by J P Carver
I turned away, felt tears in my eyes. “You’re a prick. You know I loved him and that I’m proud of what he did for me and—”
“And you hate me for leaving you.”
A sob froze in my throat. I turned to see that my father has replaced Ziller in the chair. He was thin, frail-looking, with little of his dark hair left on his head. His face was gaunt, stubble like a brush on his cheeks and chin.
“Dad…?”
“Well, as you think I would be, I guess. Or how you remember me.” He tried a smile, but it made his face look like a skull in the flickering light of the fire. “Why are you trying to follow in my footsteps, Ragdoll? Huh? Why would you ever put yourself in a position where you could end up like me?”
“I’m not going to end up like you,” I said barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, you will at the rate you’re going.”
“W—what do you want me to do, dad? You’re the one that taught me that family matters and you should—that you should do whatever you can to protect them and provide for them, even if it kills you.”
“I didn’t teach you that. I taught you that family is the most important thing, everything else I did was because you were my responsibility, Ragan. Your friends are not yours, they’re adults. Your life is not theirs and theirs is not yours.”
“I don’t understand,” I said and wiped at my nose and swallowed back the tears. “Am I not supposed to help if I can?”
He stood, and I went to him as it looked like he would tumble over. He shoved me back a step and stood on his own. “No, you help them as you can, but not at the complete expense of yourself, especially when it doesn’t actually solve the problem you’re trying to prevent.”
“I don’t control how things play out, dad. You didn’t, and you died… you left me all alone.” The tears wouldn’t stop and I wiped angrily at them. I had thought I'd come to terms with my father’s death years ago, but seeing him in front of me triggered something. “I—I had to find my own way. There wasn't anyone to lean on when you died, dad. No one. No one to call and tell how upset I am, or how sad I am… or to ask for advice. I was sixteen and you just… left me.”
He reached for me, his own eyes shimmering with tears, but I stepped away. His hand dropped. “I did what I could and taught you what I knew and you’ve surpassed me. I didn’t think you would use what I taught you like you did, but I’m proud of you. Truly.”
“You’re dead.”
“Maybe, but I’m still here.” He moved forward and tapped my head. “I still watch over you, even if you can’t see me. What I taught you was my guidance and you’ve used it to find yourself a home. A new family.”
“I miss you,” I said, unable to argue anymore.
“And I you, but I don’t want you joining me yet. You still have a whole life out there to live. It going to be painful, it’s going to suck, but I need you to promise me, and your friends… that you won’t stop trying.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and made me face him completely. “Promise me you won’t stop fighting.”
“I… I promise,” I said, and he grinned, but that grin swam in front of me until it was sucked away into the darkness. I felt a sudden shock of pain run throughout my body. A small cry forced its way out of my throat and I dropped to my knees, holding my stomach.
“It’s in. Now we gotta close her back up and make sure her body doesn’t freak out.”
“Didn't you print this with her cells?”
“We did, but the body is fickle with this stuff. We’ll have to watch her for the next few days. Hand me the skin gun.”
“Skin gun?”
“You sure you ever went to med school? The polymer flesh applicator, Marcus.”
“All right, I got it. Jeez, you can be as bad as Merigold.”
“Where do you think I get it from? Press here and here. We’re almost done.”
Five
A Realization
A clear night laid before me. The stars and satellites blinked in the black and blue gradient of the sky, the first peaceful sight I’d seen in what felt like days. Normally I wouldn’t be able to see anything past the haze of light from the city that sat across the river, but the Thaxtons had a screen installed over the pier that filtered most of the light out.
I shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. The movement caused a shock of dull pain to run up my abdomen. I still hadn’t healed from the butchering they did to keep me alive, but I couldn’t lay in Marcus’s room anymore.
When I woke there if felt like I was still in the dream. His posters of half naked idols and fantasy war were unnerving to my still drug addled brain. I needed the fresh air, the silence, and the alone time.
Frozen grass crackled behind me and my alone time had ended. I didn’t turn or acknowledge them right away as they cautiously made their way onto the pier. I knew who it was by their footfalls.
“It’s cold out,” I said and looked over my shoulder to see Marcus pause. “You should wear a heavier jacket.”
“Don't worry about me. I’m more concerned about you. You feeling okay?”
I shrugged under my blanket as he sat on the step beside me. “I’m okay, just couldn’t stay inside anymore.”
“Dad wasn’t too happy to learn you’re up and about.” Marcus sighed, his breath came out in a little cloud of white. “I told him you wouldn’t listen, so now you’re my responsibility.”
“I’d feel bad for you, but you keep giving me shots.” I nudged him with a shoulder. “So, what’s my prognosis? Dead at thirty?”
“Not gonna lie, that drug did major damage to your body. Your liver was shot, but luckily Sera was already working on a replacement. Kidneys will take time to get back to normal. Your nervous system…” He looked away from me and out to the river, jaw clenching and unclenching.
I placed a hand to his arm. “What about it?”
“The drug… it ruins things, Doll. It could have screwed up the connection with your neural.”
“That’s why I couldn’t boot it,” I said, my gut sinking.
“We disabled it until we can make sure it’s not going to cause more damage being turned on. Merigold is on her way since you seem well enough for her to look you over. She’ll be able to tell us how things are.” He paused and met my eyes. “There's no point worrying until she gets here.”
I scratched at my head. He was right, getting upset would do nothing other than destroy the little hope I had left. I leaned against him and he froze as my head laid on his shoulder. I smiled, and he relaxed after a moment. “Did Merigold kill Chris?”
He froze again, and I looked up to see him glaring at the planks of wood. “No, but she interrogated him for hours while you were out.”
“Did you see his account was the last one before me to access the Honeykite drug?”
“He says he hasn’t looked into the drug since he left the team working on it almost a year ago. Doesn’t make sense that he would still have permissions.” He pushed me back a little so he could put his arm around my shoulders. He pulled me tight against him and rubbed my arm. “We haven’t gotten much yet on who did this to you.”
“Guess I gotta do everything myself,” I said and scooted over more. It was nice being held by someone even if it was Marcus. Maybe it was because it was Marcus. “So, question for you.”
“Oh jeez, I didn’t study for a test, is this a nightmare? I’m wearing clothes still, right?”
“Idiot,” I said, and he chuckled. “What’s with the posters?”
He cocked his head in thought and then his eyes went wide. "Oh man, I told him putting you in my room would be a terrible idea, but he wouldn't let me put you in my sister's."
“You know most of those women look underage, right? Like fifteen?”
“They’re like thirty now. I haven’t slept in that room for more than a few nights since high-school.”
“Never figured you for a DarkWeb Girls fan.”
He groaned. “Christ, I forgot I had
that above the bed.”
“I hope you washed your sheets before you put me in that bed, otherwise a damaged nervous system may be the least of my troubles.”
“Promise, I’m plague free.”
“That’s yet to be determined,” Sera said from behind us and placed her hand on Marcus’s head as she looked down at me. “You should be in bed, Ragan.”
“Have you seen his room?”
“That’s no excuse. You two love birds done? Merigold is freaking out in the house on Dr. Thaxton and she wants to see you.”
“Wait, Merigold is going off on my dad?” He stood up and almost knocked me over. “I’ve gotta see this.”
“Hold your horses, kid. Let’s get Ragan back inside first and see where we stand, okay?”
“As long as I don’t have to go back to his room. I’m waiting for CES to show up and arrest me for seeing those posters.”
“Are you kidding me? They’re fully dressed and they’re all of age, you prude,” Marcus said as he helped me up.
“You and I have different definitions of fully dressed.”
“That’s it, you’re getting more shots.”
“Sera…” I whined, and she laughed. “Both of you will be on my list once I’m better.”
“I’d be concerned if that glare wasn’t so pitiful,” she said and went on ahead to open the door for us. We could hear Merigold yelling in the house as we neared.
“This is why you didn’t want to tell me what you were doing before. You’re out of your damn mind—why did you give her another dose? That’s beyond idiotic—no wonder her liver failed.”
“It would fail no matter what we did, but her kidneys would have shutdown along with her spleen and the possibility of other organs if she went through full withdraw. Don’t come in here and second guess me, Merigold. I’ve been doing this far longer than you.”
“And getting senile in your old age. You should have given her Tilpaien, it would have suppressed the withdraw symptoms which would have minimized the damage to anything else. We gave it to addicts all the time, you know this.”
I paused just outside and watched Dr. Thaxton turn toward the ceiling and shake his head. “Sure, Tilpaien would have suppressed them, but where is that processed, Merigold?” When she said nothing he sat straight. “The liver, which was already failing. If Tilpaien built up in her system, it would have…”
“Killed her,” Merigold said and sneered.
“Marcus and I decided on the course we took as it was the least harmful over all. Were there other options? Yes, there usually are, but they came with risks that Marcus was not willing to take.”
“But they would have led to better outcomes than having to replace her entire liver if they worked.” Chris stepped out of the kitchen. He placed a cup down on the table and sat down in a chair. I could smell the coffee and it soured my stomach. “You played it too safe.”
“Too safe? I don’t think you understand the word safe, Dr. Loper. If you did, you wouldn’t have worked on a drug like the one that almost killed Miss Eisen.”
“We try things, Dr. Thaxton. Sometimes they don’t work out and we scrap the research. That’s what we did with RSP-9234. We scraped it.” He tossed the data chip on the table.
“Yet your account accessed it last,” I said and stumble to a chair with Marcus's help. “If the project was scraped why did you still have access to it? Why did you use that access?”
“You shouldn’t be up,” Chris said and looked concerned.
“So I keep hearing. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You had your liver replaced—you almost died. That’s major surgery, Ragan. Even with it being a 3D printed organ it still takes more than a few days to recover.” He looked at Marcus. “You let her walk around? Do you not want her to get better?”
“He didn’t let me, Chris. He’s not my keeper and neither on you. If I make it worse than that’s my choice, not anyone else’s.” I sat gingerly down in the chair. “So, less passive aggressive junk and more explaining why you accessed those files.”
“I told Merigold all—”
“And you will tell me, too,” I said. He cocked his head at me as I held his gaze. He sighed and looked down at the data chip then pushed it across the table to Merigold.
“That’s all the information on the drug.” He looked over. “We don’t wipe access to research because it may be useful in another capacity on another experiment. But I haven’t looked at that drug in over six months. Someone hacked my account.”
“Convenient,” I said and his eyes narrowed.
“I got you out of that room, Ragan. If I was the one that did this then why would I help you?”
“I don’t know, you did lots of stupid things before.”
“I’m not the one that went back to getting hooked on drugs.”
"That’s—"
“Enough,” Merigold said and stood. “It’s enough. If you two want to hash out your old relations, then you can do so when Ragan is actually not at death’s door.”
“I keep knocking but no one is answering.” Everyone looked at me and I smiled. “Man, you all need to lighten up.”
“Should’ve just let her die, would have saved us all a lot of trouble in the long run,” Merigold said.
“Love you, too.”
“Not for long you won’t. Come on, we got some neural digging to do. Thaxton is worried the drug messed up your connections so I gotta be through this time.”
“Oh joy, from one butcher to another,” I said and looked to Dr. Thaxton. He didn't even acknowledge me.
“You haven’t seen anything yet. Plot, help her back to the clinic, I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
Marcus’s hand landed gently on my shoulder. “You okay to walk?”
“Yeah, thanks.” I could feel Chris’s eyes on us as Marcus helped me out of the kitchen and toward the back of the house.
I waited in the clinic, sitting on a table that was all too similar to Merigold’s. Marcus sat on a little stool next to me, his hands fidgeting as he looked around for something to do. I could understand the feeling as I found it very hard to stay seated and if not for the pain in my abdomen, I would have paced the room until Merigold showed. Luckily, she didn’t make us wait long before she swept into the room and went to one of the cabinets.
“So, how does it feel having a bio-engineered liver?”
“About the same as having a normal liver… isn’t it the same?” I asked. Merigold came over with her omni-pad and sat down on the free stool.
“Yeah, but it’s one of Sera’s team’s livers, they’re better than the original hardware. You’re lucky Sera could swing it, would have cost a fortune otherwise.
“Would have been happy with one with the same specs,” I said and looked at Marcus who flashed me a smile. “What?”
“Merigold was bitching earlier to Sera about how much harder it would be to get you drunk,” he said and I turned to Merigold. She was sending a death glare to Marcus.
“That was private, you prat.”
“Why do you care if I can’t get drunk easily?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.
“You’re so much more fun when you’re drunk. Lie back,” Merigold said and pulled out a sheet of plastic from the cabinet beside her. Six or seven pads were on it and she peeled one off.
“I’m fun when I’m not drunk.” I looked at Marcus who stared at the wall. Merigold avoided my gaze, and I gave a small huff. “You know, being mean to the patient is probably against HIPPA or something.”
“Good thing neither of us are real doctors, then.”
“Yeah, best care I can get is from a bunch of half-trained or rejected—ow!” Merigold pinched my arm.
“Be nice or I’ll get you a real shot.”
I sighed and let her place the little circles across my forehead and along my neck. She hooked them up to the omni and crossed a leg while she stared at the read out. It felt like hours before she spoke again. The sound of
her voice made Marcus and I jump.
“Well, want the bad news or the sort of bad news first?” She looked up from the screen, her face serious.
“Bad.”
“Some of the lower connections are fried. We’re gonna to have to remove the wire port as the damage there just makes it useless and prone to infection now that the system can’t monitor it.” She said and waited.
“What’s the sort of bad?”
“The nerve damage will mostly work itself out with treatment. You’ll have some tingling in your legs and arms, might not feel anything in your right hand sometimes, but we can fix that. The main issue is that while I can boot your neural, it’s still a risk. If I missed a broken connection, it could… it could cause a feedback loop and then bye-bye brain.”
“There’s a way to check for that, isn’t there?” Marcus asked. He crossed his arms, and he had the most intense face I'd ever seen on him. “I mean, you install them, it can’t be that hard to trace the connections, right?”
“You know how neurals are installed, kiddo? We boot up the neural and then, carefully, hook it into the brain and nerves while the patient is in a state of semi-consciousness so they can tell us if we screw something up. Being as the neural is up and running, we use that to guide our work. With kids it's even easier as they’re still forming.” She sighed and put down the omni-pad. “There is no good way to tell what connections are broken without booting the system. The longer we wait the better as the body could repair some of the damage itself, or our treatments will. The keyword though is 'could'. We can’t count on it.”
“Great,” Marcus said and looked at me. “I’m not telling you what to do, but I think we should wait until you’re healed from the transplant before we introduce something else that could kill you.”
I nodded. “It can wait. Marcus said we’re not much further in figuring out who tried to kill me. We know anything about the drug though? Where it came from? Who’s making it?”