Part Two
The data didn’t make sense. Ian had read through it dozens of times, and there were too many flaws to count. Whoever had made the report clearly had very little understanding of what they were writing, and the data was, frankly, impossible. Which was all the more baffling when he considered that other documentation referred to the lead writer as the head of the project. How had they even managed to create the agent in the first place?
More confusing, however, was the seemingly random data points that’d been written in by hand after the fact. These weren’t just slightly off, they were blatantly false, and were often contradicted by points made on the same page, or even in the same table, as they were. Strange, considering that whoever had written them had been the same person who’d done the human infectivity analysis, judging by the handwriting. Why would someone go from flawless analysis of a pathogen to stating the particle size as being large enough to easily be seen by the human eye unaided?
Unless…it wasn’t related in the first place. Maybe it was trying to convey something else. But if that was the case, Ian wasn’t even remotely close to being able to crack whatever the code was. Then again, Ian’s knowledge of cryptography ended with Pig Latin, so that wasn’t surprising. Why would his uncle give him this information when there wasn’t a realistic way for him to decipher it?
He slumped at his desk, disheartened. What was he supposed to do?
…
Sunset went from complete unconsciousness to total immersion in suffering in less time than it took her to scream. Whatever the sedatives were, they’d clearly and suddenly lost the battle to suppress her awareness of the changes occurring inside her body. For a moment, she wished she’d just died instead.
“SCR-” her wail cut short, with an even worse horror as she felt something tear in her throat, and her voice died completely. Wracked with coughs, she spat blood, struggling to stand before collapsing into warm puddle. She lay there, shivering, trying to shriek, but unable to even whimper.
“Sunset, it’s okay. You’re doing great. Just hang on.”
Pwease, mummah…Sunset nee’ hewp…
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you any more sedative,” mummah said, as if reading her thoughts. “Not without…the dosage you were on was dangerous already. You just have to hold on a while longer. It’ll get better, I promise.”
Sunset coughed again, mouth and chin stained with blood. Mummah embraced her, and the coldness retreated a little. The burning, on the other hand, only grew worse, and she struggled to escape. Mummah jerked away as if bitten, and choked back a sob.
Somehow, seeing how much of her fluff Sunset left behind was worse than the pain, worse than the nausea, worse than the chills or the burning fever. Deep down, although she hadn’t dared consciously acknowledge it, she’d always believed that mummah would be able to save her, that this wouldn’t be as final as they’d feared. That sight, however, drove the reality deeper, that she wasn’t ever going to be the same again.
But she had to be strong.
…
Ian dug through boxes in his parents’ attic, frantically searching. Surely they wouldn’t have thrown it away; once maybe, but not after Aaron’s death. His parents weren’t the sentimental type, but they wouldn’t be that callous, would they? No, it had to be here, in one of these boxes of old toys…
“Ian?” his mothers voice came up the ladder, confused. “What’s so important that you needed to drive all the way down here? Did you leave something important?”
“I’ll tell you if I find it.”
“Okay…” her tone was doubtful.
Ian was beginning to lose hope, but then, in one of the boxes, he spotted a loop of cheap plastic. Just what he’d been looking for. Pocketing it, he climbed down the latter, putting on this best disappointed expression.
“No luck,” he said. “I saw an old comic I remembered having going on auction for like thirty grand, and thought it might still be up there. I guess it was too much to hope for that’d it’d be intact.”
“Why did you need it so suddenly? Is something wrong?”
“You can’t tell anyone, but I’m going to propose to Ada. I’m serious, don’t tell anyone. I don’t want to until we have a bit more debt paid off, so I thought if I could find that…never mind.”
He wasn’t entirely sure if she bought it, but he didn’t have time to worry about that now. He was halfway home when he realized he could’ve just gone back to his uncle’s house and done this a lot faster and more reliably, without winding up his mother. Damn it, too late now.
In his lap, its light frame seeming somehow heavier than it should, lay a plastic decoder ring from when he and his cousins use to play spy.
…
There’s a theoretical limit to the amount of pain it’s possible to experience. That limit can be exceeded if your neural pathways are being actively rewritten.
…
You fucking genius, Ian thought, as strings of nonsense turned into vital information. How long did you know? Were you always planning this?
“Fuck you for dragging me into it,” he murmured. But now he had an answer. A long list of coordinates, each with an associated range of dates. He knew where he needed to go next.
…
If there’s been time, she could’ve been more merciful…but there was never enough time. She stared down at Sunset with teary eyes, the once-happy fluffy writhing on a pile of her own hair, skin chapped and blistered. The remarkable fluffy healing and growth ability, perverted to a new cause. Sometimes, she swore she could hear a bone snap.
…
Ian hadn’t been prepared to spend four weeks traveling by bike and foot over no-man’s-land. But at least he was here, now. At some decrepit little shack in the middle of nowhere, the only sign of life the suspiciously large number of solar panel arrays located on the roof.
He swallowed back bile, worried what he might find. If this was all a mistake…he hoped it was. But if it was real, and she wasn’t here, then things were going to get a lot worse. I really hope this is all a super fucked up joke.
His feet crunched on dying grass and dead leaves as he approached the door. Shaking, partly from exhaustion and mostly from the realization how real this was all becoming, he raised a hand to knock on the shabby wooden door. Only for his hand to strike nothing as the door was violently pulled inward.
“About fucking time. Get inside.”
“Are you…?”
“Dr. Sandler, yes, and no, it’s not my real name. Look, we ran out of time for introductions about two weeks ago, so I need you to hurry. I hope you rested up before coming out here because we’re going to be lucky if we get to sleep at all in the next month. Hurry up.”
“My uncle wanted me to…”
“Look, all that matters is that you brought the sample and you know what you’re doing. Save any chatting for when we have more than two months to live, yes?”
“Right. Here,” he pulled the “sample” out of his bag. What use a human eye was going to be was beyond him, but his uncle’s instructions had been explicit.
“Good. Follow.”
He half-ran to keep up with her brisk pace, legs long pushed past their limits twinging with pain. But discomfort wasn’t important right now. Very little was important right now.
He froze, seeing…something in a glass enclosure. Why it was isolated wasn’t immediately clear, since there was no way that was airtight and that thing wasn’t going to be moving any time soon.
“Is that…a fluffy? What did you do to it?”
…
Present
…
Sunset’s eyes opened at the unfamiliar voice. Someone was here! Someone other than mummah! For the first time in so long, Sunset felt a flicker of hope. Soon. She’d be able to die soon.
Part Four
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The sample is a human eye, or?
It’s tiny bit confusing to read it, but I think after the next chapter, it’ll all be clear and I’m looking forward to noticing all the foreshadowing!
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