2081. In a sinister world where human survival hinges on biotechnology, an oblivious sixteen-year-old possesses the one code to undo it all. Can she survive the devious world designed to eliminate anything - anyone - out of the ordinary before it's...
"Dr Amour, you have a phone call on your office line!" a PhD student who has been assisting me with my research calls from the doorway. She knows not to disturb me when I'm working. It's odd sometimes. When I look at her, I see someone I could easily be friends with, or maybe even date. She's older than me by a few years, not that it matters. Her name is Alisha, and she insists everyone calls her Ally. She prefers it that way.
I actually prefer her real name. Alisha. But that's probably because I've been trying to ask her to join me for a drink or something for months. Okay, I lie, nearly a year, as long as she's been with me.
"Alisha, please, call me Billy. I insist." I glance at her as she hovers half in, half out the door. "Could you?" I say, eyeing the door.
She's known me long enough to know I have a thing about open doors in a lab, so she closes the door behind her. "You have a call. It's your mum."
"Oh." I push my protective eyeglass up with a gloved hand. The other is still within the chamber, wrapped around a slightly squealing rat the size of my hand.
"She's asking how long you'll be?"
The rat bites me clean through the glove somehow and I wince, letting it go. It scurries to a corner and shakes, perhaps sensing its own doom. Other than pulling my hand out, stripping the glove off and examining the bite, I make no other move.
"It's your birthday, Doctor Am... Billy." She walks over and reaches for my hand. "Let me." She's brought the first aid kit over. I let her. How often can you get this kind of attention from a girl you like, aye? And I'm a cripple, so sue me!
She studies the bite and cleans it with iodine wipes before placing a wide gauge bandaid over — with the prettiest smile on her face. "Lucky the rat is lab-grown in a sterile environment, or we'd have to worry."
Her field is microbiology, just like Pop's. Immunology and Medical Microbiology to be exact. I know this because I interviewed about twenty candidates before I found her. She wants to study new ways for targeted drug delivery using the immune system, and I'm researching the application of nanotech in curing diseases, or ailments. We are a match made in heaven as far as science goes.
"So will I live, Doctor Alisha?" I tease, pulling my hand back. I need it to toggle my wheelchair — my mechanical legs — to move.
"You will, Dr Amour. Now, what shall I say to your mum? She's holding the line." Alisha eyes me curiously as I pack away my notebooks, and let the rat scurry back into its enclosure via the connecting tunnel.
"I'll be there in an hour." I smile, wanting to ask her if she'd like to come. It's no big deal. Mum's throwing me a small party, but my throat feels dry suddenly. I clear it as she walks back to answer a call I should have taken. "Uh, Alisha?"
"Yes, Billy?"
I hesitate. My heart's stuck in my throat. "Uh, would you... are you..." — damn! This is harder than I thought. "Can you... come tonight?" I blurt. A great effing pickup line, mate! Can you come tonight? I'm an embarrassment to mankind, especially the highly confident peacocks that walk these grounds. "I mean, to the party? There'll be food there!"
Geez, someone please glue my lips shut. I'm dying here!
Yet I wait. Ages it seems. She looks like she's considering it, and I can't help but hope despite knowing it's probably a 'no'. I mean, look at her. Young, healthy, gorgeous, not to mention sexy and smart. She could have any guy she wants, including the damn professors, probably! Yet here I am, hoping she will at least consider humouring me tonight.
"Yeah, I'd like that." She smiles instead. "Let me grab my things from the office first."
I nod. Speechless. She said yes?She said yes! Fuck yeah. Woo-hoo!
"And I'll pack up here." I smile back, barely containing myself. If I could, I would jump with joy.
Through the glass door, I watch her leave before I throw a punch in the air. Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a date! Sort of. Don't poop my party!
I eye the rat one last time in its enclosure with the other subjects. Tomorrow, I begin the trial. If I succeed in this study, I can finally be free of the wheelchair one day. If it fails, it's bad for the rats. For their sake, I hope it goes well from the beginning, but I have my doubts. Science is all trials, and errors, and retrials; and I'm a skeptic.
Tomorrow will begin with a few backs breaking. I shudder at the thought. Still uneasy with my decision, but I think of all the good it will do in the end, for cripples like me, and others. But tonight, tonight I'm going to pretend it's the first day of the rest of my life. It will be when I succeed. It's just a matter of time, right?
"You ready, Doctor?" Alisha pokes her head through the lab door again and cops a reproachful look from me. "I mean, Billy." She laughs.
"I was born ready!" I return my chair to a seating position and wheel myself towards her. "I was so ready, I had to be slowed down!"
Alisha doesn't know if she should laugh. I laugh — for her. Humour is a wonderful tool for us folks.
"How did it happen, if you don't mind me asking?" She asks as we head out of the building into a light drizzling night, where my driver and car already await.
"I don't mind at all," I say, opening the back door for her. First time for everything and I feel a warm glow in my chest when I see her smile. "After you, milady!"
Besides, looking at a fine round ass getting into the car isn't terrible. Chivalry has its perks, and I'm damn chivalrous! "It happened when I'd just turned thirteen. I rode my bike straight into a car," I reply, reveling in that beautiful sight.
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