Sarah Jane reflexively folded her arms over her chest and rubbed her hands against her upper arms.
Chrissa took in her action and seemed to notice the quantity of clothes she was wearing for the first time.
"Are you cold?" she asked a frown of concern for her friend touching her face. When Sarah Jane nodded, her teeth almost chattering at the memory of how cold it had gotten inside before she ran out.
Chrissa asked. "In this heat?" she reached out her hand to feel Sarah Jane's forehead. Sarah Jane jerked back but she was not fast enough to escape. As her friend's hand connected with her forehead she stilled. It felt like a soothing balm had been placed on her skin right where Chrissa's hand was.
"You don't feel..." she bent her head to the side as she tried to figure out what it was Sarah Jane felt like."Your skin feels strange." she commented as she drew her hand from Sarah Jane's face and placed it on her neck and then on her chest as if checking for a heartbeat. "What do they think is wrong with you? I heard something about an accidental injection but what really happened?" Chrissa asked her frown of concern deepening.
Sarah Jane did not answer for the first few moments as she was still savoring the coolness of Chrissa's touch. It was lingering, like the effect of menthol or some such balm on the skin. The coolness clung to her as if it would like to make its way into her very being and heal something inside of it that hurt.
"Sarah what's wrong?" Chrissa's voice brought her back to the awareness of her surrounding with a jolt. The frown of concern had expanded to full blown panic by the time the haze in her brain cleared enough for her to see Chrissa.
"I think we should go inside. This heat can't be good for Maya and Andoah will have both our heads if any harm came to her." Sarah Jane said as she stood and began ushering them into the coolness of the building.
"You would think that he had married a new wife or something the way he dotes on her." Chrissa grumbled as she fell into step with her friend.
Sarah Jane chuckled. Was she chuckling at the adorable look of angst on her friend's face? Or was it the relief she could see warring with worry and grief in her eyes? She was not sure but suddenly, she felt happy to be alive.
It had been a long while since she felt that lifted. She may be experiencing a life changing trauma. She may not know or even understand all the ramifications of what that meant for her future or even if she had a future. But for today, in this moment, she was alive and her best friend since forever, now her sister, was walking beside her with her niece in her arms. She did not as yet feel brave enough to hold her niece, maybe she never would but she could study her cute-as-a-button face as she tried to snuggle into her mother's neck to escape the full blast of the heat outdoors.
Sarah Jane smiled. Yes, she was feeling blessed.
CHAPTER 7
"Something happened today that I think might help." Sarah Jane reported to Mahmoud later in the day while sitting in his office trying to review her case. She had decided to take matters into her own hands and approach Mahmoud and/or Umar to discuss her prognosis.
They had reviewed her notes and discussed her symptoms extensively for the past two hours and were nowhere closer to understanding what was happening to her or what they could do about it.
"What?" Mahmoud asked freezing in mid-action and he ran his hand over his head for what had to be the fifth or sixth time since this meeting had began.
"Chrissa, Andoah's wife came to visit with the baby." she said.
Mahmoud's breath hissed out of him agitatedly. "Why would she do that without checking with anyone?" he asked slumping slightly on his seat.
"Possibly because she knew we wouldn't let her come." Sarah Jane responded.
"Yes! Why would she put herself, THE BABY, at risk?"
"Because we missed each other and she wanted to see me before I died." Sarah Jane said blandly.
Mahmoud stilled. "Who says you're going to die?" he asked.
Sarah Jane threw him a look of reprimand. "Mahmoud, I am...let's say ill. Of course it's a possibility that I'm dying!"
Mahmoud adjusted himself on his seat as he watched her closely.
"What is it that you and Umar are not telling me? I feel like you guys are withholding information from me."
"Why..." Mahmoud blustered but at Sarah Jane's continued stare, he caved. He explained as much as he could, as gently as he could what their findings and their fears were. Sarah Jane listened intently with dawning horror. She had known that it was bad but had not realized just how convoluted it all was.
"How do you even begin to breach that?" she asked in bewilderment. "So it seems like my body is on some kind of lock down?" and even as she said it, a light bulb seemed to flicker for a moment in her head and then turn on fully.
"That place, the place Doctor Greene sent me to, it's kind of locked down." she commented turning a considering look on Mahmoud. Mahmoud returned the look as he tried to figure out the tangent at which her mind had just gone off.
"What if...?" she looked down at her file and she began to frowningly look over the notes again. "I need to go back there again. I think I need a different perspective."
"A different perspective?" Mahmoud repeated questioningly.
"Yes," Sarah Jane nodded emphatically. "A different perspective. Perhaps, we have been reviewing this from the wrong direction all along." She got up excitedly from her seat and began to leave the office hurriedly.
"Ah, Sarah Jane, you may want to come seat back down." Mahmoud instructed a sense of urgency in his voice. Sarah turned around in surprise to see the same urgency reflected on his face. It was enough to deflate her excitement and she returned to the seat she had just vacated.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Obinna thinks that you may be in danger and we agree with him." he rushed out his speech as if expecting Sarah Jane to jump out of her seat and walk away without hearing him out. In a former life, she might have been sorely tempted to do so but nowadays, she was learning the virtue of patience amongst others. She nodded her head encouragingly so that Mahmoud could continue with what he had to say.
"He thinks there is a rogue unit of Doctor Greene's network." Mahmoud continued.
"He did say something like that when we met last. Why hasn't he come to see me?" Sarah Jane detoured.
"He had a bad flu and didn't want to come over and contaminate you." Mahmoud answered wryly. Sarah Jane paused to think and asked.
"It had nothing to do with...my blow out?" she questioned.
"I feared so at first but no, I don't think it is. He is recovering from an honest to goodness cold." Mahmoud assured.
Sarah Jane nodded her relief. "Thank God." she sighed.
Mahmoud looked up in surprise.
"What?" Sarah Jane queried. "I have always believed in God." she defended.
"In His existence maybe but I had always wondered if you felt He was involved in the affairs of men at all."
Sarah Jane refused to get into a conversation about God so she steered the conversation back to less troubling topics.
"So I ought not to go back to the building?" Sarah Jane asked. "But if they already know about me, whether I go there or not wouldn't make any difference. They'd come get me if they wanted to. They proved that with Jay."
"It's still better if we don't make it easy for them." Mahmoud argued. "Just like with Jay, we thought moving him to a different town would keep him somewhat safe but it hardly took anytime before they found him and got him again."
They both fell silent after that as they each re-lived the horrific journey they had embarked on trying to save a boy who had come to be a dear friend to all of them.
"I haven't heard from him in awhile." Sarah Jane smiled. "He hasn't been around much lately." she said.
Mahmoud shrugged. "He's living." he said it like that was all the answer anyone would need. Living.
"I need to live too." Sarah Jane said. "I don't want to hide anymore." She got up from her seat and stood to her full height drawing in a lungful of a
ir and releasing it slowly on the exhale.
"I will go to that house again." She held up her hand to cut him off as Mahmoud began to protest. "I will tell Obinna that he can come with me but one way or another, I'm getting into that house. I begin to believe that Doctor Greene didn't lie to me. Whatever is in that house...I need to get in to see."
Mahmoud sighed loudly. "I guess we'll have to content ourselves with that. At least Obi will be there to shield you should there be any problem."
Sarah Jane nodded but she was already walking out of the office.
CHAPTER 8
Sarah Jane waited in her car across from the building. Obinna sat in the seat across from her.
"Do you think they are watching us as well?" Sarah Jane asked.
"Who knows? It's possible I guess." Obinna replied.
"Do you think we should come down now?" she asked, fidgeting like a little girl.
"Tell me again what you think has changed." Obinna said folding his arms across his chest in a challenging posture.
Sarah Jane raised an eyebrow at him. "Well my complexion has improved." she started and at Obinna's skeptical look she harrumphed. "It has improved! So I am wondering if something happened that day that Chrissa visited."
"So why don't we go to Chrissa?"
Sarah Jane instinctively drew back from the notion in alarm but then checked herself. "For some reason that did not occur to me." she wondered. "Do you think that it would be...?"
"There's been no report that anything has happened to her or the baby from exposure to you." Obinna observed.
"True." Sarah Jane agreed her brow furrowed in contemplation.
"What did Umar and Mahmoud have to say about it?" Obinna parried.
"I...they think that her pheromones..." when Obinna tried to stifle an errant chuckle, Sarah Jane paused with a frown, "Well everyone has some of those! You're just full of it today!"
It was the sensation of being watched that had her turn around even as Obinna gasped in surprise. The door to the building was standing ajar. It seemed that whoever had been standing there noticed that they had been spotted and slammed the door shut.
Sarah Jane needed no further prompting as she got out hurriedly from the car and sprinted across the road heedless of the possibility of oncoming traffic even though the road was usually very quiet.
"Sarah Jane!" Obinna barked agitatedly as he also got out of the car and sprinted after her getting his gun out but unmindful that he was leaving himself open to a frontal attack should there be any.
Sarah Jane did not stop running till she got to the front door. She tried the door handle but it had already been locked so she banged loudly on the door. Just then, Obinna got to the porch steps and whispered loudly and angrily at her.
"Are you crazy? What if it's a set up?"
"To do what? You know..." she turned to face the door again and shrieked out in frustration, "I'm sick of this hide and seek game! Why won't you just show yourselves? If you want me, I'm standing right outside your door! What's stopping you?!"
Obinna was torn between storming up the steps to pull her down and taking cover just in case things turned ugly and he needed to return fire. As he stood there indecisively, the most amazing thing happened. The front door swung open and there was no one standing in it.
Sarah Jane barged in through it while he lunged in after her. As he near dove into the room with her, the door slammed shut behind them. Obinna turned towards the door with his gun raised. There was no one standing there either. He did a slow turn around as he looked for signs that there was someone in the room with them but there were none.
"Obi, come and take a look at this." Sarah Jane called from a corner of the vast room. When had she gotten there? Obinna hurried over to her, still watching for any sign of activity as he went.
On reaching Sarah Jane's side, he realized that what had grabbed her attention was a stack of briefcases all alike and all closely resembling the one that they had retrieved on the day of Jay's rescue.
"How many are they?" Obinna asked.
"Well, these are five of them plus the two in that place against the door and the six over there." she pointed out the briefcases that had at first escaped Obinna's notice as he had worried about the possibility of an attack.
She turned around and did a slow survey of the room. "This place smells like...experiments. There must be a lab somewhere in the building. Where..."
A door that had been built into the paneling at the opposite side of the room from where they were standing swung open and a tall man walked into the room from it.
Obinna tightened his grip on his gun even though he kept his hand at his side and he moved in front of Sarah Jane.
The man raised hands above his head. "I come in peace." he chuckled in sardonic amusement.
Obinna's stance did not change and he was grateful that Sarah Jane seemed inclined to cooperate with him on this.
"Who are you?" Sarah Jane piped the question over Obinna's shoulder.
"Doctor Greene." he replied simply. The name fell like a bomb in the room and had Sarah Jane coming out from behind Obinna. She stalked towards the man, looking him over as she went and Obinna had no choice but to again hurry after her. When she got to him, she stood in front of him and openly studied him.
"Doctor Greene?" Sarah Jane repeated.
"Yes. Doctor Aloysius Greene." the man stated calmly.
"So you are?" Obinna found his voice.
"Doctor Edward Greene's son."
"I see." was Sarah Jane's response.
"I'm certain you don't." came the quick retort in that same sardonic tone.
Sarah scratched at her head in confusion. "I never...realized that Doctor Greene had a son. I'm just now realizing we never really talked about his family."
"Most work place relationships don't extend beyond the work space." Aloysius intoned like he was reciting something from memory.
"Are you his only family?" Obinna asked rubbing his hand over his face and wondering if his brain had been dulled by the flu he had just recovered from.
"As at today, yes. I used to have a mother and a younger sister. They both died a few years ago. I guess you could say it was the beginning of this adventure for us."
"What did they die of?" Sarah Jane asked half dreading the answer.
Aloysius smile sadly. "My younger sister had a fall at her school. It seemed like nothing serious at the time but she was bleeding internally unknown to us. She died a few days later. My mum...well you could say she died of a broken heart literally. She was hypertensive. Nothing was working to bring her blood pressure down after my sister died and she had a stroke. She went into a coma and never regained consciousness. My dad went a bit crazy there. I was doing an internship at the time and I had to put everything on hold to come be with him."
"How did you guys come to test on humans? How was your existence kept under wraps?" Obinna asked.
"Do you have the time to have this conversation?"
"How long is..."
"I've got time." both Sarah Jane and Obinna said at the same time.
Doctor Aloysius waited for them to come to a concensus. Obinna and Sarah Jane looked at themselves and Obinna shrugged.
"Can I place a call to the station?" He asked
"Sure. Why not?" Aloysius replied and he turned to walk back through the door leaving them to follow him or not at their will. Sarah Jane started after him and motioned to Obinna to catch up after his call.
CHAPTER 9
"So he might be able to help?" hope was very strong in Mrs. Kwesi's voice as she asked her daughter over the phone.
"I don't know mum." Sarah Jane responded as she tried to adjust her body into a more comfortable sitting position on the bed. These days it seemed like there was no position comfortable enough for her.
Her mum's sigh was loud over the phone. "I...I pray this all ends very soon." she said wearily. "I...how are you holding up?" she asked. "When next can I come and see you?"
It was Sarah Jane's turn to sigh noisily. She was not getting any better. The clarity of complexion which had so boosted her hopes had gone over the course of a few days. If anything, it seemed she was worse, paler and more luminous than she had ever been since this plague came upon her.
"Are you still there Sarah?" her mum called over the phone.
"Yes mum, I'm still here." she responded fidgeting with the bed covers as she tried to think of how to dissuade what was bound to be another tearful and heart wrenching visit.
"Do you want...? Sarah, how can we help?
"I don't know. Make it stop? I don't know." Sarah Jane said sorrowfully.
Mrs. Kwesi sighed. "Can I come on Saturday? Your dad will be back by then and we could both come." she said, trying to inject some cheer into her voice.
"I can only take you and dad in small doses together mum." Sarah Jane gave a half laugh, the traces of which cleared abruptly from her face as she continued. "I'm not getting any better mum. I'm reconciling myself to the fact that I never might."
"Don't say it!" her mother rebuked. "God..."
"Don't!" Sarah Jane half yelled. "Don't do this 'God' thing now mum. It's more than I can take at the moment."
There was a shocked gasp and then silence on the other end of the line.
"Sarah Jane I brought you up better than that! What do we have if not for God?! Who knows what could have happened by now if the Lord..."
"Mum! I'm going to hang up if you go on about what God has done or not." Sarah Jane interrupted.
"Sarah!" her mum appealed.
"How are Chrissa and Maya?"
"Chrissa, Maya and Andoah are fine." her mum sighed into the line. "Baby, I know you are angry but...we are your family. We are all worried. Perhaps we don't vocalize it as well as we should but it doesn't mean we are not hurting too. This should never have happened to you..."
"It did mum. Can we get over it already?" Sarah Jane said testily.
"Are you over it?" her mum asked quietly. When Sarah Jane did not respond, she continued. "Sarah we...would it be so hard to just let us be there for you? We just want to know that we are not letting you walk this road alone. Let us in."
Sarah Jane sighed quietly into the phone. She wished she could cry. In the last few days, it seemed that her tear ducts had dried too. She realized that she must have stopped sweating some time ago but had been too caught up in the big picture of her ailment that she had not noticed when exactly it had stopped.