Authors: Hana Starr
“Alright, let's get this sample,” she said in a
soft voice when she was beside them, placing the equipment on a side table
beside their seat. “I'll be as gentle as possible, but remember that this is my
first time drawing blood from a Hakimme. If something feels wrong, let me know
immediately!”
“Anne Claire.” Their tone was kind but firm, as
if they knew that she was liable to ramble if left to her own devices. She
was
liable to nervously rambling when she was about to do something that made her
anxious. She laughed nervously but Faer patiently waited until she could
comfortably look them in the eye. “I have complete confidence in your
abilities.” They set down the blood draw equipment on the tray beside them and
took her hands in theirs. “My people may have chosen you because of your
accomplishments in your field, but I know that their decision was correct
because I
know
you. I have
seen
you, and I know that you can do
this.” The reassuring squeeze of her hand in addition to their reassurances
bolstered her enough to steady her nerves.
“Thank you.” She resumed her previous task of
prepping their arm for blood draw, wrapping a tourniquet around their arm just
tightly enough that their veins were more pronounced through their opalescent
skin. With a hand steadied by their encouraging words, she lined up the needle
with a vein that prominently shone through their skin, and drove the needle
into it. She knew, because of the telepathic transfer, that the Hakimme had
different colored blood than her, but it was still jarring to her all the same
when the deep purple liquid slid through the IV tube and into the first of four
testing vials that she needed to fill.
“You did well,” Faer noted when she capped off
the last of the vials. “But I knew that you would.”
“Here, hold this for me, would you?” She handed
them a little puffy ball akin to a cotton ball, and they pressed it against
where the needle was still in their arm. She eased the needle out, immediately
going for a bandage for their arm that would allow it to heal faster. “You
know, this isn't so different from drawing blood from a patient back home,” she
said conversationally as she deftly wrapped the bandage around their thin,
lanky arm. “I guess I worried for nothing.” Securing the bandage, she simply
held their arm for a few moments, lightly stroking their cool skin.
“You are worried.” She looked up at them, into
their eyes that had taken on a turquoise hue.
“If I didn't already know that you were a
telepath, I could swear that you just read my mind.” She chuckled humorlessly.
Faer blinked at her owlishly.
“I did not have to read your mind to know that
something troubles you.” They lightly touched her elbow. “What is the matter?”
“I...” She bit her lip. It was a foolish thing
to ask now, so long after she had gained the knowledge of it, but now that it
was out there that she
knew
, she needed to ask, “how is your pain level?
Is there anything that I can do to lessen it? What about-” Faer rested a finger
against her lips, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of their lips.
“Your concern warms my heart, Anne Claire.” She
pressed a kiss to the finger against her lips, and they let it fall. “But my
pain is minor compared to others whose symptoms have advanced past mine. There
is an herbal supplement from my home world that I have been brewing into a tea
that helps soothe the pain. I can function just fine.” They laughed in such a
light way about their suffering that Anne Claire wondered if they were being
completely honest with their pain levels but opted not to press the matter
further; if Faer really wanted to talk about it, they would open up to her in
time. Or she could just cure the damn thing so they never felt pain again. That
worked, too.
“Alright, then,” she said with a nod as she
stood. “Get these in to the generative apparatus and get us some organs to test
with, yeah? I'll ready the scanners.” Faer nodded, and she turned to take care
of her own task. There was a kind of mundane comfort that came with preparing
lab equipment for a test. She even found herself humming softly as she set up
the computers, the machines, prepped the tools that would be used on the organs
themselves, and took the time to steady herself. This was another day that she
was going to help people with – she could do this.
They
could do this,
she corrected herself, stealing a glance at Faer as they worked. The both of
them, together, would find a solution to this problem.
Faer came back just as she was finished with the
prep, several duplicate organs in glass testing dishes on a large metal tray
ready for their experiments. They set them down on the exam table, and she
waited for him to begin to tell her what to do; this was
their
lab,
after all. That, and it was hard for her to shake the feeling that she was back
in med school waiting for the instructor to tell her what she did wrong. That
wasn't exactly helping things.
“I shall be following your instruction on these
proceedings, Anne Claire,” Faer said when she hadn't started yet. She blinked
in surprise. “As I have said, I have exhausted any possibility that came to
mind when it came to testing. Even the thought to clone organs for testing had
not occurred to me. So you lead, and I will follow.” Though it made sense, the
feeling of being the leader of the two of them in the lab was still strange to
her. All the same, she cracked her knuckles – a move that positively puzzled
Faer – and began their noble work.
It was surprisingly easy to lapse into a
comfortable working relationship with Faer, to let her old lab habits keep her
going in this new and strange place. Their conversations were kind but
professional, though she couldn't help but notice the extra warmth behind every
word, every action as they began their tests. To Anne Claire, the most logical
first organ to test was the colon – it was the organ most affected by the
sickness, so it was best to understand both how and why it was being targeted.
It would, at the very least, allow for them to definitively gather a sample of
the growths themselves from a guaranteed source.
All of the symptoms that she found, if she were
diagnosing a human, would point to cancer of the colon. What she was hoping for
was to recreate the exact conditions of a cancerous cell reacting in the way that
it would back on Earth. If it did that, she could, theoretically, generate a
cure in the same way that she did back home and use the knowledge that she
gained here to duplicate the results. That was what she was hoping for: a
relatively straightforward solution that was presented to her because of the
analogous nature of the Hakimme organs compared to humans. Though the rest of
the body surrounding the primary organs of the Hakimme were vastly different,
and they had additional organs that did things humans were unable to do, their
primary organs were an almost one – to – one comparison to that of humans, an
advantage that Anne Claire wanted to take advantage of as much as she possibly
could.
“I have isolated a strain of the illness, as you
asked,” Faer said, breaking the companionable silence they had fallen in. She
turned to face them, pleased with the vial that held the sample that they had
managed to take from the synthesized organs. She had to refrain from hopping in
place; she was, first and foremost, a professional, after all.
“Excellent!” She beamed. “We'll inject it into
colon sample three, and then test its reactions to the outside environment.”
“I confess, I do now know what that would
accomplish, Anne Claire...” Faer frowned.
“Your people know me for curing a horrific
illness on my home world, correct?” They nodded. “The symptoms your people are
experiencing are very similar to a variant of that illness back on Earth. If I
can recreate its reactions to outside stimuli, I'll know how to cure it.
Theoretically speaking, of course!” She knew that she was rambling a bit again,
and she genuinely didn't want to get their hopes up for nothing if what she was
suspecting wasn't actually true, but she couldn't help it – her enthusiasm
whenever she reached an epiphany of any kind always got the better of her. And,
ultimately, disappointed her immensely when it was proven to be fruitless.
“I am unsure if that would work,” Faer noted
quietly, as if they were trying to keep themselves from being too hopeful in
the wake of her theory. “But I could certainly see where your idea came from.
At the very least, it would provide a better place to start than where we were
previously.” They shrugged. Carefully, they readied the strain of the illness
into a syringe and injected it into the specified organ. Anne Claire tapped at
the holo-screen on the computer, enabling its built in microscope to enhance
enough on the colon to study it on the molecular level.
“I can see it taking hold,” she noted, watching as
the cells of the illness latched onto and devoured the healthy cells of the
colon. So far, so expected, but this was only the beginning of the tests.
“Is your theory still holding promise?”
“For the moment.” She made a swiping motion with
her hand, willing the display screen to move off to the side. “But the real
indicator to all of this,” she said as she picked up a scalpel lying on the
tray beside her. “Is going to be
this
test.”
“I am unsure that one can perform any test of
any kind with merely a scalpel.” Faer frowned.
“Simple,” Anne Claire reassured them as she
brought the microscope enhancement screen back in front of her. Expertly
slicing the colon and cutting down to the injection site, she watched as the
cells multiplied at a significantly boosted growth when exposed to the air.
Even to the point where a microscope was no longer required to see the cells
forming a mass; amidst the pink flesh of the colon, an angry grayish tumor was
forming rapidly. Faer gasped in alarm.
“That is what the illness would do when we
attempted to perform examinations on the volunteer test subjects!” It was the
most emotion she had heard come from Faer outside of their telepathic
connection, and it alarmed her but also encouraged her at the same time; much like
her experiment on the organ, getting a reaction meant she was doing something
right, at least. “We would not have the time to operate on them because of the
rapid growth – we would just have to sew the patients back up to avoid making
it even worse!” She nodded.
“Cancerous growths respond to the air, and it
allows them to increase their rate of multiplication.” She grinned. “It seems
the Hakimme have cancer.”
“That hardly seems like something to be happy
over.” Faer blanched in the face of her enthusiasm.
“Normally, I would absolutely agree with you.
But!” she held up a finger. “I happen to know how to cure cancer. I
am
the one that created the cure, after all. I just need to apply slightly
different things to the final stages of the cure...” she was already tapping
away at the computer's holographic screen, frantically taking down notes and
tallying up what was required for the cure. “Since you have a simulator that
can test what the effects of the cure on the body that we can utilize
before
we put anyone at risk, then that's what we'll use until we can perfect the
formula and get rid of the cancerous cells without getting rid of anything else
that isn't harming the body.”
“Is it truly that simple?” Faer asked
incredulously. They seemed almost insulted that they had toiled for so long
before. She didn't want to voice it herself, but she was surprised that they
hadn't thought of this process themselves. Perhaps their problem solving
operated in a different way than humans, and that was why she was so
desperately needed.
“Oh, I'm over simplifying the process, of
course,” she corrected herself with a wave of her hand. “There might not seem
like that many steps, but each of those steps have steps of their own.
Accounting for the technology at hand, it should take us...” she mentally
calculated the time as best as she could. “...About three days?”
“Three days?” Faer clarified, their eyes wide.
“Three days.” She confirmed with a nod.
“I would be lying if I said that I wasn't
eager,” they said. “We could get it done in even less time if I worked through
the night and followed your instructions, correct?” She frowned.
“Well, I mean,
yeah
, but wouldn't that
tire you out? I know your people don't require that much sleep, but still...”
she frowned. “I don't like the idea of you suffering.”
“This illness is my suffering,” they said
bluntly. Anne Claire flinched. “I would rather feel tired for a day and be done
with it for all of my people than have to have us all endure agony longer than
we need to.”
“A fair enough point.” She conceded with a nod.
“Alright, I'll get the preliminary steps handled, test our projected results,
and if everything holds true for my theory, then I'll detail the rest of the
steps for you to follow through the night, and then we'll reconvene in the
morning for the final stages.” They nodded in agreement, and she started on the
first step: separating the molecules on the illness' strain. A task that took
longer than she anticipated, but still less time than it would on Earth, but in
the end, her efforts bore fruit: she was already starting to break down each
part of the illness's strain, and having the computer scan it for its elements.