“We’ll have to narrow the field, run more tests. I think the best possible strategy is process of elimination.”
Makar was nodding, already focused.
Alric took the opportunity to send another message to Eron. ‘Dirt on Afion Heth? Can you check for documentation of individuals with bones on their back that do not belong?’
He’d never sent Eron an information request before. He wasn’t sure what the limitations of the man were, but he was classified as a hacker.
“Have you considered a mutation, a possible outside influence causing a metamorphosis of your blood? We should add that to the list of possibilities in case this lead doesn’t pan out.”
Immediately the night of his twelfth birthday came to mind. “I had not.” It was a plausible theory.
His mind was spinning. He wanted to access his birth records, and Eve’s. Being an orphan gave him a disadvantage when it came to health records. Blood tests were not a standard test at birth, but there was always the possibility that one had been done if things had not gone smoothly. He could be looking for clues that might not exist.
Having his data screen gave him the security and freedom to run searches Xis would not be privy to. Makar’s close presence frustrated him. He would have to be careful.
Makar spoke, his words punctuated with fingers tapping at keys. “I’m curious about your bones. Did you know about Eve before? What about your parents? Did they have extra bones as well? What did the doctors say about them? Why did you hide them?”
“Uh.” Alric couldn’t be sure Makar wasn’t trying to collect information for Xis. He also was not sure they weren’t being recorded. Logically, he assumed Xis had a thick file of everything they had been able to find on him. Makar had obviously not read it.
He looked over his shoulder. Makar was scrolling, his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. “I really don’t know. I was an orphan from a young age.” He hoped giving back as little information as possible would satisfy Makar.
“You never tried to find out who your parents were? Weren’t you curious about your bones?”
Since Makar seemed to want to talk while they worked, Alric went back to his data screen. Using the search bar, he typed in ‘abnormal bone growth on back’ and hit enter. He was not expecting to get a hit almost immediately.
Surprised, Alric scanned the list, selecting a link that made him narrow his eyes. A blog opened to a post written by a mother, highlighting a recent specialist visit for her son. Reading further, he realized the post was talking about four floating bones her teenage son had on his back that she seemed to consider dangerous and trauma-inducing.
Alric leaned back in his chair. What did this mean? She referred to her son only as ‘A’ in the post. Alric didn’t understand what the danger would be in the bones. Of course, he’d never been examined by anyone but the Xis doctors.
He twisted in his chair. “Makar, did those x-rays of my bones come back abnormal?”
“No, why? Have you had x-rays done before that did?”
“I haven’t ever had tests of any kind done. Were they floating bones?”
Makar spun his chair, his brows drawn in and lips pursed. “Yeah, why?”
Alric was excited, his heart was beating in anticipation. His practice at keeping his face loose and relaxed was utilized quickly. He wanted to delve into the blog and learn everything he could about the stranger whose existence had just become known to him.
Makar needed to know nothing about what he had just found. If Xis found out, Alric had no doubt that the teen would be in danger.
“You’re asking questions, so I guess that’s got me asking some of my own.” It was a neutral answer, one that Makar accepted with a shrug.
The mother hadn’t said why the bones were considered dangerous for her son. He needed more time to read. He was tired. The day had been long, full of emotional tugs that had him running on overload.
“Was there any indication that they were causing any problems for me?”
“Nope, I told you that both you and the girl are abnormally healthy, remember?” Makar’s willingness to answer his questions was a good thing.
Remembering, Alric nodded and yawned.
“I’ll have dinner sent down,” Makar offered, turning to press the com. “After we eat, we’ll shut it down and you can get some rest, start back up tomorrow.”
Turning back to the blog, Alric scrolled the archive for the earliest entries and began to read about the teen who possibly was just like him.
The teen had been rushed to the emergency room by his parents on the night of his twelfth birthday, in extreme pain, and they had thought he was dying as doctors scrambled to find the source.
By morning, bones had pushed up under his skin and his pain had stopped, leaving the doctors confounded and his parents demanding answers. That night had led to numerous visits to doctors and specialists, and they were documented by year along the side of the blog.
Handy for him, Alric thought, switching over to scan a few.
They were generic accountings of physical exams and test results that didn’t tell him much.
Alric clicked on the ‘About’ page, annoyed as he read the mother’s description of the blog as ‘the tragic journey of a boy who fears for his life due to a rare condition that confounds doctors and specialists alike.’
It didn’t take him long to determine that it seemed more about her than her son.
Disgusted and interrupted by the arrival of dinner, Alric shut the page down. He would have to set aside his curiosity until later.
It seemed A was suffering the same fate as he and Eve, but in a different way. He accepted the tray meant for him and relaxed in his chair, wondering if he should alert Eron of A’s existence, and ask him to also extract A and take him to a safe place as well.
His brain was spiraling with too many possibilities, too many outcomes, too many things that needed to happen. Too many unanswered questions.
Alric wasn’t even sure if God was going to grant him tomorrow. He felt like he was realizing that his journey was just starting, but it was hard to define for what purpose when death seemed to be breathing down his neck and playing its message in his visions.
Chapter Nineteen
It was possible that Alric was wasting his time studying blood. In the larger scheme of things, the differences that he and Eve held in their blood would bear no effect on anything.
Makar had been silent all morning, somber as he ran his tests. They’d been researching, documenting, and hypothesizing for days. He and Makar worked well together. Makar never made him feel like a prisoner. Alric hesitated to call him a friend, but cared that something seemed off. He just wasn’t sure whether to ask.In reality, Makar was in charge and Alric was nothing more than a test subject. Still, as he saw Makar prop an elbow on the counter and lean his head on his hand again, he wanted to extend a question of concern.
Blowing out a breath, he turned back to the blog he’d been diligently reading through every day. The mother had been writing for years, so there was a lot of content to progress through.
A himself never wrote. The pictures that were featured never included his face, but seeing his bones was fascinating to Alric. It felt very much like a bigger picture was unfolding around him.
He had come to the conclusion that he’d been too stubborn to see that God had been talking to him all along. Alric had turned a blind eye to the blatant experiences that had set him apart from others for years.
Abnormal bones, yes. But the visions and seeing demons and angels had further separated him from the normal realm of what humans saw when they looked at the world.
Looking back, he could see a pattern in the strength of the visions, as well as an increase in sight of supernatural beings.
It made sense to him now, that perhaps God had allowed his fall into The Peep Hall to make him pay attention. If that had been His intent, it had worked.
Alric was still unsure of the purpose of it all
, but the fact that he had one had taken a firm hold in his heart.
Stripping away theory, he felt marked. The basics of biology showed the Hand of God. Apparently he had needed a scientific conclusion to believe that God had chosen him, given him a destiny created before he had even been born.
The back of Alric’s chair snapped upright when his eyes caught on a sentence further down on the page he was reading.
Rare blood type.
He frowned at Makar over his shoulder. Makar’s head was flopped over the back of his chair and he was tapping, again, an inconsistent drum beat on the counter for no reason at all.
Annoyed at the sound, Alric started at the beginning of the paragraph and began to read, trying to stay focused over the thud of fingers on the countertop.
‘My son has been identified to have one of the rarest blood types in the world. Apparently fewer than fifty individuals have been known to have what is referred to as ‘golden blood.’
Alric refrained from shouting at Makar when the squeak of a chair twisting back and forth joined the tapping.
‘The doctors are theorizing that perhaps this rare blood has modified A’s DNA, and caused the growth of the floating bones.’
That was interesting. Alric wondered if DNA testing had been done on A since the post had been written and what the results were. He began to scroll through the archive list to see if he could find out.
Makar was driving him crazy.
“What is wrong with you?” Alric demanded suddenly, spinning around and slapping his palms on his legs. Makar’s somber mood had been accompanied all morning with shifting, tapping and other distractions.
“Sorry,” Makar muttered. “Got a lot on my mind.”
“Well, do you need to talk about it and get it off your chest so I can get some work done over here?” Alric arched an eyebrow and waited.
Makar leaned an arm on the counter and settled his head on a hand again. He sucked on his lower lip, jutted his jaw from side to side.
Alric was thinking he wasn’t going to get anything from the man when Makar lifted his head a few inches, his eyes darting to a camera. He shifted his body, angling it so the camera would get nothing but the back of his head.
Alric was well aware of the cameras in the room. He was constantly making sure they weren’t picking anything up from his reading on the data screen.
Makar’s eyes slid over the room, searching for something. His jaw was tight around clenched teeth. His other hand was fisted in his lap. Alric felt unease slide through him. Something must have happened. Eve?
He opened his mouth to ask when Makar abruptly stood up and strode to the end of the counter to retrieve a vial of blood. Alric watched him carry it across the room with him to the supply cabinet and select a stack of slides, which they didn’t need. Alric narrowed his eyes at Makar, trying to figure out his movements.
His confusion only grew when Makar dropped the vial of blood and it shattered on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Alric rose to grab at paper towels to clean up the mess.
“Shoot,” Makar said and Alric rolled his eyes. The comment was about as convincing as the ‘accident.’
Kneeling, Alric slid a paper towel along the floor to stop the blood from spreading. “Grab something for this glass, would you?” he asked, then jerked back when the slides shattered on the floor in front of him, small slivers of glass skittering in all directions across the floor.
“Makar!” he exclaimed, looking up to glare at the tech.
“I’m clumsy today,” Makar said, moving to grab a dustpan and small broom from the wall.
“Just give it here,” Alric said irritably, holding out his hand.
Makar knelt, handing over the dustpan. He moved the brush over the floor in a tiny, sweeping motion.
Before Alric could utter the sarcastic remark he intended, Makar spoke. “Here’s the thing, Alric. I need to know if Afion is a horrible man.”
Alric watched the bristles sparkle with glass dust, and gather shards between the fibers. How did he answer that? Why was Makar asking?
“Tell me the truth,” Makar continued. “I’m beginning to think that… I’ve come to realize… I mean, everything I thought I knew…” His words stuttered, stumbled, stopped. He breathed a long sigh, and reached out with the little broom to gather broken glass in closer. “No one in this hall is a danger to anyone, you know. Especially not that little girl.” Makar sucked his lip in, and scowled at the glass he was gathering into a pile.
“No, I doubt that they are,” Alric agreed.
“What do you think he is doing then?” Makar’s words were a question, but Alric wasn’t sure if he was being asked or if Makar was asking himself.
“Taking over the world,” Alric told him, startled by the words as he said them. He hadn’t realized his conclusion until he had stated it.
Makar’s head snapped up, his eyes wide as they fixated on Alric’s. He'd gone pale. Did Makar feel the same? Alric thought about Afion hovering over dead bodies in his head. His eyes shot to the cold storage.
A gasp escaped Makar’s lips, drawing his gaze back to the tech’s face. A quick spurt of pain crossed Makar’s face as he lifted his hand.
He’d cut himself.
Alric straightened to retrieve more paper towels, handing one over for the small wound.
“Something has happened that has made you question him?” he inquired as he took over sweeping up glass.
“Afion has been granted Dictatorship over the Russian military.”
Alric tried to recall what he knew about the military state of Russia. It wasn’t much. “What does that mean?” he asked.
In the dustpan, blood clung to broken fragments of the slides and the vial. Alric swiped the last of the blood off the floor and added the bloody paper towels to the mess. “And why are you acting weird because of that?”
Hesitation seemed to skitter over Makar. “Alric… do you believe in good and evil?”
“Yes,” Alric answered firmly. “My belief in good is all I have to hold onto right now.”
“You mean God?”
Pretending to still clean up possible shards of glass so anyone watching wouldn’t think it odd they were still kneeling and conversing, Alric gave a slight nod. “Yes.”
“I need to know… do you think God would forgive someone who has done horrible things if they attempt to make it right?” Makar reached out to grasp Alric’s wrist, his grip tight.
Lifting his eyes, Alric saw sincere anguish and a need for retribution in the tech’s eyes.
“God will forgive you if you believe, and ask. That’s all it takes. No act of good earns anyone the right to anything. It’s your heart that matters.” Hadn’t he just discovered that truth for himself?
“I don’t know how to believe,” Makar admitted. “I want to, but I don’t understand how to make that happen. How do you believe in something you cannot see?”
Alric rose, moving to empty the dustpan, then carefully rinsed it and the brush in the sink before replacing them. He used the opportunity to pray, to ask God for the words that Makar needed to hear.
He motioned to their workstation. “Let’s get back to work. We can talk more.”
Makar shook his head, still standing where he had dropped the glass. “This is the blind spot. Except camera three, which is only getting my side.”
That explained the purposeful clumsiness.
“We can’t just stand here. They’ll find it odd.”
Makar lifted his hand. “Grab a bandage, would you?”
Understanding, Alric went for the first aid kit.
“So why does Afion’s status change cause you such distress?” Alric asked, setting the kit down on the floor where they had cleaned up the mess and rising with an alcohol packet.
“Because I saw him in action.” Makar tilted his hand and curled fingers in to give Alric better access to the wound. “He’s brutal. His men are terrified of him. I could see the fear in their eyes
. One of them dared to question an order, and he had him strapped to a post and whipped.”
“No mercy,” Alric concluded. It didn’t surprise him.
“Exactly. And that’s the man they are handing over complete control to. No rules. His every whim given credence. What happens if he turns his wrath on me? Or that little girl?”
Alric swabbed the blood away, cleaning the raw edges of the cut. “Hold this on there,” he directed, folding the square cleanser and pressing a clean side to the wound.
Makar did as he asked. “Alric, I can’t stop thinking about it. People die here every day. I could die here. It keeps me awake at night.”
“Fear of death?”
A long sigh came from Makar, one that hinted at inner turmoil. Alric had experienced plenty of his own.
“I’m just struggling with why I’m even here. What’s the point? What am I doing? Helping Afion destroy people? That’s not what I intended to do with my life.”
It hadn’t been that long ago that Alric had asked himself those same questions. Purpose had a way of working its questions into the fabric of life and prodding you to seek an answer.
Eternity called to the soul and waited with bated breath for acceptance.
Alric had never talked to anyone else about his faith, and wasn’t sure what to say. He knew what he believed, but how did one share such a personal experience with another person?
“For me, Makar, I believe in God, but I think I’m just starting to figure Him out.”
Makar was silent in response and Alric thought maybe he had said the wrong thing. Or not enough.
Using a Q-tip, he spread ointment over the cut.
“I’m supposed to play a part, just like the molecules we’ve been studying, but I think I’ve been ignoring all the other particles around me and trying to create a system of my own.”
Makar snorted. “That was blather. You’re such a nerd.”
Alric laughed. Stopped. The sound was foreign. He grinned at Makar. Someone else had always played their part too, he realized.
He had never been able to do it alone. The boys in the orphanage. The preacher. Eitan. Eve. And now, Makar.
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