Chapter 26
“Did Ilya’s images make sense?” I asked Josh as we sped northward on the I-5freeway.
“We found you, didn’t we?” said Josh.
“How did you catch up to everyone else?” I said.
“Ilya showed us the ball field too. We hit the ravine same as you guys on our way to Bay Farm Island. We had already detoured to the east when Cole saw something from Ilya.”
“They were with us when we woke up,” said Nellie.
“Did any of the Berkeley kids make it?” I asked.
“We had to take out Thorn’s darts,” said Bruno from the back seat. I turned around and saw the pained look on his and Nellie’s faces.
“Brian, Meadow, Sam, and Alex were already dead when we regained consciousness. Hollis and Becky weren’t going to make it either, so we extracted Thorn’s darts. We wanted to remove as much variant evidence as possible,” said Nellie.
“So it looked like they got mugged in the ball field?” I said.
“It won’t stand up to much scrutiny as a straight up mugging, but they won’t figure mutated people were involved,” said Bruno.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be hiding evidence of variants? If we could ‘come out’ so-to-speak, it could take some power away from the argument Ivan and his buddies make when they recruit people. If variants like Ralph and Adelaide can live normal lives, there’s no way they’d side with
The Compendium
crew,” said Josh.
“We should have ditched Ralph and Adelaide when we had the chance.” I wanted Bruno and Nellie to feel guilt for bringing Ralph. We should have left him in Portland to roam the sewers. Better still, we should have skipped Portland and Spokane. I turned to Josh and glared at his profile.
“How long would it take to gain understanding and acceptance for variants? Anyone who believes us will lock us up for testing, same as Ivan. No, what we should have done was go straight from Seattle to San Francisco. We could have stopped the earthquake. We might already have Jonah’s serum. And those Berkeley kids would be alive,” I said in my most accusatory tone.
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s no way to know. And there’s no changing the past. We’ve got to work with what we have. Cole and I spotted some parkland west of Pleasanton. We’ll fall back to that point, regroup, and go straight to Bay Farm Island. The city is still a mess. We won’t get in and out quickly, but we won’t dawdle,” said Josh.
“If we don’t find serum for Jonah, I don’t know what I’ll do,” I said.
“I wouldn’t hang all my hopes on this office, reputation or not. But if Tatiana is looking to transform, she wouldn’t do it without a safety net. So maybe an all-purpose genetic stabilizer really does exist,” said Josh.
“Thank you for saying that. I need some optimism right now,” I said.
“On the bright side, we don’t have to go back to the parking garage for Adelaide’s van. She can take it or leave it on her own now,” said Josh.
“Yeah,
that’s
the bright side.” I laughed a little.
Less than an hour had passed when we turned into a dry and dusty park area. We passed a sign for the Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park.
In the parking lot, Cole’s car waited. Jonah sat on the ground against the door on the shady side, gulping water from a plastic bottle. Two empty bottles lay on the ground next to him.
I got out after Josh parked and went to Jonah. “Are you all right?”
“Getting there. That spider venom really knocks you on your ass,” said Jonah.
“I think I’m building up immunity. The last time she dosed me, I had a weird vision of my mom and sister. It was nice actually,” I said.
“Too bad she’s gone,” said Jonah.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I stood up and scanned the parking lot. We had the only two vehicles. Strong afternoon sun beamed down on the tired faces around me.
“We still need to go back to San Francisco. It’s for Jonah. This is non-negotiable as far as I’m concerned. Anyone who feels differently can leave now.” I had Nellie and Bruno in mind, but I genuinely didn’t want to be dragging any reluctant travelers. I felt ready to walk back to Bay Farm Island myself with nothing more than my phone and backpack.
“We’re with you,” said Nellie.
“Ralph was our friend–is our friend. But, we’re not taking his path,” said Bruno.
“We’ll have our strength back if we rest here overnight,” said Nellie.
“I second that,” said Faith.
“Josh and I weren’t bitten by that spider, so we’re ready to go,” said Cole.
“True, but we shouldn’t split up again, especially over such a long distance. If there’s something waiting for us on Bay Farm Island, it’ll still be there tomorrow,” said Josh.
“I wish I had your confidence,” I said.
“I should have the final word.” Jonah stood up, sweating in the sun. “I’m sick of wondering and waiting. I’m trying to be strong, and put it out of my mind. But I can’t stop thinking about how often I feel like I’m dying. Every time someone catches up to us and we have to fight, I have to worry not just about getting killed, but about getting one of
you
killed.”
“Nobody thinks of you as a liability,” said Cole.
“Bullshit. Now listen, if we get there and there’s no serum and no lead on one, then you leave me. Go out to the Mojave and put an end to this,” said Jonah.
“You make it sound so simple,” I said.
“It can be. Let’s get on with it. We’ll go back to Innoviro and then down to the Desert. If we don’t screw around, we’ll have it done by this time tomorrow,” said Faith.
“Anyone opposed?” Josh looked around at each of us.
Nobody raised a hand.
“Okay then, back in the cars. Cole, follow me,” said Josh.
The traffic into the Bay Area was light and the roads were relatively undamaged. The highway brimmed with congestion coming out, but few other cars were stupid enough to try getting back into such a devastated disaster zone.
A helicopter hovered over the exit with a sign for the Oakland International Airport. Traffic died altogether as we breezed past the airport into the light industrial buildings of Bay Farm Island.
We passed several collapsed buildings. Josh slowed looking for Unit 15 at 2595 on the Harbor Bay Parkway and we found ourselves facing a partially intact facility. We had come a long way for such a small chance of success.
“Ilya and I should go in first. If anyone’s in there, they might’ve been told not to harm us, like Noel and Rose and Sage were,” I said to Josh.
I’m not leaving this place empty-handed. Please, whatever it takes, help me. For Jonah
, I thought at my brother as Cole’s car parked next to us.
“All right, but text Nellie if you get into trouble,” said Josh.
I turned around and Nellie nodded at me. I stepped out of the Jeep and Ilya waited for me.
Let’s get this over with
, I said, in my head.
The door was unlocked and the hall silent as we entered at the door nearest to us on the structurally sound end of the building. Fluorescent lights flickered behind plastic panels above us. My pulse knocked inside my ears and my lungs constricted. I remembered the rabid scorpion dog in Victoria. I pictured Thorn’s face. I thought of Hugo’s crushing arms. With each step, a fresh horror entered my mind.
Ilya put his hand on my shoulder from behind and I jumped. “Relax. There’s nothing monstrous or dangerous here. It’s deserted, I promise.”
I took a deep breath and paused. I breathed deeply. “Here’s Unit Fifteen.”
I reached out and turned the doorknob. The space in front of me looked like a hybrid between a warehouse office and a science lab. At the back of the room, two rows of islands had sinks and outlets on the surface. Bunsen burners dotted the counter alongside empty beakers.
Nearest to me, a handful of desks had computers on them, all dark. Along the wall, several familiar-looking specimen fridges were lit. And it hadn’t been gutted, not entirely.
“I can’t believe this place still has power,” said Ilya.
“It’s almost like they meant to come back, but didn’t get the chance. Hadn’t they planned to abandon this place?” I asked.
“Maybe they underestimated the earthquake’s destructive potential. They evacuated as a precaution,” said Ilya.
I walked over to the specimen fridge and opened the door. Unlike Victoria, these shelves were all small liquid vials. No organic matter. Each of the liquid vials had a serial number. Some were blue, yellow, some clear, all identified with a number.
“How can we tell what’s what in here?” I said.
“Turn on one of these computers. We’ll start searching the local drives and whatever network we can access.” Ilya knelt down and pushed the power button on one of the towers before he took a seat in the chair. He pulled a thumb drive out of his pocket and plugged it into the tower.
“That’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack. No, we need a strategy.” I stared at the dark screen nearest to me. I opened one of the fridges and picked up a vial of blue liquid. I ran my fingertips over the hand-written number. I felt the ink on the rough paper and closed my eyes.
The lab transformed around me. The lighting glowed soft white and steady. Two men in lab coats were each measuring something in beakers next to each other at a sink.
A young girl with a large black bun on her head clacked away at a computer. “Burt, can you remind me where Tatiana said to save the catalog file?”
From behind the sink, one of the men responded, “The root of the Admin folder on the C Drive.”
“Thanks hon,” she said brightly.
The lab melted back into the empty flickering present. I met Ilya’s gaze and smiled.
“There’s something in the root of the Admin folder on the C Drive,” I said.
“I need a user account,” said Ilya.
I plucked a sticky note off the desk behind him. “Try this one,” I said, passing him the note.
“I’m in,” he said.
I watched behind Ilya’s shoulder as he clicked on the Start menu and found the C Drive inside the Computer folder. He opened an Admin folder and clicked on a document titled ‘Catalog’.
The file opened to reveal a huge table of numbers with notations next to each. The bottom left corner of the document listed Page 1, Sec 1, 1/38. Only 38 pages. Great.
“Try doing a ‘Find’ search for ‘aquakinesis’.”
“There’s nothing,” said Ilya as the document reported zero results.
“Try aquakinetic instead.” I watched as Ilya did the search and the computer jumped to page 37 and highlighted the word in one of the cells. The passage read:
Twelfth iteration of stabilization formula for patient J, self-induced aquakinetic. Solution of serum and carrier 1:10. Formula viable. Dosage 0.5ml weekly.
I wrote the serial number next to the note. 205207x. I started reading vials. Row after row passed with no match. They were not in numerical order, so I had to go vial by vial. 303375b, 11128g, 008739a, and so on. Determination pushed me through the maddening tedium.
“I’m going to copy network files to this drive. As soon as I finish, you better be ready to go,” said Ilya.
I reached another blue row of vials and I saw it. 205207x. There were half a dozen vials with the same number. “It’s here! It’s here, I found it!”
Chapter 27
I searched the cupboards and found a plastic tray designed to hold a dozen vials. I packed the half dozen vials of 205207x and then I stopped to think. I rummaged through the drawers in front of me until I found a box of syringes.
“Okay, two things,” I said.
“What now?”
“They screwed up leaving so many formulas. Don’t you think we should take a few extras? It could be a bargaining chip down the road.”
“Which ones do you want, Irina? It’ll take hours to read this file and figure out what’s what.”
“We can be strategic and fast. Do a search for terms like ‘adaptation’ and ‘transformation’ in case the serum for Tatiana might be here too.”
“If they’ve got a formula to convert Tatiana, it wouldn’t have been left behind here.”
“Try anyway, Ilya. It might be here if they made too much.” The walls around us groaned with a
CREEEEEAHH
. Ilya pulled a thumb drive out of his pocked and plugged it into the tower on the ground next to him. “I’ll print the document. The transfer I started is almost done. Grab a handful of vials and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I guess that’ll have to be good enough.”
Fortunately for us, a printer whirred to life on the side table between Ilya and the partition next to him. I plucked another half-dozen vials out of the fridge and set them into the plastic tray. I removed a cooler from the bottom level of the fridge and opened it. I gently lowered in the tray of vials into the empty cooler. In a freezer compartment, I found an ice pack and tucked it under the vial tray. I put the box of syringes on top and closed the lid.
When the print job finished, Ilya detached his thumb drive, scooped up the pages and we jogged down the hall. The walls creaked behind us until a CRACK-SNAP sounded overhead. We ran towards the entrance. As we burst out into the bright light of the parking lot, we turned around to see what remained of the building fold in on itself.
“Irina!” Jonah ran to me and sized me up. Satisfied I was unharmed, he grabbed me and hugged hard.
“We found it! I don’t think it’s a cure, but they did synthesize a stabilization serum for you,”
“Assholes,” muttered Jonah.
“Buddy, we went to some trouble to get this,” said Ilya.
“I meant Ivan and Tatiana. For holding out on me.”
“Forget about them,” I said. “Does anyone know how to give an injection?”
“I’ll do it myself,” said Jonah.
I handed him the cooler and he opened the top. He took the cooler and sat down on the curb. The dust from the collapsed building continued settling behind him. Faith, Cole, Bruno, and Nellie all got out of the cars to see the action.
“The blue vials are for you. You’re supposed to get half a milliliter a week,” I said.
Jonah assembled a syringe and removed a blue vial. I sat next to him and watched as he drew a full milliliter of blue liquid through the needle.
“I’m going to get a head start,” said Jonah.
“Don’t you think you should ration it until we can find out what’s in there?” I said.
“There’s no point in worrying about reproducing the stuff if it doesn’t work. A maintenance dose will take days to have an effect. Trust me. I’ve learned my lesson about bold moves. This isn’t such a huge risk,” said Jonah.
He stood up and unbuttoned his pants, folding one side of his jeans down past his waist to expose his hip. Everyone watched as Jonah twisted slightly and squeezed his hip flesh with his left hand, the needle poised and ready in his right hand. I flinched as he stabbed himself firmly.
“That should make a difference before sundown.” Jonah winced and sat back down to recover.
“So where to now?” said Nellie.
“We should stop for the night before we head into the desert. We don’t know where exactly they are,” I said.
“The Mojave is huge. We need something more to go on,” said Cole.
“Thorn is supposed to be in Bakersfield tonight. He could be meeting Ivan and Tatiana or keeping to a schedule. I don’t know,” said Ilya.
“That’s good enough for me,” said Cole.
“Bakersfield it is then,” I said.
Faith traded me spots so I could stay with Jonah in the back of Cole’s car. We sped back the way we’d come off Bay Farm Island and back towards the interstate. Traffic coming out of the city slowed us down, but we kept moving.
I held Jonah’s hand as he sweated and moaned. Working or not, the serum affected him. I could only hope for the best.
The dusty countryside unraveled in front of us as we drove south. Worry crept up my sides. The farther inland we went, the more dangerous it would be for Jonah if this treatment had adverse effects.
I looked over at Jonah and saw him asleep. The sheen of sweat cleared and he looked healthy, peaceful even. Was his complexion misleading? Would there be a horrible outcome on the other side of this dream?
I stared back out the window at the dry yellow grasses and sage bushes punctuated by the occasional country home on the hillside.
Bakersfield appeared uneventfully on the horizon, rising above the bleak landscape with a fringe of concrete and glass. Palm trees and a few other pieces of greenery popped up as we neared the city limits. I took heart. With irrigation infrastructure came water for Jonah.
“Does anyone care where we stay?” said Cole as we passed a large salmon-stucco Super 8 Motel.
“Somewhere without a lot of tourists,” said Ilya.
“How about this one,” said Cole, gesturing at a brown strip motel titled Desert Breeze.
“That’ll do,” said Ilya.
Cole promptly turned in and parked.
“Jonah’s still asleep. Let’s leave him for a while. He needs the rest,” I said.
“We need to dig through the folders on this thumb drive anyway,” said Ilya.
“Give it to Faith and let her pick through it,” said Cole.
“Will do. And I’ll check us in,” said Ilya.
My brother popped his head into Josh’s Jeep to give the drive to Faith and headed for the motel office. Jonah slept soundly, leaving Cole and me virtually alone.
“So I guess you’ll be back together with Jonah now,” said Cole, staring at me in the rearview mirror.
“He’s not out of the woods yet. We haven’t exactly discussed what’s going to happen.” I said.
What Jonah had said, specifically, was for me to stop fooling around with Cole.
“I want you to know there’s no hard feelings. Not on my part anyway,” said Cole.
My stomach twisted. I had toyed with Cole’s heart unnecessarily. He had every right to hate me for it. “I did, I mean I
do
, have feelings for you. It wasn’t simply a ploy to push Jonah away, although I wanted to force him to get over me. It’s complicated, but I’m sure you see that too.”
I wanted to reach out and hug Cole. I didn’t need my brother’s mind-reading abilities to know that any contact from me would be unwelcome. Ilya came back and put us out of our misery.
“Four rooms for one night and we’re three hundred and sixty-eight dollars poorer,” said Ilya.
“For this dump?” I said.
Cole yanked his keys out of the ignition and exited the car. “Who cares? We’ve still got lots of cash.”
“Not at this rate,” I muttered under my breath.
“He’s more hurt than angry, you know,” said Ilya.
“I know.”
Jonah snoozed soundly, so we left him in the car and cracked a window.
“How long before Faith knows if we’ve got the info to recreate Jonah’s serum?” I said.
“I’m not sure, but we’ll probably know before he wakes up,” said Ilya.
I followed my brother through the door to his and Faith’s room. She sat on the far bed, typing furiously on her laptop.
“Anything so far?” I said.
“Can’t talk. Writing script,” said Faith.
“We should leave her to it,” said Ilya.
I followed him back out the door and into the next room where Bruno, Nellie, Josh, and Cole were watching television. Each couple had a room, leaving bachelors Josh and Cole to bunk together. Distance from the pairs around him was bound to improve Cole’s mood.
I looked around Nellie and Bruno’s room. The motel’s dingy flower bedspreads and cheap wood-panel walls were a sharp contrast to the brand new flat panel television on the dresser facing both beds. Cole sat at the room’s small table. Nellie and Bruno lounged on one queen bed while Josh had the other.
I didn’t recognize the movie they were watching. It looked like a B-grade sci-fi. Under other circumstances, I’d make some popcorn and lose myself in it. After the last few months, no movie would be able to distract me properly as long as I lived. Josh left to get burgers and fries for everyone while the show droned.
When Josh came back, the sky had darkened and our room was dim. Nellie flicked on the lamp on the nightstand between the queen beds.
I looked over at the window with a view of the motel’s florescent-lit courtyard. A flash caught my eye. I got up and ran to the window and scanned the courtyard. It happened again. A column of water surged up into the air from the center of the pool.
At the top of the column, water gathered until nearly the entire contents of the pool hung in the air above the motel. I watched as the column reversed direction and the water retreated back down into the pool.
The pool’s water started to settle and a figure swam up to the edge of the tile and crawled out. Naked except for his boxer briefs, Jonah stood tall and shook his black hair. I could see his turquoise eyes from across the courtyard.
“I think we got him the right serum,” said Faith immediately behind me.
I whirled around to find everyone staring at me. I looked at Jonah and back at my friends. I ran out the front door and around the building past the motel’s office looking for a break in the exterior to access the courtyard.
I reached the gap and Jonah was already there. I looked into his glowing blue eyes. He rushed forward and pulled me into his arms. I ran my hands up into his wet hair and he pinned me against the wall, kissing me with a fierce craving.
His arms were strong around me. I felt heat radiating from his chest up through his tongue. I pulled back to take a breath.
“Everyone’s waiting to see if you’re all right,” I said, catching my breath.
“Yeah. Everyone,” said Jonah breathlessly.
“We’ve got our own room,” I said and smiled.
“Good.” He smiled back at me and kissed me again softly.