Salby Damned

by Ian D. Moore

  Finally, the lift slowed to a halt, and as the doors parted, the children saw a huge circular room with pure white walls and numerous steel lift doors inset. In the middle was a large desk at which stood two burly-looking guards, both with shouldered rifles. Tom’s face lit up, instantly.

  “Cooor! Look at those guns!” he said, staring at the men who smiled back; they knew of the visit.

  “It’s, it’s very white, Dr. Eebie.”

  “Yes, Holly. It has to be very clean in this place. We don’t want any more nasty germs to get in, do we?” Evie replied, ironically.

  “No, no. Not germs.”

  “Come on then, kids, this way. It’s quite a walk to where Nathan is.”

  They made their way to the bio-lab rooms. Seeing Nathan through the glass wall, the children fell silent.

  “He’s sleeping, Dr. Eebie. Naffam? Naffam? Are you sleeping?” Holly called.

  “He cannot hear you, munchkin. He’s in a very deep sleep which we hope will help to make him better.”

  “This place is awesome!” said Tom

  Evie led them to the glass separator wall; she wouldn't take them into the lab itself. She put thick surgical masks over the children's faces, just to be on the safe side. They pressed their tiny hands against the cool glass, watching Nathan as he breathed.

  The woman in the opposite glass bio-lab became agitated, sitting bolt upright with her hands frantically trying to move, but restrained by the leather straps. The children turned to see the commotion as the doctors rushed in to calm the woman.

  “Mommy, mommy, mommy!” Holly yelled, as both children raced from Nathan’s lab window to stand at the glass wall.

  “That’s our mum, Evie. You found her!” Tom said, hugging Evie’s waist.

  “Mommy, I love you, Mommy! That’s my mommy, Dr. Eebie, in there!” said Holly and tears of joy ran down her face.

  Realisation slowly dawned on Evie; it took a few seconds before her feet would actually move. The chances must be millions to one, she thought; then her brain kicked into gear again.

  “Release her straps!” she said to the doctors, “She isn’t going to hurt us. Let her come to the glass to see her children. She’s their mother.”

  They removed the straps, and within seconds, the woman had swung off the bed and kneeled at the glass, trying to touch the hands of her children through the thick clear wall; she wept with joy at seeing them. The kids cried too, sobbing as they pressed their hands and lips to the glass, covering their mother’s hands with only the barrier keeping them from their mum.

  “Mommy has a poorly arm,” sobbed Holly.

  “Yes, she does, but we’re hoping that she will get better soon, munchkin,” Evie assured her, trying to stem her own welling tears as she watched them.

  Holly stood back a little from the glass and began to move her hands, forming shapes in between touching her lips and ears. Tom did the same as the mother formed similar actions with her own hands.

  “What are you doing?” Evie asked, curiously.

  “We’re talking to mum, of course,” said Tom, as if her question had been silly.

  Click, the penny dropped.

  “You’re signing, is that it?” Evie asked.

  “Dr. Eebie. Mommy has poorly ears; she can’t hear anything so we use our hands to tell her that we love her. Lookie, see,” said Holly, forming the shapes for her mother to see.

  The woman reacted by touching her lips and blowing a kiss to her daughter. The woman smiled with joy at her children's presence as Holly signed another message that Evie couldn’t understand.

  “Mommy says I can kiss her arm better, Dr. Eebie. That’s how she makes us better when we hurt ourselves. Can I?”

  “Can you tell your mommy what I’m saying? If I tell you, will you sign to her so that she understands?”

  “Yes, we can do that!” said Tom, proudly.

  “Tell her: Hello, Charlotte. My name is Dr. Evelyn Shepherd, and she has been brought here because of a very rare condition that she has which is harmful to you two. We cannot allow direct contact, but what I can do is get you to kiss Mommy’s new dressing for her arm, and we’ll put that on to replace the old one. Will that be okay?”

  Holly smiled and nodded as she signed the details to her mother who clasped her hands together, as if in prayer, and mouthed a thank you that Evie could understand too.

  Evie put on her white lab coat and facemask before entering the bio-lab. She removed the dressing from the arm wound having gestured for Charlotte to return to the bed. From the metal alloy drawers of the room, she took a clean gauze dressing, before entering the airlock towards Holly.

  “Here we are, look. Give this a kiss, and you, Tom, then we’ll put those kisses on Mommy’s poorly arm to make her better,” Evie said, lowering the pad for the children to reach as they kissed.

  They smiled as they watched Evie place the pad upon their mother’s wound. Charlotte didn’t flinch at the injury, which still looked very sore, even after it had been cleaned up with antiseptic liquid. Bandaging the gauze against the wound, Evie watched as the children signed to their mother, not sure what they were saying. For the first time in a while, Evie felt good, having witnessed the reuniting of the children with their mother. It was truly a miracle that they should have found her.

  Arrangements were made to provide Charlotte with a pen and paper with which to write to the care team and doctors. She was able to tell them of her medical history and of how the virus made her feel, physically and mentally. It seemed that memories were difficult for Charlotte to recall—things she had done in childhood or events in her life—like the birth of her children.

  She had been separated from the children when the shopping centre had been over-run with infected people; she had put them into an unlocked cleaner’s cupboard and run for her life, intending to return for them. Then, she'd been bitten on the arm by a child. After that, Charlotte didn’t really recall much; she walked for a long time, not knowing where she was or where she was going. She'd remembered bright lights and the tall fence of the base and a soldier who came for her.

  Evie left Charlotte, having researched her life as much as she needed. The children continued to sign and they and their mother laughed together; it was good to see, Evie thought.

  She made her way next door to check again on Nathan. The joy of the scenes in the other lab faded at the sadness she felt seeing him that way.

  “Any change, Kate?” she asked, as the doctor checked the vital signs again.

  “There are slight variations in heart rate and his blood pressure has dropped marginally. We’re compensating for it and trying to maintain a constant.”

  “The virus is doing its work already, slowly breaking down his defences, and I don’t know what to do,” Evie said, fighting back the tears again.

  “You should do what you do best, what people the world over admire you for. Go and be a microbiologist; get down to the nitty-gritty and tear this virus right back to the basics when you first engineered it. It has to have a weak spot and all we have to do is find it. If you can't find it, nobody can.”

  “You’re right, I know you’re right. Self-pity won’t fix it. I’ll be in the lab if anything changes.”

  Kate nodded as Evie left the bio-lab, heading for her own workstation. She told the children that she would be back for them in a few hours to take them for food.

  Entering her lab, Evie sat looking at the computer analysis screen and began mentally to dissect the virus she had created. She examined the effect of variations in blood types, including the rarest known to exist, and ran simulations of the formula used in the serum, doing a very similar analysis to that Charles had done. There was something missing; something was needed to make the picture complete. After four hours of simulation after simulation, she stood, frustrated at the results from her machines, wondering if their programming was correct.

  Evie decided to join the children, take them for some dinner and see if they could tell her anythi
ng they hadn’t already. She greeted them with a smile and waved to Charlotte through the glass. They turned, as they always had, running to her for a hug, and this made Charlotte smile as she looked on.

  “Let’s go eat, Mummy needs a bath. She’ll like that so she will need an hour or two, okay?”

  “Ummm, welllll, okay then,” said Tom, looking at his mother as he spoke.

  “Can, can we come back after though, pleeeeeease, Dr. Eebie?” asked Holly.

  “Yes, of course, you can, but you’ll have to let Mummy sleep too so we can’t stay too late. Alright?”

  “Yay! Okay,” Tom said for both of them.

  They waved to their mum, blowing kisses as they turned for the elevator. The children took off the surgical masks and handed them to Evie. The ride up was filled with the sound of excited children who'd found their mum again.

  “Do you know much about your dad, Tom?” Evie asked.

  He looked puzzled for a moment, cocking his head to one side, before answering.

  “Not much really. Mum doesn’t talk about him a lot, and I don’t remember seeing him, though I probably did when I was very little.”

  “Daddy has blue blood,” Holly chipped in.

  “Holly, what do you mean?”

  “Mommy has minus blood and daddy has plus blood; that’s what mommy says.”

  “She means Mum is AB negative and Dad is AB positive. Mum calls it blue blood,” said Tom, explaining what Holly had meant.

  “That must make you two very special indeed because you’ll each have a little of Mummy and a little of Daddy in your genes,” said Evie.

  Holly looked at Tom’s jeans, cocking her head before looking at her own stretch bottoms.

  “But I’m not wearing jeans!” she said, a little panicked.

  “No, munchkin, not those kinds of jeans. G-E-N-E- S,” Evie said, spelling the word, “Those are the kind of genes that are in all living things. They form part of the cells and DNA that we are made of.”

  “Ohhhhhh! So I’m not empty then?” said Holly.

  “No, you’re not empty, honey, you have genes just like Tom and I do, like everyone does. It’s just that yours and Tom’s might be very special ones.”

  The lift doors opened to the study, and Evie guided them through to the kitchen where Janey had prepared dinner for them all. The dining table was laid beautifully for them. Evie couldn’t remember the last time she had sat down to a full dinner in such a manner; most of her meals lately had been in the bustling cookhouse, usually in the company of hundreds of other people and usually talking shop.

  They sat together like a family and even baby Gracie joined them, a roaring success, much to the delight of Janey.

  “Can’t tell you how much I appreciate the dinner, Janey. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down to a meal like that and enjoyed it so much.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s been quite a while since we had the chance to do it too, with all that’s been going on around us.”

  “Right, you two, I have to shoot back down to the lab for a little while. I’ll come for you later this evening so that you can see Mum again. Okay?”

  Evie hurried back to the study, with thoughts of the children’s DNA in her mind and eager to talk to Kate. She pressed the button to call the lift to the upper level and then waited as the lift made its way back down to the facility, almost half a mile below ground level.

  ***

  Now hurrying to get to the lab, she caught her shoulder on the steel edge of the door, numbing her joint for a second before feeling returned. She could see Kate next to Nathan’s bed, checking the stats from the machines hooked up to him and comparing them with those taken hours before.

  “Any change, Kate?” she said, as she entered the bio-lab.

  “Nothing significant. Minor fluctuations that I think are the virus chipping away at the defences. He is getting weaker by the hour. Come on, you can help me with the dressing on Charlotte’s arm. She seems to be much happier now; there is no significant change, but she has had some memory improvements.”

  “I think I know why, Kate. Come on, let’s see if my theory is correct.”

  “Now you’ve got me curious,” Kate said, as they entered the bio-lab to greet Charlotte. She scribbled on her pad, HI GOOD TO SEE YOU. Speaking slowly and facing her, Charlotte was able to lip read their responses. When asked if she felt any better, she wrote, YES, with a nod of her head to confirm it.

  “We need to change your dressing, Charlotte. It won’t take a minute.”

  OK, HOW ARE THE KIDS?

  “They have had a lovely dinner; two clean plates and happy faces and they’re really no trouble at all. A credit to you. They said to tell you that they love you,” Evie said, slowly.

  I LOVE THEM TOO, MORE THAN LIFE.

  “Hopefully we can give you your life back, let’s see now.”

  “Kate! Kate you gotta come and see this,” Evie said.

  Evie had unwrapped the bandage and stared at the wound. Dr. Simmons rushed to her side to take a look at the bite mark; Kate looked at it several times to make sure that what she was seeing was real. The wound, once oozing the thick jelly-like substance, was now a clean, crisp, pink colour and the skin was regenerating around the puncture marks and had begun to heal naturally.

  “What, what the hell. But how?” was all Kate could say.

  “The children kissed the dressing to make Mummy better, remember? It’s in their DNA, Kate; they have inherited not only their mother’s partial immunity carried in her blood, and only 0.5% of the population have that blood type, but they also have genetic coding and immunity from their father’s side. He has AB Rhesus positive blood, and only 0.25% of the population have that. The chances of two such blood types coming together are in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions to one; what it creates in their children is an antivirus built into their DNA. Tom and Holly are walking, talking cures for this virus!”

  “In their DNA is a ready-made antidote, not only to treat, but also to immunise anyone at risk,” concurred Kate.

  Evie showed Charlotte the wound, watching as her face lit up. She scribbled on the paper, almost too excited to write clearly.

  THEY REALLY DID KISS IT BETTER!

  “That they did. We need your permission, and we will also ask the children, to take samples of their DNA as soon as possible. We need to begin work on the manufacture of an antiviral serum that will save hundreds of thousands of lives, and oh God I hope, that of the very special man next door. Is that okay, Charlotte?”

  THEY WOULD WANT TO HELP I KNOW THAT. TELL THEM I SAID IT’S OK THOUGH HOLLY DOESN’T LIKE NEEDLES. THEY TELL ME THEY LOVE NATHAN.

  “We won’t need needles. Hair strands or a swab on the inside of their mouths will be fine to begin with,” Evie said, reassuring Charlotte.

  Evie left the lab, striding back towards the lift; she would bring the children down to the lab to see their mother and obtain the samples. Hopefully, she thought that would minimise any distress that the process might cause.

  The lift finally made it to the study level, and she found the children playing computer games and giggling at the demise of Holly’s animated hedgehog, as it attempted to make a large jump.

  “Hey, you two. You ready to go see Mummy?”

  “Yay! Now? Can we go now?”

  “Yes, Tom. If you’re ready, then we’ll go. I need to talk to you on the way down. It’s very important and I need your help.”

  “What’s the matter, Dr. Eebie?” Holly asked, inquisitively.

  “Well, it’s difficult to explain. Do you remember what I said about us all having genes?” she began to tell them, as they entered the lift.

  By the time they reached the facility, the children were excited. They understood that their genes were now very important and could make both Nathan and their mum better. They were apprehensive about having their DNA taken but wanted to help.

  They really are little miracles, Evie thought as she took them to see Charl
otte, while Kate organised swabs to collect the DNA samples. Tom was first to show Holly that it wouldn’t hurt; Tom was very brave and said that it tickled, that's all.

  With both samples now obtained, Kate took Tom’s to her lab to begin analysis. Evie explained to them that she now needed to go to her own lab to do the same with Holly’s sample. They were told that they would be able to stay with their mother for a few hours, which saw both little faces light up.

  The children were effectively immune from the man-made virus so Evie allowed them to enter the bio-lab to see their mum without the glass barrier, on condition that they wore protective suits and kept on their masks at all times. They were able to hug their mother for the first time in over a week. Charlotte mouthed a “Thank you” to Evie through the glass walls.

  *******

  Redemption

  At the base, Dr. Charles Fitzgerald had been working with the AB rhesus negative blood type, trying to infuse the anti-dote with the viral specimen of the woman without it reacting to the blood cells. He had tried the serum he had manufactured but with no success. There had been some reaction, but he came to the conclusion that they were still missing something.

  Charles decided to find Richard and see if any of the other labs had had any luck and to bring him up to speed on progress, such as it was. He’d take him up on the offer of company for breakfast too; it had been a long night and he had yet to eat, and he needed sleep.

  Charles left the medical centre and made his way to the main offices; Richard was walking towards him as Charles turned the corner and greeted him with a smile and extended hand.

  “Charles, good morning. Hell of a storm, eh?” he said, cheerily.

  “Someone slept well last night. I didn’t, but yes, the lightning was spectacular. Breakfast?”