The Prometheus Effect

by David Fleming

  Dawn’s eyes flicked open to a more conscious level of darkness. She started to raise herself from the bed and felt the gentle pressure of a warm hand holding her down.

  “Relax,” Dr. Lee said. “I don’t want you moving around too much. Let us do all the work.”

  Two pairs of arms cradled her from the warm soft bed, pillow and all, to the cool stiffness of a gurney. Dawn shivered and curled into a fetal position to regain her lost warmth. She hated being cold almost as much as she hated being blind.

  ***

  Once again, Dawn found herself in a foreign place. And it smelled funny, in that it lacked any odor at all. After the door closed behind her, she sensed a pressure in her ears in conjunction with a quick hiss. She suspected the air was sterile but had no idea if its pressurization was to keep something from getting in or from escaping.

  Muted, industrious activity commenced behind her. Metallic clinking synced with Dr. Lee’s clipped whispering of medical jargon. A smooth warmth filled one of Dawn’s hands and squeezed.

  “Sorry to have woken you, Dawn,” Jack said, completely enveloping her delicate hand with both of his.

  “Dr. Lee said time was critical. You’ve given your consent?”

  “It’s not my consent that’s important right now. It’s yours. The choice you make is yours alone. Before you make it, let me fill you in on what this procedure involves…”

  Dawn listened intently as Jack recounted the history of the City’s amazing medical discovery. Like any medical procedure, it had had its share of failures along with its successes. Unexpected side effects were still being catalogued to this day. The ability to eradicate certain cancers was one such side effect. But it had never been tried on a malignant brain tumor as advanced as hers.

  “If curing cancer is a side effect, then what was it originally meant for?” Dawn asked.

  “Space travel.”

  Jack went on to explain the drawbacks and limitations of the human body with regard to travel in the frigid pathways of space. And how, quite by accident, one of their first test subjects thawed the way to make it feasible. While that first test subject was not human, nor a volunteer, all subsequent human subjects were volunteers. And only a minute fraction of the thousands of recent volunteers qualified as being currently alive.

  Dawn’s blue eyes stared coldly into the eternal distance beyond her senses. I must be mad to be considering this. The cure contains elements from my worst nightmares. Who in their right mind… Well, that’s it, isn’t it? My mind isn’t right, and the icy clarity of my thoughts is melting by the minute.

  “So, what you’re telling me is,” Dawn angled her head toward Jack, “what kills you makes you stronger?”

  “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.”

  “I’m ready to stop living then, if that’s what it’s going to take to kill this thing inside me.”

  “Cindy will see to the rest of your needs.” Jack brushed a lock of hair from Dawn’s face. “Oh, by the way, you will also lose all of your hair… temporarily.”

  “Dammit. How thoughtful of you to save the worst for last.”

  Dr. Lee explained the steps of the procedure in detail while her assistants prepped the equipment.

  “May I have a pen and paper to write on? I want to try and write messages for James and Mykl before we start.”

  “I can write for you, if it would make it easier.”

  “I would rather try it myself so they know it was written by me. I think I still remember how to make the letters. But could you check them when I’m done and let me know if they’re right?”

  “That I can do.”

  Dawn knew what she wanted to write; she just had to concentrate on the shapes of the letters. It had been years since her last attempt to write. She practiced the letters in the air with the tip of her pen until she felt satisfied putting them to paper. She was sure the end results were barely legible, but Dr. Lee pronounced them readable enough and placed them in envelopes.

  Dawn also requested that two locks of her hair be snipped off, one to be added to each envelope. When that was done, she lay back and waited.

  An assistant shaved Dawn’s long black hair close to the scalp. Her shorn skin felt tingly and light, though deep inside was the ever-present throbbing menace. Her nightgown was replaced with a protective, hooded skin-suit that provided ports for IVs and a catheter. The IVs were expertly placed; she felt only a tiny pinching sensation. For her comfort, catheterization wouldn’t be done until after she was sedated.

  “Are you ready, Dawn?”

  “I always wanted to be a princess. I never guessed I would end up as Snow White.”

  “May you live happily ever after,” Dr. Lee said as she introduced an alien virus into Dawn’s vein.

  The cool flow of the IV solution crept up the vein in Dawn’s arm from the injection site, then swirled into her heart to be circulated throughout her body. Her heart began to beat more urgently, as if it knew the body’s desperate need for this elixir… or perhaps it did so out of abject fear. It would take at least twenty-four hours for the virus to incorporate itself fully into Dawn’s cells. Then her life would be suspended.

  “I’m going to sedate you now, Dawn. See you soon.”

  Dr. Lee released the flow of the second IV into Dawn’s other arm. Relaxing warmth spread slowly from her navel to her extremities. Her body floated upward to the sky. She wondered if she would ever feel the sun on her face again.

  In her last seconds of consciousness, a dazzling flash of light exploded behind her eyes. It was blue—she could swear it was blue! Then time… stopped.

  “Begin cooling.”

  ***

  Wearily, Jack crawled into bed next to his wife.

  “Is everything okay?” Delilah asked.

  “I’ve recalled Kyle from assignment. It’s time for a family meeting.”

  “Oh? What’s that rascal done now?”

  “Patience, my love.”

  Jack reached out in the dark to caress his wife’s cheek. He used the last of his energy to share a soft, lingering goodnight kiss. Then he wrapped his arms around her with a contented sigh.

  “Yeah, you still owe me,” she said with a smile.

  “Mm-hmm,” Jack replied as exhaustion finally claimed him.

  CHAPTER 44

  Stretching like a cat in a sunbeam, Mykl shed the lingering layers of fugue from his mind. Stinker appeared to have fallen victim to a pouncing wild pillow roaming the oversized bed during the night. Its tiny body lay crushed under the pillow’s weight, with two fuzzy legs poking out from underneath.

  A hint of an unwashed odor reminiscent of the Box tickled Mykl’s nose. He determined that the scent was emanating from himself, and he realized he hadn’t bathed since right before his abduction interview. A few splashes of water to the face weren’t going to cut it today.

  The bathroom contained a large circular tub next to a sink-and-mirror setup on one wall, and directly opposite, an opening framed by curving translucent walls. A shallow alcove contained fluffy white towels. Farther in was a domed shower enclosure with a bench seat.

  He dropped his pajamas by the alcove and stepped into the shower, which automatically lit up. The controls—assuming that’s what the two sets of buttons set in diamond formation were—had no instructions. All four buttons to the left gleamed metallic gold, but the four buttons on the right varied in color: red for the left button, blue for the right, and gold for the top and bottom buttons. Red and blue. Has to be for hot and cold, Mykl thought. He touched the blue one, thinking a surprise of cold water was preferable to hot. Nothing happened. He touched the entire diamond array of gold buttons to the left with no effect.

  “Well thbbbt.”

  But when he tapped the top gold button on the right, he was immediately assaulted by jets of cold water from all sides—including above and below.

  “CHEEYAAH!” Mykl scampered away from the frosty spray.

  Dripping, shivering, and wearing
only a scowl, Mykl had an epiphany and tapped the wall next to the alcove twice. A shower control screen appeared. It had a myriad of self-explanatory settings.

  Flow Direction. Mykl turned off the floor jets. That’s just weird.

  Force. Medium.

  Scent. Why in the world would anyone want scented water?

  Temperature. He checked to be sure it wasn’t in centigrade, then set it for eighty degrees.

  He stepped back into the warm, unscented water. Eighty was a bit too low, so he used the red button to bump up the heat to “just right.” He raised his arms and twirled in a slow circle, letting the warm jets douse him. Now this is a shower!

  Soap? He held out his hands to block inconveniently aimed jets from hitting him in the face as he searched for anything that might resemble soap.

  Opposite the bench were three plum-sized protrusions. He held his hand under one; nothing happened. He touched it, and a viscous amber liquid squirted to the roughly textured floor. Oh, the comedy of trial and error, he thought. This shower obviously wasn’t set up for a person of his stature. He tilted his head under the first protrusion, closed his eyes, and tapped it. Soap at last. It even smelled good.

  In his exuberance of lathering up, Mykl accidentally drew a hand roughly over his wound. The scab sloughed off, and Mykl looked down expecting to see blood. He was surprised to see only a pink circular scar accentuated by the paleness of his undamaged skin.

  Completely healed in less than two days? Dr. Lee would certainly be interested in that bit of news. Which was precisely why Mykl had no intention of letting her know. Curious doctors were the worst kind when it came to poking and prodding their victims. He was healed. That was good enough.

  Rinsed, dried, and dressed, Mykl deemed himself ready to keep his appointment with Jessica. He rescued Stinker from his pillow predicament with a bounding leap to the center of the bed and a butt-bouncing dismount to the carpet.

  Mykl skipped halfway through the living room before deciding he was getting too old to be carrying a teddy bear around all the time. He tossed it unceremoniously into his room. Two steps later, wracked with guilt, he retrieved Stinker from the floor and propped him up properly on a pillow in the middle of the bed. Giving the bear a pat on the head, he strode away with a smile.

  ***

  Jack’s bedroom door was closed, and as he had already implied that Mykl could take Jessica on a tour, Mykl decided he had rock solid permission to leave without announcing he was doing so. Besides, Jack had been up quite late and probably needed his sleep.

  A powered cart, smaller than the one he had ridden in on from the tunnel entrance, sat in front of the house. Mykl had no desire to walk all the way to pick up Jessica, and the cart controls looked simple enough. Unfortunately, his feet couldn’t reach the accelerator or brake pedals while he sat at the steering wheel. Undeterred by such a trivial setback, Mykl drove off in a standing position.

  The first moment of panic came at the bottom of the steep road. The speed of the cart kept increasing as it raced downhill, and he didn’t have the weight or leverage to apply the brake. Wrapping his arms under the steering wheel and standing on the brake with both feet while extending his body at last produced the desired effect. He was relieved that there were no more large hills between him and his destination.

  He parked the cart outside the residential building where Dawn, James, and Jessica were staying. Inside, James’s telltale snores filtered into the hallway. Mykl walked past his room to Dawn’s and peeked inside. A twinge of worry poked him in the gut when he saw the dark empty space where Dawn should be. But he told himself that if James slept peacefully, nothing too terribly wrong could have happened to her.

  Mykl tapped lightly on Jessica’s door. It cracked open, and a shadowed eye peered over Mykl’s head and down the hall before looking down. The eye crinkled with a smile and the door opened the rest of the way.

  “Ready for your tour?” Mykl asked, rocking onto his toes.

  “So you were serious last night?” Jessica asked.

  Mykl tilted his head to the side and gave a crooked smile. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, we decided not to kill you.”

  “Oh, well, in that case, allow me to put on some shoes so you can take me on that tour!”

  Mykl left the driving to Jessica while he gave directions and narrated the highlights. Judging by Jessica’s oohs and ahs, she was appropriately impressed by the City’s scope and beauty. And Mykl continually had to make subtle corrections to her steering vector when she looked away too long from their intended course.

  When he directed her to drive to the glossy black precipice at the edge of the City, Jessica’s eyes never wandered. She became very quiet. Mykl watched her head slowly tilt back and an expression of awe blossom on her face as they neared the frozen tsunami wave.

  Jessica stepped out of the cart, still gazing up at the peak of the massive curl. Finally she turned to Mykl. With a graceful motion of her arm, she indicated the wave while letting her facial expression ask the question.

  “Because they can,” Mykl answered. “Apparently, the ability to create here is only limited by one’s imagination.”

  “You know,” Jessica said, “if it ever rained in here, this would be a great place to stand and not get wet.”

  “It rains in here all the time,” Mykl said matter-of-factly.

  “I think you’re making up stories now to entertain me.”

  “Suit yourself,” Mykl said with a shrug. “Would you like to be entertained by an alien now?”

  Jessica struck a skeptical pose and narrowed one darkly lashed eye at Mykl. “You mean like an outer space alien?”

  “More like an inner solar system half-alien.”

  “Half-alien?”

  “Partial alien. He’s complicated,” Mykl said.

  “He?”

  Mykl moved his hands about, attempting to find the right words. “This’ll be a lot easier if I just show you,” he said finally, dropping his hands in surrender and walking briskly to the entrance.

  He stepped aside for Jessica.

  “You first,” she said.

  Mykl laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I like you,” Mykl said without further comment and led the way to the alien laboratory.

  As Jack had done, Mykl paused at the last door for dramatic effect. Jessica wrung her hands, her complexion pale.

  “Ready?”

  Jessica nodded once.

  Mykl opened the door.

  Noah was in his cage, peering at them without twitching so much as a whisker. Mykl winked at him, and he could have sworn he received the same gesture in return.

  Jessica stepped cautiously into the lab, looking about the area as though some dangerous creature was about to pounce. She turned to Mykl and said, “Well?”

  Mykl, his hands in his pockets, gave a side-eyed glance at Noah and tilted his head toward his cage. Noah gave a half-circle wave to Jessica, who leaned forward but didn’t move closer.

  “It’s—a mouse?”

  “A very special mouse,” Mykl said with pride.

  “An alien mouse?”

  “Partly.”

  “Does he shape-shift into a green tentacled blob or something?” Jessica took a tentative step nearer.

  Mykl resisted the cheap childish scare tactic of yelling “Boo!” as she brought herself to eye level with the alien. He was certain he would lose all rapport with his new friend if he pulled such a trick. And Jessica probably wouldn’t be very happy with him either.

  “No, as far as I know, he always looks pretty much the way you see him now.” Noah twitched his whiskers at Mykl, who wrinkled his nose in return. “And this—” Mykl stretched on his tiptoes to get the diamond-encased lichen, but couldn’t reach. “A little help, please? And no ‘little’ jokes.”

  “You’re a giant among men, my copper-eyed friend,” Jessica said. She slid the object closer to him.

  Smili
ng, Mykl held out the alien life form to Jessica. “This is pure alien. It’s a lichen from the surface of Europa.”

  “Europa? As in Jupiter’s Europa?”

  Mykl nodded.

  Jessica tucked a tress of hair behind an ear and examined the flake from all angles. “We’ve never had a successful mission to retrieve samples from Europa.”

  “I think you mean: They never had success. We…” Mykl spread his arms out, “are witness to the City’s achievements.”

  Jessica slowly shook her head. “This is a lot to take in.”

  A tapping noise drew their attention. Noah held an empty pistachio shell in his paw and was banging it against the lower crossbar of his cage. He was waving his other arm at a nearby jar.

  Mykl chuckled. “I think he wants more pistachios. Can you get the jar he’s pointing at?”

  “He certainly is a smart little guy,” Jessica said. “Is that a manifestation of crossbreeding alien DNA?”

  “Jack didn’t say. He did say that Noah—that’s his name by the way—is very old.”

  “How old?”

  “Sixty years.”

  “Sixty? Six zero?”

  “According to Jack, yes.”

  “That’s… whoa, that’s not normal. I had biology labs, and these things—”

  “Noah.”

  “Yes, sorry. Noah’s kind don’t really live beyond three years.” She bent to give Noah a pistachio. He took it, turned it over a couple of times, tapped it on the crossbar and handed it back to Jessica.

  “What? Oh, I see. The shell isn’t cracked. Sorry. Here’s a better one.” She offered up a fully split-shelled nut to the mouse that was over twice her age.

  “I didn’t know you spoke mouse?” Mykl said with a wide grin.

  “Well, it was obvious. He was letting me know about the shell, and…”

  “Maybe he also has telepathic capabilities?”

  “You think?” Jessica asked in jest.

  Mykl waggled his eyebrows at her.

  “You need to teach me how to do that. It’s too cute,” Jessica said. “So, what else is there to know about besides an ancient alien mouse and a greenish Europan paint chip?”