Looking at the gauze on his hand, on impulse he unwound it to check the wound. He rubbed at the dried blood, then finished the sandwich and got up to go into the restroom. After washing his hand he stared at it.
Nothing there.
No bite, no bruise, smooth pristine skin. And he felt good, better than he’d felt in a while. His face stared back at him in the scratched-up mirror for a while, until someone else came in to use the toilet. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he went back out to finish his breakfast, pancakes and hash brown patties and coffee and large orange juice.
He sat and thought about super-healing. Stupid, pulp-sci-fi name, but what else should he call it? X-factor? Sounded like a TV talent show. Wolverine, like that comic-book guy? Maybe H-factor. Or XH, experimental healing. Because it had to be experimental. The government could never keep secrets for long, no matter what the conspiracy nuts thought. The government was made up of people, good people and bad people and heroes and stupid arrogant people like Jenkins who lost control of missions and secrets. But what was the secret this time?
The obvious answer was it was a kind of drug. Shoot up, accelerate the body’s natural healing, instant cure. But a drug couldn’t be passed on with a bite, like what he thought had happened. Elise bit me, deliberately, and said I’d understand. So she transferred it to me, at least some of it. Already he was grateful to her for that.
Discounting the supernatural – and he wasn’t, not completely, but his mind shied away from that for now – it would have to be some kind of parasite or bacteria or virus, that was able to spread from person to person and help them out. Or maybe…what about nanites? Like in science fiction, like those Borg things that injected you and took over your body and mind with germ-sized machines. But no matter what, it had to be something small, and self-replicating, self-sustaining.
He wondered how much the XH could cure. Obviously gross injuries were possible. And cancer, if he could believe Elise. What about AIDS? What about aging? Life extension, even immortality? Did they even realize what they had?
His mind whirled with the possibilities.
If it conferred youth and immortality, it would change the world like nothing ever. The rich would pay anything, and people would kill for it. People would go to war for it. In fact, it might win wars, making soldiers into fearless super-warriors. And who would decide who got it?
But Elise had said something about a downside, some kind of disadvantage…maybe some kind of burnout? Maybe instead of immortality it used up the bearer, ate up his vitality so the more healing he had to do, the shorter his life was. Maybe. But Elise had looked younger than Daniel was, twenties maybe, and cute and gutsy, under all that blood and stress.
She said she had been a scientist before her cancer was deemed terminal, that she had worked for them a few years…seemed about right. And what had she said – “Yeah, there’s a downside, at least for the Company.” Not for her, but for the Company. So it couldn’t be a shortened lifespan, he thought. Maybe it had no effect on lifespan. Maybe it froze your age just as you were, like in a vampire story. That might be nice, if you got it young.
He sighed, rubbing his face. Too many questions, too many possibilities. And he needed answers, because whatever it was, it was inside him too.
He had no way to contact Elise, so he would just have to hope she was all right and could get in touch with him sometime. Putting her out of his mind for now, he told himself he didn’t owe her anything.
Leave her to rot.
Right.
His conscience sharply disagreed with him. Kind of funny, because the serpent had held his conscience captive for quite a while. Maybe the XH was healing some of his brain damage, and if the XH healed his body too, got rid of the headaches and concussions and bum knee and aching back and the persistent spiral fractures from too many hard landings and everything else, even if that was all it did, then he guessed he owed her a lot. Besides, there was the way she’d looked at him, even while he pointed a gun at her. No terror. Caution, sure, but a kind of trust and hope, too, emotions he had missed for a long time in his life, feelings that tugged at him and made him think of things beyond just rescuing her.
Building castles in his mind.
He pushed that aside for now. First he had to get an idea of what was happening at his house. He wouldn’t be any good to anyone, least of all Elise, if he walked blindly into a manhunt. No, he had to reach out, get some help.
He drove to a beer joint he knew of in Quantico Town. This was a unique little municipality, a tenth of a square mile, entirely enclosed by Quantico Marine Base. Residents got passes to come and go, all five hundred of them or so. But what was even more unique, the unusual thing that he needed, was the pay phone inside. Not too many of those around but things didn’t change very fast in quaint old Quantico Town.
Ignoring the “closed” sign on the door of the Forward Observer pub, he shoved the door open and went on in. If you looked like you belonged, Felix the owner would ignore the archaic eighteenth-century law still on the books that said you can’t sell alcohol before noon. That’s why the door wasn’t locked, that and they made a few bucks in the morning selling coffee and smokes and breakfast sandwiches and day-old donuts to guys on their way to work. Fortunately, Felix wasn’t in to recognize him, just a chesty young thing with a wedding ring, in too-tight jeans and a tee shirt, makeup over acne, probably the teen wife of a teen Marine, making a few extra bucks.
“Whatcha want?” she said with that fake brightness servers put on. Standing hipshot, she pointed with one long nail over her shoulder at the menu chalked on the wall.
Ah, the brashness of the young.
Daniel didn’t sit down. “Three ham cheese and egg bagels, large coffee to go.” He pulled a gallon of milk out of a fridge. “This too. The head that way?” She nodded, and he went back in the direction of the facilities, which happened to be where he knew the phone was.
His first call was to his next-door neighbor Trey, a friendly Creole from Louisiana who’d married a nice German girl on a tour in Bitburg and eventually settled down in Virginia after retiring from the Army. Even in the twenty-first century, a black man bringing a white girl home to “N’awlins” had a tough row to hoe.
“No, nothing unusual going on, DJ, what’s up?” he asked.
“Nobody in my driveway, no visitors, nothing like that?” They kept an eye on each others’ houses, because there were four schools in the area and a few kids always had sticky fingers.
“Nope. Why, something wrong?” he pried gently.
Daniel would have loved to tell him, the way he was feeling right now. Trey was a neighbor, a fellow vet but not really a brother in arms. He could probably be trusted to a point, but Daniel didn’t want to involve him if he didn’t have to, so he dissembled, though it was painful to do so. “No, just missed a meeting with a friend, wondered if he came by there.”
“Okay…well, you let me know if I can do anything.”
Daniel could tell Trey didn’t buy it, but he stuck to the plan. “Thanks, Trey. Hey I might be out of town for a week or two, could you pick up my mail and keep an eye on the place for me?”
“Yeah, DJ. Sure.” He sounded hurt.
Man, he hated that.
“Look – Trey, I can’t talk about it right now, okay? You know how it is. But I’ll tell you when I can.” With that half-lie and half-promise, he hung up. Then he called work, told them he was really sick and wouldn’t be in for a week. In that time it either wouldn’t matter or it would be all over.
Daniel thought of calling his dad, who was a good guy to have with you in a situation. David Jonah Markis, Chief Warrant Officer Four, US Army retired. He’d fought in Vietnam, driving Hueys, and had been wounded a bunch of times flying guys in and out of hot landing zones. Purple Heart with oak leaf clusters, and a Silver Star for the time he went down and carried his wounded copilot seven miles through enemy territory to the nearest US firebase, with an AK round in his left lung. He lived in South Carolina now, had sixty acres and his own grass airstrip south of Blacksburg, and an old but airworthy Piper Cub to keep him busy. But if they knew who Daniel was, they knew his dad too and might be watching him. If Daniel wanted to talk to him he’d have to figure out a way to do it without bringing the trouble to the elder Markis.