Chapter Seventeen
“The stereochemistry of certain HBRS carbon chains allows for rapid chemical signaling across its artificial nervous system, behaving similar to a mycorrhizal network.
“Even absent a functional brain, an infected body will still persist, almost indefinitely.”
–Mother, “Notes on HBRS-15.21”. 4 Years After.
Another bloody fight.
* * *
Liam held his daughter close, keeping the mobile crib firmly between his arms as their group marched down the street. Sweat rolled down his cheeks, the sheer mass of his go-bag weighing heavily, though this did not concern him now that he was once again safe within the security of a hazmat suit. No undead would be picking up their scent today.
The many apartment complexes of Tartarus rose besides, their crumbling, graffiti-laced walls and broken windows a stark contrast to the vibrant glory of Asphodel. Silhouettes shambled within the nearby alleys, giving Liam pause as they passed each one.
Evelyn led their party undaunted, once again beneath the suit herself. Her M16 stayed brandished for all to see, and though she was not one to point it flippantly, just about everyone they passed gave her a wide berth. Liam had first protested against this strategy since it would only further attract attention, but not much time passed before he realized the error of his belief. If it wasn’t for the Hunters prancing around, with their silver wolf-skull badges and own arsenals exposed, then there were groups of soldiers accompanying Pandemonium’s more aristocratic bosses. Hell, perhaps one-in-five rezzers had a firearm of their own, and their willingness to use them at the slightest provocation became their own form of protection. Thugs only targeted weaker rezzers, it seemed.
It also helped that most rezzers donned the most ridiculous of outfits, making a gun-wielding duo in hazmat suits hardly a spectacle to catch the eye.
And Chantelle hobbled behind, watching the buildings and other pedestrians with a frantic suspicion that surpassed Liam and Evelyn both. Including her in this quest would no doubt trouble her later, but their benefactor was still drafting reinforcements thousands of miles down south in Mexico, and they could not wait for her to give them permission.
At least Leah’s sleeping this one out. His daughter finally chose to not make a fuss while they brought her about, though Liam suspected that this was more fatigue than ease. Since uncovering the fever, the poor girl had hardly been able to sleep more than an hour at a time, and had been growing weaker by the day…
Chantelle closed in. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“And we thank you eternally,” Liam said. “I’ll make sure that Leah does not blame you for trusting us.”
“I still think I could find whatever meds you’re looking for, if you just give me a list.”
Evelyn slowed down herself. “It’s not that simple, Chantelle. Our bodies are more complicated than yours and we can’t just stitch a wound shut and call it a day. Viruses and bacteria can grow inside, weakening our natural defenses. For newborns, this can be even more devastating if we don’t know what we’re dealing with.” Her respirator gargled as she breathed deep. “That is why we have to take this risk. This could be anything from the common cold to meningitis, but if we don’t know, there’s no way to help her.”
Her red eyes blinked. “Even all the way out here?”
“There’s nowhere better. We don’t need medicine.” She paused, studying their destination in front. “We need diagnostics.”
Liam gulped at the sight of Mother’s Grace. Another location that he had only visited once before, and that was in the dead of night. By day, this place truly stood as an even greater fortress against the chaos besides. The whitestone walls rose to the sides of the main road, and a multistory bridge connected buildings in between, hovering above the main round beneath. The giant white banner hung from this juncture, with a red cross in the middle to match, easily visible from miles away. Snipers in green scrubs were perched on the roof, and more guards waited at the entrance to the emergency room below.
“You sure this is a good idea?” Liam asked. “It’s going to be quite hard to sneak Leah by those lot.”
“There’s a busted window by the rear,” Evelyn explained. “It’s in a blind spot for the snipers, and Mother never kept patrols nearby. I used to use it to sneak in and out when I was a teenager. With any luck, Dr Frankenst– Er, Stein, won’t have found this gap either.”
Chantelle shushed them. “Don’t bother. Leave this part to me!” She strut forth before they could get another word in.
Even with a prosthetic for a leg and an arm that disappeared into bone before the elbow, Chantelle marched up to the guards with a swagger that could not be dismissed. The buttons on her white dress shirt glittered in the sunlight and her silken black hair rolled down her shoulders. One of the guards held a hand up to bar the path.
The conversation rolled from there, with Chantelle gesturing angrily with her surviving hand and bobbing her head about, all while the guards stood and watched.
“Be ready to book it,” Evelyn whispered, now accentuated from beneath the respirator.
Liam chuckled. “I think she’s got this.”
As if to prove the point, the guards began to slacken while Chantelle escalated her confrontation. Soon enough, she waved them forth. The pair moved closer, and the guards stepped aside, their beating red eyes shifting nervously to each other.
“You sure this is cool?” one guard muttered to his friend.
“The Head Huntress trumps the boss,” the other said. “I ain’t about to get purged defying her orders.”
“And I’ll make sure that you don’t,” Chantelle said. “So long as you don’t get in our way.” She blew them both a kiss.
The guards grimaced, but neither made a move as the group moved through the entrance.
Not bad. It warmed Liam’s heart to see just how much this once wretched girl had risen up in the world. Chantelle had certainly earned her worth to achieve the stature she’d gained.
“Where do we go from here?” she asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve been to Mother’s Grace and I don’t remember the way.”
“Follow me,” Evelyn said. “Even if Stein relocated some equipment to different wings, there are some places that’d never change.”
The moans of the dead cascaded throughout the halls as nurses and physicians rushed from one patient to the next. Ichor overflowed from injuries, broken bones were snapped back into place, and internal surgeries were conducted without the slightest bit of concern for sanitation. More than one body lay on a table with their raw organs displayed for all to see.
Not that any of these patients minded. Without a sense of pain or chance to catch an infection, they simply laid where they were told and watched others passing by, more bored by the exercise than distressed over their circumstances. Some even chatted casually with the doctors who attended them, even as scalpels and forceps probed the depths of their bowels.
Thank goodness for the masks. If he had to breathe an ounce of this pungent stench, Leah wouldn’t be the only one with a sickness to combat. Liam checked the timing on their shared oxygen tank, and breathed easy knowing that they still had hours remaining.
Evelyn paused at the end of a hall. “Perfect. Right where she left it.” She drew a lockpick from her pocket and glanced over her shoulder. “Do me a favor and keep watch.”
Liam and Chantelle obeyed, interposing themselves in the middle of the hall to keep others from seeing what they were up to. It did not take long before the door clicked open.
They pushed through the opening and locked the door behind, with Chantelle staying outside.
Only a single device could be found here, encompassing the width of the room. A padded slab clung to an attached gurney before disappearing into a circular hole like an oversized, plastic donut. Lights shrouded the interior. Clean and clear without the slightest hint of rot. The MRI, as Evelyn had explained.
Liam finally had the chance to remove his hazmat mask. He set Leah’s crib next to the gurney and ripped off the damned thing, breathing deep. That’s one problem out of the way. Evelyn followed soon after.
“You sure you know how to work this?” Liam asked.
She frowned. “I’ve seen bits and pieces before, but we’re gonna have to wing it.” She started fiddling with the device.
“Is that such a good idea? Doesn’t this machine emit… Radiation, or something?”
“Not enough to harm a child.”
“Unless the owners were to change the settings because their immortal bodies can take it,” Liam countered.
Evelyn shook her head. “That won’t happen. HBRS pseudo-cells are just as sensitive to radiation as ours, which was why the military dropped nukes early in the outbreak. Rezzers wouldn’t remove safeguards so flippantly because they know how badly it could fuck them up.”
Liam stroked his chin in thought. He’d never known that bit before.
Leah blinked from the gurney, taking in her new hospitalized world. Liam rubbed her stomach as he sat and waited.
“Any luck?” he asked.
Evelyn sighed. “Afraid not. It looks like they put in an administrative lock on the controls to keep people like us out.”
“Well, how the bloody hell will we get by that?”
“I don’t know.”
The door opened behind. Liam and Evelyn scrambled for their weapons, but they were a beat too late. Chantelle stood with her arm raised in the air, with the pair of guards they’d sidestepped ushering her forth. Another rezzer remained behind, this one with dark hair and sallow cheeks above a white lab coat.
But all of them gawked the moment their eyes fell to Leah.
“Is that…” one of the guards started.
“It can’t be!” the other shouted.
Even Chantelle licked her lips at the sight of their exposed child, an image that she’d been shielded from until this point.
“Have your people stand down, Stein!” Evelyn ordered, her M16 now trained to kill. “Right now!”
The doctor rezzer blinked, now seeing the pair of living humans. “Who…? How?”
She stared deep. “It’s me again, Evelyn. Please tell me that you remember!”
So this is ‘ole Dr Frankenstein then, Liam deduced. He’d heard worlds about the man since Evelyn had few guardians from her time with Mother. But this one merely watched in shock, his mouth salivating at the sight of the three of them.
Evelyn’s eyes watered. “For Christ’s sake, Stein. It’s still got to be in your Rez somewhere. You’ve got to remember something.”
He focused onto her. “Evelyn? I’ve never known anyone by that name, except… But she…” he trailed off, staring off into nothing.
“I’m right here, Dr Frankenstein. You know it. Deep inside, you remember. Please, don’t let that sense go.”
He studied her again with fresh eyes. Tears began to form himself, and before anyone could react, he suddenly rushed forth. Liam’s heart skipped a beat as he enveloped her between his arms, but he didn’t attempt to knock her down, nor did his teeth sink into her flesh. The two just remained in place, hugging each other tight.
“I’m so sorry, Evelyn,” Stein said. “I thought you died. Mother told me that you died!”
She chuckled, made awkward with a sob. “I figured. You know how it is with her.”
“Of course I do. No one in this world could ever be half as clever as Mother. Or as stubborn, especially when it came to her goals.”
This standoff had gotten quite embarrassing for the rest of them. Liam still kept his gun on the guards, and they on him, but their weapons were now clumsy in hand. Neither side planned to use them anymore. Not with this tear-jerking reunion playing out.
Liam coughed to get their attention.
Stein turned to his guards. “You two, go to my office and wait for me. You’re not to speak a word of what you saw in here until I’ve spoken to you. Is that understood?” They looked again to each other before nodding. Stein faced Liam. “And you. I don’t know who you are, but this is my hospital, and I won’t have anyone getting purged. Put your weapon down.”
“It’s okay, Liam,” Evelyn said. “We’re good.”
He did as told.
Chantelle casually closed the door again while Stein composed himself.
He patted Evelyn’s shoulder. “You’ll have to tell me everything that happened, and I mean everything.”
She smiled. “Where to begin…”
Evelyn went through the routine from there. About Mother’s quest to bring Liam to Cheyenne, and the death of her and Hades, and the life they’d built together. She explained how well things were going until the Beholders arrived, along with their journey back to here. It was a bit rosier than the truth, but Liam was just glad to see his wife smiling so naturally again. Such events were few and far apart these days.
“So you think it might be bacterial meningitis?” Stein asked once fully caught up.
Evelyn shrugged. “I don’t know, but we can’t take the risk.”
“Have you checked her breathing? Fluid build-up might be a sign of pneumonia.”
“Breathing’s a bit spotty, but it’s her bowels that have me worried. She has no appetite but still is defecating more times than normal, and the stool isn’t solid…”
The discussion continued from there, with Evelyn regurgitating her encyclopedic knowledge of human anatomy that Mother had injected into her, while Stein floated possible alternatives, though his understanding was more theoretical than practical, the disadvantage instilled from spending his post-Hollowing life catering to the needs of corpses, and not live specimens.
In the end, they prepped a series of tests to run, with Leah’s MRI at the top of the list.
Even though they performed this task for her health, there was something particularly heartbreaking about watching his baby girl get forced into that machine. She squirmed against the bright lights and loud mechanical noises, sobbing intermittently as the image processed, only for another to be taken. As Stein explained, moving disrupted the machine, and so what should have been a quick process dragged on for hours as they tried to coax Leah into place. Sedatives weren’t exactly at the ready for one like her.
But they managed to get their scan before the sun had set, and then it was another few hours before both could analyze the results…
Only to conclude that there was no conclusion, and they would need to run a variety of blood tests to narrow the options down further.
So began their elongated stay at Mother’s Grace. Stein cordoned off a floor for their private use while calming his security force down, and only he and Chantelle could come and go as they pleased. Dutiful as ever, Chantelle quickly made trips back and forth from the Lodge, bringing more personal amenities to make their stay more comfortable.
Evelyn tried to be vigilant in keeping up with Leah’s diagnosis, but the act proved futile before long. Her body was still tethered to the rules of humanity, and succumbed to fatigue like any other. That left them at the mercy of Stein, who prioritized her examination above all else. The process still dragged for days, but nothing could be done other than to sit and wait.
Ironically, a hospital filled to the brim with wandering corpses proved to be the least likely place for disease to spread. The Hollowing killed all life but its own, so neither rodents nor pests could be found in these halls. Coupled with the added cleaning routines, and any chance for Leah to catch some rogue pathogen plummeted to nothing. Their time thus became a matter of waiting, as each test required a different length of time from start to finish, only to prompt another.
They received some good news, at least. Leah stabilized after receiving this degree of care, and they had been able to safely rule out some of the more deadly options early, like meningitis or giardia. But they still weren’t quite able to nail the bugger down, especially now that their daughter had manifested a cough in addition to her normal systems.
By dusk of the second day, Liam once again found himself alone, this time reading a children’s book to Leah with Hungry keeping watch besides. Evelyn and Stein had gone to the Bank to acquire more pre-outbreak knowledge. With the extra benefit of having their go-bags and tools once again at the ready, along with Chantelle continuing to keep watch in the lobby, there’d never been a better time than now to let it all go and relax. Liam closed his eyes and breathed deep, now letting his own desire for sleep give him this coveted break…
But then a distant commotion interrupted his slumber.
Liam blinked through his growing fatigue and frowned. What the hell was going on this time?
The radio whirred as Chantelle called in. “Liam, are you awake?”
“Aye,” he said with a yawn. This better be important. “What’s happening out there?”
“The hospital’s under attack.”
He lurched straight up, nearly knocking Leah from his lap. Before he could consider what to do next, Chantelle’s voice rolled through the radio yet again.
“It’s the Beholders, Liam. They’re coming straight for you!”
