The Serophim Breach (The Serophim Breach Series)

by Tracy Serpa

  “I’m going to be taking you back one at a time to get briefed and sign some paperwork; after that we’ll be administering the first dose.” Glancing down at his clipboard, he said, “Brandon Kavida?” Brandon stood and waved an awkward hello as he headed for the “Authorized Personnel” door where Dr. Rhodes waited for him.

  “Hello, Brandon,” said the doctor. “Thanks for coming in today.”

  Brandon smiled and nodded, trying not to stare at the right side of Dr. Rhodes’s face. His right earlobe looked as if it had been torn off and healed badly; the jagged scar running along the edge of his ear and a few inches down his jawline was an angry, swollen purple.

  Dr. Rhodes smiled thinly as he shut the door behind them and led the way down the hall.

  “Still healing up,” he said. “I had a small accident a few months ago.” He looked over his shoulder at Brandon, who walked a step behind.

  “Oh. That sucks,” Brandon replied. The doctor shrugged and led him down a narrow, badly lit corridor.

  “Here we go,” he said, opening an unmarked door. Brandon stepped into the tiny room and hoisted himself onto the exam table.

  From the doorway, Dr. Rhodes said, “All right, if you’ll just wait here, I’ll send Andrea along to talk to you and take some samples.” He shut the door before Brandon had a chance to respond in any way.

  He found himself inexplicably disappointed by the state of the exam room. A rolling chair sat in the middle of the room, and behind it, the wall was lined with the countertop, sink, and cabinets he associated with a standard doctor’s office. An old television was mounted to the wall directly across from him. To his right, gossip rags were strewn across a small end table, along with a tissue box and a few remote controls. He considered trying to turn the TV on, then cocked his head to the side and read a few of the tabloid headlines instead. Only a few minutes passed before he heard a sharp knock at the door; a nurse entered, pushing a metal cart laid out with two rows of gleaming instruments and cotton swabs. She didn’t look much older than him, with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and a chubby face that implied more fast food than home cooking in her life.

  “Hi, Brandon,” she said cheerfully, letting the door swing closed behind her. He caught a glimpse of one of the other patients from the waiting room following Dr. Rhodes down the hall just before the door clicked shut. The nurse he assumed was Andrea headed for the TV and opened one of the cabinet doors on the stand to reveal a DVD player.

  “I’m going to put in this DVD for you to watch while I take a few samples, okay?” she said. Brandon bristled slightly at her tone. Any second now she’s going to offer me a SpongeBob Band-Aid and a lollipop, he thought. In an effort to maintain appearances, he nodded slowly, doing his best to look listless.

  “So, your chart says you reported some anxiety, irritability, and some fatigue to your family practitioner,” she said as she wheeled the cart toward him.

  “Yeah, and I have trouble concentrating. I’m tired all the time. Lots of aches too. I just don’t feel like doing anything,” he mumbled. In the back of his mind, he hoped he wasn’t overdoing it.

  “Well, those are all classic symptoms of depression,” she said briskly. “Have you ever been treated for depression before?” She was making notes on her clipboard as they spoke.

  Brandon shook his head. “No. No, I guess I just thought I’d snap out of it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you decided to try some treatment,” she replied, picking up the DVD remote from the end table next to him. The television came on with a friendly beep, and Brandon saw the Argo Pharmaceuticals logo spinning slowly over a DVD menu.

  “I’m going to have you watch this brief introduction to the project. You okay with needles?” she asked.

  He shrugged. No one’s really okay with needles, he wanted to say, but instead, he remarked, “I guess so.”

  The nurse smiled again. “Good. I have to take a blood sample first,” she said, and set about getting things ready.

  Brandon turned his attention to the video as it played. A friendly-faced woman appeared on the screen and greeted him, then quickly launched into an explanation of Argo and the current clinical trial. He found that he understood very little. The screen changed to show researchers bent over samples, charts demonstrating the effect of a drug called Serophim, and computer-animated graphics of a bloodstream—all while the friendly-faced woman talked about polymer particles and “a revolutionary new drug delivery method.”

  The nurse inserted the needle, and he flinched, sucking in air. She murmured an apology as she collected three test-tube-size samples of his blood. The friendly-faced woman on the screen was explaining the double-blind research method when the nurse asked him to open his mouth so she could swab his cheeks. By the time the two women were done with him, he was ready to go home.

  “So,” the nurse said as she labeled her samples, “I’m going to take you to the back, and they’ll give you the first dose. Like the DVD said, you have to come back in thirty days for your second dose, and report any side effects you experience. Especially anything personality-related, okay?”

  Brandon frowned. “Isn’t an antidepressant supposed to affect my personality?”

  She chuckled. “Well, like the DVD said, if you have any negative mood swings or things like that.” Then she opened the door and motioned for him to follow.

  They walked farther down the hall to a door marked “LAB.” Once inside, Andrea left him with a youngish man in a white coat sitting on a tall, rolling chair in the center of the room. A row of small nasal spray canisters sat on the counter next to him, perfectly white except for a label too small for Brandon to read.

  Rather than introducing himself, the researcher handed Brandon several forms to sign, saying, “Okay, this drug is administered via a nasal spray. Have you ever done this before?”

  Brandon told him he had not, and the researcher gave him the first helpful explanation he had received.

  “First I’m going to have you blow your nose.”

  He obliged, feeling self-conscious and childish as he took a tissue from the box the lab tech offered.

  “Okay, now take this,” the young man said, handing Brandon one of the bottles. “Tilt your head forward and plug up your right nostril. Now start breathing in, and squirt one spray in your left nostril.”

  Brandon did as he was told, bracing himself in anticipation of the new sensation. He sprayed the drug, flinching as the liquid shot up his nostril. Whatever was in it was freezing cold and felt like alcohol evaporating on his skin.

  “Both nostrils,” the young man reminded him.

  He repeated the process with his right nostril and tossed the canister into the bin the young man held out. A twinge of nerves ran through him when he saw the word BIOHAZARD in small red letters on its side, but then he reminded himself that was standard on most waste receptacles at a doctor’s office.

  Ten minutes later, Brandon walked out of the clinic into the waning afternoon light. He took a deep breath of the soft Hawaiian air, catching a whiff of plumeria and the gritty scent of wet soil from the hills behind him. He smiled. While he had loved being on the mainland for college and intended to return once he got a job, he would always love the way the air smelled at home.

  He plopped down into the driver’s seat of the truck and let out a long breath. He had made it through the first steps of the trial, and no one seemed to suspect him in the slightest. A cheerful girl in blue scrubs and a white lab coat in the waiting room had assured him that his $4,500 would be paid out in halves, one at each checkup. He rubbed his nose as he started up the truck. The unpleasant sensation had only lasted a second after he had sprayed the drug, and then he had been asked a few questions and turned loose.

  He shrugged to himself as he pulled out of the parking lot and thought, “That was easy.”

  ~

  Honolulu, Hawaii—October 16

  It had taken Miles three hours of panhandling in Waikiki to gather enough mo
ney for his next hit. Three hours standing beneath the giant banyan tree near the entrance of the International Market Place, asking tourists for bus fare to meet his family at Waimea Bay. He was always more successful with those tourists who were leaving, newly hatched pearl jewelry in hand, their eyes glazed over with the fever of money spending. The outrageous prices they paid for imitation ukuleles and sarongs made it that much easier for them to dole out their last bits of cash to a young father who had stupidly locked his wallet in his hotel room.

  He smiled to himself, thinking how shocked those same tourists would be if they took a short bus ride out of Waikiki and inland. The huge manicured palm trees disappeared from sight almost immediately. Out in Trent’s neighborhood, where Miles usually scored, shabby houses and rusted-out cars replaced the perfectly aged architecture of the Waikiki hotels and the sleek rentals that lined the streets.

  Now, inside his dealer’s house, Miles chewed on a hangnail, shifting his weight slightly while Trent dug out the right-size bag. The air in the room smelled dark, tinged with cigarette smoke and chemicals. The muted television was the only light source in the room. Flickering colors bounced off the foil-covered windows, making Miles feel as though someone were standing behind him, moving in and out of the light too quickly to really be seen. He glanced over his shoulder briefly, making sure they were still the only two in the room.

  Trent turned on the desk lamp so that it shone into the open drawer; sweet-scented smoke curled around the bulb, moving like ink in water. He finally plucked out a baggie and held it up, fingers pinching the ends of the cellophane. Miles held out his hand, noticing briefly that he had ripped the hangnail and started to bleed. He shoved the baggie in his pocket and stuck his thumb in his mouth again.

  “Thanks, man,” he muttered around the digit.

  Trent just jerked his head and returned to flop down on the sagging plaid couch. Miles wasn’t sure if the motion was a response or an indication to get out. He stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it slowly, waiting for more direct instructions from Trent. After a moment, he took a few steps back, then turned and walked down the short hallway to the front door.

  He squinted and lowered his head as he opened the door into the setting sun. Trent’s house sat at the top of a gently sloping street that faced directly west, and the rain that had been falling when Miles arrived left a sheen on the street. The wet asphalt shot sharp gold shards of light into his eyes, and he blinked rapidly a few times to clear his vision. He pulled the moisture-laden air through his cigarette, down into his lungs, and held it there, feeling the heat and ache of the smoke settle deeply into his chest.

  For a minute he concentrated on the feeling of his pupils contracting, squeezing against the stabbing sunset. He was trying to place the feeling with another memory when he was distracted by frantic motion on the driveway. Miles blinked to clear his vision, and saw that a figure lay twitching on the ground, silhouetted by the sun. It was difficult to tell, but he thought he saw foam on the figure’s lips and chin; he heard swallowed cries, as if the figure’s throat had closed around his voice.

  Without looking away, Miles called over his shoulder, “Hey, Trent, you got somebody tweaking on your driveway.”

  There was no response from inside the house. Miles took a step forward onto the sparse lawn. Down the street, the sunlight flickered like the television, as if a shadow had passed in front of it. The movement of the light only registered in Miles’s peripheral vision, and once again he was struck by the feeling that someone was moving behind him. On the driveway, the tweaker convulsed again, thrashing this time, and let out a long, gargled wail through clenched teeth. Miles flicked his cigarette away.

  “Hey, man, you need an ambulance, or what?” Trent would not be happy to have sirens pull up at his house, but he’d be even less thrilled if they were attached to a police cruiser.

  A trash can fell off a curb a few houses down, and Miles jumped at the sound. His eyes flicked up for a moment, then returned to the tweaker. Another long shadow flitted across the shining road, but Miles was too engrossed with the man on the driveway to notice. He had never seen an overdose quite like this before; he was rooted to the spot, morbidly fascinated. Suddenly the movements changed, became more violent, and the tweaker threw his head back and let out a choked scream.

  At that moment, Miles knew what was meant by the term “bloodcurdling.”

  And then a sudden, brutal impact hurled him to the ground, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He tried to shout, struggling against his attacker and wondering briefly if Trent had let his dogs loose. There was a snarling in his ear, and then teeth sank into the flesh at the nape of his neck. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt. It exploded like a fireball and ran in shuddering torrential waves down his shoulder and over his scalp. Under the razor-sharp agony, he felt the crushing, choking pressure of the teeth as they sank deeper into his flesh. A gulp of air reached his lungs, and Miles screamed like an animal caught in a trap. Desperately, he swung an elbow up, trying feebly to knock away whatever had him pinned. He connected with soft flesh and heard a grunt. Between waves of panic and pain, he realized, horrified, that his attacker was human. Before he had a chance to move or react, two fists grabbed clumps of his hair and slammed his forehead into the pavement. White, searing pain exploded behind his eyes, and he let out a weak, terrified shout for help. But in the back of his mind, he knew the people who lived in this neighborhood kept their shades, and mouths, shut.

  I’m going to die. The thought rang through the agony like a bell.

  With a desperate surge of energy, Miles bucked hard and managed to toss his attacker to the pavement. Shaking with adrenaline and shock, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees, scrambling for Trent’s front door. It was like a nightmare. Panic left him sobbing and unable to cry out. He could barely move, and all around him he saw smears of his own blood. A snarl rose up from the driveway behind him, and he looked to see his attacker regain his footing. Miles had expected some huge, hulking PCP addict. Instead, he saw a middle-aged man with thick gray hair, wearing what had probably been a white lab coat. It was now covered in dirt, and a large dark spot spread across the crotch of his pants. Shoving away his confusion, Miles continued his panicked scramble toward the door. The attacker bared his teeth and jabbered at Miles as he advanced. A small detached part of Miles’s brain saw that the attacker was missing most of his right ear and wondered if that meant he wasn’t the madman’s first victim.

  Miles jerked his head at the sound of another gurgling cry. Behind them on the driveway, the tweaker he had so quickly forgotten was struggling to follow. He too was shouting incoherently, working his jaw from side to side as he clambered across the pavement, swiping at Miles’s feet. He couldn’t form any coherent thoughts through the pain; the last of his strength drained out of him as he realized that he would not make it to Trent’s door.

  The last thing he saw clearly was the attacker lunge forward, mouth gaping. The force of his assault slammed Miles’s head into the pavement again. His vision shrank to the size of pinholes. As the day darkened around him, he felt his skin tearing away, the pain reaching him slowly, as if from a great distance. He was conscious much longer than he wanted to be.

  Two

  Honolulu, Hawaii—October 17

  Kai could taste the familiar tinge of frustration in the back of his throat as he pulled the second large suitcase out of the truck bed. His father stood on the curb, checking his tickets, and Brandon leaned against the driver’s side door, staring into space. The airport in Honolulu was an aggravating place to visit for any local, and Kai was doing his best to ignore the tourist chatter that flooded in from all sides. He caught the scent of plumeria for a moment as a young couple walked by, decked out in leis, heading for the huge red bus that belched smoky fumes into the air.

  “You could help out, dumbass,” Kai grumbled at Brandon.

  His younger brother moved slowly, bringing his fists to his eyes and g
rinding them into the sockets as if he were a two-year-old waking from a nap. Kai dropped the bags at his father’s feet, and the older man started, then smiled at his son, embarrassed. Clearing his throat, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and peered at the screen, saying, “Mike called. Can you pick up the feed on your way home?”

  Kai pushed his hair out of his eyes, nodding. “Sure, Pop.”

  His father looked around vacantly, patting all his pockets starting at his chest. Kai grinned.

  “Dad, don’t worry about it. We got it under control.”

  He reached out for his father’s hand and shook it, squeezing as hard as he could. He could feel the older man return the pressure, and they both grimaced at each other. Then his father yanked him into a bear hug. For a moment, he felt like he had when he was small, and his father had been a giant.

  “See you Sunday,” Kai said.

  Over his father’s shoulder, he saw Brandon look up, bleary-eyed. He blinked a few times, eyes starting to clear. He pushed away from the truck and stuck his arms out to hug his father.

  “See you in a week, Gary,” he said, smiling quietly. The two men exchanged a stiff embrace, and then Brandon shuffled away, heading back to the passenger side door. Kai watched his brother go, his brows knitted together. Next to him, his father said quietly, “Why do you think he’s doing that? Is he upset with me?”

  Something was clearly wrong with Brandon. It had only been a few months since they had picked him up at this same airport, college diploma in hand, and he had been brimming with enthusiasm. He had talked nonstop the whole way back home, telling his father about breeding hybrid fruits, watering schedules, soil additives that would bring their farm into its own. For a month he had worked at breakneck speed, showing them different aeration techniques, ways to speed plant growth and increase fruit size, trying to get their fervor to match his own. But recently, everything about Brandon had slowed down. And only last week he had started calling his father “Gary.”