Too Young to Die

by Michael Anderle

  “Tell me about the game,” she suggested. “Tell me all of the tiny things.” She stood and held her hand out. “Come on, let’s go upstairs—no, not for that. We’ll people-watch out the window and have a nice glass of wine.”

  “Oh,” Justin said. “Right.” He retrieved the pitcher and glanced at the table. “All that eating, and we barely made a dent.”

  “Good.” Tina grinned. “That means there’ll be leftovers. Now, come on.”

  They slipped up the stairs and then, on a whim, up the next set. To their pleasure, they led to an attic with broad windows. As they ascended the final flight, Tina was fairly sure the process made the robe slip more than once, but Justin was gentlemanly enough not to mention it. He handed up the pitcher and the goblets and hauled himself after.

  “It’s easier when you’re tall,” he pointed out.

  “Bah.” She lay back on the roof and stared at the sky. “God, it’s gorgeous here. Are all games like this?”

  “Play some and you’ll find out,” he teased.

  She looked at him with a grin. “Okay. I’ll do that if you read some of my favorite books.”

  To her surprise, he propped himself on one elbow and nodded at her. “It’s a deal.”

  Tina laughed. She’d spent the past few years drifting, worrying her parents with her tattoos and her attitude, but the truth was, she hadn’t ever wanted to run off and go on week-long binges or anything like that. Quite simply, she had only wanted them to stop treating her like she was made of glass.

  That, and she liked tattoos.

  “What do you think you’ll do when you get back?” she asked him.

  “You mean, besides all the physical therapy I’ll probably need?” Justin sounded glum.

  “Yes, besides that. Everyone has health problems so don’t get self-indulgent.”

  He smiled at her. “Well… I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d talk to my dad.”

  “What about?”

  With a sigh, he pillowed his head on his hands. “What he does for a living, I guess. He’s a senator.”

  “Yes, I know. My parents made a huge deal of it.”

  “Ugh, I’m sorry. Well, before that, he was in the state senate, and before that—it doesn’t matter. But I never really cared. I thought he merely argued for a living and that he wanted an excuse to tell people they were wrong about things.”

  “And now?”

  “Well, you can’t really solve problems in our world by running around with a sword. So I have to find something else to do.” He shrugged. “What about you?”

  “Now, mine seems stupid.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “I wanted to open a store,” she said. “My grandmother would weave this amazing cloth, and you could make the patterns into rugs, curtains, whatever. I thought I’d open a store where people could buy stuff like that.” She sat up enough to take a sip of wine. “It’s not exactly on par with saving the world.”

  “I like it,” he said. He hesitated and took her hand tentatively. “I do. I like it. And Tina?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When we get out of here, could we go out again?” The words came out a little rushed.

  Reflexively, she smiled as warmth stole over her. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. Of course, I’m not sure your mother will ever let us leave the house together.”

  “My mother got me a dragon for my birthday,” he said sleepily. “She doesn’t get to talk about safety.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He laced his fingers with hers. “I…should go. I don’t want to,” he added hastily, “but I keep thinking about everyone in the lab.”

  Tina laughed. “You don’t have to go straight from this to there. Be grateful.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I’ll be back in the morning,” she assured him. “I promise.”

  She waited as he climbed into the building and left and wasn’t surprised when the world dissolved into black a few moments later. When she opened her eyes, the pod lid was raised and she winced when the assistants helped her to sit. Her muscles ached and she had to use the bathroom.

  Desperately had to.

  Tina practically sprinted through the lab and emerged a few minutes later feeling disturbingly lighter. “How long was I in there?”

  “Fourteen hours,” Jacob said. He produced a chair out of nowhere as she began to wobble. “Sit. Your blood sugar is very low.”

  “Eat this,” Amber suggested. She brought over a folding table and a bowl of pho. “A little salt protein, some hydration…”

  “Do you have any sriracha?”

  “No. I’m not crazy. But we’ll have some for you next time.” She tapped next to the bowl. “Eat up. You’re doing great, you know.”

  “He’s beginning to show marked signs of being ready to wake up,” DuBois said.

  “Oh.” She swallowed a mouthful of soup. “What happens if we don’t win the tournament?”

  The doctor looked offended. “I can’t tell you,” he said.

  “Does it…” She looked at the others. “Does it break the immersion or something?”

  He looked at her and almost seemed to bristle. “No. It ruins the fun.”

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  “How are we doing for time?” Nick called over his shoulder. He held a large bag of trash in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

  “About five minutes,” Jacob said. Sweat began to prickle on his skin.

  “Fifteen,” Amber told Nick in an undertone.

  “We want to be ready before they show up,” Jacob pointed out. “If they come here and see us cleaning frantically, it won’t look good for us.”

  “The laboratory is already spotless,” Anna Price pointed out. “Not that I want to get involved.” She looked genuinely amused. After the weird way she had hovered around the area a few days before, he had been worried when she appeared that morning.

  However, she had no negative comments on their progress. Instead, she wanted them to allow a news team to conduct an interview. It was a rare occurrence, she’d explained. She was not in the habit of allowing media attention on anything she did, but she was pleased enough with Justin’s progress that she had decided to allow this.

  There had been an extensive debrief of what they were and were not allowed to say with regard to patient confidentiality, and they would pretend that Justin was in a different location. Also, they would pretend that he was not the only patient.

  Jacob had been leery of agreeing to the interview, but what swayed him was her reminder that this could also help Senator Williams. The PIVOT team had shared articles amongst themselves, horrified by the vitriolic comments toward them and Justin’s parents. People had clearly decided that they had hooked the young man up to untested, experimental treatment merely for the hell of it.

  He shook his head and returned to scrubbing the bottom of the laboratory table.

  “Do you really think they’ll look under the tables?” Price asked him.

  “No,” he replied. “But this calms me.”

  “Yes. You seem very calm.”

  Of all the things he had expected from her, a sense of humor was not one of them. He slid out from under the table and gave her a look that drew a small smile in return. She was typing on her phone as she spoke. He had only seen her without extra work once.

  Apparently, there was a rumor going around Diatek that she didn’t even have a house and slept in one of her offices each night. He had to concede that it seemed likely.

  They all heard the door open and everyone looked around. Mary blew out a breath and bounced slightly on the balls of her feet. She had dressed conservatively in a skirt suit and pearls, and a professional makeup artist had come in. The effort had created the very picture of an non-threatening, old-school, classy mother, the kind of person who would always have something for the PTA bake sale and never dropped her kids off for school without having her makeup done. Jacob knew she had been given exten
sive instructions on how to behave for the camera crew and that she did not like it.

  Mary, he knew, preferred to be straightforward.

  So did he. Unfortunately, they were in a battle against someone who twisted the truth every way he could.

  When the camera crew arrived, he thought his heart would beat out of his chest. He went to shake the reporter’s hand.

  “Mr. Zachary.” The man smiled at him. “David Yang, Johnsonville Chronicle. Thank you for agreeing to meet us.”

  “Of course.” He gestured to Mary and Price. “Would you like to begin by speaking to Mary Williams or Anna Price?”

  “Mrs. Williams, I think.” David stepped forward to shake Mary’s hand. “If that works for you, ma’am.”

  “Of course.” She nodded. “Should I sit, should I stand…”

  “Why don’t you come here to the seating area?” Yang looked around. “No, one of the desks. You’ve been here this whole time. I think it’s right to show you in the lab.”

  “If you think that’s best.” Mary slid onto one of the stools in what was clearly a practiced movement.

  “Let me get set up,” the man told her. He directed the camera crew into position before he launched into the interview. “Now, Mrs. Williams, can you give us your overview of the treatment Justin is receiving?”

  “Of course.” Mary swallowed and gestured to the pods. “A comatose patient would normally receive very limited interventions. Feeding tubes, of course, and all the monitors, as well as perhaps a medically induced coma if it was needed, but I think that’s only if they seem to be coming out of it too quickly—to slow it, I guess, but I’m not a doctor. But there isn’t generally a way to interact with the person. The brain is very complex and there isn’t a way to predict when the patient will get better.”

  David nodded.

  “What PIVOT did,” she said, “was they gave patients a way to begin to get better while they remain unconscious. The video game that was developed by their team can be interacted with by the patient and will stimulate the brain to heal.” She gave a self-conscious smile. “Dr. DuBois, how would you say I did at explaining that?”

  The doctor gave a distracted nod. “Very good, yes. Yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He wandered away.

  Amber edged closer to Jacob. “Where did you hide his popcorn?” she asked out of the corner of her mouth.

  “In the ceiling tiles,” he muttered. “Let’s hope he doesn’t think to look at the security footage anytime soon.”

  She snickered. They had decided it was probably best if no one saw Justin’s doctor eating popcorn in the middle of the laboratory but had not been able to convince him of that. Consequently, she had lured him outside while Jacob hid the popcorn.

  “So, Mrs. Williams,” David Yang asked, “what do you know about the types of stimulation? You mentioned that it was a game. Is it like a logic puzzle?”

  “It’s a video game,” Mary explained. “I’ve been inside it. Well, in one of the pods. As one of the early tests, I was allowed to interact with Justin.”

  She described her experience within the game. Although she left out the part about her killing the spider, she was incredibly animated. Her sense of wonder about what she’d experienced would translate well, Jacob thought.

  Or, at least, he hoped it would. He noted the way her chin trembled with real emotion while she discussed being able to speak with Justin and send messages.

  “Now, one last question, Mrs. Williams,” the reporter said. “Early stories about this treatment were very negative and your husband has been pressured to resign. Do you have any comment on that?”

  Mary paused and Jacob knew from having watched that this was practiced. She had gone over this several times with the lawyers and publicists as well as her husband. He had also witnessed her ranting about how disingenuous it felt to practice the speech, only to have Anna Price shake her head. “Sincerity isn’t enough when it comes to the press,” the CEO had said. “Not legally and not in the court of public opinion. We need to be careful.”

  “I know the stories were scary,” Mary said and swallowed. “I guess people must think we’re desperate or reckless and if they’ve only seen the news reports, I can’t really blame them. I hope that when they learn the details, they’ll think more kindly of us. We feel lucky that we were able to find this treatment for Justin and we hope more families will soon have the same opportunity.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Williams. Now, Mr. Zachary…” David Yang gestured around the lab. “Would you like to provide more specifics on the treatment?”

  “Of course,” Jacob said. “Come with me.”

  He led them around the lab and allowed his genuine enthusiasm to show when he pointed out the various new pieces of equipment PIVOT had access to as part of the acquisition deal. Finally, he led the team to the pods.

  “There’s been considerable press coverage of these already,” he told David Yang. “Obviously, we didn’t originally intend these to be used for comatose patients. What first gave us the idea was my grandmother’s treatment. To be frank, my family could not afford to keep her in the hospital. It put us in a terrible position and my parents and their siblings considered draining their retirement funds to help her recover.”

  “Your grandmother passed away, did she not?”

  “Yes.” He swallowed. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wonder, every day, if she might have recovered if she’d been able to try this treatment. She always loved stories. I remember her reading to me when she was younger. If she’d had a chance to be a hero and go on adventures, I think maybe…” He swallowed hard and kicked himself mentally because he had not wanted to cry. More than anything, he needed to be professional and present a trustworthy image. “I think maybe that would have given her strength,” he finished.

  “I see. And so your team is now marketing the pods exclusively as a therapy for trauma patients, correct?”

  “Right now, that is the only application under development,” Jacob said carefully. “However, as you can see, we’re also collecting data from healthy patients to understand how their vital signs respond to the game. This gives us a good idea of how brains diverge and we’re interested to see those data.”

  “So these are not patients?” the reporter asked.

  “Yes. Obviously, we can’t show you any of the treatment as the patients aren’t able to sign waivers.”

  Yang nodded and one of his assistants checked a question off. “Do you see any other uses for these pods?”

  “Many,” he told him. “There are numerous potential other areas where this could be used. We’ll know more when we have a good set of data regarding our patients’ recovery. Depending on how recovery is affected, other conditions might benefit from the same treatment. But there are more benefits, too. People can attend college remotely. They can learn combat skills or explore landscapes. Those who have mobility issues could have the sensation of walking again. There are so many ways that this could enhance people’s lives.”

  “Thank you so much for your time.” The man shook his hand heartily. “Now, Ms. Price, if you’d be willing to answer some questions about Diatek’s involvement in this process.”

  “Of course,” she said smoothly and gave Jacob a tiny nod as she went past him.

  “That went well, I thought,” Nick said as the team watched her answering questions.

  “I hope so,” Jacob said. He swallowed. “I hope so but I’m afraid Metcalfe got too far ahead of us.”

  “Maybe that’s the benefit to working with someone who has defense contracts,” Nick suggested. “If Metcalfe tries to screw with her, I wouldn’t say it would go well for him.”

  “That’s true.” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “Well, we’ve done what we can. Let’s hope this gives the senator enough of a break to hang on for a while longer.”

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  “Are you sure about this?” Tina asked.

  Justin glanced at her. The roar of
the crowd reverberated through the floor and the walls, and all he could think of was home. Only three teams remained from the skirmishes, and with Quartzfire having withdrawn from the final, the Master of Ceremonies had hinted that a grand prize might be on the line for the teams that faced off that day.

  The uncertainty had packed the stands. The three teams left were Tayr—the trio of women Justin, Tina, and Lyle had faced off against last time—the Twins, of course, and the remnants of Sephith’s Bane. Justin and Tina were the only two to advance without one of their team members. The rules were clear. They could continue without their team member or they could drop out, but they could not sub in anyone else.

  He knew she was worried about his choice to keep going. She had argued passionately against it, but he was ready and couldn’t remain there any longer. He was ready to wake up and the thought of waiting another few days was torture.

  The two of them would win. They had to.

  “I’m sure,” he told her.

  She looked at the floor without speaking.

  “Last time, everyone came for us,” he told her. “We’ve had harder fights because we were the unknown. First, they thought we were weaklings and could be easily defeated. Then, they thought we were the big threat. But this time, we’re in the arena with the Twins.”

  “And that doesn’t frighten you?” Tina demanded.

  Justin thought it over. It should frighten him. He had the sense that he should be worried about this because he had seen the Twins fight and he knew their record. They were clearly resourceful. So was he, though, his mind argued. He’d defeated Sephith—hell, he’d defeated a version of himself in that tower. Thereafter, he’d fought a demon army. What were two humans in comparison to that?

  The truth was, though, he was itching for this fight. The others had been quick skirmishes against people who were used to arena fighting and not used to risking their lives. They were more cautious and more frivolous at the same time. The Twins were the ones he had wanted to fight all along.

  He shrugged. “I think we can do it,” was all he said.