by Andrea Ring
“And if it’s not? Once you’re hooked up to her, my hands are tied. I won’t be able to separate you without your help. You will be in control.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” I say, hurt.
“No,” he says, “it’s an unknown thing. You have no sense of self-preservation. You will continue to try to heal her no matter what.”
“What if I promise? What if I promise to explore only?”
Dad glances at me, but doesn’t reply.
“What, you’re gonna question my word now? My integrity? It’s all I have.”
“I’d never question that,” he says, softening. “I believe you’d go in doing the right thing. But you don’t think when you’re hooked up. You kind of, I don’t know, go to a different place in your head. You’re so focused on healing that nothing else registers.”
“I have to be in the moment,” I say. “You want me thinking about Tessa while I’m supposed to be healing you?”
“You’re deliberately missing my point. You’re focused on the other person’s body, not your own. And I need you to focus on both.”
We pull into the driveway, and I get out and slam my door. Dad catches up to me just inside the house.
“Listen to me,” he says, spinning me around to face him. “Listen. I believe in you. I know you can heal so much more than we’ve tried. I know there’s so much that you can teach us. Believe that I believe that. But you’re my son, and your welfare comes before that of humankind. That might sound silly to you, but that’s just the way it is. Grandma will hang in there. Healing her is not an emergency. It will happen, but there are things you need to learn to protect yourself before I let you do it. Do you understand?”
I take a deep breath and nod.
“Now, I’ve brought you to the Attic, and while I’m confident there’s no direct threat from the military, just showing up is going to put you on some radars. You’re going to be approached, corporations will make offers…you’ll be wanted even if they have no clue what you can do. But you’re a minor, and until you turn eighteen, they need my consent. But there are ways they can get around that.”
“So you’re saying sick people will want me to heal them. Medical research firms will want to hire me. How can they get around you?” I ask.
Dad won’t meet my eyes. “Well, if something happens to me—”
“Why would you think something’s gonna happen to you?”
Dad sighs and goes into the kitchen. He pours me a glass of orange juice and grabs a can of beer for himself. We sit at the kitchen table.
“I’ve appointed Erica as your guardian if something happens to me.”
“Erica? Tessa’s mom? Why?”
“She’s one of the few people who know about your abilities, and quite frankly, the only one I trust to raise you properly.”
I rub my temples. “But I ask again—why do you think something is going to happen to you?”
“Thomas, to get to you, they have to eliminate me. It wouldn’t be hard. They could get a politician to pull strings and send me to a combat zone. Or assign me to a new experiment that leaves me unable to make decisions. Hell, they could just shoot me.”
I knock over my chair as I explode to my feet. “What?”
Dad just nods.
“But they…can’t get away with that. That’s criminal. People who want me to heal wouldn’t condone killing.”
“You’d think,” Dad says, throwing back his beer. “As long as everyone thinks you’re just a run-of-the-mill Dweller, they probably won’t go to that much trouble to get to you. And as far as the Attic goes, I run interference as best I can while still getting things done, but I take my orders from people much higher up who couldn’t give a shit less about the Dwellers. I’m hoping I’m wrong, that I’m just being paranoid. But I’d rather be paranoid than have you end up on the wrong side of someone’s experiments.”
I pace the kitchen and take all this in. It’s a lot to process.
“So we’re in danger,” I say, leaning back against the counter. “Should I scan the surrounding buildings for snipers?”
“Already done,” Dad says, taking me seriously even though I was joking. “I’ve got some of my ex-teammates on it. They’re watching out for any overt attempts.”
“What about covert attempts?” I ask.
Dad sighs again and drains his beer. “I’ve been meaning to have this discussion…look, the bottom line is, secrecy is vital. But if they want us to cooperate badly enough, they’ll find a way. Probably by using the people we love. Do you understand that?”
Besides Dad, Dr. Rumson, and Grandma, there’s only one person I love. “You mean Tessa?”
Dad nods.
I sink back into my chair. This can’t be my real life—it’s like a bad movie. Sure, my life’s never been normal, but I never worried about my physical safety or that of those closest to me before. And now, just because I was born a little different, Tessa’s in danger?
“She’s the priority, Dad,” I say. “I don’t give a shit about me, you, or even Grandma, if it comes down to it. Tessa’s more important.”
“I know,” he says.
“So your teammates, they need to be watching out for her, too.”
“Done.”
My head throbs. I feel better knowing Dad’s got Tessa covered, but she’s only in danger because of me. I rub my temples. “So how do you propose we work on research without letting anyone know if I can’t work on the secret stuff at the Attic?”
“I think our best bet is a privately funded lab.”
“You just said that no one should know. You have the resources and connections. Why don’t we build our own lab?”
“All my connections are military,” he says. “I’d be in hot water if I took my knowledge to civilians. But you don’t have that restriction, as long as you don’t divulge Attic secrets. That’s another reason I’ve kept you out of the Attic—you have limited knowledge to reveal.”
“But who says civilians won’t reveal what I can do?”
“Researchers are notoriously secretive,” he says. “Their funding and income depend on it. I’ll let you do the legwork and find the ones you want to work with.”
Wow. Those are words I never thought I’d hear come out of Dad’s mouth. I don’t even know what to say.
But Dad seems to understand. He stands and puts a hand on my shoulder. “There’s some danger and there’s some risk. But I know how much this means to you. I know you’re life’s not worth living unless you’re fulfilling your purpose. I’m doing my best to make that happen.”
My eyes sting, and I blink. I wrap my arms around Dad and squeeze, maybe the first time I’ve initiated a hug since Mom was alive. “Thanks, Dad,” I whisper.
He thumps my back and steps away. My head pulses with pain again, probably from my almost-tears, and I shut down the screaming nerves.
“You think I could go talk to Dr. Rumson?”
Dad throws his beer can in the trash. “I get it. It’s a lot to take in. Go. But take your car.”
I scowl. Dad bought me a Ford Explorer when I got my license, but I don’t drive it much. I like to walk to clear my head. “Why?”
“You’re easier to kidnap off the street.” My eyes grow wide, and Dad laughs. “I’m just kidding. But people can approach you easier if you’re walking, and I’d rather not put you in that position just yet.”
I shake my head and grab my car keys.
Chapter Nine
I exit my car and lock it. I scan the parking lot and the surrounding bushes, looking for any shady characters who might be lurking.
I see no one.
I barrel through the office door and wave at Dr. Rumson’s secretary.
“Hey, Mary Kate. I have something important I need to discuss with the good doctor.”
Mary Kate chuckles. “It’s always important,” she says. “He’s actually taking a nap, hasn’t been feeling well today. Let me buzz him.”
“Oh, no,” I sa
y waving her off. “If he’s asleep, I can come back.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says, reaching for her phone. “I was supposed to wake him twenty minutes ago. Have a seat.”
Mary Kate calls Dr. Rumson, and we can hear his phone ringing through the door. It’s a good ten rings before he answers.
“How are you feeling?…Good, I’m glad…It’s almost five o’clock, yes. Thomas is here, he wanted to have a word…yes, I’ll send him in, and then I’m off for the day. See you tomorrow.” She hangs up and smiles at me. “He’s all yours.” She gathers her purse and stands. “I’ll see you Sunday, if not before.”
I laugh. “Have a good night.” And I enter the sanctuary of Dr. Rumson’s office.
“Hey, sir, how are you feeling?”
“Tired,” he says honestly. He’s sitting on his couch, stockinged feet poking out from beneath his black trousers.
“I can come back,” I say.
“Nonsense. Talk to me while I clear my fuzzy head.”
I turn the guest chair away from the desk to face the couch and sit. “I might need you clear-headed for this.”
Dr. Rumson frowns and rubs his chest. “Oh?”
I stare at the wall. “There’s a development, I mean, a wrinkle. Well, it’s more than a wrinkle, see, the thing is…there are people who already want to experiment on me. Which we kind of knew. I mean, I always thought it’d be the Attic, but Dad says corporations and sick people are watching me, too, and want me. But they can’t get me to do anything while I’m a minor without Dad’s consent. But Dad thinks they could get around that by taking him out of the equation, like by killing him. He’s already hired security to watch his back, and he’s setting up the legal end of things by appointing a guardian for me in case something does happen to him.”
Dr. Rumson gasps.
“I know. Heavy, right? Like, completely surreal. I mean, he thinks they’ll just do away with him to get to me!”
“Thomas.”
My headache starts back up, but I ignore it. “You can’t believe it either, right? I didn’t believe it. I mean, I still kind of don’t. This is the United States. We have laws.”
“Thomas.”
I finally look at Dr. Rumson. The color has drained from his normally ruddy cheeks, and his eyelids are fluttering.
“Are you okay?”
He shakes his head slowly and flexes his left hand a couple of times. I slide out of my chair and kneel at his feet.
“Where does it hurt?” I say. I can feel my body flood with adrenaline, and my heart flutters like a trapped insect.
“My…arm,” he gasps out. “My chest. Can’t…breathe.” He starts to list to his right, and I reach out and catch him.
“You’re having a heart attack,” I say, voice trembling. “I need to call 911.”
As I lower his head to the couch, Dr. Rumson takes a final rattling breath and goes slack.
“Shit!” I mumble, extricating my arms from underneath his body. I tilt his head back and hover my cheek over his nose and mouth. He’s not breathing.
I rip his shirt open, sending buttons flying in every direction. I breathe five times into his mouth, then start chest compressions. I check for breathing again. I check for a pulse. Nothing.
I have to make a decision. Do I call 911 and hope it’s not too late, or do I try to heal him myself?
But I’m not allowed to do that! What if I mess up? What if I make it worse? What if someone catches me in the middle of healing him?
What if the five seconds I’ve taken to think about this has already sealed his fate?
I can’t let him die because of some stupid rule.
I leap to my feet and rummage in my pocket. I take out my knife and flick it open. I make a shallow cut above his heart and slice open the meaty part of my palm. I press my hand to his chest.
First the easy part. I extend my nerves, grow them, attach them to nerves in Dr. Rumson’s chest. I follow the neural network all the way to his brain, where I take control of his entire body. Now he’s mine.
I follow back to his heart. I find a blocked artery, which I easily clear. I order his cardiomyocytes, the heart muscle cells, to start beating again. They do, but there’s significant scar tissue in his heart. This is obviously not his first heart attack.
Now the tricky part. I gather the stem cells from under my fingernails and direct them to Dr. Rumson’s heart. I flood them with the right protein (Protein T), and will them to regenerate into cardiomyocytes. I break down the scar tissue and replace it with the new cells.
I do a quick search for any bacteria that I’ve introduced and destroy them. I remove my nerves from Dr. Rumson and repair the cell damage I’ve done. I heal his chest wound and my own cut. I lean back over him and breathe into his mouth.
I feel the moment when he breathes on his own. I pull back slightly, hesitant to move too far away.
His body shakes, and he starts to cough. I grab the ever-present water bottle off his desk, and hold it to his lips. He takes a small sip, his eyes still closed.
“Can you speak?”
Dr. Rumson tries but ends up coughing again. I give him more water, and some spills out of his mouth and pools in the hollow of his throat.
“Dr. Rumson?”
“What…Thomas?”
“I’m here,” I say. “It’s Thomas. Just rest. You had a bad spell.”
He slowly opens his eyes, wheeling them around until he finds my face.
“When was your last heart attack?” I ask.
His eyes widen. “You…did I…”
I nod.
He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them. “Help me up,” he says softly.
“I think you should stay down for a while,” I say.
“Help me up!” he screams, though his voice is barely over a whisper.
I slide my arm behind his back and manage to get him upright.
“Tell me,” he says, leaning his head back.
“What do you remember?” I ask.
He scratches absently at the fresh pink skin on his blood-smeared chest. Then he freezes, looking down at the crusting blood and his ruined shirt. “What happened?”
“Tell me what you remember,” I insist.
“I…I was feeling tired, so I took a nap. Mary Kate woke me up, you came in…I felt…my chest felt heavy, like an elephant decided to take a shit on it.”
I laugh at this, the first time I’ve ever heard him curse. “That sounds about right.” And then I sober. “You had a heart attack.”
Dr. Rumson looks me in the eye. “And you healed me.”
I shrug.
He pats the space next to him on the couch. “Sit. If I remember everything you’ve told me, you’re about ready to pass out yourself.”
“I can make it home—”
“No! Sit.” He digs his cell phone out of his pocket. “Pepperoni and mushroom okay with you?”
A wave of sleepiness goes over me, but I shake it off. “Great. Can we order buffalo wings too?”
He chuckles as he dials. “I haven’t eaten either of those things in a decade. That’s when I had my last heart attack.”
Dr. Rumson orders and tells the guy he’ll pay an extra $100 if we can get our food in twenty minutes. They show up in fifteen.
As we eat, my sleepiness fades, but the adrenaline also starts to wear off. I’m not in danger of passing out, but I’m exhausted. The repercussions of what I’ve done also start to penetrate.
But I don’t want to think about any of that now, I don’t have the energy to think about it, so I latch onto something to distract myself.
“So ten years ago you had a heart attack. That’s around the time we met.”
“Indeed,” he says without offering more.
“So how did it happen? I mean, you weren’t giving a sermon, were you?”
“Nothing so dramatic,” he says. “I was on the phone.”
“Did the person you were talking to call 911?”
“N
o,” he says quietly. “He’d already hung up.”
“Did Mary Kate find you?”
“She did. Almost had a heart attack herself, poor thing. She refuses to retire. Says she won’t leave until I do.”
“Wow,” I say, taking my fifth slice of pizza. “So you were at work. Seems pretty peaceful here, I mean, nothing stressful that would bring on a heart attack. I’m particularly interested in stress-induced maladies. It just amazes me how stress can affect our health. But you seem to have a pretty calm life.”
Dr. Rumson waves a hand, dismissing me. I shove the last bite of crust into my mouth and grab another chicken wing, staring hard at his averted eyes.
“Wait. You mean it was stress-induced?”
He still won’t look at me. “No, no. I said nothing of the kind.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I thought there was only honesty between us.”
He stares at the napkin draped on his thigh. “Fine. Stress may have played a role, but I was out of shape. My own fault.”
“Family trouble?” I ask around my half-clean chicken bone. I know Dr. Rumson has been a widower for twenty years, and has one married daughter who lives nearby. He’s never mentioned any issues with her, though.
“In a sense.”
I growl. “This is like pulling teeth. Tell me already.”
“Thomas, I don’t think—”
“Just from a medical perspective,” I say. “You don’t have to give away any secrets. Just give me the situation.”
Dr. Rumson sighs. “Someone very close to me was in danger.”
The gnawed bone drops from my fingers to the floor and rolls under the couch. I stare at him. “Me.”
“Thomas.”
“Me. I gave you a heart attack.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I stand up and walk out of the office, my fingers still sticky orange, without even saying goodbye.
***
I want to punch something, mainly myself. How could I have been so stupid?
Granted, I was only six when I called Dr. Rumson that day, just before I decided to heal Vivian. I wasn’t sure if I was healing her for the right reasons, and I knew something might happen to me, and I needed him to let Tessa know that Dad had taken me away to try to bring Vivian out of her coma. Of course, Dad thought we’d be doing research without any actual surgery involving me, but my point is, I unloaded on Dr. Rumson. I worried him. I gave him a freaking heart attack.