Cheating Sunrise

Cheating Sunrise - Chapter 15

Saffron the geneticist was not overly surprised when Travis prematurely came out of his ketamine-induced state of unconsciousness. She clearly found it extremely fascinating, and immediately began recording the event on a variety of expensive medical monitoring devices, plus a small HD camcorder that I could tell she had been absolutely dying to turn on ever since starting the whole process just over thirty hours earlier.

I was rather less reserved in my reaction when Travis opened his eyes and started screaming.

I lurched out of the comfortable chair beside Travis' hospital bed, spilling hot coffee all over the legs of my jeans.

"Motherfucking fuck!"

It was just me, Saffron, and the previously unconscious Travis in the room. Conrad was in his own house, negotiating a dark-web deal involving conventional warheads of some kind, and Cherry was either asleep or watching TV in one of the guest suites on the third floor of Saffron's lab.

"This is one of several predicted but as-yet unproven occurrences," Saffron said, her calm tone far more infuriating than usual, given the circumstances.

"No shit. What the fuck is happening?"

Saffron detached the intravenous ketamine feed from Travis' violently convulsing right forearm. She picked up a large hypodermic that looked like something from a documentary about tranquilising elephants.

"Once the subject has reached approximately seventy percent total body mutation, the VX blood-type antibodies are capable of neutralising the effect of the receptor antagonist."

I grabbed his arms and pinned them to his sides to stop him pitching himself off the bed onto the floor.

"The anaesthetic is no longer affecting him," I said.

"Not entirely medically accurate but, yes, the symptoms we are witnessing could be described that way in layman's terms."

Saffron jabbed the big needle into Travis' chest, ramming it straight between his ribs into his heart.

"Isn't that supposed to be wooden?" I asked.

Saffron chose not to respond to that one. She held the cylinder of the hypodermic with one hand and pressed the plunger all the way down. Travis abruptly stopped moving and screaming, which was a relief but also just a little worrying.

"Modified vampire toxin," Saffron said. "I separated it from the mutagen, removed the elements that cause respiratory distress, aphonia, and several other symptoms, and improved the paralysis agent so that it creates a temporary anaesthetised state in the partially mutated vampire."

"I'll just pretend I'm okay with that for now," I said.

"The alternative would be muscular convulsions and trauma vocalisation for a considerable number of hours."

"Why didn't you use the modified toxin as an anaesthetic from the start?"

"It would have killed him when he was human."

"And you have never tested this on anyone else?"

"Of course not." She pulled the spent hypo out of his chest and placed it on the metal tray next to the bed. "Would you care if he died?"

I glanced at Travis, lying quite still on the bed, his chest barely moving as he breathed.

"Not really."

Saffron tore a strip of tissue paper from a roll and wiped her hands with it.

"He is in love with you."