Chapter 15

"You had a nasty spill," a voice said when I finally woke up. "Keep that ice on your forehead, or you're going to have a lump in the shape of unicorn horn there."

I was inside a tent. It wasn't the tent that Grace had attacked me in. This one had a desk and a bed in it. As I rolled over onto my side, I saw Dr. Lemeris sitting at a table with a microscope set up on it. She was busy charting in a spiral notebook while switching between samples under her lens.

Dr. Lemaris wasn't wearing a hazmat suit anymore. She was wearing a plain lab coat now, and underneath, I saw a pair of stockings ending in modest heels.

"Where am I? Where are my friends?"

"Your friends went home. A lot of gall you three had, breaking into a restricted space."

"Am I being detained?" I asked. "Are you going to put me in one of your glass cages like my sister?"

"So, that thing was your sister," Dr. Lemeris said without looking up from her notebook. "And no, we're short enough on space as it is. We can't spare one of those holding cells for a foolish girl just because she has a lump on her head."

"Is she okay — my sister?" I asked, somewhat relieved that Dr. Lemeris wasn't going to throw me in prison.

"No, your sister got away. The footsteps led in the direction of the ocean. No one knows where she disappeared to."

"Oh," I said, not sure if that was good or bad news at this point. "Is Grace dead?"

"Yes, your sister is dead. That thing that freed, though, I don't know. It might find its way back to you. You see, silly girl, when a human becomes infected, the last vestige of their mind sometimes clings to a living person. If the last person your sister saw while alive, was you, in her undead state might feel a pull towards you, some might call it a bond."

"Was that why she broke through the glass to get to me?"

"You must kill her," Dr. Lemeris said as she finally turned to me and gave me a serious glare over the rims of her silvery reading glasses. "She will never stop until she has killed you. I can see by the look on your face you think I'm lying to you. It's just as well. People seldom do what's good for them, that's why they're all dead. I don't know why I even bother telling you this. Clearly, you don't believe your sister is beyond saving."

"I almost got that pill to her! I almost brought her back!"

"And she almost killed you!" Dr. Lemeris said. "You're really lucky she was more afraid of our guards than hungry for your flesh! You're going to die out there if you keep acting this stupid."

"Then why are you helping me? Just let me go. You guys don't look like you're the least bit interested in helping the rest of Miami."

"While you were sleeping, you called out a name," Dr. Lemeris whispered. "It makes me think you might know more than you pretend to."

"What name?"

"It doesn't matter. If I repeated it, you'll just deny it. Come here, Ailith, and look at this."

I left the ice bag on the cot and approached the gray-haired scientist. She gestured for me to look into the microscope. Placing my eyes over the cold metal lens, I saw an ordinary human cell appear in my visual field. It was a fat thing that reminded me of an egg on a frying pan.

As Dr. Lemeris placed a droplet of inky water on the dish, the cell started to change. Its membrane turned spiked like Bart Simpson's hair. Then the cell multiplied and started devouring the cells around it. Those surrounding cells, which were thin and linear containing what looked to be muscle striations, had no chance against their new aggressive neighbors.

"What did you do?"

"I gave it cancer," Dr. Lemeris said with a chuckle. "See, a human cell is what we call a differentiated cell. It has a role to play, and it plays that role until the signal comes for it to die. A cell that doesn't follow those rules can go back in time, to a time of infinite possibilities. Those signals can tell it to form muscle cells, heart cells, or to live forever."

"Are you talking about me?" I asked. "About the KoRi cells in my heart?"

"I'm talking about Black Waters," Dr. Lemeris corrected. "It's the signal, the cytokine if you will, that comes along and whispers — rebel against your destiny. Your sister isn't your sister anymore. She and the others —they are a cancer on humanity now. There's nothing more you can do for her."

"So why are you guys here if not to help people? You're just here to watch everyone die?"

"We are trying to help," Dr. Lemeris said. "But humanity might be beyond the point of saving. Do you know why the symbol of our organization is the spider? In ancient times, our elders worshiped a woman named Orienne, who was a weaver of threads of fate. They said that a guardian of heaven named Jaduerial fell in love with her, but she ran away from him and went to the underworld. They say after she left, Jaduerial made it rain for forty nights and days, flooding the world, and destroying all the creatures that lived on land."

"Sounds like a cool myth, what does it have to do with anything?"

"It's raining again, just like ten thousand years ago."

"Okay," I said with a sigh. "So instead of searching for some immortal mythical goddess who probably escaped to the goddamn moon like Chang, the god of archery's wife, how about, we think about a real solution? Like how to get more Lumin pills?"

"Lumins are lies," Dr. Lemeris said and went back to her work with the microscope. "It's not a cure. They profit off the poor by selling them hope, but they're only buying time. It's the greed of the corporations that brought us all to this point. There's going to be a purge coming soon. Just like the cell I showed you, when it's over, we'll see if it's humanity's fate to adapt or to die."

I folded my arms over my chest. "So you don't have any answers. We're all doomed to die. You guys were around for how many thousands of years? Haven't you figured out anything?"

"Ailith," she said. Before I could leave the tent, she placed a hand on my shoulder. "Don't be afraid to die. With every death, there is a rebirth."

"Thanks, but I'm more than ready to die," I spatted in return. "Fear is the last emotion I feel."

"I know," Dr. Lemeris said. "You're not afraid. You're very brave, just as your sister was. But someone is trying to keep you alive. You'll know soon enough who it is. If I can offer you a small measure of advice, let me tell you this — change is inevitable. If it comes faster or sooner, it will eventually come."