by Josiah Upton
“What's a guardian?” I ask as I look away, feigning ignorance.
Gibbs remains silent for a moment, his one eye staring off at a wall I can't see. “It's something you don't need to be concerned with. Eat your dinner, then go to bed.”
“Don't talk to me like you're my parent!” I bark, standing up from my chair. “I know what guardians are, and I now understand that my real parents have no interest in being mine. They'd rather stay a thousand miles away from me, paying someone like you to keep their dirty secret alive.”
“That's not how it is, Zaul...”
“No, that's exactly how it is. If they have the money to pay you then they could've paid for the guardianship fees. And how much money do they have? I can't believe I never thought about this. I just don't understand why they went through all the bother. It would've been much easier, and cheaper, just to turn me in to the APA. Or put a bullet in my head...”
“STOP!!!” Gibbs screams violently. This is a level of emotion I never thought him capable of, he's always been so calm and collected. But now his disfigured mouth is wide open as he breathes heavily, his hand gripping his wheelchair with such tension. “I know your parents. I knew them before any of this, and they have given you much more than any other parent would. I won't let you talk about them like that.”
“What, then?” I ask, pushing my hand down on the table, it threatening to snap under the force. “What exactly have they given me?”
“Everything. Your life, your safety. And if they could have been your guardians, they would have.”
“Then what happened?” I ask through gritted teeth, awaiting the usual vague and noncommittal explanation from him. I'm surprised he even revealed that he knew my parents personally. He pauses, silent, his mouth open and on the verge of speaking.
But before any words come out, a loud knocking is heard. Gibbs turns his head slightly towards his unseen front door, his face stricken with confusion. The knocking returns, this time louder and more insistent. Gibbs having a visitor is rare, especially at this hour. Whenever one does arrive, the procedure is for me to retreat downstairs while he closes a door over the suspicious-looking steel barrier.
After spending a few minutes in silence and darkness, the light from the kitchen flows down the stairs again. “There's someone here to see you, Zaul. It's that APA worker, Gordon.”
Chapter 23
Gordon... what is he doing here? I don't understand. The last time I saw him he was threatening to call the police, screaming at me to stay away from him and his daughter. It wasn't a pleasant parting, especially since he refused to tell me what was wrong with Genny. But now he's outside Gibbs's house, here to see me. I pop a few Mortetine in my mouth before exiting the basement – I'll probably need it.
Gibbs unlocks the door, saying that he told Gordon I was in the backyard and was coming around to meet him. I'm not sure why Gibbs didn't just tell him I wasn't here. Maybe he didn't want to raise suspicion in an APA employee, as it is most likely after nine o'clock p.m. and there is a strict curfew for minors. The reality, though, is he probably didn't want to talk any more about my parents.
But whatever the reason, I am grateful to be away from him, but apprehensive towards seeing Gordon. I look out over the dry grass of the backyard, to the trees at the back and the other neighboring yards. Perhaps I could just run away from it all.
“Zaul.” His voice startles me. I was supposed to meet him on the front porch. I jerk around to face him, fists clenched. He holds up his hands, walking slowly toward me. “I'm not here to yell at you anymore.”
“Then why are you here?” I ask, a small white flash from the Mortetine relaxing my body.
“I came to apologize. I heard about what happened on the news, and drove out here as soon as I could. I'm glad you're safe, and I'm so sorry you had to go through that.”
“It wasn't your fault,” I say, still fighting off the notion that he had something to do with the APA showing up. “That was the Collars, not the Cure. You didn't cause that.”
“No, but I did tell you I would give you a ride home after helping me. If I hadn't blown up and told you to leave, you wouldn't have been on that bus.”
“But I was looking around in your things without permission.”
Gordon looks away and up into the sky – anywhere but at me. He's obviously still upset about my intrusion. “Yes, you were, and that was very inconsiderate and rude. But I shouldn't have snapped at you for asking about my daughter. She is your friend, and friends care for one another.” This statement suggests that she is still my friend, and therefore I am allowed to see her again. A warm feeling tingles inside me. Gordon looks around the barren backyard, sighing heavily. “Is there anywhere to sit out here?”
I walk over to two lawn chairs laying down on the concrete patio, picking them up and dusting them off. They've been in the same spot since Gibbs first let me venture out of the basement, so I have no idea how long they've been there. I ease into one of them, and motion for Gordon to do the same. A moment of silence passes as we sit in the cool breeze of the autumn evening, his meaty fingers tapping absently on his leg. My Prisoner growls, and the Mortetine shuts him up with a sensation of nausea.
“Zaul, I believe I owe you an explanation, about my family. About Genny.” He turns to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. More nausea. “And please, don't let her know I'm telling you any of this. It's sort of a delicate subject, and her life is hard enough as it is, without her mother around. I'd hate to add to that the feeling of being self-conscious around her friend. In fact, I think you're the only one she has. And I know she won't risk that by telling you what I'm about to say, but I think it's necessary for you to hear, to understand us better.”
I am her only friend? The warm tingling increases. “I see,” I offer, trying to keep the smile from my face. I'm not used to wearing a naturally occurring one. “But why would she be afraid to talk to me? What does she have to feel self-conscious about?”
“She's sick, just like you guessed down in the basement. And I'm using my research in hopes of making her better, and the APA doesn't know about it.”
“So, you're not working for them? And the Hubrens Virus cure, it really is just a.. a tube dream?”
He chuckles, looking over at me. “Pipe dream, son. Pipe dream. And yes, I do still work for them.”
“But not for the cure...”
“Well, that's where it gets complicated. As I told you before, funding for the Cure department was slashed dramatically. I'm only one of four employees working in that lab, and they have us wrapped up with pointless busywork. In the last ten years, not one thing has been done in that lab in search of the cure. But the work I do in my basement, on my own accord, that is the only thing I am concerned with.”
“And you're using that research to make Genny better...” The words come out as the pieces fall into place. “...which means that she...”
“Yes,” Gordon says grimly, looking down at the concrete patio. “She has the Hubrens Virus.”
It all makes sense. The depression, the bitterness, the acting up in school. She must feel like an outcast. This world isn't kind to those infected. I found that out on the bus today, with the way the other passengers treated that woman. Yes, she was a Hybrid Reanimate, but they didn't know that. They could only guess that she was infected with the Hubrens, or a carrier of the Reanimate condition at the worst, and they ridiculed her and spit on her. If anyone at school found this out about Genny, the harassment would never end.
What's more horrifying, though, is the fact that she isn't biologically a woman yet, as proven by the absence of my Lust around her. If she hasn't passed through puberty yet, then she's still eligible to turn Phase II. No wonder Gordon is consumed with finding a cure. She may be on the verge of becoming something like me, a monster. My chest aches at this realization, that I've only just made my first friend, but any day now that could all go away. If I forgot my own parents' faces after my transformation, how could I exp
ect her to remember me?
And how has she held off this biological shift for so long? How has she been this fortunate? I would ask Gordon, but there is no rightful reason why I would suspect she is not post-pubescent – after all, everything else about her suggests that she is.
Gordon's eyes move from the ground to mine. “But the Hubrens isn't the worst of it. Genny was born with the virus, and she's still Phase I. That means that... that...” He shakes his head and massages his brow ridge. Whatever human emotion he's experiencing, it seems like it's projecting off him so that I can feel it too. It makes me want to look away. “I can't believe I'm even talking about my daughter like this to a teenage boy. What it means, Zaul, is that...”
“I know what you mean, sir,” I interrupt. I don't think I could handle another second of the awkwardness. “Genny isn't an adult, in a sense.”
“Yes. More or less, that's basically it. In most aspects, Genny has developed like any other girl her age. But the trigger for Phase II transformation in females is their first menstrual cycle, so I developed a hormone to delay that specific event, and began administering it to her at the age of ten. Before Cassandra died, we briefly considered this option. My wife hated the idea, and made me promise I wouldn't do that our daughter. But as Genny grew older, I got more scared, and I couldn't help myself. I thought I would have found a cure soon, but here we are, seven years later.”
This explains the gradual decline of cheer in Genny's pictures over time. Seven years of fear and apprehension, waiting for the day you get sick and die, wondering if you'll be one of the unlucky few to wake up as an uncontrollable monster, craving human flesh. I suppose I probably felt that too, but I can't remember, and I didn't have to dread over its arrival for as long as she has.
“I don't know how much longer the hormones will work,” Gordon continues. “Or how much more I can do this to my own daughter. I've already ruined her life enough as it is. All of this is my fault in the first place.”
“How?” I ask.
“Well, how do you suppose Genny was born with the Hubrens Virus?”
“Oh. You passed it down to her. You have the virus, too.”
“And as you can see, I'm a grown man, yet I'm not a Hybrid Reanimate. I wasn't born with it, and the primary way an adult contracts the virus is through sexual transmission. Do you get what I'm saying, Zaul?”
Everyday I try my hardest to consciously not think about sex, because it only encourages my Prisoner and makes things harder for me. But I now understand that sex is how the Hubrens came to this family. And if Gordon believes that it is his fault, then he must have made a mistake.
“I was so stupid. My wife loved me, trusted me, and I had to go off and fool around.” He looks down, shaking his head. “Cassandra and I worked together, you know, in biomedical engineering. That's how we met. It was in Atlanta, back when the APA was still working closely with the CDC – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's when the country actually cared about finding a cure.
“One of my first days there I had to share a workspace with her. She was so beautiful, and so brilliant, that I got nervous around her. I kept inputting the data incorrectly, or handing her the wrong samples. After about a month I finally got the courage to ask her out on a date, and she said no almost before I finished asking. She transferred to another lab the next week. Months later, at the holiday party, I was chosen to be the office Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus?” I interrupt, unfamiliar with the term.
“You know, Santa Claus. Big guy with the beard, red hat and suit?”
“Oh, you mean that Merry Christmas man?”
Gordon squints his eyes at me, confused. “Uh, yeah. I guess you could call him that. Anyway, Cassandra comes up to me and starts talking. She says that she always wanted to go on that date, but was afraid that it would look too unprofessional to get involved with a coworker. She had requested to be transferred to another lab so that there wouldn't be a conflict, but then got caught up in research and didn't have time for a social life. I ask if she's free after the party that night, and she smiles and...”
Gordon blushes and grins. I wish I could understand what he's feeling. “...and she gives me a kiss that I'll never forget. Of course, she had been drinking too much champagne, but I didn't care. We start dating, things get serious, and a year later we get married.”
The smile fades from Gordon's face. “And then Cassandra got the opportunity to do some research up in New York, while I stayed behind in Atlanta. There was this young intern who was flirting with me the weeks before that, even though she knew I was married. At first I resisted, but then I got lonely while my wife was gone, and so stressed at work, that I gave in. When my wife returned I ended the affair, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her. I kept it a secret.
“Years later, the APA splits from the CDC and relocates its headquarters to Cañon City. Cassandra gets pregnant, goes in for a checkup, and her blood work comes back, says she's positive for the Hubrens Virus. As I thought about it more and more, I realized I had given it to her, and I myself had gotten it from my affair. She starts asking me questions, and like a caught child I start denying everything. I eventually confess, and like the angel she is she forgives me. But I could never forgive myself. The very disease that we were fighting to find a cure for, I bring it home and infect the one I love, and pass it to our daughter. So damned ironic.”
The word I would use is tragic. The human phenomenon of guilt is still something I find difficult to identify and gauge, but Gordon must be overwhelmed with it. “So, are you close to finding a cure now?”
“Every time I ask myself that, the answer I give is always yes, and yet the cure never comes. I'm always one step behind, or just a test or two away, and then another variable needs to be considered, or I notice an overlooked discrepancy. I've devoted my life to this cure, but I'm still only one man. I'm doing this research in secret, I don't have any assistants to help or academic peers to evaluate my work. I'm running out of energy, resources, ideas and time.”
I don't like the words he is speaking. It sounds like the doors are shutting and the walls are rising, and hope for my friend is almost completely lost. I hate my life, and I don't want Genny to hate hers – and that's assuming that after her transformation she'll even be aware enough of her situation to hate it properly. I was a near genius before I turned, which accounts for my average intelligence now. Genny seems smart and wise for her age, but genius? She would probably become one of the many simpleminded “Uggers” crowding the cells of the Colorado Territorial Containment Facility...
“What will happen if you run all out of time?” I ask, panicked at the thought of her crammed into that mass of violent, carnal creatures. Maybe she'll be able to handle it, being one of them herself, but I also have to worry about the hateful Caesar Ortega in charge.
Gordon's face turns grim, and his eyes get wet again. I already know what the answer is. As he speaks his words are careful, but his voice becomes strained. “If the hormone therapy ceases to be effective, and I cannot produce a cure for the virus, then she will enter Phase II of the Hybrid Reanimate condition. She will get sick, and then die. And if she wakes up, they will, they...” His body starts shuddering. He hunches over and buries his face in his hands. I've never seen a human cry before, not since living this second life. It is foreign, and discomforting. “They'll take her away from me! My baby will go to that place, and I won't be able to keep her safe!”
Clearly this man has always loved his daughter, and will continue to, even if she rises from the dead as a creature that can't remember him. I wonder if my parents ever felt that way for me. I wonder if they ever cried like this.
But while Gordon weeps, I am filled with anger and Rage. If Genny turns into a Hybrid Reanimate, she will be ripped from her father and put in containment, with Caesar at the helm. I heard him say it today, that my kind are all cockroaches, and that it would be better if they were just lined up and shot. This makes m
e want to march down to Cañon City, right to his front door and rip it off its hinges. I want to go and make sure he never, ever...
“Zaul, are you alright? You're shaking!”
I am shaking. My whole body is trembling. The plastic armrests of the lawn chair have cracked in my hands, and my teeth are clenched so tight that they threaten to shatter on themselves. The Rage is boiling hot and fast, just from the thought of something that might happen to Genny. It's like when Dalton pushed her, I felt ready to kill. I hardly know this girl, but I will do anything to keep her safe. It doesn't make any sense.
I take a moment to regain control of my body. “Is there anything else that can be done? What about guardianship?”
“Huh,” Gordon chuffs, wiping moisture from his face. “That would be nice, but I could never come up with the money for the fees, even if I sold my house and everything in it. It's about $500,000. I don't know why they make it so expensive...”
“But there has to be some way!”
My passion catches Gordon off guard. He looks me up and down with a serious expression, but then his face softens. “Oh, Zaul. I'm so sorry. Here I am, letting out this sob story to you, and I didn't even think to remember that Genny is your friend. I don't know how else to say this, but there's no possible way for me to get that kind of money – legally, that is. And I've heard the stories of parents trying to rob banks or knock over liquor stores to get that cash. It doesn't end well for them. There's no other way around it: if she becomes a Phase II Hybrid Reanimate, she will be sent to Colorado Territorial. Nobody escapes the system.”
I tend to disagree, the proof being me sitting in this chair, not inside a containment facility. For four years I've eluded capture by the APA, because according to their incorrect records I'm only a Phase II Negative, a carrier, and therefore don't need to be captured. I wear makeup and wigs, take medicine and receive specialized training. For a month I've gone to a school filled with humans, and on two occasions have made drug deals with a man who oversees Hybrid Reanimates on a daily basis. My secret is still safe.