But, everything changed the night of the explosion.
She was performing her duties with as much mind-numbing internalized anguish as ever when one of the subjects in her charge started to fail. His death would be the third one on her watch. She remembered feeling dizzy and nauseous with anger as this subject slipped past the point where his body shivered and his throat moaned in agony. The serum was ripping through his DNA strands, recalibrating them one by one, but the subject’s body was fighting it.
Kylie knew there was only one way this would end.
The level of pain gripping this subject was nearing fatal. Kylie had seen that Infinite mask of death before. It was cruel and ugly. Watching this, her third subject of the day, start to succumb was just too much.
She’d been secretly calculating possible bridges that could increase the survivor rate of the newly dosed, but she had to do everything in her mind. She couldn’t afford using anything that could be traced—no computers, no equipment, not even a piece of paper and pencil.
In theory, she believed if the subject were given a precise dose of synthetic corticosteroids at just the right juncture, the anti-inflammatory would weaken the immune system enough for it to stop fighting the Infinite Serum’s hostile takeover.
She watched the subject struggle to breathe, his lips turning bluer by the second and she knew what she had to do.
When no one was looking, she made her way to the door leading to the temperature controlled room where medicines were stored. She knew exactly what she was looking for and with skilled hands, she secured a syringe, palmed the steroid and muttered to herself as she calculated the dose. She had to estimate the subject’s weight, but within forty-five seconds of entering the room, Kylie had what she needed and was hurrying back to the dying patient.
She remembered scanning the room as she moved with purpose, stifling a sigh of relief that no one seemed to have noticed her absence.
When she arrived back at the subject’s side, the Infinite mask of death was clearly hovering in the boy’s gaunt cheeks and dark circles around his closed eyes. Without a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed the connecting hub of his IV and deftly inserted the needle, pressing the plunger to the hilt. She discreetly removed the syringe and disposed of it in a hazardous materials container on the counter behind her.
It was her first act of treason.
Until tonight, she thought as she sped down a residential roadway in Cairo, Egypt.
Before that moment, Kylie had only defied orders in her mind—questioning them and planning around them. But that day, she turned a corner.
When her shift was up, she spent a few extra minutes studying the little boy with blond curls. She gently lifted his lids so she could check his pupils for a response and remembered the child’s strikingly beautiful blue eyes. He still looked very ill, but at least he hadn’t died. Kylie left his side silently hoping he would be alive the next morning when she returned to work.
That night, the Original Three invaded the compound. The attack culminated in the annihilation of the Facility’s Research Hospital.
She later heard the surviving new recruits had been safely transported off base before all hell broke loose.
Ripping herself from her reverie, Kylie turned the steering wheel and aimed the car up a hill toward the ripped up house at the top. The explosion had startled the neighborhood into a panic. People were streaming from their homes and running away from the carnage any way they could. Kylie had to slow to dodge people pouring down the residential street on cars, motorcycles, bikes and simply on foot. She didn’t have time to worry for the elderly with their silver hair glistening in the moonlight nor the children being jostled in their parents’ arms—each wearing the same look of terror and confusion. The ratta-tat-tat of gunfire had people ducking as they ran.
Kylie wasn’t terrified anymore, and she wasn’t confused. She felt a sense of absolute clarity even through the burning pain in her chest as she gasped for air. Her one hand gripping the steering wheel tightened as she felt warm blood seep between the fingers of the other hand. The same hand that had killed so many innocent children in the name of Metahumanology was now stained with her own blood as she fought to stay conscious.
She had one last act to perform. It wasn’t much, but as her life’s blood pumped freely through the bullet wound in her chest, she knew it was to be her last act on this earth. She knew now she had been on the wrong side of the fight, tricked, lied to and used all her life by Kenneth Williams. She hoped with her last act, she could find some redemption for all the wrongs she blindly committed. She was ready to die fighting beside the Original Three.
5 The Empath’s Eclipse