Hybrid

by Ballan, Greg

  Another woman suddenly appeared, walking swiftly down the crowded corridor toward the waiting room. She was adorned in an expensive Italian leather overcoat and expensive shoes. She radiated wealth and importance with every step. Her face, however, radiated fear and concern as she made her way to join the others in their waiting vigil. She walked into the room and Jeff immediately stood.

  “Mrs. Pendelton, is there any word about your daughter?”

  “No,” she whispered, “the police are still searching, but it's dark, and they really have no leads. Those things, those godforsaken creatures just vanished. How is he?” she asked suddenly, deliberately changing the subject. She had cried too many tears today and didn't want another breakdown here.

  “We're still waiting for a report,” Shanda answered as tears ran down her face. “He was beaten pretty badly.”

  Margaret Pendelton sat down with Shanda and took her hand gently. “Listen to me,” she began gently, “I've known our boy in there for too many years. He's a fighter. He has the uncanny ability to always bounce back. He'll bounce back from this too, you'll see.”

  “I hope you're right,” Shanda answered. “If only they'd tell us something, anything.”

  “Excuse me,” a voice interrupted. “Are you relatives of Mr. Knight?”

  “Yes,” Margaret answered, her tone becoming suddenly powerful, the voice of an influential woman of high society.

  The doctor sat down on a nearby couch, thumbing through several medical charts.

  “Mr. Knight is in extreme critical care at this time,” he began. “His condition is terminal. I'm so sorry, but there isn't too much more we can do for him. Both of his lungs have been punctured, one completely collapsed. We've put in almost three hundred sutures to sew him back together. His right arm is shattered, along with several fingers. His left leg has two fractures that should be set, along with a severely broken jaw. His nasal passages are destroyed and his nose shattered. A fragment of nose cartilage has lodged into his cerebral cavity; we don't know the extent of the brain damage, if any.”

  The physician paused as there were several gasps of shock and astonishment. “The most serious matter of all is that his heart has been damaged. It will not sustain a normal beat without machine assistance. We believe that two of the primary valves or chambers have been ruptured from repeated heavy concussions. The problem is that, in his present condition, he wouldn't survive any intensive surgery, and there is no donor heart available.”

  “What exactly are you saying?” Margaret pushed.

  “I'm saying that there is nothing further we can do. Mr. Knight will, in all probability, expire before this evening is over. All we can do is keep him comfortable and pain-free during this time until his heart finally shuts down. Mr. Knight has a standing DNR on his medical files. We can't place him on further life support, and without life support, he will die. Even with life support, his chances of recovery are non-existent. There's just too much damage to his body. One problem alone is serious. He has three major life-threatening conditions, plus several serious non-life threatening conditions.

  “Even if we wanted to, we couldn't put him under the knife without killing him. His heart couldn't take the strain of the anesthesia. Technically speaking, we've violated the DNR order by doing what we've done. We didn't see the request until after most of the emergency room surgery was already performed,” the doctor replied sadly. “Again, I'm sincerely sorry. I wish we could do more, but we can't. In all my thirty years in trauma, I've never seen such carnage done to a body before.”

  Shanda began to weep, a silent heart-wrenching cry of despair. Margaret's face turned pale as she shook her head in disbelief. Jeff simply placed his head down into his hands and sobbed. Alissa picked up a large duffel bag she had been carrying and quietly departed the waiting room.

  * * * *

  Massachusetts General Hospital, Critical Care Unit, Room 7-B1

  The three entered the room quietly. It was dark, almost pitch black. They heard the whir and buzzing of medical equipment and focused their attention on the body lying in the hospital bed, illuminated only from the faint glow of several pieces of machinery. They all slowly walked over to the bed and stared at the lifeless form. Shanda turned on a tiny lamp and was shocked to see the condition of her lover. She barely recognized his battered face; his cheeks were black and blue, and there were large, dark rings under his eyes.

  “Oh, Erik,” she whispered, “what did they do to you?” Tears rolled down her face. “We were supposed to be together, my love. I really wanted to have a life with you. We were finally together, for such a short time. The doctors say you're going to die. They say you're not going to make it through the night. I don't want to believe them, but look at you, hooked up to machines to do your breathing, keeping your heart beating. Oh God! Don't leave me, not now, not after we've finally found each other.” She broke down into tears.

  “Erik,” Jeff whispered as he grasped a battered hand. “I don't know what to say. You've been a blessing in my life. I know you think that I was helping you with the office space and living space, but you gave back more than you'll ever know with your friendship and hard work. There was never any task you wouldn't tackle readily with a smile. Everybody at the restaurant, everyone who cares about you, your family, is praying for you, young man. We're all praying for a miracle, so you hang tough,” he whispered as tears ran down his face. “We don't want you to give up. Don't believe them, you can live,” Jeff whispered as he faded back into the shadows.

  “Oh God, Erik, where do I begin?” Margaret whispered. “I've been such a bitch to you these past years, and you just took it all in stride. I kept you from your daughter, chastised you at every turn.” She sighed heavily. “And through it all you endured, never letting the bitterness show, even when Richard tore your life apart. Now, our daughter is gone. You sacrificed your life to try and save her. Erik, you shame me, I'm so sorry. I wish I could go back and do things all over again—take back all the hurt, tell you what a good father you've been to Brianna, let you spend more time with her and actually tell you what a good man you really are. I guess we just wanted different things.”

  Margaret paused and let out a heavy sigh. “I was angry. I wanted you to be something you weren't. But it seems that we always say these things too late. I'm saying all this now and you can't even hear me.” She gently stroked the stray locks of hair that hung in his battered face. Margaret leaned over and gently kissed his bandaged head. She turned away and faced Shanda. “I'm so sorry. You two deserved some happiness. Stay with him, I'm sure that's what he would have wanted.” Margaret Pendelton, the ex-Margaret Knight, said a final goodbye and silently walked away, regretfully closing a chapter in her life.

  Jeff came over to Shanda and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “She's right. He'd want to spend his last moments with you. I'll sit here for a while if you'd like.”

  “No, that's all right. I'd really like to be alone with him, just hold onto his hand until it's over.”

  Jeff bent over and gently embraced her. “You brought him such happiness. There was a special spring in his step and a sparkle in his eye whenever the two of you were together. Always remember that.”

  “I will,” she whispered as she took Erik's hand.

  * * * *

  Shanda had been with him for nearly half an hour, holding his hand and staring at the digital displays and readouts of medical instruments that she really didn't understand. She only knew that the lines were getting flatter, and the beeps less frequent as the minutes passed. She felt such emptiness now, sitting alone with him in the darkness and wishing that there was some way to help him. She was so focused on Erik that she didn't respond to the tingling in her scalp until it was a constant eerie buzzing. She looked up into the darkness, toward the corner of the large room. She knew something was there.

  “Who's there?” she whispered.

  Silence answered.

  “I know you're there; you can't hide from
me. Come out.”

  She saw, deep in the darkness, a slim outline moving within the blackness. Shanda quickly flipped the lamp on again, and switched the three-way bulb to its highest setting. There, sitting in the far corner, on a small chair, was the waitress from Madame's Restaurant.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she challenged.

  “I'm watching over my brother, waiting for you to leave,” she answered simply.

  “You're lying! Erik has no sister,” she challenged the young girl.

  “None that he knows of. Erik has a small family, the human part of him just doesn't remember them,” Alissa answered mysteriously.

  “You'd better explain yourself, or I'll have security escort you out of here,” Shanda replied angrily. How dare this girl torment her like this.

  “Do that, and he dies tonight without fulfilling his purpose. Do that and hundreds, possibly thousands, will die in the days to come, my sister,” Alissa countered with a silent whisper, which Shanda could just barely hear.

  “Now I know you're lying. I have no sister. What are you on, anyway?” Shanda asked bitterly.

  “You have the gift, as your mother had, as her mother had, passed down from generations, over ten thousand years ago. I have the gift, only from a different source. Erik has the gift, one of many for a warrior, only far more powerful and potentially destructive than ours. His source was from a soldier, the most powerful soldier. The gifts were genetically enhanced in our soldiers. Do you want to learn the truth about Erik, the truth about you, me, and the things that are roaming throughout the town of Hopedale? Are you strong enough to handle the truth? If you're not, then you best leave because I have a job to do and I can't let you interfere,” the young girl responded forcefully as she moved toward Erik's bedside.

  Shanda responded to her advance by withdrawing a thirty-two auto from her purse. “I know how to use this, one of the benefits from knowing Erik Knight, so just stay where you are,” Shanda warned in a lethal tone as she locked the weapon on the strange waitress.

  Alissa paused, retreating three steps, never taking her eyes of the gun barrel pointed at her head. “This won't help him. If you really care about him, as you claim to, you'll step aside and let me do what I have to.”

  “And just what do you have to do?”

  “Stabilize his condition, repair his body to the point where he will survive the mutation. As he is now, undergoing the change will kill him,” Alissa answered. “I don't want to harm him, he's been through enough; I only want to help. Bring about what must be!” she added in an urgent tone.

  “Can you really help him?” Shanda asked hopefully.

  “Yes, but there are risks. If I don't give him this to stabilize him, he'll die before I can do anything,” She held up a vile of blue liquid. “I can save him. He mustn't be allowed to die with his purpose unfulfilled.”

  Shanda focused her abilities on the young waitress; their eyes locked briefly. She felt the desperation of the young woman, the overwhelming need to get to him, to heal him. She also felt a bond with her, a kinship that shouldn't be. It was a presence she had only felt with members of her immediate family. She broke her link with the waitress and looked back over at her dying lover. Deep down, something told Shanda that the girl could help him. Erik had no chance without some outside aid. Shanda figured she might as well let her try.

  “Go ahead, what has he got to lose?” Shanda decided as she placed the pistol back in her purse.

  Alissa uncapped the vial and gently poured the liquid onto a patch of exposed skin. The mysterious blue fluid was absorbed like a sponge drinking water.

  “This will repair much of the damage done to his heart and lungs, accelerate the mending of his broken bones from weeks to hours, and repair the facial cartilage that's been ruptured. The elixir of life is one of many passed down to me and my kind over the centuries, and one of the few that I can make with ingredients found here,” the mysterious waitress explained. “I only hope that I'm in time.”

  “What was that stuff you just gave him?” Shanda asked as she stared at the now dry patch of skin where the fluid passed into his body.

  “Later,” Alissa whispered. “Now, we watch and wait, and hope that the elixir is potent enough.”

  After fifty-five minutes of silence, the monitors registered a stronger heartbeat, his wavering pulse seemed to steady, but at a lower than normal rate.

  “He should be strong enough to talk in another day or so. The mixture will continue to regenerate his essential life functions until he is strong enough to maintain them on his own. Then, it is up to the staff to complete what must be done,” Alissa said aloud, gesturing toward her large duffel bag. “In the meantime, I believe I owe you an explanation. My part of the bargain.” The young waitress sat down and folded her arms. “Where to begin ... probably with the closing of the Esper/Seelak War. That seems like the best place to start.” Alissa took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.

  “We're all products of a long-gone race of beings that inhabited this world for almost a thousand years. They lived alongside mankind, keeping themselves isolated, but still interested in us as an evolving species. You might say we're the reason for the continuing of the Great War—Humankind that is. You see, back then, there was a good chance that neither species would survive, theirs or ours. They were advanced, millennia ahead of where mankind is today. But for all their advancement, they were still plagued by war. Erik's lineage, your lineage, and my own are byproducts of that war created to serve a purpose, created to right a hideous mistake, an error in judgment committed over 10,000 years ago.” Alissa paused and sighed heavily. “I'm talking in circles, I apologize. But why bother talking when I can let you live it, are you willing?”

  “Yes,” Shanda answered, knowing exactly what her proposal meant.

  Alissa walked over to her, and both placed their hands on each other's temples. There was a brief wave of discomfort as the two minds joined, and Shanda saw a part of human history that was in no history book anywhere on earth.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  The Esper/Seelak War

  The large Esper walked slowly back into the settlement, nodding and acknowledging others as he passed. He stood easily head and shoulders above his peers in the council. His body, and the bodies of those in his sect, had been altered centuries ago. He and his kind were the culmination of thousands of years of genetic research on their home world. He was bred to be a soldier—his instincts, senses, and aggressiveness were enhanced many times. His strength and martial skill was beyond the means even for his own people to measure. But for all his strength, he had the wisdom and compassion that were also inherent in his species.

  Those who made him realized that to make a compassionless soldier was to simply create a killing automaton, uncontrolled by a sense of right and wrong. He was intelligent, but not nearly as gifted as those of the Scholar sect. He knew of the healing arts, but not nearly as much as those of the Cleric sect. He admired those skills in the others who differed so much from him, and respected them for their unique abilities as they, in turn, respected him.

  He approached the opening of a large cavern and entered, saluting to the two soldiers who stood guard. As he made his way toward a large room, he was stopped by a telepathic thought.

  “Jakor,” the voice inside his head began. “You return from negotiations with the Seelak, I trust the news you bring the council is favorable.”

  Jakor smiled, something that looked peculiar on his chiseled silvery face. “Sennek, my old friend, I have come to address the council. Come join me, and hear what I have to say."

  A smaller Esper materialized from seemingly nowhere to stand beside Jakor. The two exchanged a ritual greeting of friendship and respect and made their way to the Council Room.

  “How goes your study of the species?” Jakor asked.

  “As I feared, I, too, have news for the Council. I pray to our Gods that your n
ews is better than what we have discovered.”

  Jakor nodded. He knew his news was not good, but out of discipline, he would make his proclamation to the full council. He placed a friendly arm on his smaller friend's shoulder as they both headed into the Council for session.

  * * * *

  Jakor sat patiently, hearing the reports from each sect as they addressed the council. He understood most of what was being said, but some of the scientific data was beyond him. Sennek, who knew his friend's limitations, whispered telepathic explanations for his massive friend.

  It was Sennek's turn to speak. He left his seat and approached the podium. The amplification light shone on him, and he began thinking to the representatives of their community of eight thousand, and the council of sects.

  “My brothers and sisters, I have grave news. As we are all aware, over the past thousand years we have been inundated by several new strains of virus that were hitherto unknown on this world. Over this time, diseases of all types have decimated our population. Every time we cure one ailment, a new virus or bacteria appears and we must struggle anew to find cures. We have lost eighty percent of our population to disease, and before this war, we knew that the Seelak were experiencing similar medical problems within their population as well. Our medical resources are taxed beyond our ability to cope. This planet is producing bacteria and viruses specifically engineered to harm us. We now understand why. As in any body, this planet is in fact fighting off an infection, us.”

  Sennek paused as there were telepathic whispers amongst the council members and observers. “We are an infection to this planet, a virus or bacteria that it is trying to rid itself. We now know why. We are, ourselves, infecting this planet with micro viruses. We are killing the species that this world has mothered and nurtured for hundreds of thousands of years. We are, in fact, interfering with the natural evolution of this planet, as we suspected. We have examined some remains discovered from the last tribe of bodies we encountered. Their blood was contaminated with a virus inherent in our species and the Seelak species. We are killing this world, not just one species, but all species of this planet. We have seen evidence of depopulated forests around our settlement, no native wild life anywhere.