Don’t do it. Don’t give in to me. I’m not playing fair.
I hover closer, so he can sense the deceit hiding behind my eyes. Cy meets me halfway, and his lips seal the half-uttered don’t that I bite between my teeth. He rises up to meet me and the kiss is more fierce than I intended. I put sorry and good-bye and forgive me and I’ll explain later into it. When it’s too much, I put a firm hand on his chest.
“Why do you keep pushing me away?” he gasps into my ear as we both recover.
“I need to breathe.” My chest sucks in the air around us. Maybe I can take in some of the molecules from Cy’s soft exhalation of disappointment, hold them in my bloodstream for a little while. An intravenous caress.
“So,” I remind him. “Can I use just a little? Please? It’ll help me get my work done.”
He nods into my hair and pushes away from the table. “I’ll get a few cc’s. It’s all you need.” And he leaves. I wish I had a year to recover from that one minute with him, but I don’t. The green lights are still on the drawers when I jump off the table. A half second before the door shuts, I thrust a metal box of gauze to prevent it from clicking closed. It works; the drawer lights stay green.
I scan through the neat labels on them, yanking open the one marked SEDATIVES. Intravenous, sublingual, pills. Ah, perfect. Transdermal. I grab three vials of fentocaine, reading the labels and quickly doing the mental math. I’ve got enough to knock out an elephant or two if it makes contact with skin. They disappear neatly into the waistband of my pants. I yank away the box holding the door open, and the door shuts.
Two minutes later, Cy’s back. We both lighten the discussion to alternative dessert picks and those least likely to injure me. Cy adds three drops of his purple brew to my hand, and I feel the tissues stitching themselves together. A few blinks later, there is no cut, but the redness is still there. While he studies the healing cut, he finds the black dot tattooed on my fingertip.
“Here, I can get rid of that,” he says, grabbing the bottle from the countertop. I jerk my hand away.
“No.” I hold my hand protectively away from him. “I want to keep it.” When Cy looks at me confused, I add, “It’s a souvenir. You know, of our first kiss.”
He places my hand on his chest. “But you have me.”
I stare at my knees, not wanting him to see the truth in my eyes. This dot may be all I have to remember him by. “I know I’m being silly.”
Instead of agreeing with me as he should, Cy kisses the dot on my fingertip and smiles. I curl my hand closed, feeling the warm tingle of healing flesh under my fingertips. When I open them, I can barely find the cut anymore.
“You’re amazing,” I say.
“I didn’t earn that trait.” He cleans up the room and shuts the lights off with a wave of his hand. “It’s like being born pretty. You don’t earn that either. It’s a shame people get better things in life because of something so random.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say blithely. As we walk down the hallway, Cy pulls my newly healed hand and looks at me quizzically.
“You should. You’re beautiful.”
My lips flatten into a hard line. “By all objective definitions, I’m not.”
“Are we going to fight over this?”
“Absolutely not. I appreciate your delusional conviction. Come on.” I tug him forward when Wilbert rounds the bend holding a groaning Callie.
“She looks bad,” I say. “I guess Cy’s stuff didn’t work?”
Wilbert shifts her in his arms gently, but Callie still squeals in discomfort. “It did. Her joints are better, but everything else is going to pot.” He gives me a desperate look that only I understand. My elixir of DNA scissors and clasps are done, neatly hidden in a back shelf of the lab. There are two full batches. I still haven’t fulfilled my end of the bargain.
Marka’s voice enters the hallway. “Cy?”
“I’m here with her.”
Her. They talk behind my back so much, they don’t even need to use my name.
“I know. Can you bring your last formula copy to me? I’m having problems accessing your files.”
“Sure. Zelia and I will be by.”
“No, no. You go ahead,” I say. “Wilbert wanted me to explain my whole DNA clasp thing again, right?” Wilbert tries not to act surprised and confused, but luckily Callie starts squeal/whining, taking everyone’s attention away.
“Okay. I’ll be back soon,” Cy says. He’s gone in a second, but they could be listening, so I keep my voice low.
“Wilbert,” I whisper. “You ready to try some elixir on Callie?”
“You’re done?” His eyes pull together with disbelief. “I thought you had a while to go.”
“I’ve a ton of more cycles to go, but I’ve enough that it’s worth a try now,” I say, keeping a casual tone.
To my relief, he buys it. We bring Callie down the hallway to my lab for the shot. One pig-wrestling hold later, we’re ready to go.
“One small step for pig-kind,” he jokes nervously.
I grab one of her little split-hoofed feet, only a bit bigger than my finger, and inject a syringe filled with the concentrated liquid of enzymes and DNA clasps. It’s not enough for a grown human, but maybe for this little porker. She hardly fights it this time, and afterward Wilbert puts her down and Callie walks away, oblivious to the bioengineered drug inside her.
“She might need several treatments to get to each and every cell,” I caution. We both watch her schlump over with exhaustion, as if the weight of the small-pig world is on her body. “Huh. I wish we could make it work faster.”
Oh. The bio-accelerant. It could work. I know what concentrations they had used on lab animals at my last job.
“Wait here, I have an idea.” I pull open one of the refrigerators and draw up a small syringe of the accelerant that Cy had finished that morning. Wilbert is reluctant to give Callie a second injection until I explain what it is. After it’s all over, we observe her closely.
“I hope it works,” he says. “She’s been acting kind of senile lately.” On cue, Callie starts licking the wall. Well, maybe the accelerant is a dud after all.
I put a hand on Wilbert’s arm. “Listen, don’t tell anyone about Callie. I want it to be a surprise next week. You know? The experiment on Callie will be icing on the cake.”
“Of course. Hey, look.” He points. Callie is trotting around the room with her curly tail up and possessing more energy than I’ve seen in a while. Wow, maybe the combination of treatments is working after all. I wish I could find out, but my internal clock says I don’t have time.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Wilbert yelps. “The doors are all locked, you know.”
“Wilbert.” I force a smile. “I’m going to get dessert.”
“Oh. I’ll go with you.”
Of course you will. The babysitting continues. But not for long.
CHAPTER 25
“I USED TO MAKE THESE FOR MY DAD,” I say.
Wilbert pokes the cookie with his index finger. “They look like little poo cakes. Like when Callie eats too much roughage.”
“Please don’t associate my cookies with Callie’s bowel movements,” I chide. Callie seems to agree. She’s still trotting around, prancing almost. I’m quietly thrilled. The elixir and bio-accelerant are working, and on the first try. Externally, I’m a nervous wreck, but Wilbert doesn’t notice my shaking fingers as I turn to the ion oven.
“What are these?” Marka sweeps in, following her nose.