The Ties That Bind

by T. Starnes

  Megan just nodded and started writing. The rest of us, including the girls, who had at this point pulled themselves out of bed, sat nervously around the living room. We didn't really talk about what was happening, but talked all around it while we waited for Megan. About an hour and a half later, Megan came into the room carrying the packet.

  Alex stood up and took the papers.

  "We can review these while we wait for everything to take effect, since there is a significant time lag."

  She pulled a packaged kit from her bag and sat next to me.

  "Cas, this might..."

  "Yeah, I know. Just get on with it, ya vampire," I said, putting a smile in my voice to let her know I was kidding.

  She smiled, unwrapped the kit. It included a small syringe type thing, a vial, and a thing that looked like a small, rubber hose. She tied the hose around my arm, and wiped the area around the inside of my elbow with a pad that smelled like rubbing alcohol.

  "I am not sure why I am sterilizing the area," she said, laughing. "It's not like there is a disease on the planet that can touch you."

  She then made a flicking motion against my arm until the vein started to stand out against my skin. I felt a sharp pinch, and then she did something to connect the vial to the thing she had used to stab me. She twisted it, and dark red blood began flowing into the vial. When it was three-fourths full, she did another twist. Then she pulled the thing sticking me out of my arm, and quickly put a piece of gauze over the area, taping it down with a Band-Aid.

  "There, all done."

  She then took out another syringe, put it in the vial and pulled the plunger to fill the syringe's receptacle with my blood, and went to Megan. She did the same procedure with Megan that she did with me, except when she got to the point of bringing up the vein, she stabbed the syringe in and depressed the plunger, sending the murky red fluid into Megan's body.

  Everyone sat silently for a few minutes.

  "I don't feel anything different," Megan said.

  Alex just shook her head and replied, "You won't. It takes time, we knew this. We will all just hang around here, today, until you start displaying symptoms."

  We spent the rest of the day just hanging out. After a little while, I think everyone just forgot about what was happening. We watched TV, played some board games, and just sat around talking. It was actually a lot of fun. Nothing really noteworthy happened until just after dinner.

  We were cleaning up dishes when Megan said, "Shit!" and made a mad dash for the bathroom. You could plainly hear the cause of her curse.

  Zoe started to head towards the bathroom when I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  "No, I'll go."

  Zoe started to shake her head, "Cas, you don't have to..."

  I held up a hand, "I do have to. She is doing this for me. The least I can do is be with her."

  I went into the bathroom where Megan was sitting on the floor, leaning against the toilet. I did notice briefly how very clean that toilet was. I suspected the girls had a hand in this, knowing what was going to happen.

  I sat on the tub next to the toilet, and petted Megan's hair. She looked at me for a second, then got an expression on her face, and turned back towards the commode. I managed to pull her hair back out of the way, and held it while her stomach let loose.

  When she finished she looked back at me, and smiled weakly.

  Before she could say anything I jumped in, "Megan, you are very brave to do this. I am so happy you are my friend! I love you!"

  She squeezed my hand and said, "I love you, too, Cas. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you."

  She stopped and then laughed and added, "Okay, almost nothing."

  I smiled at her too, "Good. The last thing I need is another girl."

  She slapped my knee, looked concerned again, and turned back to the bowl just in time. It went like this for almost ten minutes, before all that was left were dry heaves. I helped her up, washed her face, and handed her a toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash. When she was done cleaning up, I led her to my room. I pulled her, fully clothed, into bed. She laid her head weakly on the pillow and made a sad moan. I spooned behind her and held her, rubbing her back.

  My girls showed up a minute later, and joined us in bed. Everyone was caressing and trying to silently express their love and appreciation for Megan. Eventually she fell asleep, and we excused ourselves.

  Megan slept through the night and well into the next day. When she got up, she looked pretty much the worse for wear. The girls got her showered, and then we all sat on the couch with her, taking turns holding her and soothing her. By early afternoon, she agreed to eat something, and thankfully, it stayed down. After that point, she rebounded quickly; and, while not back to a hundred percent, she was feeling much better. I spent most of dinner staring at her.

  "What, Cas?" she said, a little irritated with her spoon half way between her soup and her mouth.

  I opened my mouth to speak but Zoe broke in, "He is about to apologize to you. He sees you feeling bad, and he's feeling all guilty about it."

  Megan rolled her eyes, "Cas, I'm fine. I knew this was how I would feel. Stop mothering me, plus I am feeling a lot better now."

  I sat quietly through dinner, trying not to focus too much on Megan. The few times I did look over, she gave me a smile, though.

  When we all finished up, Alex brought out another stack of papers and said, "Okay, Megan, time for your second test. After this, you should be okay to go home. We need to get together Sunday, next Wednesday, and Friday, to do these again. From the experiences that the rest of us had, you should start feeling the physical effects of the change sometime near the end of next week."

  "Now that I am looking forward to," she said as she started working on her test.

  It took less than an hour for her to finish, this time. She gave everyone hugs, and headed home to get some more rest, as the day had been pretty trying on her. After she left, Alex and Mom sat down and began comparing the responses between the two tests. We wanted to go over them also, but Alex pointed out that we knew the change took time, and happened gradually over about a week. She said she would come over on the weekend and we could have a family meeting and get a full report.

  Alex packed up everything and took off, taking Vicki and Tami with her, so she could drop them off at home. Zoe, Mom and I let the rest of Sunday be a lazy day and just vegged out. It wasn't until Zoe and I were lying in bed that night that I remembered I was going to eat lunch with Emily the next day. Zoe had already fallen asleep, so I couldn't talk about it with her. It took a while for my brain to calm down enough for me to join her.

  School, the next morning, was average at best. I was distracted and some of my teachers noticed. The classes I was taking as part of the accelerated program, in particular, were a problem, since the teachers there held me to a higher standard ... and rightfully so. They were not kind in their reprimanding my lack of focus.

  At lunch, I found Emily already at her seat, and slid in across from her.

  "Hey, have a good weekend?" I said, trying to be as nonchalant as possible.

  Her eyes darted around for a moment before she looked down at her food and mumbled, "I guess."

  "So, this weekend Vicki and I went to the batting cages, and man did she..."

  "What ... Do ... You ... Want," she said, clearly frustrated with me.

  "Like I said on Friday, I wanted to sit down and eat lunch with you."

  "I'm not an idiot," she wasn't avoiding eye contact any longer.

  "I was almost certain you weren't."

  "I know what you are doing."

  "What is that?"

  "I see you around the school, stepping in to help girls. I saw what you did for Sarah when those guys were picking on her. You like finding girls and saving them. I don't need to be saved."

  "Okay, so clearly I have ulterior motives. But you're wrong about me, I don't go around finding anyone to save. If I see a wrong, I try and right it. S
ometimes it helps someone, sometimes it helps no one. Sometimes, like with Sarah, people see it. Other times no one does. Don't judge me on just the stuff you can see."

  "And what wrong are you trying to right by sitting with me? I am not looking to make friends with anyone."

  "I don't know."

  "What do you mean, 'You don't know?'"

  "Well, I know I find it sad that you feel like you don't need friends. But as far as why I am sitting here, I am not really sure. It is clear there is something very wrong in your life, and if possible, I want to help."

  "Why would you say there is something wrong in my life?"

  "I could see the bruises on your arm on Friday, but it's more than that. Your entire body language screams something is wrong. Until you got pissed off at me, you wouldn't make eye contact. You seem terrified at your own shadow and flinch when anyone bumps into you."

  "And you plan on doing what?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "I plan on doing nothing without talking to you about it and finding out what you want and what you need. If I saw in you some kind of immediate danger, I would step in and do something; but, as it is, nothing."

  "Then what are you doing here?"

  "Trying to be your friend."

  "I said I don't want any friends."

  "We both know that's a lie."

  That stopped her. She thought for a second and then said, "What do you mean by that?"

  "I have seen the way you look at the groups of people spending time together at lunch. The ... I guess I would call it longing ... I see it in your face, it's hard to miss. You want friends, you're just scared."

  "Scared of what?"

  "I have no idea. But you know what? I am not scared of being your friend. Normally, your body language manages to steer off people who might be your friends so you can avoid whatever it is that terrifies you. I don't plan on making it that easy on you."

  "What if I tell you to go away?"

  "Then I will go away. Is that what you want?"

  "Ye..." she stopped before she finished and looked down at her food. She was silent for a long time, most of lunch in fact. She just went about eating her food and not saying anything.

  I know she stopped from saying she wanted me to go away, so I felt okay sitting and eating my lunch, but I really wanted to know what was going through her head. Near the very end of the lunch period, she put down her fork, and looked back up at me.

  "So, I guess if you are not going to take no for an answer, what now?"

  "I will take no for an answer. Are you saying no?"

  She looked away and didn't say anything for a moment, "No, I'm not. I haven't had a friend since I was much younger, and this is not how people normally go about making friends. So, what do we do now?"

  "Simple, we hang out and be friends. It's not that hard. Although, I guess I wasn't totally honest."

  "How were you dishonest?"

  "Well, I said I wanted to be your friend, buuuutttt, it's never just me that is friends with someone. The girls come with me as sort of a package deal. So, really, you are getting four friends, not one."

  I had told the girls to pay attention and made a hand signal. They all quickly got up and came over, surrounding Emily, who was looking terrified as the whirlwind of girls descended on her.

  Each of the girls introduced themselves to a silent Emily before Vicki broke in, "So, Emily, Cas has some stupid work thing to go to this afternoon, and he's bailing on us. We were all going to go with our friend Megan to the mall. What time do you need to be home by?"

  "Uhh ... my ... umm ... my dad doesn't get home until six."

  "Okay, so you can hang out after school?"

  "I don... ," she stopped when she caught the look I was giving her, "Yeah, I guess."

  "Great! Meet us at the front entrance after the last bell. We will make sure you have a ride home after the mall."

  The bell rang and Vicki half stood up and leaned over and hugged Emily, "This will be a lot of fun. I am glad you are going to hang with us."

  Zoe and Tami followed suit in giving Emily hugs before turning to walk to class. They walked slowly, knowing I would catch up.

  I gave Emily a half smile, "Sorry about that, they come on strong. But you guys will have fun, I promise."

  She still looked bewildered when I jogged off to catch up to the girls.

  Chapter 11

  The school day ended, eventually. Somehow, my accelerated classes had all been moved to the afternoon for this semester, which meant I couldn’t zone out like so many kids do in classes just after lunch. Not that the subject matter was all that hard. I was finding it easier and easier to grasp concepts, and my reading speed was still slowly accelerating as time went on. I wasn’t sure where the changes would end.

  I had discussed this with Alex, Mom, and the girls after one of our family meetings. The girls said they had noticed the same things, but we all agreed that despite how far we have accelerated, we needed to be seen 'putting in the work' to explain our advanced pace. If we moved too fast or too far, it might draw unwanted attention. So, while the material wasn’t daunting, the pace of the in-class work and homework was noticeable… if for no other reason than it just takes time to write down answers.

  As this was my normal Monday schedule, I caught a ride over to work. Since the building where we were building the prototype was somewhat further away, I always got rides to Ted's office. From there, if I needed to go out to the other facility, I could usually find someone willing to take me.

  I sat down at my desk in the small office they set up for me at my request. Since I wasn’t in the building full time, I didn’t think I needed much more than a desk and a file cabinet. I was interrupted by a knock at the door. I pushed aside the stack of papers people had put on my desk, waiting for me to show up, and turned to find Marcus standing in the doorway.

  “Hey, Marcus, what’s up?”

  “I was just checking if you had made it in. There was someone I wanted you to come talk to.”

  If Marcus said I needed to talk to someone, then that was good enough for me. I got up and motioned that I would follow him. He led me down the hall to an open area, with a series of cubicles. This is where a lot of the junior engineers and technical people were set up.

  I was a little surprised when I saw the guy sitting in the cubicle. All of the engineers I had met so far were middle aged or older. This guy seemed much younger than the others. Actually, he seemed to be not that much older than I was.

  “This is Ronald Fisher,” Marcus said by way of introduction.

  “Ted hired him on a few months ago right out of MIT. He has some really interesting ideas about desalination that I think we should explore.”

  I looked over at the man Marcus introduced for a moment, considering if I wanted to continue this subject in front of a third party.

  “Marcus, you know our capital is stretched with the drone project. If we get it off the ground, we can look into expanding, but until then …”

  He gave a small sigh before replying, “I know. I was just taken with both what Ronald thinks he can do, and his reasoning behind it.”

  Ronald half raised his hand and said, “Would it help if I say this won’t cost that much… at least, not initially.”

  I was surprised to hear the man had a fairly thick Australian accent, mostly because I didn’t expect it.

  “If Marcus thinks this is a good idea, the least I can do is hear you out. Tell me what you told Marcus, and what you think the early costs will be.”

  He pulled out some papers and laid them out on the cubicle's desk.

  “As Marcus said, my idea is an improvement in water desalination, specifically a way to make it much cheaper. How much do you know about water desalination?”

  I thought for a second before saying, “Practically nothing at all.”

  “Currently, the main method used involves heating the water to remove salt and impurities,” he explained. “A
s the water is heated, it evaporates off and is collected separately, leaving behind salt crystals and minerals. The major problem with this method is the energy needed to heat the water. If you wanted to have the US use only desalinized water for drinking, for instance, it would increase the country's energy consumption by more than ten percent. What I have been working on is a way to desalinize water without that large energy expense.”

  “Why is desalinization important?”

  “In short, because the world needs more drinkable water than ever before and we have less of it. Population is increasingly expanding the need for potable water, and there is only so much that ground water and other traditional sources can supply. Additionally there are areas of the third world where clean water is extremely hard to come by, where the people who live in those areas have to live off of contaminated sources. And finally, there are areas that suffer from extreme drought conditions. My own country, in fact, has been experiencing between forty and sixty percent lower rainfall since last year, while areas like your state of California often experience similar problems.”

  “The world needs access to clean drinking water badly, and that need is just going to get worse. The major stumbling block to that is cost, as all of the existing methods of reclaiming water, both sea water and sewage, are expensive.”

  I gave him a nod after his explanation, “Ok, I see the need for desalination. You think you have an idea to change the way things are done?”

  “Yes. It was something I started working on when I was at university. Using a series of membranes I believe we can create a form of reverse osmosis that will clean the water of not just salt and minerals, but contaminants. While I am certain this process would make salt water drinkable, I believe it could also be used to reclaim sewage into drinking water as well … Although I understand most would not want to use that particular feature. Now reverse osmosis isn’t new and is being used for water desalination now. The big problem with current methods is the energy cost needed to make the water clean and usable, especially brackish coastal water. What my method does is eliminate the need for heating that current reverse osmosis processes use. My process will use a quarter of the energy traditional methods require, making it a viable option for large scale water projects. The power requirements are low enough that I believe we could even make it work on power supplied from wind or solar power, which would make it viable for areas without energy infrastructure, like the Australian outback or large areas of Africa and the Middle East.”