Fugue: The Cure

by S. D. Stuart

  “I had the bright idea of appealing to your humanity, or sense of moral obligation, but time is of the essence, so I decided this would be quicker.”

  He held up a needle and syringe in his other hand.

  She laughed. “I’m a doctor. You’re going to have to find something scarier than that if you want to frighten me.”

  “It is not the needle you should be afraid of, it’s what’s inside.” He stabbed the needle into her arm and her muscle twinged involuntarily. “Within six hours, you will start to feel the effects. Within 12 hours, you will become contagious. Within 24 hours it will be too late to administer the antidote, of which only I possess.”

  She struggled against the ropes. “Why are you doing this to me? I can’t… I’m just a doctor. I can’t sneak a patient out from under the noses of the constables.”

  “I think you will try.” He stood up and inspected the spent syringe. “What I infected you with is something new. It took us months to develop an antidote. You don’t have that kind of time. You do what I ask and I will give it to you.”

  “If I do this, how do I know I can trust you to give me the antidote?”

  “Because I am not your enemy. I am the enemy of the Empire, and the Empire is the enemy of the people it subjugates. Since I am the enemy of your enemy, that makes me your friend.”

  He went around behind her and untied the ropes. They dropped to the floor, but she did not stand up. “Why me?”

  “I need somebody who has unlimited access to the hospital, and a get out of jail free card from the Chief Constable. I know of only one person on the planet who meets those requirements.”

  “You are seriously overestimating my relationship with the Chief Constable.”

  “No. I do not think I am.”

  She looked up at the most wanted man in all the colonies. He looked softer, gentler, in person than the blurry pictures associated with the depiction of a madman in the newswires.

  “I’m curious about something. You call your group La Guérison. Is that French for garrison?”

  He smiled. “It is French, yes, but it means healing. It is not a military term.”

  “Healing?”

  “The Empire is sick, and we are the cure.”

  He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out to her. “Here, your nose is bleeding.”

  She pressed the handkerchief against her nose and pulled it away. The white handkerchief was stained a crimson red.

  “Don’t worry. The bleeding will stop in a minute. It just indicates that the infection is complete.”

  He pulled a TravelCard from his other pocket and held it out to her. “This is a one-way ticket on the shuttle to Arcadia. It leaves tonight at 8 PM. Make sure my friend is on it.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You’re the doctor. What is the survival rate for unknown alien diseases around here?”

  Chapter 4

  Elizabeth stood across the street from the hospital. She fiddled with the TravelCard and noticed her hand was shaking. She took three deep breaths to steady her nerves and slipped the TravelCard in a pocket.

  She walked across the street and into the hospital like it was any other day. As soon as she crossed through the front doors, she made a beeline for her office. If she could get the standard white doctor smock over her clothes, nobody would notice she wore the same thing as yesterday.

  Linda, her assistant, spotted her from the other end of the hallway. “Liz!”

  Elizabeth ducked her head and tried to make it to her office before she caught up with her, but Linda was faster.

  “Liz. There is something you have to see.”

  Linda walked into the office right behind her and closed the door. Elizabeth went straight for her white coat and put it on.

  Linda tossed the folder she was carrying onto Elizabeth’s desk. “Take a look at these lab results.”

  Elizabeth picked up the folder and read it. While she did, Linda kept talking. “That man the constables brought in last night underwent surgery for four hours to extract the bullet from his shoulder. During that time, we administered a full transfusion because of the loss of blood from both the initial wound and the surgery.”

  She could not think about anything right now, other than how her own life hung in the balance unless she figured out a way to get an injured prisoner, under constant guard, out of the hospital, and onto that shuttle; before whatever that terrorist injected into her killed her. She looked up from the folder. “I have a lot of work to do, Linda. Can you show me this later?”

  Linda ignored her. “As per protocol, I ran the full gamut of tests before ordering blood from the bank.”

  She shut the folder. “Come back later. I’m busy right now.”

  Linda snatched the folder out of her hand, opened it, and shoved it in her face, pointing to a single result among the list of lab tests. “Look!”

  She focused on the too close lab report. “He tested negative for something. So what?”

  “Look what he tested negative for.”

  She read it.

  Then she read it again.

  She looked up at Linda. “That can’t be right.”

  “I had enough of his blood to run a second test. It came up negative also.”

  “Something is wrong with the test.”

  Linda shook her head. “That’s what I thought, so I withdrew some of my own blood and ran it through. I tested positive for Scalars, just like everybody else. Everybody but him.”

  A thought occurred to Elizabeth. “The transfusion…”

  Linda nodded. “That’s what I thought too. Everyone has traces of Scalars in their blood, even blood donors. I took a sample from him right after the surgery and then again a little over an hour ago. He had trace amounts of Scalars in his blood right after surgery.”

  “Where’s the lab work from an hour ago?”

  Linda pointed to the folder in her hands. “You’re looking at it.”

  She stared at the report, not really seeing it. “You’re telling me the patient does not have Scalars now?”

  “I’m telling you his body killed off the Scalars we put in him with the blood transfusion.”

  “That’s why they want him,” Elizabeth whispered to herself.

  “What?”

  She remembered Linda was still in the room with her and snapped the folder shut. “Good work Linda. Have you told anyone else about this?”

  Linda shook her head. “Nobody else would believe me.”

  Elizabeth tapped the folder with a finger. “Good. We need a bigger sample of his blood. We need to find out how he fought off Scalars.”

  Linda hesitated for a moment; her face registered an internal battle taking place inside her head. Elizabeth had seen this look before. “You have something else to tell me Linda?”

  “That’s not the only strange thing about our patient. He has a tattoo of sheet music on his back.”

  “People tattoo weird things on themselves all the time.”

  “What he has tattooed on his back is a fugue, a style of music. My father was in the Voltaire Symphony and I went with him to his daily practices the whole time I was growing up, so I know a little bit about classical music and am very familiar with this particular fugue. But there were extra notes on it that didn’t belong. I copied down the letters that correspond to those notes. It’s on the second piece of paper.”

  Elizabeth flipped to the next page in the folder.

  She looked up at Linda. “This looks like part of a chemical formula.”

  Linda nodded her head slightly. “The rest was unreadable because of the gunshot wound. Do you think this is what he injected himself with to kill Scalars?”

  “He injected himself with something?”

  “I overheard the constables talking. They say that right before they arrested him, he injected something into his arm. They figured he was some kind of drug addict getting his last fix before going to jail.”

  Elizabeth set
the folder down on her desk. “I want to run some more tests. But I can’t do it with the constables watching. Do you think you could help me move him?”

  Linda shook her head. “They’ve increased the number of guards outside his room. I don’t know if they will let us move him.”

  “If he somehow knows the cure, or even is the cure, he just might be the answer I have been searching for my entire life. I can be the one to rid the Empire of Scalars once and for all.”

  She stared into Linda’s eyes as a smile broke across her face. “We can be the ones to eliminate Scalars.”

  “I am just your research assistant. I do not need to share in your glory. I will have plenty of time after you retire to find my own glory. But if it means not having to endure the annual immunization shot ever again, then I will do whatever it takes to help you.”

  Her smile faded as she realized what was needed to keep the patient out of the Empire’s hands. “I can’t ask you to break the law.”

  “Any law that would keep us from finding a cure is a law I will not follow.”

  Elizabeth smiled again at Linda. She had always known she had picked the right assistant to help her in her research. But now she was glad she had picked someone who had become a friend as well.

  “I need to get him away from the constables.”

  Linda smiled back. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Chapter 5

  Elizabeth walked down the hallway toward the prisoner’s room. There were constables stationed every few feet along the hallway in addition to the two in front of his door.

  As soon as she stopped at the door, the bigger of the two constables held up a hand. “I’m sorry ma’am. Nobody is allowed inside.”

  She gave the constable a hard stare. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes ma’am. But the order comes from Chief Constable Blaine himself. No exceptions.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Are you sure you want to explain to the Chief Constable how you let the prisoner die because you withheld necessary medical care?”

  “I am afraid you have been misinformed ma’am. The doctor just authorized the prisoner’s release. Chief Constable Blaine is downstairs securing the transfer wagon now.”

  She struggled to keep the look of surprise from registering on her face at learning that Severn was here. Instead, she stood straighter and tried to sound like the voice of authority.

  “If someone has been misinformed, it is you. Policy dictates that I personally authorize all prisoner patient releases from this hospital. I will not authorize a release unless I am allowed to view the patient myself.”

  He refused to move out of the doorway. “You may discuss the matter with Chief Constable Blaine when he gets back.”

  “You are more than welcome to send Severn in when he gets back, but I am going in now.” She used the Chief Constable’s first name in an attempt to prove she was on better terms with his boss than the man who was only following orders.

  She stepped forward and stared at the arm blocking her entry to the room.

  He finally lowered his arm. She looked up at him with a mock smile. “Thank you.”

  Once inside the room she closed the door behind her. She quietly slid a chair over and wedged it under the door knob. Once she was certain that it was firmly stuck, she walked quickly over to the bed where the prisoner was asleep.

  She touched him lightly on the non-bandage shoulder and his eyes popped open.

  She placed a finger to her lips. “Shh. The police are coming to get you. If you do exactly as I say, I can get you out of here before that happens.”

  He sat up and winced from the pain in his shoulder. “Who are you?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Why do you want to help me?”

  “A friend of yours gave me some motivation.”

  “You must mean Croft. He can be very convincing when he wants to be.”

  “I don’t think I agree with you on his methods of persuasion. Nevertheless, I am here to get you out of the hospital. He also provided a TravelCard to get you on a shuttle and off Voltaire tonight.”

  “He’s always been so accommodating.”

  She noticed a sheen of sweat on his skin. “How do you feel?”

  “Not too good. But the doctor says I’ll live.”

  He tried to stand up out of bed and collapsed back down on the mattress with a grunt.

  She hooked an arm under his good shoulder and felt the heat radiating off his body. “Can you walk?”

  He gave her sheepish grin. “If the alternative is prison, I can dance a jig if you need me to.”

  “That’s okay. Walking will be just fine.”

  He leaned heavily on her and she struggled to remain standing as they shuffled away from the bed.

  He breathed heavily from the exertion. “What did you do with the guards?”

  “I didn’t do anything. There are still at least fifteen of them out in the hallway.”

  “Then how are you getting me out of here exactly?”

  She nodded with her head toward the wall opposite the door. “The window.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know we were on the ground floor.”

  “We’re not.”

  They shuffled over to the window. She slid it open with one hand while still supporting nearly all his weight with the other. He leaned over slightly as he looked out the window and almost knocked her over when he took a sudden step away from it. “I am not going out that window.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “We must be a hundred stories up.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Simon.”

  “Simon, we are only ten stories up.”

  “Might as well be a thousand. I am not going out that way.”

  She struggled to support his weight and hold him steady while he tried to backpedal away from the window. “The Chief Constable is on his way up here right now to take you to prison. Either we go out that window or you go with him.”

  “I’ll take prison over being thrown out of a ten story window any day.”

  Linda’s head popped up outside the window. “What’s taking so long?”

  He let out a yelp of surprise.

  Elizabeth steadied him with all of her strength. “You have to be quiet.”

  There was a faint knock on the door followed by the muffled voice of a constable. “Is everything okay in there?”

  She muscled him toward the window. “I’m not asking you to jump. We have an emergency evacuation gurney just outside the window. Just climb into it and you will be safely on the ground in less than a minute.”

  There was another knock at the door followed by a louder voice. “Excuse me, doctor?”

  The doorknob turned and the door pushed against the chair, moving it only slightly. The constable outside banged on the door loudly. “Doctor? Open the door. Doctor!”

  She maneuvered him next to the window. “I can, literally, close your window of opportunity and let you go with the nice men outside, or you can buck up and climb out onto that gurney. The choice is yours.”

  The constables took turns throwing themselves against the door repeatedly, the chair moving slightly with each impact.

  Simon looked at the door that was now open a crack, and widening every time a constable hurled his body against it.

  He looked at her and then out the window.

  She took advantage of his indecision to grab onto him tightly, and they both went out the window together. They landed on the canvas gurney just as she heard the chair splinter into pieces and shouting constables flood the room.

  As soon as they were on the gurney, Linda expertly tugged the release rope. They dropped quickly, slowing only when they were a few feet off the ground. The gurney nestled softly into the grass at the base of the building.

  Elizabeth looked up and saw a constable’s head retreat back through the window, followed by more shouting. She was too far way to hear, but she had a good i
dea of what was being said.

  Linda helped her get Simon to his feet and they raced across the grass to Linda’s waiting steam car. Together, they placed him in the backseat and Elizabeth jumped behind the driver’s wheel. She held her hand up and stopped Linda from climbing in next to her. “Nobody knows that you helped me. You have a promising future as a scientist and I won’t let you jeopardize that for me. Thank you for your help. And letting me borrow your car.”

  Linda smiled and closed the door. “You mean steal it.”

  Elizabeth smiled back. “Thank you.”

  She released the brake and the car shot forward.

  She was out of the city and deep in the countryside in less than an hour. She had not told Linda where she was headed and nobody, not even Severn, knew her well enough to guess.

  When asked about her family, she always said that both her parents were dead.

  That was not entirely true.

  Her mother was dead, but her father was very much alive, even though she had not spoken to him in over fifteen years.

  She pulled to a stop in front of a dilapidated farmhouse and Simon sat up in the backseat. “This does not look like the shuttle station.”

  She shut down the steam engine. “We still have several hours before your flight and we need some place to hide where they won’t find us.”

  He looked around. “Where are we?”

  The front door to the dilapidated farmhouse opened up and an elderly man walked out of the house, down the front steps, and squinted in the direction of the steam car.

  She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “My father’s house.”

  She stepped out of the car as the old man squinted even harder at her for a moment before his face registered surprise. “Lizzie?”

  “Hey Pops.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  A smile spread across his face. “You know you’ve always been welcome.”

  Simon climbed out of the backseat of the car and her father did a double take. “Who’s your friend?”