Page 11 of The Hollowed
“Not that I know of,” he admitted. “Why?”
She didn’t answer immediately but her gaze drifted downward as she thought of more questions to ask. Then, she looked at Luna.
“Has she ever been bitten?” Luci asked, gesturing toward the German shepherd.
Alex raised an eyebrow, then shook his head. “No. She’s been scratched up a few times and there’s been some close calls, but she’s never been bitten.”
“What about the other way around?” Luci pressed. “Has Lunaever bitten one of them? Has she gotten infected blood in her mouth or eyes?”
Alex paused, caught off guard by the question. “Yeah…actually. The first time I got cornered on a run, she went for the guy’s neck. Why?”
Her fork hovered mid-air like she’d forgotten she was eating.
There it was, the loose seam she’d been looking for.
“I’ve been using the wrong base,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “All my recombinant trials — of course they’re unstable. The original source cells are all wrong. I’ve been using human protein strands because they’re clean, but…they’re not compatible because humans turn but animals don’t,” Luci explained, dropping her fork. “They can’t turn. That’s why Luna’s fine. That’s why the infection didn’t spread through the animal population.”
Alex blinked. “Wait — what are you saying?”
“I need to use something closer to us,” she responded, already moving towards her computer. “Something human adjacent, like pigs. We share so much of our genome with them, from our organs to our immune responses.”
Behind her, Alex exchanged a look with Luna. “Guess lunch time is over.”
Alex had returned from his patrol shift in the towers above the hospital by the time Luci finally reformulated a new vaccine strain. One she believed with certainty would work. All it had taken were a few blood samples from Luna, a couple hours bent over her microscope, and that bright mind Alex insisted was her greatest weapon.
They stood in absolute silence as the centrifuge spun, until a loud ping made both of them flinch. Luci pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and her fingers trembled as she removed the vial, pipetted the sample, and fed it into the flow cytometry machine sitting crookedly on the counter.
She inhaled slowly, counting the seconds as her computer screen came to life.
Colored peaks and scatter plots mapped the activation of T-cells, while a rising curve tracked elevated cytokine levels. It was evidence that the immune system was finally responding. For the first time, the screen showed success.
It was working.
The holographic screen blinked, freezing briefly before a box appeared reading,Trial 1219: Viable. Recombinant strain stability detected.
Luci held her breath.
Alex leaned over her shoulder, his voice barely above a whisper. “Did it work?”
She gave a small nod despite the disbelief still clouding her mind.
Alex exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath for days. “Holy fuck,” he whispered. “You did it Lucilla, you fucking did it!”
Luci took a step back from the screen and nodded again, slower this time. A deep, shaky breath escaped her lips, followed by a short laugh of disbelief. She’d spent nearly three years buried in that lab, drowning in failure and false hope. And now, against all odds, she’d figured it out. More tests needed to be run and there were protocols that needed to be followed, but she’d done it.
This was her ticket out of the reproduction program.
Without wasting another second, she printed the preliminaryreadings and hung her lab coat on its hook with renewed purpose. “We’ve got to show Doc. He’ll know what to do next,” she said, already heading for the door. It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night. Some things were worth losing sleep over.
They took the stairs two at a time, climbing toward the upper levels of the hospital where the
nicer apartments were housed. When they reached Doc’s door, Luci didn’t hesitate. She knocked loudly. And when Doc didn’t come immediately, she nearly turned to ask Alex for the override code, but before the words could leave her lips, the door creaked open.
Doc stood there, blinking through sleepy eyes as he lifted his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. He was wearing bright yellow pajamas covered in tiny smiley faces. It was a sight that would have made Luci laugh on any other night.
She lifted the stack of papers and in a single breath, said, “I did it.”
Doc’s eyes widened, whatever sleep still clung to him evaporated in an instant. Without a word, he stepped aside and motioned them in before closing and locking the door behind them.