The Variables (Virulent Book 3)

by Wescott, Shelbi

  “No, that’s not right. Let’s see...the social butterfly and the tentative newcomer.” She clasped her hands together. “Better?” It was as if she read his mind.

  He nodded.

  “Or the dark-skinned beauty and the survivor. That’s a more mysterious one. I like it.” She popped another chocolate into her mouth and unwrapped one for him. “More?” He nodded and put out his hand, but she stood up and bypassed his hand and placed it right in his mouth, the heat from her body tangible. He shut his mouth as she pulled back her fingers.

  Five visits.

  Each time a bit more intimate, friendlier, more familiar. And while his brain had sometimes drifted to her in idle moments, he never thought of her in a romantic way with any sort of conviction or regularity. Cass promised him Teddy—he was the tie that bound them together. As her visits ended, she would write him small notes to confirm that they were united in reuniting him with the boy. While the task seemed larger than their capabilities, Cass remained undaunted.

  “I have to go soon, just a small trip today. But I wanted to tell you I saw Teddy yesterday with Blair.”

  He stiffened.

  “She cares for him...she is trying. You should know that.”

  He looked at the Manhattan picture. She shifted in her seat. He felt something inside of him, something firm, slipping away.

  “She’s beautiful. Blair,” Cass said to him. “You could love her you know. Easily. That would solve it. She’s older than you, but that’s not an issue. If you loved her, she would let you. She’s hungry for it. And then that’s solved. A perfect family.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Tightened his jaw. It felt like a game. He reached out and motioned for Cass’s hand. She gave it to him. Her skin was warm. Taking his pointer finger, he just traced two letters into her palm. One word. No.

  “Well, it was worth a suggestion. I’m skilled in the art of love. If you change your mind, I could help you.”

  Still holding her hand he traced another word into her skin. Stop.

  “I don’t know how to get him back,” she admitted in near whisper. “But I want to. For you. I want to give everyone what they hope for most in life. That’s not so bad, is it? Until people realize that sometimes I fail—”

  Stop. He wrote it again. Then he penned with slow determination: Trust.

  He let her hand go and smiled.

  “Au revoir,” Cass replied. She leaned down and kissed his cheek with a friendly peck. “Packing, you know.”

  Ethan pointed toward the journal and then gave her an A-Okay sign. She smiled and placed her hand over her heart.

  “Always happy to be a blessing.” And she stood and smoothed down her skirt. “Well, Ethan King. Until next time.” She glided across the floor, opened the door with a flourish, and disappeared outside. Ethan looked at the journal and sat up enough so he could reach it. When he opened up the first page, she had left him a note.

  “To my friend: Ethan. I always leave our visits excited for the next time. But you’ll be out of this room and into the real world (as close as you can get) soon enough. I know we can conquer this together. I want to help you find your voice. What are we waiting for? Just need to give you something worthwhile to say, right? See you soon, Cassandra.”

  He ran his hands over her warm, encouraging words and smiled. His mother could tell him to try to speak and he’d feel such anger boiling up against her. Lucy could come and sit next to him and pine to be redeemed, shed tears of fear and hurt and remorse, and he felt like he was beyond protecting her. But Cass could say whatever she wanted and he felt like she had his best interests at heart.

  Closing his eyes, he rested his head back against his pillow and tried to imagine what he should try to say. What words did he need to say?

  He thought: I’m angry. Or just simply...why?

  Outside his door, he heard a thud, and then seconds later a muffled shriek. It was barely audible, like he could have imagined it, but then he heard low voices, deep and rambling and another thunk against the wall. The sound reverberated toward him.

  He turned his head to listen. His mind went instantly to Cass and before he was even fully aware of what he thought he heard, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and grabbed his crutches. Moving with swiftness, despite his aching body, he rushed out into the hallway beyond his hospital room. It was the first time he had stepped foot outside. The chair beside his door where a guard sat keeping watch was empty.

  When he scanned the hallway, he saw the boys. Two teenagers, roughly his age, had pinned Cass up against the wall. While she struggled against them, she was no match for both. One grabbed awkwardly at her blouse and she fought and yanked her body sideways, tearing the shoulder and exposing her bra underneath. One boy laughed like a hyena and began to claw at the ruffles of her dress, moving the tiers upward; Cass balled up her fist and hit him across the jaw. But it was like a pebble against a giant. He flinched, but kept moving forward.

  Ethan tore down the hallway, his crutches moving forward and back, propelling him along him as he approached. The boys, too engrossed in their attack, didn’t even see or hear him coming. Three feet from the fray, Ethan slowed and grabbed the crutch acting for his amputated leg. Balancing and hopping on a single foot, he swung the crutch and watched as it grabbed the back of the young man’s head with a crack.

  He lost his balance and tumbled into the wall. The boy closest to him turned, and from the ground Ethan swung again, crashing the wood into his face. Blood gushed from the boy’s nose and he collapsed to his knees on the ground.

  With one boy down, Cass grabbed the second by the shoulders and kneed him in the groin. He doubled over for a brief second before taking off running down the hall, abandoning his bleeding friend. The double doors crashed behind him as he fled. Cass picked up Ethan’s discarded crutch and held it in her hands. The remaining boy rushed forward on his knees, throwing all of his weight into Ethan’s chest, and he wrapped his hands around his neck.

  “So, this is Ethan King,” the boy growled, blood covering his teeth and filling his mouth. “Think you’re a big shot messing around with Cass? Asshole.” His nose dripped down onto Ethan’s shirt, the blood flowing freely. He had clearly broken his nose. Before he could say anything else, his head lurched forward and he tumbled off of Ethan and fell to the ground, his body limp.

  Ethan looked up and saw Cass standing there—her shirt torn and falling down around her waist, her skirt ripped, her hair disheveled—and she was holding the crutch out in front of her. Her chest heaved as she breathed rapidly.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked Ethan.

  He shook his head and sat up.

  “Oh, God,” she said and she slumped down to the floor and began to cry. Ethan crawled past the boy’s body and went to her. Immediately, she crawled up into his arms and let him hold her.

  The guard appeared lazily at the other end. It took him a second before he processed the scene. As he surveyed the disaster at his post and rushed forward, he grabbed for his walkie-talkie.

  “Send backup to the hospital wing. There’s been an incident,” the guard said. He crouched down and felt the boy’s neck for a pulse. “Three injured in some kind of fight,” he added. The man looked to Ethan. “What happened here?” He had knelt in blood. “Jesus Christ.”

  Cass pulled herself away from Ethan and started to talk, but couldn’t quite find the strength to form the story coherently. “They...just...from nowhere...” Her hands were shaking violently; every muscle in her body quaked.

  “Calm down, Miss Salvant. We’ll get medical here. Can I help you up?” the guard asked. “Mr. King...are you injured? I’ll get your doctors to come and help you back into—”

  “No,” Ethan said. His voice was swampy; it caught in his throat. He cleared his throat and coughed, and then tried again. “No...no...”

  “Ethan?” Cass said and she put a hand against his cheek. Her own cheeks were stained with tears. “Oh,
Ethan...”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, barely getting the words to form. “Not fast enough. I’m so sorry. Not fast...enough.” He leaned his head against the wall and wrapped his hand around Cass’s hand. He felt a tear slide down and he wiped it away quickly. “So, so, so sorry.” Down the hall he heard the commotion of more guards and doctors rushing to the scene, but all he could do was think of Cass, and the men who had hurt her, and how much faster he could have gotten to her if he still had both legs.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I need petri dish number four in the fridge,” Scott told Grant as he stood over the inverted microscope underneath his laminar flow hood, examining a glass slide with focused intensity. Grant hopped down off of the metal bed in the corner of the lab and walked over to Scott’s refrigerator. It was the grossest collection of specimens Grant had ever seen: tissue and organ samples, jars of floating liquid, vials tipping precariously in wooden holders, and an expired Greek yogurt container—which Scott said was unequivocally not his, although he couldn’t account for its appearance.

  Grabbing the petri dish with care, Grant walked it over to Scott as if he were balancing an egg on a spoon. He took each step deliberately, watching the dish. It was filled with a pink liquid and it wobbled a bit as he walked.

  “You don’t have to dawdle,” Scott informed him. “You’re not carrying the virus.” And then Scott chuckled as Grant let out a sigh of relief.

  “You could tell me, you know,” Grant said in a gush.

  “Okay. I asked you to get me my HeLa cell samples.”

  “That sounds important.”

  “They are important.” Scott reached out and took the petri dish. He used a small pipette to drop the mixture on to a slide; then he used a second pipette to drop another mixture on to the slide. Closing the slide tight, his gloved hands placed the combination on the microscope and watched.

  “You infected those cells?” Grant asked.

  “Yes,” Scott answered. He wasn’t very talkative today, and Grant meandered back to the old bed, where Scott used to do all his experiments, and lifted himself to sit on the metal edge; he watched Scott work tirelessly with meticulous attention to detail. There was no sound in the lab except the subtle whistling of Scott’s nostrils as he breathed in and out through his nose.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Grant said in a slow drawl. “What do you have against dogs?”

  Scott didn’t look up. He shook his head. “What?” he mumbled. “Dogs?”

  “Yeah. You know. The dogs…all the dogs.” Grant felt stupid for asking. He looked at the tabletop and ran his hands over the shiny edges.

  “You mean…the first virus release? Our test?” Scott asked. He moved a slide and picked up another. He adjusted his lens. “We created a test. A virus specific to dogs, animals in the Canidae family. If the dogs died, then the virus would reach our targets, too. In places where canids remained alive, we knew we needed to find a better way to infiltrate those areas on Release Day. I don’t hate dogs. Even if they are dirty, germy…always licking. Here,” Scott picked up a bottle and handed it back to Grant. He took it to the storage area and then walked back, shuffling his feet on the tile.

  The room went quiet again. A machine hummed. Something in the other part of the lab clicked on and off.

  “Thanks for letting me come help today,” Grant said after a bit, and Scott raised his head, and looked at Grant. He smiled and turned his back to his work. “I mean, I know you’re so busy and all.” Grant waited out the delayed response in silence.

  After a long second, Scott turned and looked at Grant. “I’ve been ignoring you, haven’t I?”

  “Nah. I mean...I’m good as an errand boy and whatnot,” Grant replied. “You don’t owe me conversation, too.”

  “Yeah, well,” Scott said. He turned back to his microscope and tinkered with the slide, tapping it slightly. They were quiet again.

  When the silence became unbearable, Grant hopped off the bed and took a step forward and said, “So...Copia?”

  Scott stiffened and then turned; he stopped working on the microscope and he held his fingers in mid-air. He assessed Grant with embarrassment or nervousness, Grant couldn’t tell. “I’m working on it. Must have been an oversight.” He lowered his eyes to the ground and stared at a mark on the floor.

  “Well, I was thinking...” Grant started and he looked at the ground. “Maybe it was because I’m not family? You know?”

  Grant’s tone forced Scott to look up and face the young man fully. He looked at him, perplexed. Then a flash of understanding danced on his face and he tilted his head, waiting for Grant to express explicitly what was on his mind, his eyes widening with a hint of both confusion and bemusement.

  “Maybe...if you think it would be a good idea...Lucy and I could...” Grant paused and sighed. “Man, I didn’t think I’d be nervous to say it. It’s just a suggestion. Like getting married for a green card, right?”

  Scott turned quickly back to the microscope. “Are you asking permission to marry my daughter, Grant?”

  “Well, no. But kinda. I mean...do you think that would work? Could I get a Kymberlin placement that way?” He rubbed his hands together and grimaced; he felt so exposed, just standing there, open, asking to marry Lucy. Even if he wasn’t really asking to marry Lucy. “It was just a thought. You don’t have to answer right now—”

  “I hadn’t thought about it until now,” Scott said without moving. “How marriage will work. I mean...Huck’s selective breeding plan will go into effect once everyone’s situated, and that may not go over well for couples. So, marriage, as a social construct, may not exist. Couplings will happen, for sure, and most people here are already married. I’m sure it’s something that’s been discussed, but I haven’t been involved in the details. But I hadn’t even really been forced to process that aspect until now...”

  Grant swallowed. “Selective breeding?”

  “It’s best you forget that for the time being.”

  “You say that to me a lot,” Grant blurted and then laughed nervously. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry. Copia’s on my mind. It’s getting closer, you know. Travel day.”

  “It’s on my mind, too,” Scott replied and he shot a sympathetic look behind him. Then he added, “Switching your placement to Kymberlin will have to be my doing. I’ll have to go to Huck.” As if it were an afterthought, Scott added, “I think that might be the point.” He sighed out his nose and went back to work. “I need the second sample...it’s labeled in yellow.”

  Dutifully, Grant went back to retrieve the second petri dish. He hesitated again before sliding it off the rack and into his hand.

  “Also, the...what did you call them? Hula?” Grant asked as he made his way back to Scott.

  “HeLa? No. These are my live virus samples...”

  The news made Grant freeze and he looked with worry down at the liquid. It was covered with a lid, and the thick tape across the top obscured the contents inside. Sometimes it was easy to forget what Scott was doing in this lab, tucked away just off the main hallway, steps away from the indoor park, and the movie theater. The tests, the tubes, the hours of staring at cells—all of it was for some purpose that Scott never discussed. The world was gone, and the virus had done its work. Yet here he was, still studying, concocting. Evil took many forms. Of this Grant was certain. Somehow, the more he dwelled on the actual reasons behind Scott’s focused tenacity, the more he realized how easy it was to get carried away with the science—and leave the implications of those experiments behind.

  Grant handed the dish over to Scott and, instead of retreating he stood and watched over his shoulder. “What are you looking for exactly with all these things?”

  Scott didn’t answer.

  “You still trying to figure out why I exist?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Or are you doing something else entirely?”

  At last Sc
ott nodded, and he pulled his gloves off carefully, and tossed them on to the counter in the lab. “It’s difficult. This work. You see epidemiologic analysis has problems because of something we like to call dependent happenings.”

  “Dependent happenings?”

  “Yes, for example, like you,” Scott replied. “There is no reason why my virus shouldn’t have worked on you. But there must be something in your cells, your genomes, genetics, that stops it. Why? I don’t know. How? I don’t know. But that’s my job. You see...you have to have a control when you conduct experiments because you need to know if your experiments are a result of the variable you are testing. Does that make sense? It’s part of the scientific method, basic science, the effects of variables.”

  “I don’t understand,” Grant said as an apology.

  Scott laughed. “You’re an unaccounted for variable. That’s all. But I couldn’t test all seven billion people before we released my virus, so if you look at my data...look...it’s just...my experiments were faulty. My experimental group always died. Some immediately, some after day six. A one-hundred percent death rate. But here you are.”

  “An unaccounted for variable?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why does it matter?” Grant asked. He scratched his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m here. I’m alive...Huck thinks I’m a miracle. So, why does it matter why?”

  Scott looked like he was about to launch into an explanation, but he stopped himself. He rubbed his temple and tilted his head toward the low-wattage lights that ran along the ceiling. “Well...the biggest issue, for me, is how many more like you must exist out there. And when Huck finds out...well...that’s not a conversation I’d like to have with him. But, also, I’m not looking into your matter entirely. There are more pressing jobs I’ve been assigned,” he answered, putting emphasis on each word.

  “Okay, but you’re still messing with the virus—” Grant stopped mid-sentence. He saw the look of warning in Scott’s eyes and he froze. He sniffed and took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to be annoying. I just liked helping, but seriously, I can go.” He thumbed his hand toward the door and went to leave.