by Pike, JJ
Good grief. Had Christine Baxter lost her mind? Why flirt now? His life was about to end, and in a horribly painful way. He knew what was coming which would only compound the misery and agony. She couldn’t go all coy and “date night” on him now.
“I’m sure the General has people he needs to contact.” Jo meant “say goodbye to” but that was far too harsh to say out loud.
“Give me a minute,” said Christine. “This might save them. I can’t make any promises. I’m a scientist. I’m not in the business of doling out promises.” She turned to the general, her unabashed crush leaking through all her seams.
It was a strange moment in Jo’s career. An autistic woman, who reportedly had an IQ to rival Einstein, was tucking her hair behind her ear and smiling at a four-star general like a schoolgirl, while claiming she might be able to save his life. Jo couldn’t remember a field op that had been any more Dada. Dangerous, yes. Thrilling, yes. But kooky and flirty and weird like this one? Absolutely not.
“Where were you born, General Hoyt? I don’t mean the name of the town or state, though that might be useful to us later. I mean the feel of the place, the milieu; the setting, the environment, that sort of thing.
“Middle of nowhere. You’d never have heard of it. Tiny town, with barely a general store and a post office.”
“Good,” said Christine. “No, great. Describe your diet growing up.”
“Same as every other country kid. What we could grow and what our mothers put on our plates. Eat it or you’re not excused and may not leave the table. We wiped our plates clean, make no mistake.”
The professor’s smile kept getting broader, though she had no more face left from which to display her hearty approval of all she was hearing. Jo was staggered that she would indulge herself this way.
“Grocery-bought food was rare, then?”
“It was.”
Jo jumped in. “Christine. You need to get to the point. These men are in pain. I want them to see a medic. If you’re done collecting data, I’d like to help them on their way.”
“The general might have less plastic in his body than some of his younger comrades.” She turned back to the line of men by the roadside. “Hands up who lived in the country like the general.”
There was one kid. The rest looked crestfallen.
“City boys?”
She got a couple of nods.
“Don’t give up hope.”
Only the general was smiling. The rest of the soldiers looked like Jo felt: deeply skeptical.
“Do you want to be on the cutting edge of science?” Christine clapped her hands several times. “Do you want to be my guinea pigs?”
No one answered.
Christine turned to Jo, laughing. “I thought the term guinea pigs would be more popular than lab rats.”
The general stepped forward. “I trust you, Christine. I’ll be your test subject.”
With the boss offering his wounds to medical science his staff couldn’t very well refuse. Christine had nine subjects, all ready to be “on the cutting edge” whatever that meant.
“We’re going to wrap you in plastic and hope for the best.” She turned back to Jo. She was a happy scientist, looking at her problem from all angles, getting creative.
Jo, on the other hand, was baffled.
“Get me as much plastic wrap as you can find.”
“Professor…” Jo looked to the general for support, but he was too busy making eyes at Christine. “We spent the last several days getting rid of all plastic on your orders.”
“Good. Now go find us some.” She dropped her voice. “It’s not going to work as well as the tilapia skins. There’s a compound in the organic material that acts as a pain reliever. We don’t know what it is.” She reared up to her full height and shouted. “We might have found the answers, if we’d had the funding we needed to hire scientists and technicians who’d be tasked with separating out the pain reliever from the rest of the fish skin. But it seems our government and the private sector has almost no interest in funding pure science anymore…”
There was no one to hear her protest but shouting at the sky and the fields of wheat seemed to bring her some relief and, as everyone knows, a happy genius is better than a grumpy one so Jo didn’t challenge her.
Christine was rattling on. “There’s no funding and no one gives a damn about real research; the kind that garners answers about the building blocks of the universe. The kind that would lead us to breakthrough technologies.” She sighed. “We have to make do with supposition and conjecture. There’s a chemical in the skin of the tilapia, one day we’ll be able to name it, that sooths burns as it heals the skin. We’re not going to find those same compounds in plastic wrap, but if the concentration of plastic on the outside is higher than the concentration on the inside, we might be able to slow the spread of these lesions until we’re able to find a more lasting solution and/or a cure.”
Jo couldn’t think where they were going to find plastic wrap.
“Doing something is better than doing nothing as far as I’m concerned.”
Jo spun around and waved a couple of the healthy crew over. “You heard the professor. Get the word out: we want plastic wrap.” She turned back to Christine, who was hovering near the general, peppering him with questions.
“Should we broadcast this?” said Jo. She wasn’t sure who she was asking, the professor or the general. The balance of power rocked and tipped between the two of them.
“Broadcast?” Baxter was in command for the moment.
“Tell people who are infected with MELT to wrap themselves in plastic wrap?”
Christine looked over her shoulder at her new boyfriend, then back at Jo, again dialing her voice down to a whisper. “Not yet. Let’s see how the human skin reacts. It might be a disaster. We can’t know.”
She was experimenting on humans. She’d found love at the very end of time. She was willing to mix the two. Jo wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
While the soldiers were scurrying around—making phone calls, hailing people on the radio, telling anyone and everyone that they needed scads of plastic wrap—Jo took herself back to her car.
She opened her laptop and dialed Alex.
He and Sam were at their posts, working through the data they’d amassed.
“If anyone near or dear to you has this disease, try wrapping their wounds in plastic.” She rubbed her face in her hands. She was beyond exhausted.
“The thing we’re all running from?” said Sam.
“The enemy? Wrap yourself in the enemy?” Alex sounded like an echo of Sam. They were right to be leery. It was the opposite of everything the professor had said thus far.
“MELT is the enemy,” she said. “And MELT loves plastic.”
“I can’t keep up,” said Alex. “Wasn’t she saying MELT speeds up when it’s exposed to plastic?”
“Do it or don’t,” said Jo. “I’m just passing on the latest madness. If you want to wait until she’s conducted her experiments on General Hoyt, be my guest. I was trying to be friendly is all.”
“More data on Rayton,” said Alex. “You ready?”
Jo opened her eyes. Was she ready? Couldn’t she sleep and wake up when this was over? “Hit me,” she said.
“There’s a gap in his file.”
“Of course there is.”
“Without talking to his superior officer we can’t know if that’s deliberate on their part—giving us redacted records for reasons of national security—or he went dark and no one knows why.”
“Great. I know what the next half hour of my life looks like.” She climbed out of her car. Weary didn’t even come close to describing what her bones felt like. She tromped towards Michael Rayton: agent, player, and possible traitor. She had no idea how to open the conversation: “Hey, Michael? I know you’ve given your life over to clandestine shit, but want to tell me what you were doing during this gap in your record? I know, I know. You swore to uphold and defend and
all that good stuff, but help a girl out, would you?”
“Mizz Morgan?” It was the same young man who’d tracked her down earlier. “The general wants to talk to you privately.”
Jo turned back. They couldn’t meet in her vehicle. Not now she knew he was infected. Though, they’d been in there only half an hour earlier. With this much MELT in the air were any of them going to dodge it?
The general had separated himself out from the infected men, but he was still far away from those who had no cuts or scrapes or MELT-like symptoms. He held up his hand. “No closer.”
Jo halted.
“If you wouldn’t mind walking into the field with me?” He gestured to his right.
Jo understood. He wanted to be a good distance from her, but also out of earshot from everyone else.
The wheat was waist high. It should have been taller. It had been a dry summer and was behind schedule. That didn’t matter now. Once the wind shifted this was all going to be radioactive and inedible.
“Far enough?” She paused.
“A little further,” he said.
The walked for another three minutes. That had to be a safe distance. No one could hear them out there.
“Turn your smartphone off.”
“It’s off,” she said. She had one eye on security, the other on power. They could charge their devices for now, but that wasn’t going to last forever.
“Tell Rayton he has immunity.”
“Does he?”
“Tell him he has immunity.”
He didn’t, but the general was offering her the holy of holies: plausible deniability. If asked under oath whether anyone had confirmed that Michael Rayton had immunity she’d be able to say she’d understood he did, but that no one had actually confirmed it. The general was asking her to lie without asking.
When push came to shove everyone found where their loyalties lay. Hoyt was dying. National security—a set of ideals he’d sworn he’d die for—was out the window.
“It’s not because of this.” He raised his bloodied arm. “I know you think it is, but it’s not. It’s because we need answers. I’m one death. I don’t matter. But if we don’t stop MELT, who lives?”
If Rayton was the enemy and she told him he had immunity when he didn’t, Hoyt was asking her to commit treason; aiding and abetting and all that. And even if Rayton wasn’t a traitor, she was still acting against orders. She’d never faced a dilemma quite like it.
“You’re weighing your legal exposure. I get it. I’ll tell him.”
“No, no…” She wanted to retain control of the investigation. But that much control? Did she want to be the one to give a traitor carte blanche?
“He might be stringing us along. He might not know much that can help. If he did, wouldn’t he have told us by now?”
“I don’t know the man well enough to answer that question.” She didn’t. Rayton was an enigma.
“I say we roll the dice. Get him talking. See whether there’s anything that Professor Baxter can use.”
Jo turned and marched back towards Michael Rayton’s prison: the back of an army vehicle. Whatever he had to say, she needed everyone to hear it.
This was going to be one hell of an interrogation.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
For seven seconds Betsy’s mind was a complete blank. When the thoughts returned she wished they hadn’t. Jim had only gone and died on her. He’d made it back from his stint in some hellish camp where there was a disease so horrific and virulent it had been given its own name. He’d survived that and then kicked the bucket in their own kitchen, before she’d told him she loved him and had missed him and thought about him every moment. She could at least have done that when he was there in front of her in their driveway. What had she said? What was the very last word she’d said to him? She couldn’t remember. It wasn’t, “I love you, my darling husband. I am forever in your debt. Without you I would have succumbed to my own worst impulses. I made it this far because of you. Please, please, please know that I adore you. I always have. I always will…”
Nigel had his hand on Jim’s neck.
Betsy held her breath. If he was dead—as in gone from her forever—she’d lose it. He’d always said he’d go first, but she hadn’t believed him. Not for a second. Because life without him wasn’t a life, it was just oxygen going in and out of a bag of meat.
“He’s got a pulse.”
The supersonic rush of blood to her head was so overwhelming, Betsy almost passed out.
Nigel pinched the flesh on the back of Jim’s hand. “Dehydration. Get me a bag.”
Betsy wasn’t aware of making a decision to go to the other room where they’d stocked most of the medical supplies, but her legs moved and her feet padded over and back and, before she knew it, Nigel had fitted her beloved husband with a catheter in the back of his hand and was attaching the bag.
“Don’t you want to go in higher up? I get it, you want the distal catheter, but shouldn’t we consider an AC?”
“He’s breathing normally. His color’s not too bad.” said Nigel. “We don’t need the larger bore catheter. Slow and steady’s the way to go.”
She couldn’t think straight. It was Jim. This was why you weren’t supposed to treat family. You got too involved and stopped thinking like a professional. She stepped back. Nigel would stabilize Bill while she prepped for Paul’s surgery.
Nigel had tucked Paul’s urine bag on the table where it wouldn’t be in full view. She pulled it out an inch and checked the contents. There was more blood in his urine. The drip she saw making its way down the tube wasn’t red. More pinkish. With any luck that meant the leak wasn’t catastrophic. She checked the surgical tray by the sink. The tools they’d used for Paul’s first op hadn’t been sterilized. Nigel had doubtlessly brought another set of pre-packaged instruments with him, because he was a saint, but the road ahead was a fog. She couldn’t see a day ahead, let alone a week or a month. There was no telling how often they were going to need to perform surgery. Their throw-away, replace-it-at-will life was on hold. She needed to act as if they were in the field with no idea when they might expect the next drop of supplies. Everything she touched had to be the “last” of its kind. She needed to sterilize what she had and reuse them, rather than going for a new set.
How to sterilize without an autoclave?
Boil them.
No electricity.
No, it was worse than that. They had no running water. They were going to have to haul it from the stream, set up a fire, find a kettle or cauldron or pot, and boil it.
And the kids—soon to be parents; they wouldn’t be kids for much longer—hadn’t done any of that. She had no fire, no boiling water. She should have been firmer. Made them do it. Stop worrying about how she appeared to others and, instead, get the job done properly the first time.
Was it going to be faster to open a new tray or did she have time to sterilize what she had with Betadine? She checked Paul’s urine bag again. No change. Pinkish. Please let that be a good thing. Let the children live.
She stole a look at Jim. His chest rose and fell, which meant he was this side of the veil, but there was no saying how long that would last. Dear God, in whom I place my faith, let him live. Please, please, please let the old man who rules my heart live.
Evelyn would have understood her desperation, but she’d have been clear about what to do: work through the anxiety; keep busy; don’t let your feelings cloud your judgment. “Eyes on your own task, Betsy. Don’t get distracted. Do your best and let Nigel take care of your man.”
There was a bottle of Betadine on the counter. Betsy couldn’t see a sterile cloth, but she could put some Betadine in a bowl and swish her instruments around in it.
So much for “treat everything as if it’s the last of its kind.” When were they going to find Betadine again? She needed to make it last for as long as possible. She picked up the bottle. There was less than a third left. Even more of a reason not to dump it into a bow
l. She had to do the job properly, but she couldn’t squander her supplies.
“Mimi?” she shouted. “Can I borrow you for a second?”
Mimi came to the kitchen door.
“Go into the other room and ask Fred to give you another bottle of Betadine and some sterile gauze, please.” Betsy didn’t want to leave her patient.
“Tell the truth.” Evelyn, always the task master, was there to course-correct. “You don’t want to leave Jim. You’re concerned about Paul but obsessed with your husband’s welfare. Your moral inventory isn’t done the minute you complete it. You know this. It’s a lifelong path we’ve chosen. You must hold yourself to the highest standards. Tell the truth; especially to yourself.”
