The Virus (21 page)

Just like us, their bodies
were comprised of the same material as their home planet, though
that planet was of different material than ours. There were
millions of them, but they had infinitely more in common than
otherwise. They had already shown that they were intelligent
beings, but, the way information was spread was a major difference.
The doctor wanted to believe this, but his logical mind advised
otherwise. The most abundant amount of information today was spread
by light, spanning limitless gulfs via endless miles of ever
increasing technologies like fiber optic cables. Also, the doctor
remembered learning somewhere that the structure of houses, trees,
the very earth itself, everything, absorbed energy, even the energy
of speech. Long ago, it had been proven that sounds, music, words;
all were comprised of notes that had actual physical properties.
One need look no further than the proverbial song-shattered wine
glass for proof of physical properties of sound waves. Only fairly
recently, someone had discovered that such energy could also be
captured in physical objects. With the right instruments, ones,
unfortunately, that current technology was insufficient to produce,
the words of every human being throughout the ages could be
‘recaptured’ from tree bark or mountain stones, and every single
word ever spoken could be replayed for all to hear.

By the same vein, it was
nearly proven among scientists, some of them astronomers like the
late Dr. Reynolds, that the origins of the universe could be traced
back to actual sound waves. Dr. Crangler mused over this until he
finally fell asleep on the simple pull out bed in his
office.

A full week after he last
visited her room, Dr. Crangler, with an equally haggard look and
gait as he had before, went to check on Delilah.

“Wow…you
look
horrible
!” She exclaimed to him when he entered. “Man, you really do
look…” Delilah’s eyes were wide and her mouth was pulled slightly
to the side in a grimace as she looked the doctor up and down. She
had been at least as sullen as Dr. Crangler for the last week, but
the good doctor really did look awfully…“bad.” Even though shooting
for something less dramatic, it was the only word Delilah could
think of to describe how Dr. Crangler looked at the moment. He
looked so bad, in fact, that she was tempted to feel sorry for him,
but the temptation was very brief and paled in comparison to her
own anxiety. Her spirits had been broken since their last meeting.
She had resolved some time ago that though she would go through
with this pregnancy—the idea still tied her stomach in knots since
it looked like her only hope of escape.

Her lips and jaw muscles
were set like her mother would’ve approved of, her arms were folded
in defiance, and her eyes drawn and sparkling with intensity that
was anything but affection. She was prepared to concede defeat, but
not without inflicting some mortal wounds of her own if at all
possible. Still, for all her insolent posture, she and Dr. Crangler
were both broken people trying to appear whole. Even though they
were both shielded from the plague ravishing the outside world, it
was clear that the effects of this alien invasion were taking their
toll on them as well, and just as harshly. Meanwhile, Dr. Crangler
gazed around Delilah’s room. It was, by far, more colorfully
stocked than any of the other rooms in the facility, but by the
looks of things, not much new had been added since the doctor last
visited. It was something of a shock to the doctor because, though
he by no means condoned it, he had fully expected Delilah to have
summarily converted even his newest assistants into her fretful
minions by now.

Just goes to show how
utterly discombobulated I’ve been lately
,
he thought to himself. Even though he had her, Geoffrey, and
virtually every square inch of the facility on his monitors for
round the clock observation if he desired, he had been paying no
more attention to them than if they were a million miles away. His
mind was too occupied with other things, and what’s more, he craved
freedom from the stress associated with both Geoffrey and Little
Miss Obstinate sitting here before him with her arms and legs
crossed. He walked around the room, sighing deeply, as he feigned
disapproval at the small but new assortment of products, hair care,
and makeup vials that populated a dresser and night stand. He
feigned disapproval as eloquently as his face would allow, but in
reality, he was exhausted, mentally and physically, and he didn’t
want to be there. If he quit there would be serious disciplinary
measures. Years of time and perhaps hundreds of millions, of
secretly-allotted taxpayer dollars had been funneled into this
facility as well as Dr. Crangler’s training.

His entire career, his
schooling, his knowledge of highly-classified matters, none of it
would ever be allowed to be made public. If he was ousted, he would
drop instantly from one of the most preeminent and privileged
doctors in the world, to a middle-aged nobody. He would be forced
to start from less than scratch. More importantly, he would be
ousted from ground zero of one of the most important times in human
history. Though Dr. Crangler knew this well and needed nobody to
tell him, his superiors had made their position—as well as his own
vulnerability—very clear. There was no time for nervous breakdowns,
not now, not with everything dangling dangerously in the balance.
If he couldn’t do his job, then those superiors would damn well
recruit someone who could, and he’d pay the price for it for the
rest of his life. It was this express truth that encouraged him to
leave the messy, musty solitude of his main office and get back to
work. Right now, he needed some blood from Delilah and to run some
simple tests to verify again that she was healthy.

This constant testing was
superfluous really, but again, his superiors wanted to make certain
that she wouldn’t fall over dead from anything that could’ve been
prevented if it had been detected earlier. After Dr. Crangler
displayed his disapproval at Delilah’s apparent expertise at rule
breaking, he summoned a few of his assistants to draw the necessary
blood, measure vital signs, and do whatever other simple tasks
needed to be performed. Usually, he would’ve done this himself, but
right now he was thinking about how best to approach the real issue
at hand. Before, the subject was a barb that he used to bludgeon
Delilah into broken spirited submission, but now, it was just
another lengthy and arduous hurdle that he hated to scale nearly as
much as she.

“Miss Hanson,” the doctor
said wearily after his assistants had finished and left the room “I
spoke to you last time about…”

“Yeah,
yeah, I know
Doctor
Crangler,” she hissed, “I need to get pregnant.
I
know
you know
that I heard you last time.” She tried to give the doctor the most
fiery gaze possible, “Well, I’ll give you what you want,” she
sounded as if she was bequeathing some dirty, unbecoming favor,
“but afterwards, I want the hell out of here, is that understood?”
The doctor’s gaze temporarily flared.
Who
does this…this…spoiled little girl think she is, leveraging demands
on me like I’m one of her obedient little servants from back
home?
He decided he didn’t have the energy
for a pissing contest, at least not right now.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,
Miss Hanson. Whatever you say.”

“You’re damn right,
whatever I say.” she countered, pressing her perceived advantage,
“And another thing, I choose who I get pregnant by. I’m not having
just any fool’s baby. You won’t go out there, wherever you go to,
and pick just anybody you want to for me to…Ugh!” She couldn’t even
finish the thought. It was more than obvious that she would’ve been
a real pain in the ass had she been born when arranged marriages
were the accepted norm. “Anyway, I choose the guy.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Hanson,”
the doctor said, though his tone didn’t match his assertion, “but
I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. You’ll be artificially
inseminated with…” he paused. He didn’t want to risk another
outburst. “a specimen from a donor that has been thoroughly tested
and is completely free from disease or defect.”

“What? You must be crazy.
You tell me I have to get pregnant and then you think that I’m
gonna let you in...in…”

“Inseminate you, Miss
Hanson.”

She scoffed. “Whatever. You
actually think I’m gonna let you do
that
to me with somebody’s sperm,”
well, so much for the doctor’s earlier tact, “that I don’t even
know.” She looked appalled at the idea. “Well, you’re highly
mistaken. If I do this,
I
choose the person, or I at least get to see who’s
chosen…” she thought about it for a moment “no, you know what, I
choose the guy altogether.”

The doctor sighed so
deeply that she envisioned him sighing his very spirit from his
body. He was more tired than ever. “Okay, Miss Hanson. Whatever you
want. We’ll have eligible contestants shipped directly to your door
in neatly wrapped packages in no time.” He threw his hand in the
air as if dismissing her from his mind as he turned and stormed
out. She could hear him scoffing.

Delilah was just about to
shoot back that if he wanted to be sarcastic, he could have this
damn baby himself, but she didn’t get the opportunity because he
was already exiting the room.

“I choose how this
happens!” she yelled as he disappeared.

The doctor murmured to
himself as he shuffled heavily down the hallway, “Yeah, I wish I
could say the same.”

Chapter 21

Before his last visit, it
had been a full week since Delilah had laid eyes on the doctor, but
by the time Geoffrey saw Dr. Crangler again, nearly two weeks had
passed, and those two weeks had seemed like an eternity. It was
already difficult being deprived of all human interaction except
the doctor’s and his orderlies, but with every passing day the
loneliness grew exponentially. Geoffrey began to feel as if the
white walls were closing in on him, as if this was what a hell of
eternal nothingness must feel like. It was during this time that
the doctor made his unannounced appearance, but, thanks to
Geoffrey’s new abilities, it was not completely a surprise. Before
the locking mechanism unlatched, Geoffrey already knew who was at
the door…as well as what he was thinking. Still, when the doctor
entered the room, neither man spoke for almost five minutes.
Eventually, Dr. Crangler opened his mouth, but it was Geoffrey who
first broke the tense silence.

“Yes, Dr.
Crangler, I
can
still hear what you’re thinking, and yes, I
do
know that you’re as
worn out as you look, and believe me, you do look extremely worn
out.”

Upon hearing this, the
doctor slumped his shoulders even more than they were already. He
didn’t want to deal with this, but what could he do? Slowly,
tiredly, he tottered nearer to Geoffrey. Geoffrey, meanwhile,
gestured for the doctor to have a seat across from him in a simple
folding chair that was recently added to the room.

“Yes, I
see your room has one or two new…furnishings,” he was going to
add
that I didn’t approve
of
, but decided against it. Normally, he
was the head guy in charge, the top authority, and took great pains
to make sure no one forgot it. These days, though, he was just no
longer himself, and he didn’t know when, or if, his old self would
ever return.

“Well,
you would’ve seen, you
do
have like a thousand monitors right there in that
nice main office of yours, except your mind has been
pretty…well…
busy
lately. Anyway, it’s not much.” Geoffrey said,. “Nothing like
all the colorful stuff Delilah has in
her
room, per se. But hey, beggars
can’t be choosers, right?” Geoffrey’s tone held no hint of sarcasm
or anger. In fact, he sounded as if he was simply making a few
unemotional observations.

Dr. Crangler was anything
but unemotional. His eyes and mouth were wide open with amazement
and even a touch of ill-restrained fear, so much so, that even
Geoffrey was startled. He had never seen the doctor, never even
imagined that he could look, so unprofessionally
human
.

“You…how…
what
?” the doctor sputtered.

“Why
don’t you have a seat, Dr. Crangler?” Geoffrey gestured toward the
folding chair a second time. The doctor was about to decline the
offer yet again, but Geoffrey interrupted. “You might as well sit
down, Doctor. I already know what you’re thinking, obviously, so
there’s no need for you to keep up the facade any longer.” The
doctor’s eyes were as large as fifty cent pieces and the tightly
stretched lines around his mouth said that he was more apprehensive
than ever. “That’s right,” Geoffrey continued, unabated, “I can now
hear you, and everyone else, even in your big office at the end of
this maze of hallways…and yes, even behind that thick, steel door
of yours.” Geoffrey paused to let the statement sink in. “Oh, and
by the way, the movie was X-Men.” The doctor’s eyes narrowed and he
canted his head back a little as his angst was replaced by
confusion. “The movie you thought you may’ve seen, the one where
you got the idea that the steel door to your office could block
telepathy, it was X-Men, the sequel I think, but don’t quote me on
that, though. Magneto got his hands on a steel helmet to block
Professor Xavier’s telepathy. It’s been years since I’ve seen that
movie, and actually, the only reason I remember it at all is
because you were trying
not
to think about it. You know exactly what I’m
talking about, Dr. Crangler.” Geoffrey said, “And what’s more, I’m
probably the only person in this whole facility that knows what
you’re going through. Try to think of it like that, instead of
intruding into your thoughts, I mean really know what you’re going
through, because I can tell how it feels to
you
.”