Strange Light

Ishcate

"This has to stop."

"You said you needed more research subjects."

"Don't mock me. If you want to help me with that, get me more rabbits."

"We fixed it."

"You fixed her. The issue remains. It's fucking ridiculous."

"If we knew how it was happening," Norman said patiently, "that little girl wouldn't have caught it."

"But what?"

"But we don't know."

"And that," Ishcate said coldly, as if reading his mind, "is not what I study."

She moved across the lab to where a PCR was humming, running human RNA through cycle after cycle. It was working steadily to amplify one gene. Just one surly gene out of the millions in the human body, and it had already caused everyone so much pain, worry, blood, and money. She glanced at the machine and her gaze lingered, as if she was remembering how much that one gene had cost.

"That poor kid," she said.

Norman had been leaning against a counter. He straightened and stretched out his lower back.

"It doesn't hurt," he reminded her.

"It can."

"We don't know that."

"Just because it's an infection and not a gene doesn't mean it won't hurt."

"If your research subjects are any indication, it doesn't hurt," Norman said soothingly.

"Flopsy and Mopsy are not human children."

"How many do you have right now?"

Ishcate have him a frustrated glance, as if she recognized that he was trying to distract her and keep her from thinking about the eleven-year-old girl who had accidentally become infected.

"Eighteen. Ten newborns."

"How are they?"

"Get yourself a dog, Norm, you're not touching my rabbits," Ishcate told him sharply, but her gaze softened. Norman might have been a hulking mass of a man who carried a gun, but he did love the rabbits in her lab. A little too much. Despite her constant warnings, he not only checked up on them frequently, he committed the biggest laboratory taboo in the entire field: He named them.

"Snowball," she reminded him, "isn't a pet."

"Snowball?" Norman sniffed derisively. "I would never name an animal something so silly. It's Samantha."

Ishcate turned away. She had nothing pressing to do until the PCR finished running, and it would take another half an hour, but she didn't want to talk to Norman anymore. Everyone in the program was running in circles trying to figure out why kids in the area kept getting infected, and everyone was worried it was going to spread until parents started figuring out that they weren't the only ones waiting for the children to clear a weird virus. There could be a panic of outbreak, which was the last thing the program needed.

"Ishcate," Norman said gently, calling her attention back to him. "I didn't mean to imply that it's your fault."

"I know. Are you guilty about it, though?"

"You make me feel guilty about everything I do."

She turned around, letting her eyes fall over Norman in the way that sent shivers down his back.

There wasn't anything particularly special about Ishcate's appearance. In fact, if she and Norman stood side-by-side, it was Norman that would be labeled extraordinary for his immense height and broad shoulders. Ishcate looked average, and misleadingly so.

"Can you see it?" he asked her, as she looked him over.

"No."

"Have you made any advances-"

"I'm exploring retinal proteins."

"I thought you said it was neurological."

"Yeah, but did you know that 30% of the human genome just encodes for the brain? That's too many proteins to dig through."

"So... you're lazy," Norman said.

"Yeah." Ishcate turned away from him. "I'm a scientist, laziness has led to some of the greatest discoveries in history."

"Like what?"

"Dishwashers. Lawn mowers. Lint rollers."

Norman's phone buzzed and interrupted Ishcate's list. She fell silent and watched him check the screen. His face changed.

"What," she said.

"Emergency," he mumbled.

"What emergency?"

"You know I can't tell you."

Ishcate did, of course, know that. But she still stuck out her bottom lip. She and Norman were irrevocably tied by the secret they knew. They worked together on several things. Her work in the lab and his job in the government crossed paths consistently, and they both went to bi-weekly meetings to discuss the terrible thing they were involved in. But she was still just a scientist, and he was a joint investigator for the FBI and CDC. He was privy to information about developing events that she was not.

Even his visit today was just cordial. She knew what had happened to Emma Kate- she had offered to help develop the antiviral given to those who had been infected in the small, terrifying new outbreak. Norman came by to explain the circumstances and tell her more about Emma Kate herself. He didn't have to do that, and Ishcate was grateful. She knew it was, partially at least, pity. He knew what she was, and the way he looked at her sometimes, in a mixture of sympathy and fear, made her want to cry in frustration.

She wouldn't. She was too old for crying. There had been enough of that in the past.

"I have to go," Norman said. "It's-"

But Ishcate had already walked away.