The Harvest (4 page)

Shane was still suspicious of their rescuers;
too many people’s safety was at stake for him not to be. He
realized he couldn’t rely on his big friend’s help in figuring out
what was going on, at least not with the ladies. Steve could face
down a herd of the most vicious footballers without flinching, but
he always turned to mush in the presence of a pretty girl.

Dr. Blain was an exact replica of Lily,
identical in every way except one of her eyes was an icy blue
color, the other the same honey brown as Lily’s. A wave of nausea
washed over him. It must’ve shown on his face because the doctor
rushed to his side and put a hand on his forehead.

“You’ve got an infection,” she observed with
concern. “We need to seal your wounds and get some antibiotics in
you.”

She gently helped roll Shane onto his side
and used scissors to cut his shirt off.

“If you’ve got a weak stomach, you may want
to step out,” she said to Steve without looking away from her
work.

The door opened and shut, Steve clearly
taking the invitation to leave, probably too embarrassed by his
squeamishness to say anything about it to Shane. In his weakened
condition, with his shirt off and the laceration in his shoulder
exposed, he felt nervous being left alone with this slightly less
perfect clone of Lily.

“Relax,” she said softly, her attention on
his wound. “I’ll get you fixed up and out with your friends before
lunch.”

Not like he had a choice. He felt like crap
and could tell he wasn’t going to get any better without help.

“What about my friends? They’ve got injuries
too.”

“I’ll get to them all, but Lily seems to
think yours are the worst and need immediate attention,” she
replied.

He hadn’t thought so earlier, but with the
way he felt right now, he was starting to agree with her.

After cutting his shirt to shreds and
removing it without making him move his arm, she prepared two shots
on the bedside table.

“One of these will ease your pain, and the
other will knock out the infection,” she explained, inverting
little glass vials and filling the syringes.

Of course, she could be filling them with
poison for all he knew. Keeping his face blank, he stared at the
ceiling. He didn’t want to let on how much he hated needles—he’d
rather be punched in the face than get a shot. The first injection
in the shoulder must’ve been the painkiller, because he didn’t even
feel the second one. The doctor moved around the examination room,
gathering supplies to treat his injuries. By the time she returned
to his side, Shane felt a million times better. The pain medicine
didn’t cloud his consciousness. He was fully awake and a bit
nervous as he watched her remove the last of the blood-soaked gauze
from his chest.

“At least you got some betadine on this,” she
said. “It might’ve gotten a lot worse otherwise.”

Thanks to Tracy’s first aid knowledge
,
Shane thought, trying to ignore the smell of blood and keep his
eyes on the ceiling.

Dr. Blain squirted a numbing solution on the
wound and dabbed it with clean gauze. Curiosity won out, and he got
a clear view of the jagged cut Steve gave him. It was a bloody
mess, like two long strips of poorly butchered steak lay on his
chest and shoulder. What appeared to be a rib was visible at the
bottom of this meat valley, and his collarbone had to be exposed at
the top. Nausea returned in a hot flash, his mouth filling with
metallic saliva.

“Maybe you should look the other way,” Dr.
Blain advised.

Rolling his head toward the wall, he closed
his eyes, breathing slow and deep to recover. He felt no pain as
Dr. Blain scrubbed his wound, though the sound of the bristles on
the brush she was using to scrape it clean only increased his
nausea. Then came a humming sound accompanied by soothing warmth
around the injury. He kept his eyes closed, his teeth clamped shut.
Determined not to get sick, he thought of Kelly, of being strong
for her. He wished she were here with him now, but he also didn’t
want her to see him acting so weak.

Daring a glance at his chest, he saw Dr.
Blain moving a pencil-sized tool over his gash. It was white, with
a silver button near its tip, which she depressed with her
forefinger. Blue light projected from a small, glass ball floating
an inch in front of the device, fanning out and illuminating his
injury.

Amazement swept away his nausea and disgust
at viewing his insides. Under the effervescent light, the damaged
tissue in his shoulder and chest regenerated. Lacerated blood
vessels elongated and reconnected, muscle tissue reformed, and the
jagged sides of the wound rejoined from the bottom up. Dr. Blain
moved the light slowly over the area, and the laceration closed,
leaving fresh, unblemished skin in its wake.

Although he experienced no pain, the sight of
his miraculous healing was more than he could bear in his weakened
state. He fought to stay alert, but a haze closed in on his vision,
and then darkness.

Opening his eyes, Shane glanced frantically
around the white walls and ceiling of the room. It took a second
for him to gain his bearings, to remember he was in the medical
clinic on a military base hidden somewhere in the Appalachian
Mountains.

Dr. Blain sat on a stool a couple of feet
from him, typing on a computer that seemed entirely created of
light. A holographic screen hovered in front of her, both it and
the keyboard projecting from a dice-sized silver cube. Technology
he’d never seen or heard of. He expected the government had things
they didn’t share with the public, but the advanced computer she
used and the healing pen that closed his wounds were full-on
science fiction.

Glancing down at his bare chest, he was
stunned by her work. The cuts and bruises Steve gave him were gone.
A streak of white, hairless flesh was where his injuries had once
been. His new skin looked like it belonged on a baby, all soft and
delicate.

Shane pivoted, the padding of the examination
table squeaking under him as he sat upright. He braced himself,
expecting to feel dizzy and weak. Instead, he was refreshed, as if
he’d woken from a good night’s sleep, and the trauma to his body
had never occurred.

“All better?” Dr. Blain asked, smiling at him
compassionately and sounding a little proud of herself.

“Uh,” he glanced down at his rejuvenated body
once more, “I reckon so.”

“See—told you. And well before lunch.”

He had trouble focusing on her different
colored eyes. His stomach growled, and he realized he hadn’t even
had breakfast.

“I don’t get it. How did you do this?” He ran
his right hand over the smooth place were the laceration had
been.

“Let’s just say we have toys not everyone is
familiar with.” Dr. Blain grinned. “Here are fresh clothes for you.
If you’ll get dressed and go to the waiting room, I can patch up
your friends.”

Pushing off the exam table, his bare feet
landed on the cold, tile floor. He hadn’t noticed until this point,
but he was only in his underwear. During the helicopter ride, blood
had leaked out of his bandage, dripping all the way down to his
knee. She must’ve thought his leg was injured and had cut away his
pants to treat him.

Embarrassed, his hands shot down to offer
some extra coverage, but Dr. Blain was focused on her typing, so
there was no cause for alarm. On a chair at the foot of the exam
table sat neatly folded clothes. Fresh socks, underwear, running
shorts, and a T-shirt, all black, awaited him. Glancing at the
doctor once more and satisfied she wouldn’t look his way, he turned
his back to her and slipped out of his skivvies—which also had
blood drying on them. He donned the new clothes as quickly as
possible. Black running shoes lay on the floor in front of the
chair, the last things he put on.

Once dressed, he looked at the doctor. She
didn’t turn away from her computer, affording him the same trust
Lily had in turning her back on him at the farmhouse. She was using
her finger to mark the areas where his wounds had been on a
holographic image of him. Embarrassed at how detailed his likeness
was but also in awe of the advanced technology, he slipped out of
the door and into the waiting room.

“Wow,” Steve exclaimed, his eyes wide with
disbelief. “You look like a new man.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, plopping into a chair
next to him. “That woman is a magician. You’re next, big guy—get in
there.”

Steve gave him a worried look, and Shane
nodded toward the examination room.

“Don’t worry—she doesn’t bite,” he said,
smiling. “Though I bet you wish she did.”

“You’re an ass,” Steve replied, the reddening
in his cheeks obvious, though his face was bruised and swollen.

The linebacker rose to his feet with a grunt.
His injuries may not have been as visible as Shane’s were, but with
the way he staggered to the exam room door, he reckoned Steve was
in no little amount of pain. Shane remembered hitting him hard more
than once. He expected Steve had a few broken ribs, not to mention
his nose was pointed in the wrong direction.

Alone in the air-conditioned waiting room,
Shane revisited the questions lingering in his mind. He leaned back
in the chair, embracing the opportunity to rest his eyes for a
second.

Although they seemed extremely nice and had
done nothing but good to this point, something was off with their
rescuers. He guessed they’d get some answers soon. There was no way
they’d keep him in the dark for much longer, or they had to know
they’d have trouble on their hands. After all, Maurice and most of
the others in his group still had their guns, and the black-suited
adults on this military base seemed unarmed and well outnumbered.
Shane wished he still had his M-16, even though his instincts told
him he wouldn’t need it.

A noise roused him—Steve strolling out of the
exam room. Shane sat upright, studying his friend. His nose was
straight, and his facial bruises gone.

“She’s freaking awesome!”

“Told ya,” Shane replied, jealous that he got
to keep his clothes. The black shorts were rather thin and didn’t
cover much—good for running, but not much else.

The white door leading to the tarmac opened,
and Tracy and Laura entered.

“Holy crap!” Tracy stopped, her eyes wide.
“How’d you guys get fixed up so fast?”

“You’ll see,” Shane replied, pointing at the
exam room. “Let’s just say the government has been hiding more than
advanced weapons from the public.”

Lily stuck her head in and looked at him.

“All better?”

Shane and Steve nodded to her. He was struck
once again by how similar she looked to Dr. Blain.

“Great. Then come with me,” she said
cheerfully. “I expect we’ll be able to answer a few questions that
must be eating at you.”

“See you guys in
a bit,” he said to Tracy and Laura, giving them reassuring smiles.
Laura stood taller, her mood clearly lifting at the notion that the
damage to her face could be reversed.

Shane and Steve followed Lily out of the
medical building. Shane’s step was light. He felt better than he
did before the world went to shit. It was great how Lily’s twin
healed him, but in the absence of suffering, even more questions
and suspicion sprouted in his mind. Why did Lily and her
counterparts look so much alike? It was even more obvious to him
now as they passed by four men and women in black jumpsuits who
were refueling the helicopters. Why did they bring him and his
friends here? What could they possibly want? Lily had said
something about stopping the people who’d killed the adults, but
that didn’t give him much to go on.

They walked by a row of hangars. Shane didn’t
have any more dizziness, but he broke a sweat. It was late morning
now. It had to be well over ninety degrees—one of those long,
scorching summer days where he’d usually be found by the lake. That
life seemed gone forever now. He bit his lip. The absence of his
physical pain allowed his suppressed grief to surface. Taking a
deep breath, he pushed the emotions aside. There was no time for
them now—he had to keep his focus.

The first hangar’s doors were wide open,
helicopters undergoing repairs inside. The next four were sealed,
so he couldn’t see what they held. At the fifth hangar, they
stopped. Lily opened the door and led them into the relatively
cooler interior.

Once his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent
lighting, Shane saw four large aircraft in the middle of the
hangar. He assumed they were fighter jets, but green canvas covered
them from their lofty tails to the shiny, concrete floor, so he
couldn’t be certain. Lily walked halfway through the curved-roof
building and stopped at a door leading into a long room with
mirrored windows looking into the hangar. Opening it, she held her
hand out to indicate they should enter.