All those days in a frightened haze, all those vials of blood stolen from me, and no one had ever told me what they’d found; they’d just taken. And my knowledge was as incomplete as ever, because I hadn’t let anyone near me with a needle since the day my father decided I was no longer worth keeping around. Not even Surral had ever gotten a blood sample out of me, and she was my doctor.
Maybe it was time to finally find out what the hell was inside me. It would be worth it if I could help Starway 8.
Shoving aside remembered whispers of “foreign,” “inexplicable,” and “unknown” that still made my hair stand up with a shiver, I went directly to what I needed and opened one of the drawers I’d taken stock of during a previous exploration of the lab attachment.
Bingo. Needles. Vials. Blood bags. Everything in sterile cases.
It was too bad I’d dumped the test tubes Big Guy had found, or I wouldn’t have to do this.
Trying not to overthink my actions, I pushed up my sleeve before I could change my mind. I grabbed a rubber strip and tied it just above my elbow with the help of one hand and my teeth. Then I sprayed the inner part of my elbow with a disinfectant, feeling more and more detached the further I got into the process.
I knew exactly what to expect. The cool dampness on my skin that would almost instantly evaporate. The eye-stinging, nose-wrinkling odor of antiseptic. The sharp prick and then the steady flow of blood. Sometimes, they’d drained me straight into oblivion.
I paused, the syringe in my almost-steady hand. I’d never drawn my own blood before, and I had definitely never given it voluntarily. But doing this on my own terms, for my own reasons, was different and somehow empowering. I didn’t know if I was making a good decision, or the right one, but at least it was mine. My choice.
I looked down at my pale skin and at the needle poised over my inner elbow. My heart raced, and the tourniquet felt tight and uncomfortable.
Who could this hurt? I’d kissed people, had sex with Gabe, bled on just about all of my crew members, and whatever was different about my blood or fluids had never harmed them. There was no reason to think my body contained anything damaging to other people, at least not in its natural state.
I forced the slight tremor from my hand. If I was going to do this, there was no sense in mucking it up with the jitters. I’d seen my blood drawn often enough to have the right idea about technique, and I went straight for the vein I knew worked the best. Maybe it was more the feel of the process I knew by heart? In any case, I got blood flowing into the syringe on only the second try and then filled up a whole blood bag before calling it quits.
Sliding the needle out of my vein, I held a sterile compress to my arm until blood stopped welling from the tiny hole I’d made. I wondered if I felt a little woozy. I couldn’t tell. It might have been my memory supplying everything about how I thought I should feel after something like this—how I often had.
In the end, I decided it was just the ghost of the past haunting my imagination. I stood and felt fine. I pulled my sleeve down, not bothering with any kind of bandage, and then threw the used needle and syringe into the covered biohazard trash.
The clear plastic bag full of my blood lay on the metal lab table. I picked it up and held it away from me a little warily. With all his wealth, resources, and experiments, I wondered if my father had ever figured out what was different about me.
Actually, what probably wasn’t an issue at this point. The questions that remained were why? And how?
I started toward the series of doors that would lead me out of this airless trap, powering down the lights in the lab attachment when I reached the exit.
The problem was, even if dear old Dad knew the answers to any of those questions, I still didn’t.
* * *
After giving the blood sufficient time to cool down in one of our cargo bay refrigerators, I made my way to Fiona’s lab and called out a greeting to her. She turned, her goggles and mask in place and a tiny eyedropper in one hand. Rows of test tubes sat lined up in front of her, all color-coded and carefully labeled. Floral-toned liquids bubbled in beakers behind them.
“Are you back to distilling essential oils?” I asked. She’d been working on naturopathic cures for Starway 8 since we hadn’t found anything pharmaceutical to give them in ages. I’d thought our luckless streak had finally ended, but taking the lab didn’t exactly work out like I’d hoped.
She nodded. “They’re pungent. You might want to stay back.”
Taking her word for it, I hovered near the doorway to Fiona’s leafy green domain. Her plants had a significantly larger living space than I did. The strong, almost overpowering odor of whatever she was working on reached me a moment later, and my eyes started to water.
“Wow. What is that?” My nose already felt burned up and hollowed out.
“Celioptolix. It’ll clear up a stuffy nose like that.” She tried to snap her fingers but just produced a slight rubbing sound because of her latex gloves.
“A drop of that in the ventilation system might help everyone breathe better,” I said.
Fiona nodded. “The most direct method for dealing with the sniffles is a small dose of this in very hot water and then inhale the steam.”
I’d seen Jax and the others do that, and it seemed to bring them some relief, although only temporarily. Despite progress in medicine and science every day, some of the most basic infections had no cure. The common cold was still a huge pain in the neck, but at least here on the Endeavor, and thanks to Fiona, the crew could suck up some highly concentrated celioptolix and at least be able to breathe more easily while they waited out the virus.
Fiona set aside her equipment and took off her mask and gloves. I seriously doubted they were dealing with a common cold on Starway 8. Not if there was a possible quarantine in sight. Whatever had hit the orphanage must have been far more dangerous and highly infectious.
I wondered what could have brought on a virus like that. Mareeka kept her ventilation system cleaner than anyone else in the galaxy, Surral was a top-notch doctor, and a good portion of the kids had already been inoculated against the really bad stuff.
Unfortunately, viruses mutated, and vaccines had to be updated annually. The crew and I hadn’t always found the most recent inoculations—or had enough for everyone.
“What’ve you got there?” Fiona asked, eyeing the blood bag in my hands.
I held it out. “I found this in a hidden refrigerated unit in the lab. It was labeled Point Zero, so I think it could be the base ingredient in the super soldier serum.” I did my best to ignore the guilt dragging my heart toward my feet. I hated lying to Fiona, especially now that she knew more of the truth about me than ever before.
Her eyes seemed to brighten as she took the bag and studied it. “Blood. I knew it. Usually serums are a saline and chemical cocktail, but there was so much organic in that one that I knew it had to be different.”
“Looks like you were right,” I said, starting to feel sick to my stomach. The psychosomatic symptoms of lying to your only friends really sucked.
She glanced up from the bag. “I thought you’d searched the lab and found nothing but the serum?”
I shrugged. “Big Guy must have distracted me. And everything was such a panic and a rush with the Dark Watch chasing us that I obviously didn’t look carefully enough.” All that was true, at least. “This time, I found that.”
“Do you want me to study it?” she asked hopefully, microscopes practically dancing in her eyes.
I nodded, almost wishing that Fiona wasn’t so easily taking my word for everything. I was already a liar. Her faith in me made me feel like a real jerk, too.
But there was a reason for all this. A good one, I thought.
“The kids on Starway 8 are getting sick. Some kind of really bad virus. Didn’t you say the super soldier serum could boost healing?”
“Yeeesss.” She dragged the word out, looking at me strangely. “But it could also turn them into huge battering rams that no one can control. Don’t really know,” she said, frowning.
“I’m not talking about giving the kids those false vaccines,” I hastened to assure her. “I’m wondering if this organic component—point zero—could be useful to boost healing, though.” I’d never been sick, ever, not once. There had to be a reason for that. “What if you mixed it with some of your medicinal plants? Maybe it wouldn’t even have to be a shot. Just ingested or something.”