When we arrived in New York City, I was taken completely by surprise by its sheer size.
After hours of driving, we'd arrived at some swampy industrial wasteland, then Chris drove inside this long dark tunnel, and when we finally emerged we were surrounded by soaring buildings packed so tightly together it felt like we were in the bottom of a perfectly vertical canyon made of concrete and glass.
And there were people everywhere. Healthy-looking people. Or at least a lot of the people on the sidewalks couldn't have been later than stage one, which meant that a decent portion of them must not have been infected at all.
So there was hope.
That's not to say that the place wasn't crawling with stage threes, though.
They were everywhere, too. It was just that in New York people seemed to have become accustomed to their presence. In fact, they pretty much ignored them. In every other alleyway and on every other stoop, three or four stage threes were obliviously going at it. And when any one of them tried to approach someone who looked healthy, they just pushed them out of the way and kept walking. I saw one obviously very late-stage three stumble up to a woman in a long overcoat, and she kicked him, really hard, and went on her way. The stage three stumbled against pile of trash bags, then just wandered off, apparently looking for another stage three to get it on with.
Right away Chris asked for directions to the city's largest hospital. We definitely stood out when we pulled into a place called Mount Sinai Medical Center in Ruben's pickup, pulling a domed camper trailer.
Chris rushed into the emergency room, approached the first doctor he saw, and explained in medical terms I couldn't understand that he'd discovered an effective treatment for TGV.
"We need to start treating positives as soon as possible," Chris said excitedly. "And by soon I mean months ago."
The ER doctor looked at Chris as if he were crazy.
"Um, yeah, kid," she said distractedly. "If this stuff actually works in the long term"—the doctor held the plastic container with my dad's amygdalae at arm's length as if it were a rancid diaper—"which I highly doubt, you can request to have it fast-tracked through the FDA. But even that takes months. They're downtown, though. Make sure not to take a wrong turn at I'm-Crazy-As-Hell Street."
With this, the doctor handed back the plastic container and hurried off to treat a patient on a gurney, obviously already dead. "Make sure he goes to the re-animation ward!" she snapped at an intern. "And keep him on a heart monitor for a week this time, God damn it! I don't want any more damn wakers in the morgue this week!"
Chris looked totally dejected. He tried handing over my dad's honey-blood to three other doctors, and then a weary-looking nurse.
"I've been keeping this at body temperature for days," Chris cried out. "Finally the trillions of TGVx parasites have fled the amygdala and into the blood! I scoped the honey half an hour ago! It's ready! And who knows how long this stuff will last outside a human body! "
But everyone brushed him off.
"Are you kidding me?" the nurse scoffed. "You think we'd really just start injecting people with goop that some asshole brought in off the street? You know how busy I am right now? Screw off!"
Chris was crestfallen. I followed him out of the ER, put my hand in his shoulder, and said, "It's okay. We'll find another way."
He shrugged off my hand. "There is no other way, Ash. If the hospitals won't be willing to treat people for months, we're too late. That's it. It's over. We tried, but we lost."
Without waiting for the traffic light, Chris moped across the street and stepped into the first establishment he saw that looked like it served a drink.
This happened to be a dingy dive bar with only a few tables and even fewer patrons at this early hour. He tossed my dad's honey-blood onto the bar unceremoniously. Inside, my dad's amygdala had dissolved away into a pair of pale wisps of tissue. The bartender looked at the plastic container warily. I sat in the stool next to Chris.
"Vodka," Chris ordered. "Double."
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Please VOTE 🌟 before continuing. xxBailey