The New Haven Incident - Part Twenty-Seven

“Can you stand?” Mendez asked as Lilith came to Sebastian’s other side, taking his arm and draping it over her shoulders. It was the fourth time he had collapsed since leaving the room. Sebastian nodded.

“Good. You’re a heavy bastard.”

Despite himself, Sebastian grunted a short laugh.

Mendez looked over at Lilith. “On three. Ready? One, two, three!”

All three stood, Sebastian doing what he could with his rapidly weakening legs to get himself upright.

“Quickly now,” Dr. Liu said from a few paces ahead. “He doesn’t have long.”

Moving as quickly as they could, Mendez and Lilith half-dragged Sebastian behind Dr. Liu. The agent’s head lolled drunkenly. They followed Dr. Liu down several white corridors until they came to a recessed door. Taking his keycard, Dr. Liu set it against the scanner.

Welcome back, Dr. James Liu, a feminine mechanical voice greeted as the door slid open.

“I didn’t think you’d have access to Dr. Reinhert’s lab,” Mendez noted as he dragged Sebastian through.

“Technically, I shouldn’t,” Dr. Liu noted. He stepped into the room and placed the pile of weapons in his arms on a nearby countertop. “On that bed over there,” he instructed, pointing at one of the two beds visible in the first room from the office in which they now stood. Dr. Liu went to the cupboards on the right as Mendez and Lilith took Sebastian and laid him on the bed. Mendez shook his head as he looked down at Sebastian’s ashen face. The tell-tale black veins had spread to cover Sebastian’s left cheek. Mendez watched in morbid fascination as those spidery black marks stretched ever further with every tick of Sebastian’s weakening pulse. He pressed his hand against Sebastian’s forehead.

“Christ. He’s burning up.”

Lilith nodded.

“Move,” Dr. Liu said curtly, coming into the room, a large syringe in hand. He pushed Mendez out of the way and, after a quick swab of Sebastian’s left arm, inserted the syringe and pushed the plunger.

“What’s that?” Mendez asked.

“Anti-viral. Proprietary blend. It will buy us some time to get this right. I hope.”

“How much time?”

“Not much,” James admitted. “An hour if we’re lucky.”

Sebastian’s head lolled and his eyes fluttered open. He blinked through the haze of pain that obscured his vision.

“We have to run some tests,” Dr. Liu said. “I’ve bought us some time, but it’s going to be close.”

Sebastian closed his eyes again. “Is this…?” His voice was breathy and weak, muttered through lips that quivered. “All those people… Is this what they went through?” Frowning, he turned his head and opened his eyes to look at Lilith. “Is this what happened to you?”

Lilith offered a sad smile, reaching out to stroke Sebastian’s face. The agent closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“No time,” Dr. Liu said. “Get him into the MRI. This way.”

It was Lilith who took a hold of the bar at the head of the bed and, with her father controlling the foot, pushed it out of the doors down the corridor to another room in which sat a large MRI machine and a control room.

“In,” Dr. Liu said brusquely. He helped spin the bed. Looking down at Sebastian, he said, “Try to keep as still as possible. I need to confirm something.”

Sebastian nodded, and the bed vanished into the machine. Mendez watched from the door of the room, then stepped back to allow Lilith and Dr. Liu through. Lilith shut the door as Dr Liu went to the control board. He pulled the microphone up and pressed the button.

“Okay, Sebastian. The machine is loud. Do try to ignore it, alright?”

The only indication that Sebastian had heard him was a small twitch of his foot.

“Good enough,” Dr. Liu said. He started the machine.

Everyone turned to the screen and watched as the machine built a layered image of Sebastian’s body.

“There it is,” Dr. Liu murmured. He pressed some buttons and the image zoomed in on Sebastian’s chest. Mendez watched, squinting. He identified what he could - ribs, then heart and lungs. He tensed when he realised that he was seeing something else - a large black mass occupied the space between the heart and the left lung. It was so large that it was deforming the organs in his chest, and separating the ribs from the sternum. Black tendrils at every conceivable angle grew from it, reaching to wrap around the lungs and, more concerningly, digging its way into the vertebrae behind the heart.

“What the fuck is that?” he demanded.

“The virus,” Dr. Liu murmured. “This is how it reproduces—safe in its self-constructed sack— until it's ready to overtake the nervous system. It’s close. Sebastian should have fallen unconscious by now.”

“Can you cure it?”

Dr. Liu shrugged. “This late a stage? I’m not sure. According to what I had of Dr. Reinhert’s research, Stage Two ends with either a death or a coma. Sebastian is still conscious. Perhaps it can be achieved.”

“There’s a but,” Mendez noted.

Dr. Liu nodded. He turned and looked at his daughter. Whatever he managed to say in his expression, it brought tears to her eyes. She did not let them fall, instead giving her father a short nod in affirmation. Sighing, Dr. Liu pressed a button and the gurney slowly exited the machine. He rose from the controls and entered the scan room. Lilith and Mendez followed.

The thin, spidery veins indicating infection had spread yet more, covering his forearms now. Sebastian’s pallor had also worsened. His breath wheezed with every intake.

“What’s the diagnosis?” he croaked as Dr. Liu approached him.

“Well,” Dr. Liu began. He stopped, his shoulder slumping. “Sebastian, it’s not good.”

“Bullet then,” Sebastian replied. Mendez twitched, uncomfortable with how matter-of-factly Sebastian spoke of being put down.

Dr. Liu once again exchanged a look with his daughter. “It might be the kinder thing to do,” he murmured.

Sebastian turned his head to frown at Dr. Liu. It lolled drunkenly. “But?”

“But… you are still technically Stage Two which, according to the research is still curable.”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes and waited. Dr. Liu sighed. “However, the survival rate for the procedure prescribed is appallingly low. Further, at this stage, the virus is integrated enough with your nervous system that any anaesthesia would be pointless. I… I am given to understand that it is extraordinarily painful. Reinhert… some of the research indicated that the pain is responsible for some of his patient deaths.”

Sebastian scoffed. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Sebastian, live or die, if we can replicate the research and prove Reinhert’s methods work, we will be able to find a way to make this available to the world. If this infection escapes New Haven City, what we do here may be able to cure countless.”

Sebastian’s stunning blue eyes opened and studied Dr. Liu for a moment. At length he nodded. “Do it,” he rasped.

Dr. Liu smiled briefly. “Are you certain? The pain…”

“It will help people?”

“Yes, Sebastian. I believe it will.”

“Then do it.”

“I thought you might say that.” Dr. Liu placed a comforting hand on Sebastian’s sweat-slicked shoulder and gave it a gentle, fatherly squeeze. He turned to Lilith. “Prep the room.”

Lilith nodded and disappeared.

“Do you mind?” Dr. Liu asked Mendez, indicating the gurney containing Sebastian. Mendez, glad to not be entirely useless, walked to the head of the gurney.

“Lead the way, Doc.”

The treatment room was beside the room containing the scanner, through yet another control room. Mendez marvelled at the sheer amount of money this laboratory alone would have cost; and this was merely one of several on this floor. There were many floors. A gurney was already in place, sitting empty beneath a strange, multi-armed contraption. Another contraption hovered above a thick pole rising from the ground. Lilith was there already. She offered Mendez a shaky smile and indicated the pole. Mendez manoeuvred Sebastian’s gurney over the pole, dragging it backwards until he felt the thing click into place.

Dr. Liu went into the control room while Lilith grabbed one arm of the strange contraption and pulled it down over Sebastian’s chest. She pulled another down. This one had a screen attached to it. She turned it on, then reached across and pressed a button on the bulbous end of the arm that hovered over Sebastian’s chest. The screen flickered, and then the image of the strange growth in Sebastian’s chest appeared. Mendez swallowed as he watched the heart and lungs, visible on the edges of the screen, move as they functioned.

“Zoom out for me will you, Lil?” Dr. Liu said, entering from the control room with two needles. One, in a chilled steel cylinder, he immediately and unceremoniously struck hard into Sebastian’s left arm. The agent grunted in surprise, but had no time to pull away before the chilled, pressurized contents emptied. Lilith, meanwhile, fiddled with buttons on the right of the screen until it displayed the top half of Sebastian’s torso.

“The straps, please,” Liu murmured.

Lilith set to work immediately, reaching beneath the gurney and pulling out a pair of thick leather straps that she attached to the rails of the gurney and then around Sebastian’s wrists. Sebastian watched dully, too unwell to protest. Mendez did it for him.

“Are those really necessary?

“We aren’t always in control of ourselves when we’re in pain,” Dr. Liu answered. “And if this is going to work, he needs to be as still as possible. If I had the equipment, he’d be tied down more firmly than this.”

“Dinner,” Sebastian said, his voice cracking.

“Pardon?” Dr. Liu said, turning.

Sebastian managed a lopsided smile. “Normally,” he wheezed, “you’d have to buy me dinner first.”

Despite himself, Mendez laughed. The laugh vanished when Dr. Liu brandished the second syringe and needle.

“There is a solution I need to inject into the mass in your chest,” Dr. Liu said, ignoring Mendez, who had suddenly turned deathly pale. “In order to avoid piercing your lung, I have to come in under the ribs. It will not be pleasant. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “Lilith, Warrant Officer, I’ll need you to hold him down.”

Lilith moved immediately. Mendez was slower to find his position. He placed his hands on Sebastian’s shoulders, noting the heat that radiated from him. Lilith stood at Sebastian’s right side, her hands on the top of his chest. She looked Sebastian in the eyes, holding his gaze as Dr. Liu prepared the syringe.

“Deep breath, Sebastian.”

Sebastian complied.

“Good. And hold.”

The pain was sharp and sudden. Sebastian jolted as the enormous needle pierced him beneath his solar plexus. He squeezed his eyes shut as Dr Liu moved the needle slowly in, watching the screen so as to be sure he wasn’t piercing any organs. The pain amplified as the needle pierced the black growth and Sebastian jerked again, grunting against gritted teeth and straining against the leather straps that kept him tied to his bed. Mendez and Lilith both used the entirety of their strength to hold him down.

“I’m going to be sick,” Mendez said, turning away.

“Big… baby,” Sebastian grated, managing a short laugh in between sucking, shallow breaths, trying to keep himself both still and oxygenated. He felt the pressure in his chest increase as the syringe emptied into the dark sack that hovered between his heart and left lung.

“All done,” Dr. Liu said, withdrawing the needle with blessed speed. He picked up a cotton ball and placed it on the opening he’d created, stopping the blood. He taped it down.

“Is that it?” Sebastian asked.

“I’m afraid not. We have to wait a little while for the medicine to disseminate everywhere the virus has extended, and then we must begin the treatment. That will be the painful part.”

“Oh. Good.” Sebastian’s eyes closed. Dr. Liu checked his temperature, then checked the screen. Everything seemed to be as in order as it could be. The experimental rapid anti-viral he had given Sebastian appeared to be holding for now, though not enough to ease the pain.

Sebastian jolted, his face collapsing into a grimace as the attack hit. He relaxed as the spasm passed, but no one missed the tear that escaped his right eye. He kept his eyes closed, focussing on trying to control his laboured breathing.

“Hold on, Sebastian,” Dr. Liu said. “Won’t be long now.” Sighing, he turned and headed for the control room, casting a brief glance at his daughter. Lilith remained by Sebastian’s side, watching his face. She reached out and brushed an escaped tear from his cheek. Mendez, suddenly feeling like a third wheel, patted Sebastian on the shoulder before following Dr. Liu to the control room.

“So, you had this all figured out quickly,” he noted casually.

Dr. Liu, sitting at the computer opening files, did not look at Mendez. “Do you recall all those papers on the desk I was using in the boardroom that was our hiding spot?”

“A bit.”

“Well, the office had a printer. I used whatever paper was left to print the files I had been downloading before the whole disaster hit.”

Mendez scowled. “But this is Reinhert’s work.”

“Yes.”

“Wait. You were downloading Reinhert’s research?”

“Yes.”

“Is that… were you allowed?”

“No.” Dr. Liu sighed. “I… Two weeks ago, Reinhert said something that made my hair stand on end. I was… concerned. He was working on a virus. And he alluded that he knew about Lilith. That she was… special. He didn’t say as much, either about the virus or Lilith, but he said it… if that makes sense. I couldn’t just go and accuse him of working on a project that was supposed to have been scrapped. I needed proof. So, I hacked into his server and —”

“You hacked his server?”

Dr. Liu did turn to Mendez then. He raised an eyebrow at him. “I was young once, and I wasn’t always a geneticist, Warrant Officer.”

“You can call me Mendez. Or Oliver if you’d like. So… what? You were a hacker?”

“When I was a boy and bored. Yes. As a matter of fact, I was.”

“Oh.”

“It took longer than I expected, not least of all because I didn’t want to be detected. I printed what I could when I could. So, yes. I’ve a more than passing familiarity with Reinhert’s work.”

Mendez nodded. Then he frowned. “I thought viruses were off limits for Cedarwood now.”

“So did I. But that’s part of the problem. This lab, this equipment, it’s cutting edge. Very new. Very experimental. Very expensive. Someone would have had to have okayed this.”

“They knew,” Mendez murmured. “Cedarwood knew.”

Dr. Liu nodded glumly. “I never got so far in the downloads to get names of the people who approved this research. I have nothing on them… yet.”

“Yet?”

“The computer in the main room is on and working. I will hopefully have that information soon.”

Mendez rubbed the side of his face. “And then what?”

“Hm?”

“When you have that information, then what?”

“I don’t know. Turn it over to the authorities, I suppose. Everything we did here rode the edges of ethics, I’ll be the first to admit. But… this… what’s happened here… Someone must be held to account.”

Mendez nodded, but did not comment. He turned and looked out the door. Lilith remained at Sebastian’s side, watching him with her large, dark eyes. Sebastian’s eyes remained closed, and his chest rose and fell without rhythm.

“He’s in a lot of pain already,” Dr. Liu murmured, looking out the window at the pair. “His chances are not good.”

“Lilith is upset.”

“She went through something similar, in the other direction. The transition between stages two and three is extremely painful. It’s why, according to Reinhert, most stage two infections end in death. She alone knows what Sebastian is feeling.” Dr. Liu’s lips twitched slightly. “Her empathy remains her strongest power. I have no doubt her heart is breaking for him. My heart breaks for her.”

Mendez did not answer. Dr. Liu was not blind. Mendez was sure the man saw the long silences spent in each other’s company, the shared looks, the brief smiles Sebastian reserved only for her… There was more than just empathy in her worried gaze now. And it was clear Sebastian felt the same. For all her strangeness, Lilith was beautiful. Sebastian was not immune to that, nor was he particularly well-prepared for her kindness. Mendez suspected that Sebastian had fallen at the very first of her gentle touches.

“That should be enough time,” Dr. Liu said. Sighing, he rose from his chair and entered the treatment room. Mendez followed.

“Lilith,” Dr. Liu said gently, moving to the contraption that hovered above Sebastian, pulling back the arm that hovered above him, and arranging the three remaining arms. “It’s time. We need to clear the room.”

Sebastian’s eyes opened and he turned his head drunkenly to Dr. Liu. He gave a curt nod and Dr. Liu once again returned to the control room. Sebastian’s gaze shifted to Mendez. “If this doesn’t work,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

“It’ll work,” Mendez said. He surprised himself with how sure he sounded.

“If it doesn’t… If I end up turning…”

“A bullet,” Mendez finished. “I promise.”

Sebastian nodded. He offered Mendez a small smile before Lilith’s hand on his shoulder turned his head again. Lilith signed.

“She wants you to promise something,” Mendez translated.

Sebastian frowned slightly.

Lilith took a deep breath, and signed again.

Mendez felt a lump, heavy and cold, form in his stomach. “Live,” he said. “Promise you’ll live.”

Sebastian’s face fell. He closed his eyes, fighting his lungs. After a moment, he opened them again and looked at Lilith.

“Lilith,” he croaked, trying to explain.

Lilith shook her head and signed.

“Live,” Mendez translated.

Unable to do much else, Sebastian offered Lilith a sad smile. “I’ll try,” he promised. Another painful spasm ripped through him. He grunted, unable to stop himself from yanking hard at his restraints.

“Quickly, now,” Dr. Liu said from the control room. “Or we’ll miss the window.”

Lilith nodded. She reached out and smoothed Sebastian’s blond hair a moment, before bending over him and kissing his forehead. She straightened and smiled at the agent, before turning and walking into the control room.

“You promised,” Mendez said before he, too, left the room.

The door to the treatment room hissed shut, leaving Sebastian alone. He turned his head from the observation window, and looked up at the contraption that hovered over his chest. He heard the mechanical whine of machinery waking and watched as three of the machine’s arms began to move.

Mendez could not turn away. He watched Sebastian alone in the room. He stared as Sebastian turned to watch the machine that would either cure or kill him. Mendez watched as Agent Connor’s breathing quickened, stuttering as he attempted to steel himself for what was to come.

“Please work,” Mendez whispered to the machine as Dr. Liu hit the final button, executing the command to begin.

The leather straps were barely able to hold Sebastian. He jerked up, straining against the bonds, his back arched, face twisted in a mask of agony. Mendez winced as Sebastian convulsed, coming up again, straining hard as he tried to control the pain. He convulsed again, slamming his back hard against the bed, before coming up a third time. This time, he could not control himself. His mouth opened and he screamed.

The sound tore at Mendez. He looked over at Lilith. She stood still as stone, her eyes glued on Sebastian, her hands covering her ears as tears streamed down her cheeks. Without thinking, Mendez moved over to her, pulling her close, covering her left hand with his and pressing her head against his chest; more insulation against the gut-wrenching sounds of Sebastian in agony. The agent’s breaths came in sobs before the screams started again. He writhed on the bed, mindlessly trying to shrink away from the cause of his pain. In vain. The restraints held fast.

Mendez glanced over at the computer. A timer counted down. It had been just a minute, and yet it felt like an age. There was one minute left.

The sudden cessation of screaming turned Mendez’ head again. Sebastian was straining against the straps, his mouth open in a silent scream and then, all at once, his entire body went slack. He fell back against the bed and did not move. Lilith’s legs nearly gave. She tried to push away from Mendez. He instead pulled her closer. “It’s okay,” he murmured to her, knowing full well it was not.

He turned to the computer screen again, where Sebastian’s vitals were displayed. Or should have been. A number of small, wavy lines greeted him. He looked in alarm at Dr. Liu. There were only thirty seconds left. It was the longest thirty seconds of Mendez’s life.

As soon as the time was done and the low mechanical whine indicated the machine had stopped its task, Lilith slipped from Mendez’ embrace and ran into the room. Dr. Liu followed at a run, Mendez wandering in behind. He stared blankly at Sebastian’s ashen face. A thick stream of blood trailed from his nose down past his chin and neck, staining the sheets beneath his shoulders. A smaller, but more alarming, dribble of blood trickled down his neck from his left ear. The agent’s chest no longer rose and fell.

“Chest compressions,” Dr. Liu barked, running to a small cupboard and flinging it open. The command brought Mendez around. He joined Lilith on Sebastian’s right side, ready to take over the moment she tired. Dr. Liu pulled out a portable AED and brought it over. Working quickly, he opened the case, unpeeled and applied the paddles, and turned the machine on.

“Come on,” Mendez whispered as he observed the fight to bring Sebastian back to life. He was helpless. Utterly unable to do anything to improve the agent’s chances, he restored top murmuring prayers to a god he did not believe in. The sound of the electric current jumping through Sebastian’s chest made him twitch, but it was the sound of Lilith’s quiet sobs as she helped her father in a desperate fight for Sebastian’s life that shattered his heart.

“You promised,” Mendez whispered.

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