deep cut across the palm of his own hand. Frank recoiled a step as Lichen held up the palm flat for Frank to see. Blood poured from the wound and dripped to the floor.

  And then the bleeding stopped.

  And as Frank watched, the wound somehow sealed itself shut. And then a scab formed. And in only a few seconds, the scab hardened, dried, and flaked away, leaving only a red scar. And then, the redness faded also, leaving only a thin flesh-toned scar.

  Lichen took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the blood that remained. “I will wear this scar all my life, Mr. Hartman, as a reminder that I was the one privileged enough to show you the prophet’s power.”

  Frank couldn’t speak. What he had seen was impossible. He looked down at the floor and, yes, the blood was still there. It was real. All he could manage to say was “How?”

  “How did he do it, you mean? How did the prophet unlock the potential of our immune system? How did he learn to speak to our bodies, to tell them to strengthen themselves here, sharpen themselves there? He is the prophet, Mr. Hartman, the means by which all who follow him become something greater.”

  The thought came to Frank and he spoke it aloud. “The Book of Becoming.”

  “Yes, the book which shows how we can become something better than human.”

  Frank looked again at the scar on Lichen’s palm.

  “And if you still doubt,” said Lichen, “look at yourself. Do you think a normal heart-transplant patient can get up and move around so soon after surgery? Do you think an open chest wound would heal that fast? The virus has not completely gestated in your body, so you don’t heal as quickly as the rest of us, but in a day or two the virus will have spread through your system, altered all of your DNA, and you will have the prophet’s full power.”

  “What do you mean? How can I have the virus inside me?”

  “The virus was injected into Galen’s heart before it was placed inside you.”

  “But that’s impossible,” said Frank. “I can’t have the virus, not if it was injected into the heart.”

  “Oh? And why not?”

  “Because each strain of the virus must be engineered to closely match the DNA of the person receiving it. Otherwise the virus destroys cells, erodes the flesh away. If the virus was injected into the heart, it would have to match Galen’s DNA. And if it did, my body would reject it. And if the virus strain had been engineered to match my DNA, then Galen’s heart would have rejected it and shriveled up like a raisin.”

  Lichen laughed. “You do think quick on your feet, don’t you? What you say is true, but that’s the wonder of the prophet. He is all-wise and knows how such obstacles can be overcome. It will all be clear to you very soon. Come, it is late, and you need your rest. We can talk again tomorrow after you’ve had some sleep. You’ve already been out of bed much longer than advised.”

  Lichen did a half turn and waited for Frank to accompany him back toward his room.

  Frank looked down at the tranquilizer gun slung over Lichen’s back. Even without it, Lichen would be too much of challenge. Frank couldn’t overwhelm him, not in this condition anyway. And even if he did, the noise of a struggle would alert Stone, who stood close by on the other side of the front door. Not to mention the other Healers who might be patrolling the cabin.

  They walked in silence until Frank said, “What do you intend to do to me now?”

  Lichen looked surprised by the question. “Do to you? You misunderstand your mission, Mr. Hartman. Once you are changed, it is I who will do your bidding.”

  They had reached the door, and Lichen opened it for Frank. “Here, get some rest. More will be explained to you in the morning.”

  Frank went inside and the door closed behind him. He stood there and listened as Lichen fastened the deadbolt on the opposite side, locking him in. The sound of Lichen’s heavy steps receded away down the hall.

  “Good to see you up,” a man’s voice said.

  Frank turned and saw that one of the other patients who had been sleeping was now up. He was kneeling at the fireplace and jabbing at a log with the poker. He gave Frank a wave, and Frank came over.

  “Name’s Byron,” the man said, offering a hand and shaking Frank’s. “Byron Pacheco. Kind of a shock, isn’t it? To wake up and learn you’ve had an organ transplant? Not the best news to get in the morning.”

  Frank looked at him. He was a broad-shouldered man, curly brown hair, square jaw. He wore a hospital gown and argyle socks.

  “Frank Hartman.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hartman. Welcome to hell.” He squatted down and poked at the log again. Embers sparked and sprinkled down into the ashes. “Some of us didn’t think you were going to wake up. Hal especially, he was betting against you.”

  Frank looked back at the other beds where people still slept.

  Byron pointed with the poker. “That’s Hal there. Kind of an ass, really, but I should let you form your own opinion. And that’s Dolores, sweet lady. I’ll think you’ll like her. And that kid there is Nick, but I’d highly advise against calling him a kid. He’s small, but he’s got a temper. He hasn’t had it easy, if you know what I mean. How’s your chest doing? I saw the pile of bandages in the bathroom. You feeling okay?”

  Frank looked at his chest but didn’t answer.

  Byron pulled up his gown, revealing a pair of boxers and pointed to the red scar across his abdomen. “They gave me the liver. Not as bad as the heart, I suppose, but it still burns like hell every once in a while.”

  “Galen’s liver?”

  “We all got something. Hal and Nick each got a kidney and Dolores got one of the lungs. She’s had the hardest time so far. She was already sick to begin with. She hasn’t been taking it well.”

  “Why did they do it?”

  Byron laughed. “You’re asking me? I’ve been trying to figure that out for the past two days myself.”

  “Two days?”

  “That’s when the surgeries happened.” He stabbed at the fire.

  Frank blinked. He’d been out for two days. And yet to be up and walking around like this only two days after a heart transplant was amazing.

  Frank said, “How did you become involved?”

  Byron gave the log a hard poke, then recounted to Frank how he and the others had been picked up and brought to the rest ho
me. They were both sitting on the floor in front of the dying embers when Byron finished.

  “Can the others walk?” Frank asked.

  Byron shrugged. “We can get all around all right. I don’t think Dolores will be running any marathons anytime soon, but she can move about okay, yeah.”

  “I got a good look outside earlier. I think we have at least an hour before dawn. Let’s wake the others.”

  Byron got up immediately. “Why? What do you have in mind?”

  “We’re leaving.”

  “Leaving?”

  “You’re welcome to stay if you want.”

  Byron quickly put the poker back in its stand. “I’ll wake them up.”

  22

  PROPHECY

  After meeting Byron, Frank had assumed that the other transplantees would be just as eager to mobilize; but now, with all of them all around the fireplace, he was beginning to learn how diverse and divided a group it was.

  He had explained that he was with the BHA, and suggested that if they worked together, they might have a chance of escaping.

  “A chance?” said Hal. “You want me to hang my life on a chance? Look, I don’t know who you think you are, mister, but you’re not the boss of me. I go when I say I go.”

  “Shut up, Hal,” said Nick. “Nobody wants you coming with us anyway.”

  “Don’t tell me to shut up. It was you who got us into trouble to begin with.”

  Nick made a face. “How you figure?”

  “Can’t we have a conversation without somebody arguing?” said Dolores.

  “You and Jonathan,” said Hal. “If you two hadn’t made Galen so angry all the time, trying to escape, the old man might not have done this to us.”

  Nick sprang to his feet from his place on the couch. “Jonathan was trying to help us!”

  “Let’s calm down,” said Byron. He had been standing beside Frank to show his support, but now moved forward to defuse the situation.

  “You stay out of this,” said Hal, stopping Byron with a threatening look. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Jonathan risked his neck for you,” said Nick.

  “Not for me,” said Hal. “He didn’t give a damn for me.”