Second Nature

Chapter 3

"I didn't burn the tree," he said. "Instead, I examined it closely. Not a trace of mitobots remained in the tissues, but they had definitely spread there earlier." 

"Oh, God." 

He shook his head. "No, no, they didn't harm it. Quite the opposite. When I smuggled in the tree, I had just pruned a branch-remember that dime-sized wound on the trunk? Blight had infected the branch and I was actually quite worried about the tree's health. Then you returned it and I almost didn't believe my eyes-the branch had regenerated! It was whole and perfect." 

"Really?"  

He nodded. "I believe the mitobots inside you only protect living tissue. They're not killers, they're healers." 

Her heart pounded with a thrill of hope. "But...they say I'm deadly, a plague. Col. Eberhard-" 

"He's terrified of anything so far beyond his understanding or control. And he's trying to keep you from wanting to escape. See? He knows you'll willingly remain his prisoner, rather than endanger the world." 

Toshi's words filled Gen's head like pure oxygen; dizzying and enlivening. "If that's true...oh, Toshi!" Just the possibility that she was not a threat to the world made tears of joy leap from her eyes. "That would be so wonderful!" 

"I need to make one more test," he said. "Do you trust me?" 

She stared at her one true friend. His face looked older than she had pictured, but more handsome. Streaks of white marked his dark hair like chalk lines on a blackboard. To her surprise, he wore his hair long; it hung past his shoulders in a thick ponytail. Now his gaze held hers with a warmth that penetrated to her soul, and laugh-lines rippled at the corners of his eyes, as if someone had dropped pebbles into two deep pools.  

"Toshi, you're the only person I do trust." 

He took a scalpel out of his tunic pocket. "You know the old cowboy movies? Where someone cuts into a snake bite and sucks out the venom?" 

She drew back. "What are you going to do?" 

"I need to get a sample of your blood into my body, quickly. Cowboy or vampire, whatever-I need to drink a bit of your blood." 

She grimaced and took another step backward. "No!" 

"I've got to see what your mitobots do to me. Inside me." 

She shook her head. "I can't let you be a guinea pig. What if-" 

"Gen, listen to me. The colonel is planning to kill you." 

Her jaw dropped open. 

"Tomorrow," he said. "Just a few hours from now." 

She tried, but couldn't catch her breath. 

"His team is planning to freeze you with liquid nitrogen, then truck you to a remote desert site and detonate an H-bomb, blow you to smithereens." 

Her emotions derailed like a runaway train. She staggered backward and plopped into a chair. Her stomach knotted until it seemed the size of a fist. "W-why?" 

Toshi knelt on the steel floor in front of her. "I've told you, Eberhard is terrified. The diamond structure of your latest mitobots-they're practically invulnerable. With that kind of power, Eberhard can't let you live. The important thing is, we've got to get you out of here tonight."  

He reached for her arm. "Let me do this test. I've got to be sure Eberhard is as paranoid as I think he is." 

She twisted away. "If I am a threat to the world..." The thought made her hate herself violently. "I should be destroyed." A storm rumbled deep in her chest and sobs poured out like a cloudburst. She hung her head and tears rained down in her lap. 

"What if you're not a threat?" Toshi said. "Gen. Look up. Gen..." Toshi was crying softly now. "I won't let them kill you." 

The full implication of her friend's sacrifice hit her. Toshi was betting his life on his belief in her; willing to risk death to prove it was safe to set her free. 

"Toshi, no. What if-?" 

"Then I'll be dead, and you won't get anywhere without the air lock code I hacked from the Colonel's computer." He held her gaze. "And you'll know, Gen. You'll finally know." 

Gen sniffed and wiped at her tears. Then she slowly extended her left arm. "You are a dear, brave man."  

He gripped her arm firmly and sliced a deep gash across the wrist. The radial artery squirted a fountain of blood and he bent and clamped his mouth over it and sucked the stream down his throat, swallowing deeply. Within seconds, her wound closed and healed over, without a scar. 

"It's done." He stood, wiping scarlet gore from his lips and chin. "The mitobots from your bloodstream are definitely inside me now. We'll wait a few minutes. If I start to melt into a blob, we'll know I'm wrong, and Eberhard is just an asshole, not a paranoid asshole." 

She didn't laugh at his gallows humor. "Toshi. No. Please don't say that." She jumped up and threw her arms around him. His body was warm, soft on the surface and harder just underneath; pliant, living. Real. Not a photograph. She burst into fresh sobs. It was the first time in her life she'd ever felt the exquisite joy of a human embrace. It felt unbelievably nice. Better than she had imagined-and she'd imagined it uncountable times. 

The two clung to each other for a timeless moment. Toshi's heat enveloped Gen like rays from the sun she had never known. The fragrance of his skin and hair reached down into the valley of her heart, where a deep river of affection flowed. 

Finally, Toshi pulled away. Tears streaked his face. "See? I'm still here." He checked his watch. "Six minutes. By now your mitobots, if they were going to, would have chewed holes through me like Swiss cheese." 

"How can you be sure they still won't?" 

He shrugged. "I doubt they'll even stay in my system. They invaded the bonsai tree, right? But they didn't stay. You're their home, Gen, their mother ship. They thrive only inside you, where they belong." 

She sighed. "I just pray you're right." 

He grinned. "Trust me, I'm Japanese-we make very smart scientists." 

She started to protest, but he turned toward the airlock. "Put on your shoes," he said over his shoulder. "Our getaway dirt bike is waiting." 

"A motorcycle?" She hurriedly tugged canvas sneakers onto bare feet. 

"I cut a slot in the fence," he said. "We're heading through the desert." 

"You know how to drive a motorcycle?" 

He turned back and winked. "You're looking at the 1980 High-School All-Japan Motocross Champion." 

Her eyes flashed like violet flares. "Dr. Yamato, I never realized you were so much fun."