by Kipjo Ewers
“Okay…there’s a way to test that,” Hampton leapt out of his seat.
He walked over to his library of books, pulling out a rather large medical book with tabs sticking out of it, as he opened it; it appeared to have been seriously marked up due to various study sessions.
“Remember this monster?” he smiled flipping through the book, “Read me chapter….27.”
Sophia having glanced at the name of the book shrugged her shoulders, and turned around with her back to him. She began with her recital, “Chapter 27, page 246 on DNA… Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a molecule encoding the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and many viruses. Along with RNA and proteins, DNA is one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life. Genetic information is encoded as a sequence of nucleotides (guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine) recorded using the letters G, A, T, and C. Most DNA molecules are double-stranded helices, consisting of two long polymers of simple units called nucleotides, molecules with backbones made of alternating sugars (deoxyribose) and phosphate groups (related to phosphoric acid), with the nucleobases (G, A, T, C) attached to the sugars. DNA is well suited for biological information storage, since the DNA backbone is resistant to cleavage and the double-stranded structure provides the molecule with a built-in duplicate of the encoded information.”
Hampton’s face had unnerved written on it.
Sophia continued to recite word for word what he was looking at, “These two strands run in opposite directions to each other and are therefore anti-parallel, one backbone being 3' (three prime) and the other 5' (five prime). This refers to the direction the third and fifth carbon on the sugar molecule is facing. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of molecules called nucleobases (informally, bases). It is the sequence of these four nucleobases along the backbone that encodes information; this information is read using the genetic code, which specifies the sequence of the amino acids within proteins. The code is read by copying stretches of DNA into the related nucleic acid RNA in a process called transcription.
Within cells, DNA is organized into long structures called chromosomes. During cell division, these chromosomes are duplicated in the process of DNA replication, providing each cell its own complete set of chromosomes.
Eukaryotic organisms (animals, plants, fungi, and protists) store most of their DNA inside the cell nucleus and some of their DNA in organelles, such as mitochondria or chloroplasts. In contrast, prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) store their DNA only in the cytoplasm. Within the chromosomes, chromatin proteins such as histones compact and organize DNA.”
Sophia paused sure that he got the idea now, but just to make sure she asked, “Shall I keep going? I can say it in Spanish…also remember all the words from what my grandma taught me, on top of high school and college classes were I got a C. Capítulo veintisiete, página doscientos cuarenta y seis en el ADN ... ácido Desoxirribonucleico (ADN) es una molécula que codifica las instrucciones genéticas usadas en el desarrollo y el funcionamiento de todos los organismos vivos conocidos y muchos virus.”
“Um…no…no need to…,” a now wide-eyed Hampton looked at the book, that he knew his friend had not seen nor read in over eighteen years.
Actually, the book he had was her book, he had lost his in a chemistry accident, she lent it to him for the finals, and he never gave it back after graduation. She recited the chapter verbatim, partially in Spanish that he knew she sucked at despite being half Latina. He nervously closed it looking back at her.
“By the way,” she interjected smiling, “We read that chapter on October 16, 1990 at 7:30 PM during a study session with you, me, Chris Parker, and Denise Oswald. We had Chinese…Kung-Power chicken, General Taos, and beef with broccoli with chicken lo Mein and garlic dumplings. You were going through your Public Enemy phase, rocking the cap, hoodie, and black military pants with black Gore-Tex boots, and Denise Oswald who had a crush on you was wearing that tight…”
“Okay! Okay!” he cut her off, “I remember! No need to rehash,” he then got serious wanting to know, “So…what do you remember?”
“I saw who murdered Rob,” she said still visibly unsettled by what she remembered, “I can clearly see them as if they were right in front of me.”
She paused taking a deep breath before continuing, “I woke up unable to speak or move but I saw the three of them…in black…two men…one woman. The woman was sitting on top of Rob in our bed holding our wedding cake knife in her hand. They wore weird black rubber suits and helmets…nothing I ever saw before…as if it came out of a sci-fi movie…they had distorted voices…but I could make out their gender. They were shocked that I woke up…like I wasn’t supposed to…one of the men shot me in the arm with something at close range…it felt like a shot and then everything went blurry…the last thing I heard was the woman say.”
Sophia’s face went blank, almost mechanical. As she spoke her voice sounded distorted and identical to the woman’s voice in her memory, “Get ready for your life to change.”
Dead silence covered the room as Charles almost fell off the arm of the sofa. Sophia covered her mouth going wide-eyed in total shock at what just came out of her mouth.
“Oh…my god,” she stammered under her hand covered mouth.
Charles swimming in a vat of shock, fascination, and fear just uttered, “Wow.”
“Oh god…oh god…oh…god!” Sophia started to pace back and forth into freak out mode.
“Calm down! Calm down!” Charles got up himself to pull her out of freak out mode, “Makes sense…super memory equals vocal mimicry. No different from African Grey Parrots; so…what else do you remember?”
Fear made her hesitant to continue, vengeance made her dive back in, “An embossed symbol on the woman’s left shoulder…saw it through whatever moonlight was in the room…it was a Grim Reaper sitting on a large skull while holding a scythe and smaller skull in its hand…I think they’re either military or mercenary.”
“So…what do you need from me,” seeing how that was not his department, “I’m a doctor…like you, you know I don’t have any military ties.”
“I need to know what’s happening to me,” she took her seat again leaning forward “On a physical and what this is clearly on a cellular level.”
“How am I supposed to do that when the needle will just bend or break off your skin?” he asked with a perplexed look.
“Hello, you forgot to be a doctor?” she said in joking disbelief, “How about hair samples and swabbing the inside of my mouth for saliva.”
“Oh! Oh yeah!” he smacked his skull feeling like a retard.
“I also brought this,” Sophia grabbed her black book bag pulling out the plastic bag with her prison gear still covered in blood staining the bag from the inside.
“Holy shit…,” he said stunned at the amount of blood in the bag.
“What’s left of my prison gear,” she motioned, “Hopefully you can do something with this…also I need to borrow some extra money…preferably cash…enough for a motel room and something to eat.”
“Why don’t you stay here?” he pleaded with her.
“Too dangerous,” she waved off the offer, “If the police or feds don’t know I’m here yet they will find out soon enough…I kind of beat up Craig Martin like almost an hour ago.”
Charles sat there with a dumbfounded are you kidding me look at a now meek acting Sophia, knowing who Craig Martin was after all these years.
He decided to come back to that later, “So you’re just going to leave?”
“I have to keep moving Rich,” Sophia said getting up preparing herself to leave.
“Why? Why did you shut me out?” he finally let out frustrated, not caring if she was superhuman or not.
“Excuse me?” she stood there stunned and taken aback.
“I knew you could never do something so horrible, ever,” he reaffirmed,
“Even when the verdi
ct came down, even with all the bullshit evidence…I knew…for six months after you cut me off, I came to see you every week, and you refused to see me…till I just gave up…why? After all we’ve been through…why, did you do that to me?”
“I couldn’t take it Charlie,” remembering that he did come up to see her every week, and every week she had him turned away.
Sophia’s eyes watered as she was guilty of something else, hurting her best friend, “I couldn’t take it anymore. Every time you or my parents came to visit…I saw how they looked at you…treated you…as if…you’re friends with a murderer, or you are the parents of a murderer. Then when you all left…I felt even lonelier than when you came. I wanted to kill myself…I really did, because it was clear that I was never getting out no matter how many appeals I sent out; that’s when I decided if I didn’t win the first appeal…I wasn’t going to appeal anymore…and I didn’t want you, or my parents to talk me out of it. I didn’t have the strength for another forty…fifty years…I just wanted to go, and it was better for the State to take me…than I do myself in.”
There was an awkward silence in the room as Sophia wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Charles did not know what to say after that, whether to pat her on the shoulder, or hug and comfort her. Their friendship had lasted from college all the way into medical school, he was one of the groomsmen at her wedding; she tried to fix him up on countless dates with women she thought would make him happy, not knowing that the woman he wanted, was the one that got away.
From the arrest to trial to judgment, he was there with her until she cut off all contact at Mountain View. He never stopped believing she was innocent, even when other friends and even family believed she was guilty; he never stopped believing; even at the cost of his former position at Memorial Hermann.
He opted to walking up and putting a kind hand on her shoulder reaffirming their friendship, “You’re my best friend…and I just missed you…a lot…I thought I lost you. Anything you need…I will help you, and as far as money goes...one second. Don’t run off or jump out the window.”
He walked away going into his bedroom throwing the lights on, it sounded as if he was searching for something in his closet. A second later, he came back with one of their old college duffel bags throwing it on top of his breakfast nook table. Sophia’s eyes widened as he unzipped it to reveal several thousand dollars within it.
“Charlie…what the…?” she asked dumbfounded.
“It’s your money…what was left...almost a hundred and fifty thousand give or take,” he looked at her with a nervous smile, “I kept it because…I didn’t stop believing…you’d get out.”
She could not stop the tears from flowing shaking her head, as she looked at her best friend whose eyes began to get glassy as well.
Before she could hug him, Charles turned away wiping his eyes on his sleeveless, as it finally set in that his best friend was actually standing before him again, “Okay…we got to stop this…cuz…I’m half Asian, and I hate the crying stigma.”
“Thank you,” she smiled wiping the tears from her own eyes, she too was so sick of crying.
“But first things first,” he drew back the sniffles, wiping the remaining mist from his eyes and went to grab his medical bag switching the too emotional conversation, “Going to need you to strip.”
“Excuse me?” she asked stunned hearing if she heard right.
“You said you wanted to know what’s happening to you on a physical level,” Charles gestured, “So I have to give you a physical. Which means I need your current weight…height…etc; you know the routine…doctor. Come on I’ve seen everything before.”
Sophia shrugged her shoulders admitting that he had a point, “Okay.”
Without hesitation, she unlaced and kicked off her sneakers. She started to strip out of her clothes from top to bottom putting Hampton in stuck mode, as he quickly noticed the changes in her. He was expecting a bodybuilder body, muscle layered on top of muscle, but that was not the case. Aside from her cheese grater abs the rest of her body’s solid lean muscle tone did not take away from her womanly features, if anything the transformation amplified her features.
She had definitely grown in height, he use to rest his arm on top of her head in the past just to mess with her. That was no longer possible, not that he would ever try anymore. Charles’s eyes could not help themselves as they slowly wondered from her sports bra down to her thong bottom.
“My first theory is that whatever is happening to me; has either slowed or stopped my ability to create myostatin which rabidly increased my muscle growth and strength,” Sophia waited for Charles to chime in on her medical diagnosis, “Charlie? Charlie?”
“Yeah…what?” he snapped partially out of his trance and naughty thoughts.
Sophia gave him an awkward look, “I was talking about the myostatin within me slowing down…do you agree?”
“Yeah…yeah it’s a theory,” Charles stammered trying his best to catch up with the conversation.
“Well…I’m ready…where do you want me?” she asked throwing her hands up looking around.
The innocent question threw him off balance and made him look like a further blithering idiot, “Uh…excuse me?”
Very oblivious to why he was acting so slowly, she tried to break it down for him throwing in hand gestures, “Where do you want me to “sit” for the examination?”
“Oh! On the couch!” he snapped out of it again, “Sit! Sit…on the couch…please.”
Sophia gave him a weird look as she walked over to sit on the couch; she was going to asked him if he was all right but decided not to in fear of getting another weird answer. Hampton shook himself back to reality getting a quick glass of water from his Britta water pitcher. He then grabbed his sphygmomanometer and stethoscope taking a huge deep breath as he prepared to examine his half-naked and very hot looking best friend on his couch.
CHAPTER TEN
Mercer and Armitage arrived on the scene of the Martin's house, the quiet residential neighborhood now alive in the middle of the night with officers, paramedics, agents, local reporters, and half the neighborhood. They both looked up to see the front balcony completely blown open, and paramedics wheeling a half conscious Craig Martin with handcuffs attached to him and the gurney he was on to the ambulance. They met up with the Chief of the Sheriff's department on the scene flashing their credentials before debriefing on the situation.
Mark looked around asking the most famous law enforcement line, “What have we got here?”
To which the Sheriff answered, “Nothing I've seen or heard of before.”
“We're getting that a lot,” answered Dustin knowing this to be the running gag of this case.
“Domestic violence dispute interrupted by what was described as an Amazon wearing a black hood,” reported the Sherriff, “Apparently she tore the door off the back patio; we found it several yards away. She then ran upstairs, caught the husband pounding away on his wife, and grabbed him putting him through one of the walls in their bedroom. She then threw the son of a bitch through the bathroom door and half of another wall.”
“Not before he apparently broke his hand and a chair trying to hit the woman, that on top of the possible broken back and concussion the paramedics said he might have. She then carried him to the patio kicking out the glass doors,” the Sheriff pointed to the balcony, “ripped the guardrail off with one hand tossing it, taking out the windshield to his car, and then threatened to drop him off the balcony while she held him by the neck. Then after leaving him shaking in his own body fluids, by the wife and neighbors’ account she leapt from the balcony down to the street where you see that crater. After that, she took off like a jackrabbit through that neighbor's yard going god knows where. We actually have footage of that off someone’s phone.”
