by M. Lorrox
Eddy reaches out, grabbing her gently just above her elbow. “June. Please listen to me. I met them last night, and yeah, they’re totally trouble. I—”
She snaps her arm out of his grip and a calamari ring is tossed into the air. “Then what’s your problem, huh?”
“June, listen. I don’t trust them, but I want to make sure they’re not causing any real trouble. Remember that oath I told you about, the one I’d take to be a squire? Well, this would fall into the category of ‘I should do something because I have a duty.’ And just because I haven’t taken that oath yet doesn’t mean I can ignore what it stands for.” He exhales completely while looking at the calamari on the ground. He bends down and picks it up. When the elevator door opens, he steps out and holds the door open with his calamari hand. “I’ve made some huge mistakes the last couple of days, but I’m trying to make up for them. You have to trust me. The last thing I want is to put you in danger.”
She steps out of the elevator and points at him. “What about you, huh? What about you staying out of danger?”
He reaches out and takes her hand. “June, right now, I’m a squire to my dad, and soon, I’ll be a squire in the Order. I’m going to be a knight someday. There will be danger, but I’m going to be really careful so I don’t get hurt.” He squeezes her hand. “I’ve got so many loved ones, and I don’t want to let any of them, or you down.”
“Eddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Your hand is gross. Let go.”
He releases his grip. Calamari grease, some breading, and a piece of fuzz the breading picked up from the elevator’s floor is stuck to the back of her hand. “Oh… Sorry.”
“Don’t you dare get hurt.”
He shakes his head. “I won’t. Now let’s get back. I want to talk to Dad about those three jokers.”
Candace drags a rolling suitcase filled with her lab equipment and materials through the security checkpoint at the Pentagon. When she’s at the x-ray scanner, she lifts the heavy bag up with ease and sets it on the conveyer.
A security officer checks her credentials. “Good evening, Ms… Dr. Baker.”
“Good evening.”
A second security officer watches the scanner’s video feed, and a flag flashes on his screen: RSRCH LVL5. He hits a button, and the conveyer pushes the bag through. She picks it up on the other side and sets it down on the ground without breaking stride. She walks through the halls and straight to the florist. What should I get for the lab tonight?
She settles on a bouquet of lilies and daises. She smells them lightly and is filled with the scent. Oh yes, that’s good.
She quietly whistles a tune as she walks through the wide halls.
She turns to a stairwell and descends. At the bottom level, she exits and walks into the hallway. There are additional areas underground that aren’t above ground, and she passes through additional security to enter them. Here, they recognize her without checking her badge.
“Good evening Dr. Baker. Lovely flowers.”
“Thank you, Sally.”
She walks down another hallway, then she turns and walks through a corridor of black glass. At the other side, she looks to the security desk along one wall. It’s empty. Usually a security guard is present to operate the elevator down to the bunker-turn research lab. Oh shoot, they must be on break… I’ll just have to do it manually.
Across from the desk is an elevator that isn’t marked on any maps. She hits the button at its side, and the doors open immediately.
She walks into the large elevator, and the doors stay open. Inside by the door, there’s a screen with a timer counting down from thirty seconds. Below the countdown, a series of words:
GLIMMERS
TRAILBLAZER
BATTERY
CRACKED
PRISMS
.
.
.
Below the screen is a keypad with numbers 0-9, as well as CLEAR and ENTER keys. She studies the screen and raises her hand to the keypad.
She enters 5, then 8, then 7, then 5, then 6, then 19, and finally ENTER.
The screen goes blank, the doors close, and the elevator begins to descend.
The doors open to the massive research lab that she shares with Dr. Melgaard and his team. She starts to sing lines of a song to herself while she pulls the wheeled bag behind her. The wheels -click- as they pass over each line of grout in the tile floor. When she reaches the galley, she sets the bag upright, pours some water into a glass, and puts the flowers in it.
Later, when she reaches her desk, she drops off the vase with flowers. She takes one last sniff as she walks away and continues with the case down another hallway, around anther corner, and finally into a large room with some computers, high-powered microscopes, and an autoclave.
She lifts and slides her bag onto a steel table. She opens it and fetches the container of material to be sterilized. She sings quietly as she puts on a rubber glove.
“La mer—Au ciel d’été confond—Ses blancs moutons...”
She sets each item onto a tray one by one, making sure no two pieces overlap. She lines up some pipette tubes, metal tongs, and a pair of scalpel handles she used at the hotel.
“Et d’une chanson d’amour—La mer—A bercé mon cœur pour la vie...”
She places the tray inside the autoclave and shuts the door to the chamber. She sets it for twenty minutes, then logs on a computer to write up some notes.
When the autoclave beeps, Candace knows that the material inside was subjected to high pressure jets of dry-steam at over 150 degrees Celsius for the duration of the time—minus however many seconds it took to vacuum all the air out of the chamber and to properly heat the steam. So when she opens the door, slides out the tray, and sees that one slide isn’t completely cleaned and sterilized, she’s at the very least, confused.
Did the machine malfunction? Everything else has been sterilized. What’s going on?
The slide once held a drop of blood under a cover plate; she knows this—it’s the only thing she’s used slides for today. Maybe I stacked them? She lifts the slide up and examines it. It’s a single layer, with no cover plate, but with a dried blob of blood on it. She sighs. This isn’t supposed to happen.
She carries the offending slide over to a sink and gets to work at scrubbing the dried blood off. She grabs a small metal instrument resembling a miniature-spatula and scrapes it across the dried blob. A hard piece cracks off, and under it is some brown liquid. “What in the world?” She peers at it. Blood? That’s...no. That can’t be. What is it?
A set of forceps on a nearby table call her name, and after grabbing them, she breaks off another piece of the hard material. She preps a new slide with the material and sets it aside. She gets a new cover plate and wedges the corner of the thin glass into the liquid; a small amount flows onto the plate. She presses a slide glass to the cover plate and forms a second new slide.
She carries these two new slides over to a compound microscope. She puts the slide with the liquid in first, flips on the under-sample light, and swings in the 40x objective. She lowers her eyes to the 10x eyepiece, and looks at the image that is magnified four hundred times. “Alright, what do we have here?” Are those... Are these red blood cells? She swaps in the 60x objective and focuses the lens. Wait. This looks familiar.
Sitting up, she turns back to the computer and clicks through a few folders and then opens an image. She shakes her head. “That can’t be.” No way.
She pulls the slide off the microscope and sets it aside. She puts the sample of the hardened material on the stage and examines it. “And this looks like…a lattice of some sort.” She leans up from the microscope and checks the time. Dr. Melgaard won’t be in until the morning.
“Time to get to work.” She first puts the samples through a differential-interference-contrast micro
scope and takes some images through the computer. She prints out the images and prints out images of other samples they’ve previously gathered. She sets out an empty slide storage tray and organizes the original sample, then the slides she’s made from it.
Back through the maze of the lab, she starts a pot of coffee in the galley, then she returns to her work area and makes a new pair of slides from the tiniest bits of the samples that she can collect. She runs them through a low-voltage electron microscope. More printouts. Back to the galley. The coffee is done, and she pours a big mug.
Rejuvenated by her favorite stimulant, Candace takes the sample of blood that was just blasted with electrons and checks it on the compound microscope. She’s only a little surprised when she sees that the sample wasn’t destroyed.
She smiles. Time for cryo. She preps the same miniscule but robust sample of the blood for the cryo-electron microscope. While she’s waiting, she rechecks and organizes her earlier printouts.
Bathroom. Eager pacing. Water.
When the images from the cryo-electron microscope finally come through to the computer, she stares at the results for over a minute. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this!” She jumps up from her chair and screams while punching into the sky. “Woohoo!”
This is it... This, is it. This is what we need… This changes everything—Lars.
She shuffles through stacks of papers on the desk. “Oh, dang it. Where is that list?”
She frantically moves her bag, then the keyboard, and finally she finds the emergency contact list. She dials.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Melgaard. I’m sorry to bother you at so late an hour.”
“Candace? It’s one in the morning.”
“I know, but sir, you’ve got to see this, and you’ll want to get here as soon as possible.”
“Candace, what’s this about?”
“A new sample!” She waves her arm and accidentally knocks over the compound microscope. It knocks into some glassware and pushes the slide storage tray off the table.
She grabs the tray of precious slides in mid-air. The other glassware shatters at her feet.
“What was that? Is everything alright?”
“Oh my, yes, I’m just too excited. Sir, please hurry.”
“Fine. I’m on my way.”
Dr. Melgaard arrives within an hour. When the elevator doors open, he finds Candace sitting in a chair off to the side of the hall with a mug in her hand. She sets the empty cup down on the floor, then springs to her feet. “Sir, thank you for coming, I found something amazing.”
“I’d say it must be; you have never called me at home.”
“Come, come.” She leads him through the lab to her work area.
He struggles to keep up with her. “So, tell me… What is it that you have found?”
She answers without turning around or slowing down. “I don’t want to prime your judgment, so you’ll just have to bear with me a little longer.”
Inside the lab, Candace had moved a table and had organized stacks of papers on top. Lars looks around at the disheveled space. “Is that broken glass over there?”
“Yes, I’ll clean it up later. Look.” She puts her finger down on an image of the blood from the optical, contrast microscope. “This is of a sample that survived the autoclave.”
He looks at the image, then at Candace. “Survived?”
She nods.
“That’s not possible, there must be a mistake…” Something catches his eye, and he bends down. “Is that a red blood cell?”
“Yes.”
He sets the image down and moves down the line. He glances across the table at the other stacks. “These are all from the same sample?”
“Yes, I gave it the works, all the way up to cryo-EM.”
He picks up a sheet and studies it. “This looks like a zombie sample. Candace, where did you encounter one? Have there been any here, in the city?”
Candace shakes her head. She picks up a couple printouts from the end of the table and hands them to him. “I collected this sample today at the hotel.”
He can’t hold back a tiny quake through his body. “Wait, are you saying that someone has been infected with the virus and that they are showing tolerance of it?”
“A vampire, yes. Infected with the virus, but not exhibiting symptoms nor targeting it as a pathogen and eliminating it.”
Lars rubs his eyes, then his whole face. “Are you sure?”
“I ran all the tests three times.” She slams her finger down on the optical image of the red blood cells. “This sample could be the key to unlocking a vaccine!”
He leans against the table, then starts laughing. “You did it!”
She beams with pride.
“Where is this sample? How much is there?”
“There’s not much.” She lifts herself up and sits on the table, sliding papers off it and onto the floor. “There was just one slide of the sample to start with, and only about half a drop came out of the autoclave. There’s still a small amount of viable liquid though, I’ve got it stored as Donor X1.”
Lars stretches his hand out over the table of printouts. “You did all this with half a drop of sample?”
Candace folds her arms across her chest. “You know I’m the best.”
“You definitely are!” He picks up a printout and studies it. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“I couldn’t believe it when I checked the sample. I never thought something like this was possible, but there it is!” She points off toward a refrigerator they use to store samples.
The doctor walks in front of Candace, extends his hands, and takes hers. He kisses them. “You did it! We can fight the virus! If we can learn how this person is able to control the virus, we can make a vaccine!” He squeezes her hands. “And we will succeed... We may need more sample. Who is it from?”
Now the hard part. She sighs and pulls her hands away. “I’m not exactly sure. The wax-pencil labels came off in the autoclave.”
Jäklar! Lars scowls and rubs his chin.
Candace swallows. “I have records of who I saw though. So as long as they haven’t left, we should be able to track them down.”
“Do we have enough sample left to get sequences?”
Candace nods with enthusiasm. “Yes, I think so! I figure we can at least see how these cells have adapted.” She laughs. “The cells are still alive!”
His frustration is replaced with wonder as he shakes his head, then he laughs with her. “Excellent work doctor. Truly excellent.” He glances at the refrigerator with the sample again, then he clears his throat. “I’m going to start by identifying the viral strain. You go home and get a good night’s rest. You’ve earned it, and you’ll need it.”
She pops off the desk. “I should stay and clean up a little.”
He puts his hand on her shoulder. “Go home, Candace. I’ve got this. You can come in fresh in the morning and take over for me.”
She smiles. “Thank you, Lars.”
He nods.
Candace collects her things while Dr. Melgaard makes himself a pot of coffee in the galley. As she passes by on her way to the elevator, she notices him leaning on the counter, waiting for it to finish. “Good luck, sir!”
“See you in a few hours.”
She walks to the elevator to exit the lab.
When Lars hears the doors close, he smiles. When the coffee finishes dripping, he pours a cup and walks through the entire lab. It takes him fifteen minutes, but he has coffee now, and he doesn’t rush. Empty. He enters the room he’s using as a private office, and he unlocks a cabinet. He pulls out a couple of electronic devices and arranges them on a table. He connects them with some wires, plugs the assembly in to AC power, connects an Ethernet cable, and finally attaches a USB handset. He checks a readout o
n one of the boxes, then hits buttons on the handset before holding it to his ear. He waits.
“Yes?”
“A new opportunity has presented itself.”
“Meaning?”
Lars swallows. “Prepare pre-launch for M.”
“That’s sooner than we expected. Maybe we should discuss this opportunity in person.”
“If you wish, but the outcome will be the same.”
“…Very well. I’ll begin the preparations.”
Lars nods. “I’ll contact you again when I know more.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
It’s three am on Wednesday morning, and June can’t sleep. She took the medicine Candace gave her, but it doesn’t do anything. She lays in bed, staring at the ceiling. Skip snores lightly, and although she used to think it was cute because it was her dad, now it’s driving her crazy. It’s so loud.
Outside their bedroom, across the shared living room area, and inside the Costanzas’ bedroom—she can hear them all sleeping too. Every time Charlie rolls over or shifts position, the bed creaks, and every time it does, it drives like a nail into her ear.
Out in the hall, occasionally someone walks by. Outside the hotel window, flights take off and land at the airport. Out on the ground, traffic.
-honk, honk, honk, honk, honk…- She sits up. You’ve got to be kidding me! She looks out the window. Across the street and down a side-road, a car alarm blares. She squeezes her eyes shut and groans. A jet passes overhead. To her, the rumble cuts through the walls like they weren’t there.
“Stop!” She holds her hands to her ears and squeezes her eyes shut. How can vampires sleep through all this?
“June?” Skip sits up in his bed. “What’s wrong?”