they'd been pretty nice. Of course, she'd had lots of blood taken, and they did tests frequently. How did they get all the medical equipment to Meta-chem so fast? she wondered. They even had an MRI machine.
'You have an MRI,' she murmured, trying to focus on Maris's face.
'Yes. My husband is very ill. We treat him here.' The voice swam down to Liz through layers of white noise… the hum of the monitors she was hooked up to, the buzzing of the fluorescent lights out in the hallway, the murmur of voices from the CDC headquarters nearby. If Liz wanted to, she could focus on any one of these sounds and block out the others. But that took a lot of energy, and she felt so weak…,
'Liz, do you know why you're here?' Marts asked.
'Because I cleaned up the spill,' Liz murmured. 'It mutated me.'
'That's right.' Marts smiled widely. 'That's exactly right.'
The lights went out. But Liz barely registered that, because the siren that started to ring was so loud that she thought the sound would burst her eardrums. There was nothing in the world but that piercing sound, and the pain it caused. Pain like nothing Liz had ever felt before; pain she seemed to feel on a molecular level.
'Liz? Can you hear me?' This time the voice was Max's. Liz slowly became aware that the piercing alarm sound was gone. The lights were still off.
'What happened?' she whispered.
'Michael pulled the fire alarm. We had to get everyone out of here. They'll be back in a matter of minutes.' Max was talking very fast. Liz listened to the sound of his voice, but she couldn't follow the words.
'I'm going to try to heal you. It won't be like last time. I'm going to look for one specific gene,' Max was saying. 'This gene turned off, and I need to turn it back on.'
Liz was aware of two things: fear and love. She'd never experienced emotions like this before, with her whole body. The fear came from somewhere in her spine, sending tiny tremors up through the muscles of her back. She was afraid for Max to touch her, because last time it had hurt so much. The love came from the pit of her stomach and sent waves of heat radiating through her chest. The love made all the parts of her body call out for Max. 'Max,' she whispered. 'I love you. I feel it in every single cell. I can hardly bear how much I love you.'
'I love you the same way,' he told her.
'I know you do,' Liz murmured. 'You told me about it once, about how we loved each other so much that nothing else mattered. We got married and we were happy, but then Tess felt left out… '
'Liz!' Max sounded worried. 'Stay with me.'
She hated the concern in his voice. She didn't want him to worry. She had to comfort him.
'It's okay, Max,' she told him. 'I did what you wanted. I made you fall out of love with me, and now the future is different.'
'What are you talking about?' Max asked. Then he went on quickly. 'Never mind. Just focus on me touching you.'
Then his hand was on her cheek. She felt warmth coming from his hand, but this time there was no pain. The warmth traveled throughout her body. It was seeking something, she knew, searching through her cells. And then it stopped and turned suddenly cold. The warmth had found what it was looking for. The new cold feeling spread out from where it started, filling her body and her mind.
To Liz, it seemed that everything went backward. The sounds of her monitors decreased as if someone had turned a giant volume knob in her head. The room, which had been as bright as noon, sunk into darkness. Her heartbeat, which had been filling her ears for almost a day now, suddenly became inaudible.
Liz sat up and looked around a small, dark room. Max was watching her. 'Are you back?'
She mentally took stock of herself. Sounds were normal, sight was normal. 'I'm back,' she said. 'I feel completely fine.'
Max reached out again and touched her cheek. 'Liz…'
Then he collapsed.
'Max!' Liz cried.
The door burst open. Michael rushed in, dressed in a tight-fitting jumpsuit. He looked at Liz, then at Max lying on the floor. 'What happened?'
'He healed me,' Liz said. 'And then… '
'It drained his energy,' Michael interrupted. 'I've seen him like this before.' He bent down and heaved Max onto his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
'Is he okay?' Liz asked anxiously.
Michael nodded impatiently. 'They're coming back,' he
said. 'You have to explain it somehow.' He turned and ran, carrying Max.
Liz took a deep breath and waited…
The door flew open again, and about five doctors stopped in astonishment when they saw her sitting up. Liz gave them a smile. Maris Wheeler pushed her way through the doctors and rushed over to Liz. 'What happened?' she asked, taking Liz's hand.
'I'm not exactly sure,' Liz said. 'I think it was a miracle.' And she wasn't even lying.
13
“She's okay?' Alan Sosa asked.
Maris narrowed her eyes at him. 'Yes, she's fine. Though how it happened will remain a mystery, at least to the CDC.'
'What do you mean?' he said. 'Surely they studied her afterward.'
'Yes, they studied her. They used her DNA to fashion a cure for the rest of the people you infected. I just mean that they don't understand what happened… either why it began, or why it ended. There are only two of us who know that, Alan. You and me.'
He looked paler than usual, she thought. His hand shook as he lifted the cup of coffee her assistant had brought him. 'I'm done with Meta-chem,' he said. 'I don't want trouble between us, but I think you'll agree that I have more dirt to blackmail you with now than what you have on me. I want to call it even.'
'Alan, you spread a dangerous virus around the whole city.'
'A virus that you created out of DNA you got from God knows where! I won't let you pin this on me,' he said. 'I didn't want to test that serum on humans and you know it.'
'Nevertheless, you did give it to Liz Parker.'
'You forced me to!' His shaking was getting more violent. Maris wondered idly what kind of poison her assistant had put in the coffee. She herself never liked to know the details of these things. That way the assistant could take the fall for it later, if need be.
'Look, you got what you wanted,' Alan was saying. 'You saw how the serum works in humans… it's a disaster. It won't help your husband.'
'That's true. I'll have to find the Healer himself. I can't just use his DNA.'
'Well, fine,' Alan said. He put down the coffee cup and stood. 'Just count me out.' He took one step toward the door, then fell flat on his face, dead.
'I'll do that,' Maris said.
'I simply don't understand it,' Diane Evans was saying as Isabel entered the kitchen.
'None of us does,' her husband, Philip, replied. 'But I think the firm will be looking at a lot of business in lawsuits from this quarantine.'
Isabel poured herself some coffee and tried to act casual. 'Hey, Dad, I thought I saw that new lawyer at the hospital,' she said. 'Jesse Something?'
Her father nodded. 'Jesse Ramirez.'
'When were you at the hospital?' Diane asked.
Isabel gulped her coffee. 'Um, I went there because Max was there with Liz.'
'Oh, that's right,' Diane said. 'Poor Liz; she was the first one sick.'
'There's another lawsuit waiting to happen,' Philip put in. 'I should give Liz's father a call… he's going to be sued by everyone who got sick at the Crashdown. He'll need a good lawyer.'
