Angela shrugged at him and tried to fake a placid smile, "I've dealt with worse."
Her reaction rubbed Ben the wrong way, "But did that frustrate you?"
She sighed, slowing to a halt, "Not really."
"So are you in a good mood?" Ben asked carefully.
She turned to him almost as if she hadn't heard him. "How can- what do you mean?"
Ben sighed, AAre you in a decent mood, cause I have a favor to ask.”
"It's quarantined. I can't let you go there. Been here, discussed this,” Angela resumed her previous pace down the halls, “You are human, the plague kills humans."
"I'm human now, but I've spoken with Miranda's mother."
Angela paused, "And you want me to authorize Gene to do genetic surgery on you, to make you Briaunti. No, even Miranda barely survived. There would be no guarantee you would survive, especially right after a procedure like that. I can't ask you to risk your life like that."
"You're not asking. I am. Let me help her. Besides the way I understand it, if I swap body fluids with Miranda she'll pass the immunity to me."
Angela turned to face him and her eyebrow rose slowly, "And that thought appeals to you... Wait until you become Briaunti and your hormones are on you to form a pairbond."
"Is that a yes?"
"It is probably a mistake on my part."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Miranda gagged awake, a warm tasteless liquid poured through her blue lips. She struggled to blink her eyes open or to bat whomever poured the liquid away, but her sluggish muscles wouldn't respond. Nothing responded. She almost felt dead, and she couldn't remember how she had died. Fuzzy and sluggish thoughts passed through her brain with each of her slowed heartbeats. Finally her eyes opened to a short blurred glimpse of a woman. Before her eyes found focus the woman was gone.
Miranda glared down at her feet she could barely feel her toes for the cold. She wanted to be cold for some reason. Her blood tasted sweet and strange in her veins. Her cells protested the natural glucose antifreeze she had flooded them with. Gene wanted her cold, to stay alive. Momentary panic filled Miranda as she felt her body warming from within. "No," She shouted in her mind, "She had to stay cold." Even as she thought it, Miranda began to realize that her body felt well again. Wellness spread with the warmth, with the liquid.
Soon Miranda could feel everything, and it all felt vibrant- different but good. Miranda sat herself up, and looked around. She was in a freezer. That puzzled her for a moment, slowly the why reassembled itself. There was a plague, and it was killing her. Gene told her to go into hibernation in the freezer until he could figure out a cure. Miranda stood up and nearly bumped her head on the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. She'd been cured, but it wasn't by Gene.
With a brain still slightly fuzzy from the scrambling the plague had begun, Miranda tried to figure out who that woman had been. All that rang through her mind were the words, "Remember the answer." Remember the answer? Miranda felt lucky she remembered her name.
Miranda wobbled up to the freezer door. The last step her sluggish right foot tripped over her left, and she slammed into the door with a slight clang. No one on the outside responded so Miranda began searching the door for a way to open it from inside. Eventually her fingertips triggered the latch and the door swung open. The mess in the lab had been cleaned up, and Sandy had retreated upstairs. Other than that the basement held no clues as to how long Miranda had been out.
She stumbled up the stairs, the smell was horrible. She followed the smell down the hall to the room full of beds. The beds were no longer filled with half- dead people: most of them had reached the stage of completely dead- half decomposed. Frightened Miranda searched telepathically for life. With relief she found the survivors had moved to another building. She stepped slowly, respectfully, through the room full of bodies, until she came to the bed Sean had occupied, still occupied. She hadn't known him for long but she did mourn his passing.
Miranda got lost within herself on her way to the new building. The strength of her feelings of guilt over Sean's death surprised Miranda, and led her back down the path towards the real culprit. Remember the answer? Miranda bounced off the glass door to the grocery. The survivors were inside. She turned the knob and followed her senses into the back room. There were fewer than ten pallets made up on the floor and all but one were occupied by sick people. The missing person, according to Miranda's senses, sat in the small office at the top of a short flight of stairs.
Again Miranda followed her senses. She knocked on the door. Miranda shocked herself again with the depth of relief at recognizing Sandy's voice. "Come in."
Miranda obeyed and saw Sandy leaning uncomfortably back into a padded desk chair, conversing sporadically with Miranda's pop-pad.
"What are you doing awake!" Sandy exclaimed. Then she turned to the pad and explained, "She's awake and standing not ten feet in front of me. Of course, I’ll run a scan immediately.” Sandy proprietarily pawed through Miranda’s bag and pulled out the scanner. She shined it on Miranda’s face then plugged it into the pop-pad.
Moments later, Gene’s voice exploded from the pop-pad’s speaker, "Yes! She's okay. She woke up. She came out of it on her own." Then the tone of his voice fell to address Sandy again.
“Sure.” Sandy grunted and handed the pad to Miranda.
“Miranda, we’re in a meeting. Do you mind if I put you on screen so everybody can see you?”
Miranda shrugged, “Go ahead.”
Gene turned his head to address someone out of frame, "I'm going to put her on the display."
With a few taps on his pop-pad changed the view from just his face to one from above a conference table. Miranda could see the room was full of people but didn’t have a clear view of anyone’s face. She thought she recognized Ben, Gene, Tina, and Angela, but most of the rest she didn’t know.
"What have you got for us?" Angela growled.
Miranda hesitated, her thoughts spun briefly. Remember the answer? "This plague was designed to wipe out this world. It nearly wiped me out too. Things are fuzzy but I think I know who did it." Miranda made an attempt to steady her thoughts by holding a hand to the side of her head.
"Who? -You mean it isn't a dark plot? -Can you stop them or do you need backup?" Several voices Miranda didn’t recognize all asked at once.
Miranda blinked and shook her head, "I can't remember. There's dark to it but..."
Sandy snatched the pad out of Miranda’s hands, "She's doing better but not quite tops. Don't send anybody here unless you've figured out how to stop this thing. They'll just get sick." Then she jabbed the corner of the screen violently, severing the connection. “Imagine them badgering you, right after you fight your way back from the brink of death!”
Miranda nodded, imagine that. She sat on the edge of the desk and looked at Sandy. She had gotten worse, there were sores on her face now. “How long was I in there?”
“A few days, I’ve been helping Gene, when I can. He’s been saying he’s close to having something for two days now, but I haven’t seen any progress,” Sandy tossed the pop-pad onto the desk.
Ben was still wearing the dark uniform. Miranda nodded and let her response sort itself out, “Don’t blame him, there’s a time difference. I don’t think it’s even been a day for him.”
Sandy broke into tears, “That’s well and good for him, but none of us here has much time left. Except for you, we’re all sick, but it looks like we’ll survive this wave of infection. The problem is the next mutation is due any time. I think it even managed to take Ellie out this time. We haven’t seen her since right around when you arrived.”
At the mention of Ellie, Miranda’s thoughts exploded. That was the answer. “That isn’t a bad thing.”
“What!”
Miranda grimaced, “Ellie hasn’t been trying to help. I’m pretty sure that she is the one who created this plague.”
Sandy leapt up in denial, “Don’t b
e ridiculous! All those tests, all the samples she took...”
“Which hurt every time,” Miranda cut her off, “And I know you never met her before the plague. I bet she just showed up out of nowhere.”
“Yeah, she was just here one morning, so was the barricade. She told us that we had been designated a quarantine zone.” Sandy sat back down. Miranda nodded. “How did you know?”
“I’ve known Ellie for a while. Only, her name isn’t Ellie, it’s Ellen,” Miranda frowned down at her hands.
“So we call Gene, and tell him. Then he can send some people to hunt her down. Then they can make her give him the cure. And...” Sandy reached for the pop-pad. Miranda grabbed her wrist.
“That won’t work.”
“Why?”
“For one, I don’t think they would believe me. I also don’t think there’s a being alive that could make Ellen do anything she didn’t want to do, and she wants all of you dead.”
“But why?”
Miranda slumped, “ Because you’re human.”
“So what do we do?”
“We wait,” Miranda answered after searching her gut for an answer. Miranda lay back on the desk to wait. It seemed like each minute was a week long. She could smell Sandy’s body fighting to hold its own.
Sandy kicked the desk, “I can’t just wait, there’s got to be something I can do.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Taking blood samples four times a day and sending the data to Gene,” Sandy answered.
Miranda scratched at a thought on the tip of her brain, it smelled like an idea, or was it an idea to smell... “Did you save them?”
Sandy nodded and pointed to the closet, “Gene had me set up a stasis field in there.”
Miranda went to the closet, and deactivated the field. Then she took a deep experimental whiff. Somewhere in the layered depths of the scent Miranda recognized something. She turned the stasis field back on and began smelling the samples individually, then in combination. Sandy spoke, a long and frustrated statement which Miranda missed entirely, and left the room slamming the door. Miranda threw herself into the smelling. Hours passed as she searched the hundreds of samples for something.
Miranda had narrowed it down to a cluster of samples when she heard a commotion coming from downstairs. If it had been strictly auditory she probably would have ignored it as she had ignored Sandy’s frequent interruptions, but it wasn’t. There was a telepathic element to it. Someone was frantic. Miranda’s first reaction was a twinge of fear at the thought Ellen had returned in a rage to finish her experiment. That was replaced when Miranda realized the telepath was male, and someone she recognized. Almost on the heels of that recognition Sandy rushed into the room.
“Look I know you’re busy and probably not even hearing me, but there is a very sick man downstairs that says he knows you!” Sandy shouted.
“I’m on my way,” Miranda replaced the samples carefully in the closet and started towards the door.
Sandy froze in surprise at having received a response from Miranda. “You’re listening?” Miranda nodded and formed an appropriately contrite and apologetic expression pausing by Sandy’s side to wait for the woman to step out of the way.
When Sandy didn't move Miranda cleared her throat, "Do you mind?" Sandy shook her head and stepped out of the way. On the way down the stairs, Miranda began to speculate as to who the man could be. A brief twinge of fear passed through her that Ben had made the fool hearted decision to join her here. She shoved that aside. She would know if Ben were here, wouldn’t she?
"Miranda!" Nick grunted the minute she came into view. The fact that it wasn't Ben brought Miranda at least some relief, however brief. Her relief swiftly turned to horror as she saw just how sick Nick was. "You've got to help me," Nick hoarsely whispered as Miranda approached the pallet where he lay.
"I don't know how." Miranda moaned.
"Kiss me," Nick growled and reached up to drag Miranda down to him.
His grip was weak but efficient, overbalancing her. She tumbled to a kneeling position. A kiss? All Miranda could think was that delirium had taken over his brain. How could a kiss help? He was persistent he levered himself up to her and planted his lips on hers. She hadn't ever really kissed anybody before, but Nick's urgent lips were nothing like she expected. His tongue tried to pry her lips apart while his mouth applied not necessarily gentle suction.
Between breaths a little of Nick's saliva back washed into her mouth, that's when Miranda recognized the tasteless warm liquid of her awaking. The realization disgusted her, Ellen had spit in her mouth. Miranda loosened up all the spit she had and ejected it into Nick's mouth. He subsided. Miranda's mouth tingled just a bit, so did her throat as she swallowed. She realized whatever there was in her spit that was making him well could go both ways. She hoped it wouldn't make her sick again.
Nick lay motionless on the floor. She could tell from the change in his smell he would be okay. His smell, her smell, the smell of Sandy and the other humans, Miranda knew what she was looking for, and where to find it. She darted back up the stairs, three vials were all she needed. Quickly she found them and attached them to the specimen readers then plugged the device into the pop-pad.
Within moments Gene's exhausted face appeared, "Sandy, I think the crud is beginning to affect your mind. You've already run those samples. Wait you're not Sandy, Miranda? "
Miranda shook her head and continued to paw through the pack for an empty sample container. Finally finding one, she took a sample of her own blood and tissues. Even though she suspected she could have spit in the cup with the same result. "Compare them to this," Miranda jabbed the new sample into the reader's last empty testing opening.
"Why bother?" Gene was obviously reaching total burnout.
"Because those three samples smell like me. Somehow between them they are the cure," Miranda answered.
"Briaunti and human antibodies aren't cross compatible, there's no way..." Gene began to mumble.
"Gene, my gut tells me the cure is there!"
At her words Gene sat up straighter. He tapped his pad and Miranda's screen went momentarily blank. When his face returned Miranda could see hope had returned to his face. "I think I see it. Still I can't be sure. Help will be there soon, I'll send what I've got in the way of a cure then. I suppose with that good news, it won’t be too traumatic to tell you the bad news. According to my projections, the next round of plague will be potent enough to wipe the rest of the humans out in a matter of hours. I'll arrange for help to get there as quickly as it can." Gene tapped the screen and it went blank again.
Miranda felt momentarily abandoned, she hadn't even gotten the chance to mention Nick. It didn't seem like Gene knew about him being here, unless he was somehow the help Gene was talking about. She would have to ask when he recovered.
"Ask me what?" Nick asked standing in the doorway.
Miranda spun to face him, the cure was evidently potent. "If Gene, or anyone else knew you were here."
"Just your kid sister, she was pissed but couldn't have stopped me, so she helped." Nick half strode, half tripped to the padded chair and sat. "I don't know how you managed to kick that bug all by yourself, it was kicking my ass."
Miranda felt irritated by his presence, and his vulgar familiarity. "I didn't exactly. Someone passed the cure to me."
Nick sat up and looked at her, "Who? I didn't sense any other Briaunti when I arrived."
"You wouldn't. She's a tricky one." Miranda answered and went to return the samples to the closet. "I don't know why you're here, I pretty much have this handled."
Nick looked hurt, "I'm here because I was worried about you, and I'm not the only one. Ben's on his way just as quick as he can turn into a Briaunti."
Miranda was halfway between a vibrating excitement at the prospect and a debilitating worry at what would have to be a dangerous transformation. She shoved both aside by turning her thoughts back to the plague. Gene said the next batch wo
uld kill in hours. Sandy said the next wave would come soon. Miranda's gut said it made no sense for Ellen to cure her when she had to know it would make Miranda able to stop her.
"Why'd she do it?" Miranda asked out loud.
"What?" Nick responded.
"Why'd she do it? Why did she save my life?" Miranda addressed him rhetorically.
"Who?"
"Ellen," Miranda spat. Nick smiled and gave a shrug which told Miranda he didn't have the faintest idea who Ellen was. "She had to guess from the uniform that I was out bound from Sanctuary. That I would have to stop her!" Miranda finally yelled.
"Maybe she wanted to be stopped," Nick answered.
"Why doesn't she just stop herself?"
"You never were dark. You never really surrendered to it. You don't know how hard it is to bite it back once you have. Part of you, heck big vivid chunks of you can be yelling, 'I shouldn't be doing this!' but you don't really listen. It's just easier not to hear. So you can be fighting inside and not realize it. You sabotage yourself unconsciously, doing things for reasons you don't admit. Just to stop doing things you don't really want to do." Nick looked at the floor.
"So what am I supposed to do? Slap her and say 'You don't really want to do this!'" Miranda sighed.
" No, that won’t work."
"Then what!" Miranda exploded.
"I don't know."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Somehow, despite the number of times they told Ben how lucky he was that Gene had streamlined the procedure, making it quicker and far less painful than the treatment Penelope had endured as a child, Ben didn't feel lucky or pain free. He was sure he could feel every cell in his body screaming in pain, and it had been four days. His mind ached from the ever increasing quantity and quality of his five natural senses. He had never smelled the full difference between toilet water and sink water before, and suddenly he had begun to experience colors he didn't even have a name to place on.
Despite that, Ben wasn't in pain or distracted right then, only consumed by a jealous anger somehow tied to a sensation close kin to the pain of dying from starvation. "What do you mean he left the day of the briefing!" Ben bellowed and the cupboard doors shook open then slammed closed.
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