“Doctor Black!” Lancaster greeted her with a tired smile and a wave from behind his desk. “Come, Come in. Please.” He looked a dishevelled mess, shirt askew, lab coat buttoned up wrong. She’d yet to see him change since they’d arrived, or sleep for that matter. Or eat. All he seemed to be capable of was his work and when engrossed the world around him seemed to disappear. All for that goddamn tune. Though Helena hadn’t slept much herself, hard for her to judge, she was about ready to smother him if he didn’t stop humming.
Yet, despite his weariness, his eyes beamed. Bright, excited even, he hurried her closer like she was his student. Or assistant. “You must see this. It’s truly remarkable and I fear you may be the only one I can show with the hop of even the glimmer of understanding.” He gestured to the microscope on his makeshift desk.
“Yes, I will, but we need to talk. We’ve heard from the ones you call the Outreach and-“
“Look, Doctor Black.” He pressed her closer to the microscope. Despite the lights, it had a healthy glow from the private battery pack.
Helena relented and situated herself behind his desk. “It’s about Ashley, Doctor Lancaster.”
“Ahh yes, Miss Cazalla. Such a lovely specimen and a patient woman. You know, I had one of your men go collect her. The uh… the one who always looks so sullen.”
“Reid,” Helena said without thinking.
“Yes. I sent Reid to bring her here again as I’m in need of another sample. Particularly her blood. The sample from the previous evening is… well, how do I explain this.” He grabbed a slide and placed it on the microscope. “Perhaps I can while you observe?”
With a sigh, Helena leaned over and looked down the scope. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, it’d been so long since she stared into artificial lighting as strong as the microscope. Even when it cleared, she had a hard time understanding what exactly he wanted her to see.
The slide contained a blood smear dyed for better examination. From what she could see it was a healthy sample. Very healthy, if her unfinished education was anything to go by. The sample contained a large number of white blood cells, more than she had seen before.
“You’ll notice there are approximately three times the amount of monocytes in the sample.”
Helena shrugged. “I have to remind you, Doctor Lancaster, I’m not a…. traditionally educated health professional.” Even saying as much stung her ego. Traditionally educated? How about barely educated or not at all…
“The monocytes, the… garbage trucks of the white cells. They’ll appear larger in the sample. Normally they consist of up to 5% of the total white blood cells but here, we see more. Much more. It was the first clue. The second…” Lancaster prepared another slide, opening up his small fridge under his desk and sifting through the samples. With another quick dye and a smear from two separate samples, he placed the next slide in the microscope.
Helena looked down and let her eyes relax. On this slide the two samples mingled.
“Pay attention to the lymphocytes of the second sample,” he said. “The smaller and dense-centred white blood cells, you’ll see-“
“The white blood cells are attacking each other?” Before her eyes, some of the white blood cells from the first sample collided into the second set, the lymphocytes Lancaster told her to watch. Then, the monocytes moved. As if drawn by the connection, the first sample’s monocytes circled the lymphocytes of the second sample. The monocytes’ outer membrane burst and latched onto the lymphocyte’s side, pulling it into the monocyte.
“It’s absorbing it?” she asked.
“Eating it. Phagocytosis. The monocytes are ingesting the lymphocytes. In this instance, the cancerous lymphocytes.”
Helena looked up from the microscope. “What are you talking about?”
“The second sample, my blood, contains advanced-stage low-grade Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. My lymphocytes are seen by the first sample as a contagion. But, instead of the normal process of cell life and death, the ingested material is…” He smiled. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. So look. Please.”
She hesitated, her attention held on the doctor with new understanding. I forget about that, how people still get sick. Regular sick.
“Oh, Doctor Black, don’t look at me like that! I’m fine.” He shook his head with disapproval. “It's manageable, but please, watch.”
She returned to the microscope. As the cells merged together, more of the monocytes devoured the cancerous lymphocytes. But the first she’d witnessed continued to swell. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but as the contents of the monocyte merged and then divided, Helena swallowed. In a matter of moments, the monocyte ate the lymphocyte and expelled a duplicate of itself. The second monocyte looked identical to the first before it began the process. And then, it turned on the next lymphocyte. Throughout the whole slide, the two cells merged and divided. Over and over.
“It’s… this isn’t possible…”
“The first sample is Ashley’s Cazalla’s blood. Her monocytes are… singular. I imagine damaged tissue could react much the same if what you’ve told me is true. It may extend beyond her blood to her bone marrow, collagen production, and tissue.”
“What, you’re saying her blood can cure…”
“No, heaven’s no. Her white blood cells are merely dealing with an infection. But, there’s more.” Lancaster prepared another slide and Helena eagerly looked down to the light.
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A lone sample sat on the slide, still, unmoving and from a quick glance, she knew it was wrong. There were almost no red blood cells, only platelets and white cells. And it was almost all monocytes. And they looked… distorted. Broken. The membranes like sieves with holes sticking to one another in clumps.
“Don’t look up. You’ll miss it if you look away,” Lancaster said as he lifted the sample and placed another drop on the slide.
He was right. If she’d looked up she’d have missed it. With aggressive force, the white blood cells of the first sample attacked the second. Not just the white cells, but the red too. Everything that first sample touched it attacked, ripped the cell, devoured it whole. But the division, the duplication she’d seen before on the other slide was barely replicated again. The second monocyte made from the first looked ragged, barely contained by a membrane, and sluggish. The cells were breaking down before her eyes until the drop Lancaster provided was completely gone. All that remained were more mangled monocytes clumped on the slid.
“This is-“
“MAD-Pathogen. Megalemic Autoimmune Diplioma, though this is a severely degraded form care of our walking and biting neighbours you like to call wendigos.”
Helena backed away from the microscope. Sitting inches in front of her face was the disease that could kill her with but a drop.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe as we have it now unless you plan on ingesting the slide.” Lancaster chuckled despite her discomfort. When she didn’t laugh with him, he coughed and smiled awkwardly. “But you see, don’t you? The resemblance to the other slides?”
“Wait, are you saying-“
“Our Miss Cazalla is the source of MAD-Pathogen, though not in the way the Outreach would have us believe.” He delivered the news as casually as one would the weather. It was only a fact to him, but Helena felt winded.
She said it was her fault but she never explained how…
“Now, although the samples function the same—that is to say Miss Cazalla and MAD-Pathogen—I do not believe she is contagious or the source of the outbreak itself. Miss Cazalla’s mutation seems natural, cooperative within her own biology and hardly communicable. Her cells replicate, but only to a natural point. She obviously still ages, though she may suffer less of the degrading ravages of time than the rest of us. She can still be wounded, though I’ve seen with my own eyes that her cellular regeneration is beyond our current measure.”
“But she’s the source,” Helena whispered, still trying to find her breath. “She’s the reason everyone is-“
“No!” Lancaster’s face contorted as he looked at Helena, as though she’d offended him. “Her white blood cells don’t attack healthy tissue. MAD-Pathogen does. Though the phagocytosis in Miss Cazalla’s sample degrades over time, not one of the samples I’ve taken from her ever devolve into the MAD-Pathogen. I can only fathom that they’d been… tampered with. Perhaps experimented on? Can you imagine the potential in blood that could be rewritten to prevent infection, disease, even ageing! But the MAD-Pathogen monocytes have no blueprint, they are consuming without discretion, degrading blood and tissue to the point where the body dies. Those people out there are walking monocytes looking for something else to consume and divide. She is the furthest thing from that.”
“But-“
“No, Helena. No.” He used her first name, his voice low and sharp. “You do not understand.” The severity in his eyes made her pause as he pulled out another sample of blood. Instead of preparing a new slide, he placed a drop of blood on the existing sample of MAD-Pathogen. “Look,” was all he said as he stepped back.
Helena wearily approached the microscope. The new blood mingled into the MAD-Pathogen sample, slow at first. The monocytes latched onto one another and stopped. Helena waited thinking something would happen but they were still. A few seconds passed and nothing.
“What am I supposed to be-“ The monocytes moved. The fresh sample membrane opened and latched onto the MAD-Pathogen monocyte nearest it. As it had with the cancerous cells, it took in the diseased one. It was slower, the combination taking whole minutes but Helena watched in silence as the fresh white blood cells consumed the diseased cells and divided. Unlike the MAD-Pathogen’s process, the secondary cell was a perfect duplicate for the original untainted monocyte.
The new cell attached to another MAD-Pathogen monocyte. With each division, the fresh infection-free blood overtook the infected sample.
“It’s gone.”
“Yes.”
“The infection is… gone.”
“Yes, but you’ll note the lack of red blood cells. If this were tissue, there wouldn’t be enough oxygen to keep the host alive.”
Helena leaned back from the slide. “I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that it’s just gone.”
“This is the start of a cure,” he whispered the words through his smile. “Ashley Cazalla is most definitely the source of a cure just as she is for the infection. Perhaps not for those already turned, but if we can find a way to modify it for immunization-“
“Isn’t that how you think this started?” Like Lancaster, Helena’s voice remained low. Like the discovery was a secret just for them. “Someone tampering with her blood?”
“If I’m right, they forced mutation. They tried to make it better. If we attempt a synthesis and provide only the blueprint, we could immunize. Or, if infection occurs, provide treatment before reaching a critical loss of red blood cell and tissue. In these instances, it’s unlikely the samples would undergo the same mutation and further degradation of the host.”
“You assume,” Helena said and Lancaster nodded.
“There is no way to be sure until we start testing. To do that I need Miss Cazalla here. As time passes, her samples degrade as any humans would which will ultimately affect the results. I need her here, Doctor Black. Alive and unharmed.”
A cure. Helena turned the idea over as she sat down on Lancaster’s stool. It’s what I wanted, right? To find the answer? To figure out how she got better. Why she couldn’t be infected…
Lancaster leaned against the window frame and seemed to sigh in relief. It was then that she noticed how tired he was, the circles under his eyes, the sag in his shoulders. He needs sleep, more than I knew. But despite it, there seemed a burden lifted from his shoulders.
“You came in here to tell me something. Or ask, perhaps.” He looked up to her with a weary smile. “What is it, Doctor Black?”
“The Outreach made contact. They’re calling themselves, Escort One.”
His smile faded. His shoulders tensed. “I see.”
“They’ve asked for DNA confirmation that Ashley’s who we say she is. We’re to meet at the airport in under eighteen hours.”
“They haven’t given us much time, have they.” Lancaster pushed off the sill, ready to start work from the looks of it, but Helena shook her head.
She leaned forward. “They asked for DNA confirmation. They didn’t ask for her.”
Lancaster frowned.
“Can you prep a sample? We can take a set of samples, give them enough proof to keep them interested.”
A smug grin lit his lips. “You don’t trust this ‘Escort One’, do you?”
“Not a damn bit. But if we can come to them with more than just Ashley, if we come to them with a possible cure, or the beginnings of one, maybe we can make a deal for more.”
“You’re assuming they want to cure the infection.” He said it so plainly she thought he could be joking. But the look in his eyes, the steely resolve made Helena shiver.
“I’m hoping.” Helena stood from the chair and a wave of nausea came over her. She swallowed hard. “Until then, we stall. Hair, blood, skin samples for the airport meeting. Then we can wrestle an evacuation out of them. Whether they like it or not.”