“God. God is your strength?” Creed asked skeptically. “No offense, but you’re a scientist. Don’t you have more faith in science to cure Meg?”
“Of course, not. Any ‘cures’ that may come our way will be there because God allowed them to be there.” Margo was pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Hasn’t anyone ever talked to you about your soul, son?” Dr. Andrews was looking intently at Creed.
“My soul? I don’t think I have one, sir,” Creed responded without thinking. He had never shared his fear of being soulless with anyone before.
“Of course you have a soul, Creed,” Margo said matter-of-factly.
“How do you know?” Creed asked waiting for some philosophical explanation that would be easily refuted because he wasn’t a human being.
“Because I can see it in your eyes,” she said simply.
Creed stared at her as though he had never seen her before. He watched her soft, brown eyes full of sincerity. She made a pretty tough argument.
Awkwardly, Creed answered, “Um, if you say so. Thanks, Dr. Winter.”
“Oh, please call me, Margo.”
“And me, Theo.”
“And me, Paulie. Now, let’s eat!”
“Say grace with me first, you old coot!” Margo smiled widely at her old friend, bowed her head and began saying a blessing over the food.
Creed wanted to crawl into a hole like the soulless snake he knew he was.
33 Final Countdown
Evan spent the night in the lab working on his mother’s request. And true to his word, he was able to extract the original serum from his own DNA blood samples inside five hours. He made three sets of the serum. One, he assumed would travel with Meg, one would remain here at the lab as a backup, and the third was a backup to the backup. No one but his mom and he would know about the third batch. No one needed to know. It was a contingency plan he hadn’t even concocted yet, but knew life well enough to know it is always a good idea to have a plan B.
He put batches one and two in the laboratory’s locked refrigerator. Before he did the same with the third, he first slipped into a small, self-contained cooling unit. As he sealed it shut, it made a sucking, vacuum-like hiss before it locked into place. Satisfied, he put the whole unit into the fridge and closed the door. He finished cleaning up his materials before Alik arrived to take over watch. He didn’t want to worry his brother any more than he already was.
“Hey, man,” Alik called to his baby brother when he was finished scrubbing in. “How’s our patient?”
“Alik, hey. She’s the same. Stats are constant. Fever down. I just finished documenting everything on her chart, so she’s good to go for you.” Evan’s eyes looked over his sister’s face and welled with tired tears. Gone were the days of stoic, detached Evan; he’d cried more in the last few days than his entire life previous.
“Great. Good deal, Ev. I got it from here. You go on and get some sleep, okay?” Alik knew his brother better than anyone else and to see his formerly unemotional little brother suffering so deeply was making everything feel even more desperate.
“Right,” Evan sniffed. He turned and walked stiffly out of the room.
Alik could hear the whoosh of the sliding doors as his brother stepped on the sensor. Then again, the woosh of the doors closing behind him. He glanced up and saw the top of his baby brother’s head as he pulled off the scrubs he was wearing and tossed them into the biohazard hamper. He pulled on his plain blue T-shirt and walked out of sight.
“Well, big sister, it’s just the two of us,” Alik said, trying to pretend his sister was just sleeping and not on death’s door.
He reached over and grabbed the clip board off of the table beside him. He saw his brother’s notes written in his typical neat script. The last note was written about ten minutes ago. Alik put the clip board down softly, so as not to disturb his sister.
Last night he had decided to read everything he could get his hands on having anything possibly to do with Meg’s medical condition. He never before needed to study medicine, that was Evan and Mom’s specialty, but now, he felt so helpless that he was determined to at least know what the heck all these doctors were saying when they spoke.
His mind was moderately dizzy with data. After all the research, the truth of the matter is that nothing was adding up. Nothing about his sister’s illness made sense, at least, not according to regular human biology and physiology. There’s got to be something they were missing, but he didn’t know enough to know what.
Alik flipped open the laptop he brought with him and linked quickly to the wireless internet. Maybe if he kept looking, something would come to him. Two hours later, Alik was still concentrating on the physiology and anatomy of the human heart when Meg’s monitors woke instantly and screamed behind him.
“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”
Alik nearly flew out of his chair at the sound of Meg’s machines going off. Something was wrong with Meg.
Alik looked over at her heart monitor, blood pressure monitor and pulse-ox.