Fugue: The Cure (2 page)

She gathered her overcoat and umbrella from the maître d’ and stepped back out into the light drizzle that made the Arouet Provinces famous as the wettest place in the entire system second only to Paxilla; as that planet had been engulfed by its oceans.

At this late hour, the streets were nearly deserted. She would have to walk a few blocks to get to the main thoroughfare in order to catch a taxi home. Severn was supposed to take her home but, when called away unexpectedly, knew better than to offer to leave a car for her. She worked her way up to a senior administrator position in the hospital on her own. She did not need help from anyone. And she had spent enough time in Arouet, while attending the local medical college, that she could find her way around the city blindfolded.

She walked a couple of blocks in the misty rain and rounded the corner. She jumped in surprise as she nearly collided with a man standing on the sidewalk.

He took a step backward. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to startle you.”

She smiled at him. “That’s okay. I was lost in thought and should have been paying more attention.”

Just as she was about to pass him, he looked at her curiously.

“Excuse me ma’am, are you Elizabeth Cureaux?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Elizabeth Cureaux?”

“Yes. Do I know you?”

Someone grabbed her from behind as the man placed a black bag over her head. She smelled the sweet scent of ether right before she lost consciousness.

When she woke, she still had the black bag over her head. Her mouth was devoid of moisture and her throat burned as she swallowed dryly. She lifted her head and felt the rough scraping of the ropes on her bare arms as she struggled to move in the chair she found herself bound.

Someone ripped the bag off her head and she shut her eyes against the blinding light of the morning sun. The sound of boots echoed on the wooden floor, followed by the ruffle of a window shade as it was pulled down to mute the sunlight.

Her eyes adjusted to the room’s dimmer light, but the pounding in her head was only made worse when she swiveled her neck to look around the small room. With the exception of the chair she was in, there was no other furniture in the bare room. The man with the boots let go of the shade pull-string, walked over to her and bent down. “How are we feeling?”

She swirled her tongue around her dry mouth. “I could use a glass of water.”

Boots had obviously done this to other people before. He was already holding a glass of water in one hand. He held it to her mouth so she could drink and looked into her eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

She gulped hungrily at the water until she was satisfied. Only then did she answer him. “Your picture is posted prominently in every police station, government building, and hospital. I am supposed to alert the authorities immediately if I see you. I am guessing we are far enough away from the city proper that if I started screaming, nobody would be breaking down that door to rescue me.”

“You may think you know who I am, but you only know what you have been told. You don’t know the real me.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you Atlas Croft? Leader of the terrorist group, La Guérison?”

He bowed with a flourish of his hand.

“Well then, I am not instilled with confidence that you are a man of your word.”

“My name means, ‘He who dares.’ It is from the texts of ancient Earth mythology. You see, Atlas led the Titans in a rebellion against Zeus and the other Greek gods, much like I am leading a rebellion against the Empire, and our leaders who act like they are gods; like they are somehow better than the rest of us.

“For his punishment, Atlas was condemned to bear the weight of the heavens upon his shoulders. And like that Atlas of long ago, so do I bear the weight of all the worlds in the colonies on my shoulders. It is my responsibility to succeed in our campaign against the oppressors, even as the Atlas of mythology failed.”

“That’s quite a god complex you have there. In my book, your still public enemy number one. But kidnapping is not among your usual repertoire. So it begs the question, what do you want with me?”

He grinned. “You are going to get my associate out of the hospital.”

“That criminal they brought in last night is one of yours?” She shook her head. “He is sequestered on his own floor and under heavy guard. Sorry, I can’t help you. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

“I had the bright idea of appealing to your humanity, or sense of moral obligation, but time is of the essence, so I decided this would be quicker.”

He held up a needle and syringe in his other hand.

She laughed. “I’m a doctor. You’re going to have to find something scarier than that if you want to frighten me.”

“It is not the needle you should be afraid of, it’s what’s inside.” He stabbed the needle into her arm and her muscle twinged involuntarily. “Within six hours, you will start to feel the effects. Within 12 hours, you will become contagious. Within 24 hours it will be too late to administer the antidote, of which only I possess.”

She struggled against the ropes. “Why are you doing this to me? I can’t… I’m just a doctor. I can’t sneak a patient out from under the noses of the constables.”

“I think you will try.” He stood up and inspected the spent syringe. “What I infected you with is something new. It took us months to develop an antidote. You don’t have that kind of time. You do what I ask and I will give it to you.”

“If I do this, how do I know I can trust you to give me the antidote?”

“Because I am not your enemy. I am the enemy of the Empire, and the Empire is the enemy of the people it subjugates. Since I am the enemy of your enemy, that makes me your friend.”

He went around behind her and untied the ropes. They dropped to the floor, but she did not stand up. “Why me?”

“I need somebody who has unlimited access to the hospital, and a get out of jail free card from the Chief Constable. I know of only one person on the planet who meets those requirements.”

“You are seriously overestimating my relationship with the Chief Constable.”

“No. I do not think I am.”

She looked up at the most wanted man in all the colonies. He looked softer, gentler, in person than the blurry pictures associated with the depiction of a madman in the newswires.

“I’m curious about something. You call your group La Guérison. Is that French for garrison?”

He smiled. “It is French, yes, but it means healing. It is not a military term.”

“Healing?”

“The Empire is sick, and we are the cure.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out to her. “Here, your nose is bleeding.”

She pressed the handkerchief against her nose and pulled it away. The white handkerchief was stained a crimson red.

“Don’t worry. The bleeding will stop in a minute. It just indicates that the infection is complete.”

He pulled a TravelCard from his other pocket and held it out to her. “This is a one-way ticket on the shuttle to Arcadia. It leaves tonight at 8 PM. Make sure my friend is on it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You’re the doctor. What is the survival rate for unknown alien diseases around here?”

Elizabeth stood across the street from the hospital. She fiddled with the TravelCard and noticed her hand was shaking. She took three deep breaths to steady her nerves and slipped the TravelCard in a pocket.

She walked across the street and into the hospital like it was any other day. As soon as she crossed through the front doors, she made a beeline for her office. If she could get the standard white doctor smock over her clothes, nobody would notice she wore the same thing as yesterday.

Linda, her assistant, spotted her from the other end of the hallway. “Liz!”

Elizabeth ducked her head and tried to make it to her office before she caught up with her, but Linda was faster.

“Liz. There is something you have to see.”

Linda walked into the office right behind her and closed the door. Elizabeth went straight for her white coat and put it on.

Linda tossed the folder she was carrying onto Elizabeth’s desk. “Take a look at these lab results.”

Elizabeth picked up the folder and read it. While she did, Linda kept talking. “That man the constables brought in last night underwent surgery for four hours to extract the bullet from his shoulder. During that time, we administered a full transfusion because of the loss of blood from both the initial wound and the surgery.”

She could not think about anything right now, other than how her own life hung in the balance unless she figured out a way to get an injured prisoner, under constant guard, out of the hospital, and onto that shuttle; before whatever that terrorist injected into her killed her. She looked up from the folder. “I have a lot of work to do, Linda. Can you show me this later?”

Linda ignored her. “As per protocol, I ran the full gamut of tests before ordering blood from the bank.”

She shut the folder. “Come back later. I’m busy right now.”

Linda snatched the folder out of her hand, opened it, and shoved it in her face, pointing to a single result among the list of lab tests. “Look!”

She focused on the too close lab report. “He tested negative for something. So what?”

“Look what he tested negative for.”

She read it.

Then she read it again.

She looked up at Linda. “That can’t be right.”

“I had enough of his blood to run a second test. It came up negative also.”

“Something is wrong with the test.”

Linda shook her head. “That’s what I thought, so I withdrew some of my own blood and ran it through. I tested positive for Scalars, just like everybody else. Everybody but him.”

A thought occurred to Elizabeth. “The transfusion…”

Linda nodded. “That’s what I thought too. Everyone has traces of Scalars in their blood, even blood donors. I took a sample from him right after the surgery and then again a little over an hour ago. He had trace amounts of Scalars in his blood right after surgery.”

“Where’s the lab work from an hour ago?”

Linda pointed to the folder in her hands. “You’re looking at it.”

She stared at the report, not really seeing it. “You’re telling me the patient does not have Scalars now?”

“I’m telling you his body killed off the Scalars we put in him with the blood transfusion.”

“That’s why they want him,” Elizabeth whispered to herself.

“What?”

She remembered Linda was still in the room with her and snapped the folder shut. “Good work Linda. Have you told anyone else about this?”

Linda shook her head. “Nobody else would believe me.”

Elizabeth tapped the folder with a finger. “Good. We need a bigger sample of his blood. We need to find out how he fought off Scalars.”

Linda hesitated for a moment; her face registered an internal battle taking place inside her head. Elizabeth had seen this look before. “You have something else to tell me Linda?”

“That’s not the only strange thing about our patient. He has a tattoo of sheet music on his back.”

“People tattoo weird things on themselves all the time.”

“What he has tattooed on his back is a fugue, a style of music. My father was in the Voltaire Symphony and I went with him to his daily practices the whole time I was growing up, so I know a little bit about classical music and am very familiar with this particular fugue. But there were extra notes on it that didn’t belong. I copied down the letters that correspond to those notes. It’s on the second piece of paper.”

Elizabeth flipped to the next page in the folder.

She looked up at Linda. “This looks like part of a chemical formula.”

Linda nodded her head slightly. “The rest was unreadable because of the gunshot wound. Do you think this is what he injected himself with to kill Scalars?”

“He injected himself with something?”

“I overheard the constables talking. They say that right before they arrested him, he injected something into his arm. They figured he was some kind of drug addict getting his last fix before going to jail.”

Elizabeth set the folder down on her desk. “I want to run some more tests. But I can’t do it with the constables watching. Do you think you could help me move him?”

Linda shook her head. “They’ve increased the number of guards outside his room. I don’t know if they will let us move him.”

“If he somehow knows the cure, or even is the cure, he just might be the answer I have been searching for my entire life. I can be the one to rid the Empire of Scalars once and for all.”

She stared into Linda’s eyes as a smile broke across her face. “We can be the ones to eliminate Scalars.”

“I am just your research assistant. I do not need to share in your glory. I will have plenty of time after you retire to find my own glory. But if it means not having to endure the annual immunization shot ever again, then I will do whatever it takes to help you.”

Her smile faded as she realized what was needed to keep the patient out of the Empire’s hands. “I can’t ask you to break the law.”

“Any law that would keep us from finding a cure is a law I will not follow.”

Elizabeth smiled again at Linda. She had always known she had picked the right assistant to help her in her research. But now she was glad she had picked someone who had become a friend as well.

“I need to get him away from the constables.”

Linda smiled back. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

Elizabeth walked down the hallway toward the prisoner’s room. There were constables stationed every few feet along the hallway in addition to the two in front of his door.

As soon as she stopped at the door, the bigger of the two constables held up a hand. “I’m sorry ma’am. Nobody is allowed inside.”

She gave the constable a hard stare. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes ma’am. But the order comes from Chief Constable Blaine himself. No exceptions.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Are you sure you want to explain to the Chief Constable how you let the prisoner die because you withheld necessary medical care?”