Pelliccia (Book1) (2011 Sci-fi Watty Awards Winner)

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

It has been nearly three weeks since Joey arrived at the cabin. Adam was looking incredibly well, He had a thick gray coat of fur, and his wounds were completely gone. What was more fascinating was he had lost nearly 100 pounds and went from slightly obese to athletically fit, while sleeping most of the time. He only woke up to eat, and even then he was barely conscious and had to be spoon fed blended food.

Steven was glad his family was reunited and they were all together now. Everyone was getting along and it was like nothing had changed, but still a lump of fear swelled in Steven’s throat. He had been looking through all of Dr. Bucur’s research non-stop. There were too many changes and tweaks that had been made that it made it impossible for him to do anything without Dr. Bucur’s help, but that wasn’t what scared him.

What scared him was how much the nanites had changed the internal workings of the patience, to include Sara. Because of the nanites, the body stopped producing natural white blood cells entirely completely eliminating the normal immune system that humans have developed over the entirety of the race to survive through countless plagues and disease. There was no way he could make any adjustments to the nanites to fix the side effects on Sara because any mistake he made that stopped the nanites from working properly would kill her.

He knew they couldn’t live in that cabin forever either. Something had to be done, and he had made up his mind and had decided what that something would be.

“Sara, I’m going to head to town to pick up some things. Do you or Joey need anything while I’m there?” He asked.

“Steak, or any fresh meat really, I’m getting tired of canned meats.” She replied.

“Ok, what about Joey?”

“I don’t know he’s still sleeping in.”

“Fine, I probably won’t be back until later tonight so don’t wait up for me.” And he was out the door, but he wasn’t headed to Whitehorse, at least not first, that was just his excuse. His first stop would be the lab, to have a good chat with Dr. Bucur.

As he pulled up to the lab Steven went over everything he was going to demand, and thought of every reply he would make to any argument Dr. Bucur might come up with, then he put his poker face on and stepped out of the car, walked up to the door, and knocked.

The door creaked open. “Steven! Thank god you’re back. I’m sorry, I am so sorry for everything.” And then Dr. Bucur started crying. Steven was speechless, he didn’t expect this at all, and had no idea what to say.

“It’s ok, what’s wrong.”

“These last three weeks made me realize a lot. I was so focused on my work and trying to save the world before, that I had completely forgotten why I had devoted myself to this mission in the first place.”

“Ok. So why was that?” he asked.

“Because, I couldn’t stand to watch children suffer and die. I am such a hypocrite.”

“You’re not a hypocrite.” Steven said to comfort him. “What makes you say that?”

“I’m so sorry.” He said and looked up at Steven.

Then Steven started to realize what he was saying. “You killed them! You killed the kids here!”

“No, no, I didn’t. They are still here and very much alive. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go through with my plan.”

“Are you telling me you planned on killing them? Including Sara?”

“I am so ashamed; I don’t know what I was thinking. I wanted everything to be perfect, and they were products of my failure.”