Chapter 13
Jill sat with her hands in her lap, staring at Lisa through a thick sheet of plexiglass with an amazed expression on her face. Lisa gave her a dopey smile and gave a throaty chuckle, glancing at Carlisle, who was standing next to Jill with his arms crossed. The scientists all stood back, watching intently, clipboards in their hands.
“You can talk now,” Jill said. “But you didn’t talk to me before.”
“Dudn’t know how,” Lisa said. “Membered later when you gone.” She smiled again, proud of herself, and wiggled in her plastic chair.
“And you even remember your name?”
“Uh-huh, Lisa Trevor. Name is Lisa Trevor.”
Jill was just speechless, and she could only shake her head in amazement. She asked Carlisle, “Where did they find her?”
“Out in the woods,” he said with a shrug. “One of the UBCF squads was doing a sweep for infected hosts, and they ran into Lisa here. They mistook her for one of the infected and they opened fire. You might say they were kind of surprised when she ran off and told them not to shoot at her.”
“They hurt Lisa,” Lisa said matter-of-factly. “Not mad at thum, not their fault.”
“They called a retrieval crew right away,” Carlisle explained. “Lisa only arrived here half a day before you did.”
“And they set all this up already?” Jill asked, gesturing around at the whole lab and Lisa’s enclosure. “This room and all her toys and everything?”
Carlisle nodded. “Yes, it was all rather sudden. They cleaned her up and took the chains off –”
Lisa laughed suddenly and raised her hands to show off her bare wrists. “Gone!” she cried happily. “No more chains!”
“– and brought her here for observation,” Carlisle continued, not missing a beat. He looked at Lisa and chuckled to himself. “Lisa is a bit of a celebrity around here, you might say.”
“Yah, a culubrety,” Lisa said, although Jill doubted that Lisa even knew that the word meant.
“That’s incredible,” Jill said to Lisa. “I wouldn’t have believed it. If you know your name, does that mean you remember who you are?”
Lisa’s ever-present smile drooped a bit, but she nodded eagerly. “Uh-huh, I member. Been there long time, sunce I was a chuld.”
Jill looked at Carlisle for an explanation, and he hesitated before speaking. The fact that he seemed nervous about telling her gave her a hint of just how bad it was going to be. So far, Carlisle had told her everything with the smooth salesmanship of a con man, but he seemed unable to spin this in a positive light.
“The mansion that housed the entrance to the Arklay Lab was designed and built by a man named George Trevor,” Carlisle explained in a low voice. “In 1970, just a few months after the mansion was completed, George Trevor, his wife Jennifer, and their young daughter Lisa disappeared without a trace. Two years later, their car was found at the bottom of a ravine near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It had been there for some time, and the police found evidence – traces of blood, scraps of clothing, that kind of thing – that indicated the family survived the crash and then left the car in search of help. It was believed at the time that they died of exposure or injuries, but the bodies were never found.”
Lisa’s expression was hard to read, but she seemed angry. “Not car crash,” she said, shaking her head. “Bad men took thum away. Locked Lisa up and made her sick.”
Jill’s heart pounded in her chest as the realization of what had happened slowly sank in. Although she had suspected something like that must have taken place, to hear the specific details made her sick to her stomach.
“But why?” she asked helplessly. “Why would they do something like that? How could they?”
“We don’t know,” Carlisle admitted shamefully. “The records in the lab were mostly destroyed, we don’t have any idea what happened, or why. But according to Lisa, the scientists at the lab held her family prisoner and infected her with the Progenitor. We have to assume that her parents were infected as well. But why Spencer would have done that is something we’ll never know.”
“And then they … what? Faked the car crash to cover up their crimes?”
“They must have, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“My God,” Jill whispered.
“Yeah,” Carlisle said softly.
Lisa looked at them both, narrowing her eyes a bit, studying them. Then she sighed and shrugged her large shoulders. “Long time ago,” she said, looking away. “Dudn’t evun member who Lisa was for long time. Forgot everythung about life.”
“Yeah, a long time,” Jill said. Then she paused and looked back at Carlisle. “Wait a minute, you said it was 1970?”
“It was,” he replied.
“That was thirty years ago. Lisa doesn’t look much older than I am.”
“Stuff that made Lisa sick,” Lisa answered. “Made strong too. Make Lisa not look old.”
“That’s right,” Carlisle said. “I’m not going to get into the science with you right now, but the Progenitor’s primary biological function is cellular regrowth. Her exposure is making her look younger than she really is.”
“But I thought that disease of yours just kills people.”
“It does,” Carlisle said. “Except for Lisa, apparently.”
“Lisa spucial,” Lisa grinned. “Stuff not kill Lisa, nothung can hurt Lisa.”
Jill felt overwhelmed, a million questions on her mind. She felt like she could spend all day here talking to Lisa, and maybe she would. There was just so much she wanted to know, things she wondered if Lisa even knew. Carlisle was right; Lisa was a celebrity. She was the only person who had ever been infected and was still alive to talk about it.
Lisa’s incredible transformation continued to amaze her. Back in the woods, Lisa was a howling madwoman, unable to speak, walking on all fours like a gorilla with rusted manacles and chains around her wrists. She was more animal than human then, barely able to communicate at all. But now, she was almost normal, except for her choppy pronunciation she might even be able to pass for anyone on the street. And months from now? Years? Lisa might fully regain her speech and mental capabilities, and then what?
“How long are you going to stay here?” she asked Lisa.
“Dunno,” Lisa said with a noncommittal shrug. “Stay here for now. New place better thun old place. Have thungs here, people talk to Lisa. Happy here for now.”
Carlisle cleared his throat and said, “Lisa is infected with the Progenitor, don’t forget. Actually, we think she’s been infected with dozens of different strains. Right now, she’s far too dangerous for us to let her go. She could be a Typhoid Mary. You must understand that.”
“But she’s ...” Jill started to say, but she knew she couldn’t honestly finish the sentence.
Lisa understood as well. “Might make people sick,” she said. “Dun’t want to, but might happun. Bad thungs happun if people get sick from Lisa, people all be dead. Stay here so that other people not get sick.”
“But for how long?” Jill asked. “Maybe in time, you can …”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Carlisle interrupted her. “We’re still studying Lisa to see exactly what she’s carrying. I know it isn’t fair to her, especially after what has been done to her, but we don’t really have a choice.”
“They give me thungs,” Lisa said, trying to make the best of it. “Have toys, have books, have tulevisun,” she said with a smile, pointing at the television behind her. “Teach Lisa to read books, lots of new thungs for Lisa to do.”
“Okay,” Jill said, reluctantly agreeing. After seeing what Lisa had once been, and what Lisa had managed to become, it broke Jill’s heart to see her right back in a lab, being studied like a science experiment. Lisa had already spent the majority of her life hidden in a lab, it simply was not fair that she would finally experience a tantalizing hint of freedom, just to wind
right back up in an underground Umbrella laboratory once again.
Lisa saw the look on her face and gave Jill a wild, mischievous grin, for a moment appearing like the crazy woman Jill encountered in the woods. “Do not worry about Lisa,” she said cryptically. “Lisa is okay here, they not do anything bad.”
Then she paused a bit, thinking to herself, and smiled once more, as if she had just realized something. When she spoke again, the tone of her voice changed somehow, and a shiver ran down Jill’s spine.
“They cannot hurt me,” Lisa said. “I can leave anytime I want to.”