The God Codex

13. Failure

BOOK OF BILLY: 2020

Chapter 13: Failure

In a small plastic tank, out of four unconscious rats, two stir back to life, their front legs twitching faster and faster in the air. Their sudden squeals of terror at their immobility, faint outside the plastic tank enclosure where I placed them on a bed of shredded newspaper earlier.

Hidden behind my personal protective equipment, I wrap a gloved hand around yet another terrified rat from the home enclosure and inject its hindquarter with general anesthesia before I bring the limp thing over to the table, where my surgical tools glisten, ready for another procedure.

I hear the incessant tick of the wall-mounted clock on the other side of the lab and eye it. Almost midnight. There is no one around but me. Just what I need — to be alone for what I am about to do. No one is privy to this part of my experiment, and I want to keep it that way for fear the ethics board might have a few things to say.

Even when Alisha had asked if there was anything she could help with, despite her having moved on as an Assistant Professor at the University in the Microbiology Department, I said no. She still insists on visiting the lab to catch up on my research whenever she can. For we rarely catch up these days other than the occasional few hours of couple-time, on those rare weekends, when I'm not obsessing over my experiments. I know, I know, it must suck for her right now to be with me, but I have to finish this. I have to. She won't understand. My life depends on it.

Even today, Alisha had finished her classes and paperwork by five as usual and came over with a coffee and those yummy Byron Bay cookies I've grown ridiculously fond of. Today's treat had been a double choc degustation and too damn small. I wanted more.

"What are you doing? Can I assist you, Dr Amour?" She'd bit my lip during the kiss. How she ever agreed to date me in the first place is still beyond my understanding, let alone the fact that our third anniversary is coming up in a few days. Do I have a surprise for her though!

Sometimes I can't help but think, maybe it's the close quarters or Stockholm syndrome that got her. Why else is she with me when she can have a million better men? Men who can walk on their own damn feet.

"No. The next phase is for me, myself, and I. I don't want anyone finding out what I'm up to yet." I had winked at her while wanting her gone.

"What's the next phase?" She had eyed my open notebook, with random thoughts scribbled in a code only I can read. Geniuses get paranoid that people are out to steal our ideas, okay? Leonardo da Vinci had his codes. I'm no different.

"I'm going to use the carbon nanites we developed and see if they can carry stem cells to injured areas."

Alisha hadn't looked impressed, and if she had been, she was great at hiding it. I couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"You're still trying to make a neural bridge?" She sounded disappointed. That's how she sounded to me.

"Imagine, rather than using an implant to rewire a severed, damaged spinal cord, we use stem cells to heal said spinal cords and make them new. If we can use these targeted carbon nanites as a delivery system, this could be a huge breakthrough for spinal injuries, not to mention other things. Can you imagine the scope this has when I succeed?"

Alisha had chewed her cheek, her thoughts, her own.

"I could be whole again." Wheeling myself closer, I had taken her hand in mine. "I can walk again."

"And if it doesn't work, Billy? What if nothing can help you? What will you do?" She had pulled her hand out of mine. We had done this dance before. Several times.