Systematic (The System Series Book 2)

by Andrea Ring

  “Been in that situation before, have you?” I say.

  He sighs. “Pretty much daily. I have it harder here, I think, because the Dwellers all think they know better. They self-diagnose. Sometimes, though, an outside perspective is needed. No sane doctor operates on himself.”

  I laugh. “Is that a warning?”

  Dr. Trent smiles. “Maybe.”

  I sigh. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that very thing. Does my dad come to you with his own medical issues?”

  He takes a careful sip of his coffee, staring into the cup a bit too hard. “Perhaps not as much as I’d like.”

  “But you and I both know he’s on the edge,” I say, studying his face for a reaction. “He’s close to hitting his limit.”

  Dr. Trent doesn’t look up at me. He just continues staring into his cup. “That’s the downside, for everyone here. Hell, it’s the downside for human beings in general. Immortality doesn’t exist.”

  “Have you guys worked on it?” I ask.

  “Your dad did, a bit, maybe six, seven years ago. He hit it pretty hard. But one day, he just ended the experiments. Done. No explanation to the rest of us.”

  “What happened?”

  He shakes his head, finally meeting my eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “But every experiment is out in the open, right? You must know something about it.”

  “I know he was working with stem cells. I know he experimented on himself, and that he didn’t involve anyone else here. That’s it. You could ask him yourself.”

  Yeah, right.

  “I’ll do that,” I say, thinking I won’t, but not wanting Dr. Trent to know how little Dad trusts me. “What do you think…I mean, do you know…how long do you think my father has left?” I hold my breath as I wait for his answer.

  He presses his lips together, thinking. “A year, two at the outside. That’s my prediction based on the life expectancies of the Dwellers who’ve come before him. But it’s really a very personal thing. It depends on how much he’s healed, how hard, how fast, how much he’s pushed his body past normal usage. Take Vivian, for instance. They’re close to the same age, but I’d give Vivian another five or six years. She did keep her body in stasis while in a coma, but she didn’t heal much beyond that. I’d give her a much better outlook.”

  Vivian. I hadn’t even thought of Vivian. But of course she’s Dad’s age.

  “Has Vivian mentioned it?” I ask.

  “No, but she has a much more accepting nature than your dad.”

  “Exactly,” I say. “I can’t believe Dad would give up without a fight. I’m sure he must have something in mind.”

  “If he does, he hasn’t confided in me,” Dr. Trent says. “Is that why you’re here?”

  I nod. “I need the records of his experiments.”

  Dr. Trent pierces me with a look that sees straight through to my heart. “They aren’t here.”

  “You think he destroyed them, or didn’t keep a record?”

  “No,” he says. “I’m certain your dad would have kept records.”

  “Then…” I think about the places where Dad would hide things. “I need to go back home.”

  Dr. Trent stops me with a hand on my arm as I start to rise. “Thomas, this isn’t just about a crummy piece of paper your dad’s stuffed in a drawer. These are confidential medical records. Attic experiments. Government property. Security clearance-protected. Do you understand?”

  I look him the eye. “I do. And I appreciate the warning.”

  I stand, and Dr. Trent stares up at me. “I’ve seen your dad do it. Hold people who considered him a friend accountable for their actions. I’m not saying…your dad is a good man, and I know he cares about you. But watch your back.”

  I shiver, then hold out my hand to him. “Thanks. You, too.”

  ***

  Dr. Trent and I exit to the white hallway.

  “I know you’re anxious to get home,” he says, “but how about a quick visit with Dacey and Tyrion?”

  “Sure,” I say, thinking that Dad will think it’s weird if I drove all the way down here and didn’t meet with them.

  We go to room number five and do our scans. The door slides open.

  “Rise and shine, ladies!” Dr. Trent calls through the empty room. He gives me wink.

  “Christ, Trent, can’t a man take a piss in the morning without being harassed?” a voice calls from the bathroom. Dr. Trent and I both laugh.

  We hear the toilet flush, and Dacey and Tyrion come out from the bathroom in their boxers, absently scratching their ass.

  “You don’t even wash your hands?” Dr. Trent says, still laughing.

  Dacey/Tyrion give him the finger.

  And I gasp. “Wow.” I cross the space to them and clasp them on the forearm in a strong shake, not caring that they didn’t wash their hands. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Dacey smiles, and Tyrion gives me a booming laugh. “What do you think?”

  I give Tyrion a good look. “Freaking amazing,” I say. “My God. You’re the most handsome son of a bitch I’ve ever seen.”

  Tyrion laughs again while Dacey smirks like a proud papa. “I am, aren’t I?”

  The transformation is stunning and seamless.

  Tyrion’s blob of a nose has been replaced by a thin patrician one. His eyes have been centered, and the lashes grown long and black. His head is smaller, perfectly shaped, with a thick pelt of black hair covering it. He looks vaguely like a movie star, but I can’t put my finger on who.

  “How long did it take you?” I ask Dacey.

  “About a week. I’m getting faster as I tap stem cells from different places, rather than always using sperm cells. You helped me do that.”

  I grin. “Did it hurt?”

  Tyrion smiles. “Like a hot poker shoved up my nose,” he says. “Dacey does not have as great control of my body as his own. But it was worth it, I think.”

  “You’ve also added width to your torso, I see,” I say. “What, about fourteen inches?”

  “Sixteen,” Dacey says. “And I’ve got his breast bone and rib cage built. But I slept about twenty hours afterward. And that was with three hours of sleep in between after every hour of working.”

  “Go dress,” Dr. Trent says. “I can’t stand looking at your naked chest.”

  They go off to dress, and I take a seat and think about Tyrion’s transformation. I have to help him now—he’s a full-fledged man. And then I berate myself for even thinking that. He was a man before Dacey fixed him, but he had that Frankenstein, sewn-together quality that didn’t make him entirely real. I mean, he looked like an experiment. And now he doesn’t.

  Man, I am a horrible human being. To even think that way, that physical appearance makes someone less human, it’s so abhorrent a thought, so against my basic nature, that I have a hard sitting here trapped in my own messed-up head.

  “It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” Dr. Trent says, interrupting my thoughts.

  I shake my head to clear it. “Yes.”

  “And it suddenly seems more real, doesn’t it, more urgent that we solve their problem?”

  I look at Dr. Trent in surprise. How do the Dwellers always seem to read my mind?

  “Yes,” I say. “But it shouldn’t. Tyrion’s the same man he was a few weeks ago.”

  “Yes and no,” he says. “Don’t you think as our physical appearance changes, say through simple aging or growing up, we change as a person?”

  “I suppose,” I say.

  “Tyrion is getting his own urges now, his own dreams, things he never allowed himself to feel or think before. We’re feeling that from him, a sudden burst, a yearning for a real life. It’s hard not to respond to.”

  I want to say blaming my feelings on Tyrion’s projections of his own feelings is a cop-out and giving me (and Dr. Trent himself) way too much credit, but what’s the point? I nod.

  They come out of the bathroom dressed in jeans and a faded navy blue t-shirt la
rge enough to be a tent. They sit gingerly in a chair, both of them grinning.

  “So what’s up with you?” Dacey asks.

  “I want to hear about you guys,” I say. “What else have you done?”

  “Like I was saying, I’m working on the bones,” Dacey says. “The new bones are basically floating on one side since I don’t have the shoulder and arm built, and I don’t know how I’d do that anyway with him still attached. So we have to be careful when we move.”

  “Have you created the spine yet?”

  “In progress,” he says. “But it’s slower going than I thought.”

  “I think you’ve done remarkably well,” I say. “I was thinking organs first, but I think you’re absolutely right about doing the skeleton. He has to have support.”

  Dr. Trent gets up and takes a bow. “Thank you. Thank you very much. That was my idea.”

  I smile. “So no ideas on the right arm? And you need a left arm now, Dacey.”

  “I’ll just grow mine after we separate,” he says. “As for Tyrion, I’ve got nothing.”

  “If the worst I have to deal with is no right arm, I can handle it,” Tyrion says.

  “Hmm,” I say. “What about this? Build the arm inside your body. Dr. Trent can free it during surgery.”

  Dacey looks at Dr. Trent. “Would that work?”

  “As long as you can keep your body from rejecting it,” Dr. Trent says. “You’ve been lucky so far, and nothing you’ve created has triggered your immune system. But we have to go on the assumption that, at some point, your body will begin to reject all these new parts. I think we should leave it until the very last.”

  “Okay,” Dacey says, nodding his head. He looks at Tyrion. “You might not be the one-armed bandit after all.”

  Tyrion smiles. “One thing at a time.”

  “Is there anything you’ve had trouble with? Besides falling asleep?” I ask.

  Dacey presses his lips together. “Not yet. I am worried about the point when we have to grow the spinal cord and then switch Tyrion’s brain over. I know this is far in the future, but I think it’s the biggest hurdle.”

  “You shouldn’t do it all alone,” I say. “When you’re ready for that, Tyrion should be hooked up to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine so the blood can continue to circulate. And you just go fast, but systematically fast. Take one vein, sever it, heal it, and reconnect. Maybe five seconds each. Same with the nerves and the arteries. One at a time, super fast.”

  Dacey’s face falls. “There’s no way,” he says, shaking his head. “No way. It takes me seventy-three seconds to heal an artery.”

  “You said you’ve gotten faster,” I point out. “Just practice.”

  “I have,” he says through gritted teeth. “That is faster.”

  “Then I’ll do it,” I say. “When you’re ready, I’ll hook up and assist. In fact, maybe we could do something now.”

  Dacey cocks his head. “I thought you wouldn’t be ready for a while.”

  I shrug. “I’ve been working on stuff. I have something that should help you, too.” I pull the backpack off my shoulders and rummage through it. “Here.” I hand him a bottle of Dwellerade and a bottle of pills.

  Dacey takes them. “Gatorade?”

  I smile. “Super charged. We’re calling it Dwellerade. One bottle and one pill every hour keeps me from having to sleep. We think you can work for six hours at a time safely. I’ll have some more Dwellerade sent over here.”

  “We?” Tyrion says.

  “Just a neurosurgeon I’ve been working with,” I say.

  Dr. Trent plucks the bottles from Dacey’s hand. “No offense, but I need to know what’s in these before I can let Dacey have them.”

  “Fine by me,” I say. “So are you two up for a little growth?”

  Dacey grins. “What do you have in mind?”

  I tap my finger on my chin. “Let’s finish the spine and do the pelvis, too. I’m feeling pretty good—who knows what else we can accomplish?”

  ***

  We get Dacey and Tyrion lying down on their bed. Dr. Trent sets up a video camera to tape the session. I’m not sure exactly what he thinks he’ll catch on video, but I indulge him.

  Dacey cuts off nerve sensation in his hand, and I slice open our palms and press them together. I run along the neural pathways up his body and stop at the heart to take a look.

  It’s beating at a normal pace, but something’s off. The blood flow is sluggish, as though each beat isn’t as powerful as it should be.

  I hesitate. I don’t want to alarm Dacey right now, but my initial fear about the strain on his heart is correct. Dacey’s heart is working extra hard to keep Tyrion going.

  I move along up to Tyrion’s brain and hook up. Information about Tyrion’s brain and Dacey’s body floods in. Nothing else jumps out at me as abnormal.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m in. Dacey, can you handle pain management while I work?”

  “Just tell me where,” he says.

  “I think I’ll be working too fast to tell you,” I say. “I’m starting at the bottom of the spine where you left off. Start there, and follow me. Cut off nerve sensation as I go.”

  “On it,” he says.

  I start to work. About five minutes in, Dacey nearly comes off the bed. “Yow!” he shouts.

  I chuckle. “Sorry.”

  Dacey and Tyrion both smile through their grimaces. “You’re too damn fast,” Dacey says.

  “Concentrate,” Tyrion says, laughing.

  I go back to work.

  Twenty-two minutes later, Tyrion has a spine and a pelvis. I sit back and take a pill and swig a bottle of Dwellerade.

  “I’m in awe,” Dacey says.

  I shrug.

  “I notice you’re not disengaging,” he says. “You want to do more?”

  I glance at the camera and at Dr. Trent. “I think we need to do the heart.”

  Tyrion lifts his head in alarm. “Why? Something’s wrong?”

  “Not wrong,” I say, hedging. “But Dacey’s heart is working overtime. It’s straining. Can you feel it?”

  Dacey closes his eyes. “It’s not an emergency.”

  “No, but it’s like you’re obese, four hundred pounds plus. Your heart can’t keep that up forever.”

  “It doesn’t have to,” Dacey says. “There’s an end point here.”

  “But we don’t know when that will be,” I say.

  Dr. Trent sits on the edge of the bed. “We know the heart will be tricky under any circumstance. Are you sure you’re ready for this, Thomas?”

  I nod. “But I know this will be complicated. I want a specific plan worked up—what veins and arteries we’ll need for now, what connections in the brain and to the brain, and we’ll have to do the spinal cord, too. It’s involved, I know.”

  “That’s going to take some time,” Dr. Trent says.

  “A week from Saturday,” I say. “Can we plan to work that weekend? We can consult by email.”

  Dr. Trent stands. “We’ll get on it right away.”

  I disconnect from Tyrion and Dacey and heal us. They sit up slowly.

  “Feels like I’ve been run over,” Tyrion says.

  I smile. “Catch a nap. And don’t turn those nerves back on for a few days. You need to heal.”

  I shake their hands and head for the door.

  “You’re off, then?” Dr. Trent says, following me.

  “Yeah. I need to deal with my dad.”

  He pats my back. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Dad’s car is gone when I get home around nine. I call him and he answers on the first ring.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I say. “I just got back from the Attic. Are you around today?”

  “I’m just pulling in there, actually,” he says. “You’ve been there and back?”

  “Yeah, I have stuff to do today, but I wanted to see Dacey and Tyrion. Thought I’d get up early and make a quick trip.”r />
  “Were you surprised?” he says.

  “I shouldn’t have been,” I say. “Makes sense that Dacey would work on Tyrion’s appearance.”

  Dad chuckles. “Dacey’s always been the ladies’ man of the group. Ironic he created his own competition.”

  Only if we can separate them, I think.

  “Well, okay. I’m going to work. Just wanted to know your schedule.”

  “I’ll be here all day,” he says. “Erica invited you over for dinner. She’s just ordering take-out. Late, I think. Tessa has a swim meet.”

  I almost forgot about that.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna go watch. Okay, I’ll see you later.”

  “Later.” And Dad hangs up.

  Excellent.

  I prowl down the hall, trying to be quiet even though I’m alone.

  What if the house is bugged?

  This has never occurred to me before, that I’m being watched in my own home, but it’s a distinct possibility. I hover in the middle of the hallway, trying to decide what to do.

  Fuck it. If Dad catches me, he catches me. Knowing him, he wants me to take this rebellious step.

  I step up to his bedroom door and turn the knob.

  ***

  Dad’s room is OCD neat. Ridiculously neat. Disgustingly neat.

  I cross over to his desk on the far wall. All that’s on top is his laptop and a small notepad, with a pencil resting perfectly diagonal across it. With a nervous giggle, I knock the pencil askew just to see if he notices.

  Then I reluctantly move it back. Why am I always provoking him?

  I wiggle my finger across the trackpad of the laptop to wake it up. It’s password-protected, of course. I don’t want to mess with that except as a last resort.

  The desk has five drawers—one in the middle across the top for pens and such, and two on each side. The bottom two drawers hold files.

  But they’re locked.

  I open the other two drawers, meticulously organized with a stapler, tape dispenser, some notecards (Is he giving speeches? What the hell does he need notecards for?), a box of paperclips. I run my hand along the inside of the drawers, looking for a key. Nothing.

  I get on my hands and knees and crawl under the desk. I don’t have a flashlight handy, so I run my hand blindly along the edges of the desk, underneath, on the underside of the top drawer. Nothing but wood.