The Cure

Chapter 18

     XAVIER HAD BEEN WORKING ON THE inhaler for a few days but was having problems with its application. He needed some more advanced equipment, but his usual contacts were not returning any of his calls. While that had him concerned him a little, Xavier shrugged it off for now and decided to try them again later. Sammy was in the living room passing the time watching television and cleaning up around the house. She occasionally went out and picked some stuff up but made an effort to not leave the house too often. She wasn't used to the idea of being healthy enough to go anywhere she wanted and didn't want her neighbors to discover how well she was doing too soon. Even though she was perfectly healthy again, it was going to take her a while to mentally accept it. Sammy was going to have to take some baby steps and learn to crawl before she could walk and then run back into life again. It wasn't entirely normal for someone to be dying one day and then suddenly not be dying the next. Mentally it was a profound shock to her system and that was going to take time to adjust to. People often take the time to prepare themselves to die, so when that doesn't happen, it does and usually takes time to reintegrate with the land of the living. Xavier had been trying to get in contact with a few people since he and Sammy had come up with the idea of using an inhaler to deliver the serum, but contacts were still difficult to get a hold of. Xavier had two cell phones to pick from when trying to contact people. The first was a phone that was listed under a man that doesn't exist. It was created by a member of organized crime who should have died of lunch cancer over a year ago but didn't because of the serum. The phone is pretty much invisible to the authorities, and it was safe for him to use as long as he kept calls to a minimum and only gave the number out to those he absolutely trusted. From there, he makes all other cell calls from burner phones that anyone could pick up at any store for twenty bucks. From there he buys phone cards for them and usually destroys them after two or three calls each. He was working on making some machines on his own from parts of other machines he could dispose of when he heard some sort of sound coming from the living room. Out of concern for Sammy, Xavier dropped what he was doing and ran into the living room.

     "Are you alright?" he called out.

     "I am but look." Sammy said as she pointed to the television.

     Xavier looked down at the television that was reporting from a hospital in Florida. "The incident took place around three this afternoon. The Senator was just finishing his meeting with party members when he suddenly collapsed and was quickly rushed to the hospital. There's no word on the senator's condition, but we are being told by sources that he was unresponsive to paramedics all the way to the hospital. So, to repeat the story, Senator Alexander Jackson has been taken to hospital with what is at this time an unknown ailment. We'll give you more details on this story as we get them."

     Sammy was a little distraught. "Do you have any idea who that is?"

     "I think I've heard of him," Xavier admitted, "But I'm not up to speed on politics as much as I should be."

     Sammy looked like she was angry enough to kick the television. "Senator Jackson was the early favorite to win the Presidential nomination! We're only a few months away from the Iowa caucus, which he was favored to win by about sixty percent, and now he suddenly falls ill?"

     "I never took you to be someone so passionate about politics." Xavier said as he sat on the couch and looked up at her in amazement. "People fall sick all the time, maybe this was just a case of an allergic reaction he wasn't aware of."

     "You think?" Sammy said, somewhat suspicious.

     "People walk around all the time, unaware that the next bee sting could kill them." Xavier replied, "The same goes for food. You think you don't have a single allergy and then suddenly you react badly to the first piece of lobster you toss into your tummy."