by Coral Walker
“Shoot me if you want. I’ll not go with you unless you tell me where they are.” The boy clenched his hands into fists to emphasize his point.
Nina trembled. She hadn’t expected things to get as complicated as this. She had only wanted to do something good; she had only wanted to do something for Peter Pentland. They had cut him open and left him to die like an animal. She had visited him when he was still unconscious from the operation and watched his shallow breathing and his pale face. How easily a man could be destroyed. She’d only wanted to do it for him. Then at least, what he had done wouldn’t have been to no avail.
Breathing hard, she drew out the gun and aimed.
+++
Keeping still under the white sheet wasn’t so easy, Jack grinned. He had not expected Nina to change her mind at the last minute and decide to help him, instead of shooting him with her silver tranquillizer gun. It was her idea that he should lie on the same trolley he had lain on before, and she should push him to the tower where Brianna and Bo were, and where the treatment was taking place.
“It’s the only way to get you in there,” was her argument.
Before doing that, they took the sleeping bodies of Putu and Cici to the basement room where he had been kept. Cici was light and easy, but Putu was heavy and cumbersome, and after all that huffing and puffing, lying comfortably on the trolley seemed like a luxury.
The tall, square-shouldered woman said nothing when he also picked up the yellow band with the flower and placed it into Cici’s hand. He was once more in the blue medical gown — Nina insisted on him wearing it — which didn’t have a pocket.
He imagined that when Cici woke up, if Dr Caplin were right, probably five hours later, she would see the flower in her hand and wonder who had placed it there. Ornardo, of course, her mind would jump straight to him. There was a strange void in his heart as he thought of him. If he let it go deeper, the void would swirl downwards like a vortex. Was that how she would feel?
A nearby door swung open, and a sturdy middle-aged man in a grey jacket appeared. Quickly, Jack shut his eyes.
“Last minute work, Dr Caplin? I heard you are leaving today,” said the man’s husky voice.
“Yes, I’m leaving today, Mr Grumersky. It’s a last minute call — kind of crazy — I’ve packed everything already.” She gave a chuckle. “They just can’t do without me.”
Although she sounded relaxed and cheerful, Jack could sense the nervousness in her voice, like a taut thread. So far they had passed a couple of base personnel as well as a handful of blue-faced soldiers that were patrolling along the maze of corridors, none of whom paid them more attention than they would an empty wall. This was the first person who had tried to start a proper conversation.
“Is this Jack Goodman?”
The man seemed to be sniffing. Promptly, a puff of warm air rich with garlic swept over his face.
“Y … yes.”
“Is he sedated?”
“Of course.”
“I thought I saw his nose twitch.”
“That’s impossible —” Nina blurted out, but then she changed to a soft tone, “It could be. He was sedated a while ago, so it’s about time he woke up.”
“I thought they didn’t need him anymore. Dr Pentland has taken his place.”
“That was what I thought,” Nina said quickly, “But then Dr Renshell called me for him to be brought to the tower as soon as possible. I guess they need another victim to get the most healing dust out of Brianna.”
“It’s a pity. He looks so young, so ordinary.” He gave a sigh and seemed to move away a little, judging from the improved freshness of the air.
“I’m afraid I have to go, Mr Grumersky. I’m in quite a rush,” said Nina apologetically. The wheels creaked as the trolley started moving and gaining speed.
A distance behind them, the man called out a farewell.
Once more they were in a quiet corridor, and as they approached the end of it, she stopped and lowered her head.
“Jack,” she whispered, “the tower is just there. We’ll see the lift entrance as soon as we walk out of this corridor. The lift is guarded by one base officer and one of Lord Shusha’s men. I can trick them to take you in, but I don’t think they will allow me to go in with you.”
She paused and smiled a subtle smile, “I should say good-bye here.
“Can you still make it to the shuttle, Dr Caplin?”
“Nina, call me Nina.”
“Nina.” Jack grinned, feeling the lump in his throat.
“I should be just in time for it, Jack,” she said.
For a brief while, they looked at each other, saying nothing. Then Nina finally said, “I’m pushing you to the tower now — good luck, Jack.”
Jack moved his lips, but his throat was too troubled to utter a sound. He turned his head away, glanced at the greyish wall and shut his eyes.
The wheels started to roll, some small bumps, and then a turn. After the turn, the space seemed to become airy and bright, giving him a surreal sensation of being alone, like the prelude to a reunion.
He was going to see Brianna and Bo.
“Dr Renshell asked for him to be taken to the tower,” he heard Nina’s voice say in a neutral tone.
“I wasn’t told about this,” said a man.
“He called me through our direct communication channel, and urgently requested that this boy be delivered to the tower. It’s very crucial for the operation, and I hope you understand that any delay could cost Prince Mapolos his life.”
The silence didn’t last long before the man gave way. “I’ll take him in. I don’t think you are permitted, Dr Caplin.”
Just as she had predicted!
All of a sudden the sheet was ripped off. Jack held his breath. He felt their encroaching stares and their rough hands on his arms and legs, lifting them up to check if there was anything hidden underneath. Nina was right to insist that he put on the silly operating gown, Jack thought, profoundly relieved when the sheet was put back.
Following the sound of a crisp ping, he was pushed into the lift. The door shut, and the lift droned. They were moving up.
14
Jack, Jack Goodman
Under the concentrated light beams of the moons, Bo’s body was glowing magnificently. It was a sovereign’s glow, bordered with a glorious golden ring; only the true descendant of a sovereign could glow as magnificently as that.
A miracle of nature, Kevin exclaimed quietly. He gazed with wonder at Bo’s small gleaming body as if staring at a delicate piece of art waiting to be destroyed, and his heart momentarily filled with pity. He liked the feeling of pity, just as much as he liked the bittersweet taste of the finest dark chocolate — it always tingled at his heart, his senses, enlivening him.
SV34 and SV35. That was what the two gene segments were called. In a little while, they would be sliced off from Bo’s DNA sequence and inserted into the sequence of Prince Mapolos. After that, a strong electromagnetic field would extract the accumulated sovereign power from Bo’s body and project it into the Prince, to activate and charge his newly activated sovereign cells. There would be a reversal of roles, and, as if by a magical snap of the fingers, the subject became the sovereign and the sovereign became the subject.
The place was mostly lit by the moonbeams coming through the opened roof. The orange wall lights looked weak under the moonbeams. The steel chairs and the silver plates, the shining machines and the equipment all glimmered strangely under the medley of lights, and their shadows of different depths were cast in every direction. When the central floor started spinning, he expected the place to be transformed into a stage filled with lights and shadows, swirling, scattering and blending from wall to wall.
Bo, in a deep, induced sleep, was kept inside the same container that he had been in for the past score of days. The lid had been removed, and he was in an upright position. He looked peaceful, except for some slight twitches of his eyelids and forehead. An unpleasant dream? Or the
discomfort of blood being extracted from the artery in his arm?
The seat for Prince Mapolos was opposite Bo. It was large, with a concave surface to accommodate his deformed back and the inconvenience of his tail. It seemed to be unnecessary, as the Prince, apparently in high spirits, refused to be seated. Buckling him into the seat was out of the question. The tubes, one in and one out to form a circular system between his veins and the DNA editor, had to be extended to accommodate the extra room.
Although he was not glowing, nevertheless the Prince was distinguished by his lavish, shimmering, floor-length blue robe that covered him from neck to toe. He was in a feverish state, pacing incessantly, like a trapped beast animated by the smell of blood.
Would he be still so alive once the machine was switched on?
Watching him, he couldn’t help but wonder, knowing the possible fatal side effects of the gene treatment — all the experiments suggested that Bo’s gene sequence, which was incompatible with the Prince’s natural genes, would kill the Prince’s host cells in about two minutes unless it was prevented by the healing molecules from Brianna. A matter of two minutes, that was how long they would have for Brianna to perform her magic healing.
“It might not work!” a voice shouted within him. He trembled and grimaced, trying to dismiss it. He had come a long way and done all he could do, scrupulously and, in a sense, mercilessly. He had to and he must. The suffering must not be in vain.
Steeling his mind, he watched Brianna, blindfolded, being brought in. After all that spinning and noise, she could hardly stand and had to be carried to her spot — a shimmering steel bed with black leather straps.
No surge was detected in her brain waves — a good sign. As expected, she was too confused to sense the existence of either Bo or Prince Mapolos in the room. Soon she was bound securely to the bed with straps tightened to prevent her from slipping, and the bed was adjusted to an upright position, facing the opposite seat — the seat for Peter Pentland.
He gazed with delight as her brain waves surged with a sharp spike when Peter was wheeled in.
Good girl, preparing herself for the healing.
Disturbed at the sight of Peter, he looked away, but the moans drew his glance back. He could tell straight away that Peter, looking feverish and semiconscious, and sporadically talking nonsense, was in a critical state and needed urgent medical attention. The wound was appalling to look at, oozing with dark, viscous blood and yellowish fluid, and smelled ghastly. The groans he uttered as he was moved were heart-rending, and it was painful to watch him being placed on the seat while so sick and weak.
When the last buckle was clicked around his waist, he uttered a loud groan, deep and soulful. Kevin shivered at it. For a brief moment, he wished Brianna could do something — anything that could release Peter from that abhorrent pain.
In the presence of Peter’s plight, Brianna looked alarmed. Her body tensed up, her neck extending like a bird’s, and her blindfolded head jerked slightly to locate the source of the pain and misery. As her head was locked in position, looking straight ahead in the direction of Peter, a faint aura of silvery dust emanated from her, swirling in the direction of her blindfolded gaze.
Kevin’s heart leaped with joy.
The healing dust, so thick and so strong that it was visible to the naked eye.
All at once, he pressed the button in front of him, watching with a thrill as the seats of Brianna and Peter rose into mid-air and started spinning clockwise; at the same time, the floor disk started rotating too, in the opposite direction, with Prince Mapolos and Bo on it. A tunnel of electromagnetic field took shape between them and glowed a pale fluorescent blue as both Bo’s gleaming sovereign particles and Brianna’s silvery sparkling healing dust filled the field.
He stole a quick glance at Peter, who, though beset by fits and hallucinations, was remarkably conscious at that very moment. He seemed to be fighting to maintain his consciousness, eyes fixed, teeth clenched, and head drooping down towards his shoulder. For a moment, Kevin sensed Peter’s unsteady gaze weaving its way towards him. Swiftly, he looked away.
Guilt? He gave a tight-lipped grin, watching the silver dust, swirling down and dancing before being sucked into the tunnel. He could have waited a little longer, to allow the magic dust to work for a while on Peter, to soothe him from his pain.
But, no, he could not! Peter had to stay with his pain, and the pain had to be as great as possible — it was the only way to trick Brianna into releasing the maximum amount of healing molecules.
The drone of the floor spinning and the humming of the electromagnetic field generator sounded like soothing music. Everything was working just as planned. With relief, his hand moved on to the next button and pressed.
A set of status lights on the gene editor blinked before settling to a calm green. In a matter of seconds, Prince Mapolos’ body would receive the new superior blood with every cell containing the ruling gene segments cut from Bo’s blood cells.
He counted in silence, his hands clenched nervously into fists.
All of a sudden, Prince Mapolos froze as if struck by lightning, and then a strange movement overtook him, shaking his bulky body and sending him into violent, spasmodic jerking. The colour drained from his face. He collapsed backwards onto the seat and wriggled on the hard surface before abruptly thrusting forward. He folded his body in half to suppress the obvious pain, his hands shaking and reaching for the tubes.
Kevin watched with dismay and horror. He should have buckled him up regardless of who he was. It would all be to no avail if he pulled the tubes out.
There was a dull thump, satisfying to the ears. The Prince slumped forward onto the floor, and his body kept the same pose as when he was seated, still as a statue.
The air around Kevin became rigid and explosive. Without looking, he could feel the piercing gaze of Lord Shusha on his back, chilling his spine.
Clenching his teeth, he slid the red handle up. A high-pitched, mournful cry tore apart the rigidity of the air and exploded. It was Peter’s agonising groan as the strap tightened around his waist.
Come on Brianna! Kevin cried silently.
The intensified pain inflicted on Peter did the trick. Brianna sensed it. As her body writhed under the straps, as if she were experiencing the same pain herself, the mist of dust around her became thick and heavy. Travelling through the tunnel, it sank onto the motionless body of the Prince and buried him underneath like a shroud.
It was a knife-edge moment, just short of a minute, but it felt like a very long time.
When the mist was stirred up, swirling and spinning away, the gasps in the room were audible as everyone there strained their eyes to look through the mysterious mist.
With a deep moan, he rose.
+++
He was startled to see that Lord Shusha was now standing next to him at arm’s length, soundless like a phantom.
As usual, he stood with his face in the shadow of his hood. A streak of light reflected briefly on him as the central floor spun, fleetingly exposing his profile. His unexpectedly fine features were twisted in a way that was almost like a smile, as he watched Prince Mapolos rising from the mist.
It was like a magic show — the crooked man had disappeared, and in his place a trim young man now stood, half a yard taller than he had been, flat-backed, tailless, and glowing like the blue moon in a pale sky.
It was a moment of enormous relief, and the joy sang in the air.
Kevin was physically shaking with excitement. He had just witnessed the unbelievable — fixing a gene sequence and seeing it take manifest effect in a matter of minutes while in ordinary circumstances it took months or even years for any perceptible change.
He glanced at Brianna, the facilitator of all this. How frail and ordinary she looked. One could easily mistake her for any teenage girl.
In contrast to the dark blindfold, she looked alarmingly pale and unsettled, twitching her body, clenching and unclenching her hands as if she
were struggling. The silver dust kept rising, with no sign of lessening.
Was she awake? Was she consciously controlling what she was doing? He felt suddenly overwhelmed by these questions. How little he knew about her, about the healing power. It seemed to him that she was exhausting herself to keep up the level of dust.
What a convenient and marvellous thing — a natural saviour — sacrificing herself for others.
Bo’s condition was not much better than his sister’s. The magnificent glow was now a faint halo, as the sovereign energy was drained from him. Clearly distressed, his body was in spasms of movement as if some terrible nightmare were tormenting him.
“It’s about time to stop,” he thought and voiced his thoughts out loud. He glanced up at Lord Shusha, who ignored him and looked straight ahead. Slightly irked, he moved his hand along the cold, smooth surface of the control panel towards the red button in the lower left corner.
Something caught him by his wrist. It happened so suddenly and with such force that he yelped as a sharp pain shot up his arm.
“Leave it!”
The deep-toned voice boomed from Lord Shusha. Speaking without turning his head, the hooded man looked as if he hadn’t moved, except that his scrawny hand was clutching Kevin’s wrist like an iron claw.
Struggling to free his hand, Kevin stuttered. “It’s d … done. Lord Shusha, please, l … let go. Prince Mapolos is cured. H … he got all the sovereign energy. I … it’s time to s … stop or the boy could be killed.”
“Leave it,” repeated the shadowed man, tightening his grip.
Kevin flinched, his body shrieking at the pain.
There was a pinging sound, alarming and brisk, and the lift door slid open. All eyes turned to it. It didn’t strike Kevin as anything unusual — an absent-minded man of Shusha’s coming in at the wrong time, perhaps. Lord Shusha was distracted, and momentarily his grip on his wrist was lessened. Losing no time, Kevin wriggled his hand more. As he did so, the corner of his eye caught sight of a portable stretcher trolley being wheeled in, and that was the moment it struck him as odd.
