The New Haven Incident - Part Thirty

Mendez peeked into Sebastian’s room. The agent was fast asleep, a bandage across his chest. The treatment had left a burn on his chest, just under his left pectoral near the sternum. There were also interior burns, visible now in red marks, stretching out like lightning strikes from the puncture wound at the site of the infection. Blackened arteries and capillaries denoting the spread of infection were no longer black, but red; a spidery network that reminded Mendez of electrical burns. They would fade to white, but would not entirely disappear — an eternal reminder of Sebastian’s brush with infection.

Lilith sat beside him, curled up against the cold, on an armchair she had sourced from another room. Her head rested against the back of the chair. One hand remained extended, resting lightly on Sebastian’s forearm.

Smiling slightly, Mendez entered the room and quietly rummaged through some of the cupboards until he found what he was looking for - heavy hospital blankets. Taking two, he covered Sebastian and then Lilith. They both looked cold.

Lilith’s eyes fluttered open as Mendez spread that blanket over her. He smiled at her, and she returned it.

Sleep, Mendez signed, keeping the silence so as not to disturb Sebastian, though he suspected that not even an earthquake could rouse the man out of his slumber.

Lilith nodded and closed her eyes again.

Mendez hefted his rifle and left them to rest, heading to the main room where Dr. Liu scanned and downloaded what data he could that would help the world find a cure or vaccine for this new threat.

“How are things going?” Mendez greeted.

Dr. Liu looked up. He could not hide the exhaustion. “Slowly,” he answered at length. “There’s so much. Not all of it relevant. How are Lilith and the agent?”

“Asleep.”

“Hm.” Dr. Liu regarded Mendez for a moment. The man was tall and broad-shouldered. His colouring and features belied his Latin heritage, but he didn’t have the stereotypical accent of the newly immigrated. With his easy charm and friendly demeanour, Mendez could easily have excelled in any number of arenas. He was handsome and fit enough to warrant a career as a sportswear model, being a little more rugged than the usual type of model as he was.

“What?” Mendez demanded.

“I was wondering why, Warrant Officer, you decided on a military career?”

Mendez shrugged and flashed a grin. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Dr. Liu raised his eyebrows and Mendez sighed.

“I’m not especially bright, Doctor,” he noted, though he smiled. “I didn’t excel in school, except for sports. I wasn’t really interested in pursuing anything academically. I’m not especially good at making decisions, and a leader of men I am not. The military was a good fit. I was useful, and I didn’t have to think too hard about anything. Plus, the pay was pretty good. I could help out at home.”

“So… home life was not a deciding factor?”

“What? Like I had a terrible childhood and used the military to escape? No, nothing like that. My childhood was great, actually. My abuela’s was always full of family and laughter. It was a great place to grow up.” Again, Mendez shrugged. “But family considerations did play a role, I guess. A little. Training doesn’t take that long; not nearly as long as a degree anyway, and so I’d be done and earning pretty quickly. That meant I’d be able to send money home fast, instead of continually begging for it as a starving student. My abuela adopted a huge number of us. She needs all the help she can get.”

“Adopted?”

“My parents died in a car accident. So, she took me in. I have a number of cousins whose parents are either gone or unable to take care of them. She took them in too. There’s a lot of us under her roof.”

“I see.”

“It’s not so bad,” Mendez noted. “Actually really fun. My cousins and I get along great. A little too well, probably. We turned our Abuela’s hair grey before her time, I am sure.”

Dr. Liu smiled.

“What about you? Lilith’s your daughter, but any other family?”

The smile fell from Dr. Liu’s face. He shook his head. “No. My parents died a couple of years ago. My wife many years before that. Lilith is all I have in this world.” He turned back to face the console, watching the files flash on the screen as they were copied onto the thumb drive he had inserted.

“I’m sorry,” Mendez murmured.

“And what about you, Mendez? No wife?”

Mendez offered a sad smile. “No. Never married. I found the love of my life, and lost her.”

Dr. Liu turned back to him, curiosity lightening his tired features. Still, in the interest of decorum, he did not ask. Not knowing why, Mendez supplied all the same.

“We were high school sweethearts,” he said. “She was by my side for everything. When I went into the military, she supported me the entire time. When I returned from tour, she was always there, happy to see me. Looking back, it was truly heaven.”

“What happened?”

“A drunk driver. I was on my third tour, the first with Special Forces. I didn’t know it had happened until we pulled out. I missed her funeral. I never got to say goodbye.”

Dr. Liu was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

Mendez shrugged. “That’s life, I suppose.” He smiled. “It’s not all bad. I have my memories. I have that.”

“She must have been a remarkable woman.”

“An angel,” Mendez answered. “I was a very lucky man.”

Dr. Liu offered a small, sad smile. “Cancer took mine,” he said at last. “We were so young… I thought we had the whole world and all of eternity at our fingertips. We were both junior researchers with Cedarwood when we met. She was finishing up her PhD, and I was in my second year after graduating. She was brilliant, one of the sharpest minds I have ever encountered. The things she could have done…” He shook his head. “We had only been married eight months. She died before our first anniversary.”

“Christ,” Mendez whispered. He frowned. “Then Lilith…”

“Lilith is our child,” Dr. Liu said firmly. “But Sarah never got to meet her. And now look. Look what I’ve made of her.” He shook his head.

Sensing that Dr. Liu wanted to speak more, Mendez remained silent.

“If we make it out of this mess… if we all do, she’ll never know peace again. There’s not a geneticist on the planet that won’t want to examine her. Corporations — more than you can count — will want to get their claws into her. Either she’ll spend the rest of her life on the run, or in some cage in some lab somewhere.”

Mendez looked down at his boots. Dr. Liu was right, of course. How a woman who looks as much like a real-life fairy as Mendez could imagine could make any sort of life for herself in the world was beyond him. It was an impossible task. The moment she was seen, she would be hunted, experimented on.

“She might have made a life for herself before. No one needed to know about… about her abilities. But now…” Dr. Liu shook his head again.

“Abilities?” Mendez asked.

James nodded. “Lilith is the product of my research. Well, mine and Sarah’s. You see, in the beginning of my tenure here, I was part of a research group tasked with creating the ultimate human - strong, fast, quick to heal — for military application.”

“Super soldiers?”

“Super soldiers,” James confirmed. “Eventually, after Sarah died, I became the lead researcher on the project. Like my predecessors, I was failing. Nothing was working. Without a viable product, our programme was scrapped. Then I had the bright idea that the gender of the embryos we were working with was the issue. They wouldn’t let me continue. I was told I was being foolish, that they wouldn’t waste the resources on testing the hypothesis. So, I…” Clearing his throat, Dr. Liu continued. “Before my wife died, we froze her eggs in the hope that we’d have options for having children when she recovered. She didn’t recover. And those eggs were just sitting there. Without access to the resources from Cedarwood, I… I used them to test my ideas. Turns out, I was right.

“I selfishly find myself pleased. Not because I was right, you know. But because of the changes in Lilith, because of what I did, she survived her infection. More or less. It changed her physically, of course. But she’s still herself. She’s still my Lilith. My child. I’m happy she’s by my side. And I feel terrible, because I know that because of what I had done, her life will be so difficult. I wonder if in creating her to be so resilient, I have, in fact, damned her.”

For a long while, Mendez sat in silence. “Does she know?” He asked at length.

“I have kept no secrets from her.”

“How did she take it? When she found out?”

“She knew from the beginning. Her first years were spent here, in the lab.”

“Her first years?”

“Well, until she was eleven.”

Mendez blinked. “That long?”

“That long. She’s known since she could grasp the idea. So, since she started asking questions.”

Mendez shook his head. That must have been a mind-fuck, he decided. It was a wonder Lilith did not turn out to be a monster in fact.

“We all loved her,” James continued softly. “She had many, many people looking out for her.”

“But she was experimented on.”

“Oh yes, but nothing traumatic. Just speed, agility, intelligence. It was basically school, with perhaps more physical education than children get these days. Her tests were little more than exams, games and doctor’s appointments.”

After a long silence, Dr. Liu cocked his head at Mendez. “I expected a rebuke, Warrant Officer.”

Shrugging, Mendez said, “I can’t judge. She’s turned out to be a good person, so something must have been done right.”

For a moment Dr. Liu said nothing. His expression was miserable.

“Would you like a rebuke, Doc?”

“I… I don’t know. Maybe.”

“The real question is,” Mendez noted, “what happens to her if… when we get out of here.”

“I’ve asked.”

“And?”

“She just smiles at me, tells me not to worry.”

“Well, she’s a smart cookie. Maybe she has it all figured out.”

“Perhaps.” Dr. Liu returned his attention to the screen before him. “Yes,” he said after a pause. “She must have it figured out.”

A small flicker of a smile crossed Mendez’ lips. He straightened as the computer before Dr. Liu beeped. Sighing, Dr, Liu opened the presented file and began skimming.

“No,” he murmured. “Useless.” Then he paused. “Oh my.”

“What is it?”

“Personnel files. Warrant Officer… this is your team.”

“What?” Mendez walked to Dr. Liu’s side and bent over the desk to look at the screen. “Jesus,” he breathed. He took over the mouse and scrolled across. Names and images passed his vision; entire genetic profiles flicked across the screen. “This is all of Sigma. Why does Reinhert have the entire organisation in his files?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Liu murmured. “But it can’t be good.”

Mendez scowled. He straightened. “Sebastian’s people might know.” He rubbed the side of his face. “I’m going to find Harding when Connors wakes up. He might be in trouble.”

“I do not think you should go alone,” James said. “Harding has his team. You will have no one.”

Mendez grunted. The doctor had a point. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Maybe Sebastian will help.”

Dr. Liu laughed softly. “I’m certain he will.” He shook his head. “He seems determined to atone for something. Fatally so, it seems. I’m going to download this file, too. There might be something to it we can look into later. No one at Cedarwood should be concerned with mercenary operations.”

“And the vaccine?”

“That’s still downloading. Reinhert appears to have put a number of blocks in the way that I have to solve for each file. It’s going by inches.”

Mendez grunted. “Fun.”

“The movies never had it right,” James said. “Much of hacking is extremely dull.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Dr. Liu smiled. “I believe that coffee maker is working.” He indicated the fancy-looking machine on the counter opposite the console. “Help yourself.”

“My god,” Mendez breathed, noticing it for the first time. “Coffee. Gimme.”

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