Chapter 8 b Cured

Once Iggy saw the color, the thirst reflex kicked in. His mind’s thoughts and logic vanished from the situation. Behind the two doctors, the monitors beeped with his racing heart. The pain ruptured his insides, bringing his blood pressure up to dangerous levels. His limbs jerked hard against the restraints and his jaws grinded against the hard prop inside of his opened mouth. Jim drew the card away from sight, yet Iggy still thrashed to and fro. Infectious saliva seeped through his teeth and dripped out from the corner of his mouth. Jim pressed the cotton swab against the inside of his cheek, soaking it in the fluid, then he cautiously handed the sample over to Maria, who dipped the swab into a tube of chemicals. She stared for a few moments, but nothing changed. After disregarding the specimen on a side table, she retrieved an identical tube of chemicals and new cotton swab.

Jim leant forward, his eyes squinted as he looked at the back of her head. “Maria, why are you repeating the venom test?”

“The results were completely inactive, so I’m doing a repeat.” He lingered over her shoulder, watching each perfectly executed step as she prepared the test flawlessly. The swab dipped inside the tube. She shook it once, yet nothing changed in the liquid consistency. “I don’t get it!” she admitted exasperatedly as sleep deprivation squandered what little patience she had. “It says that he has a potency of 9.8 out of the 10th’s scale. That’s impossible.” She slumped her shoulders forward tired and exhaled a full breath of hot air onto the test. “What the hell am I doing wrong? I can’t afford to fail another class! My father… he’ll kill me if I hand him another tuition bill!”

Jim stared back at her with fascination glimmering in his brown eyes. His diaphragm was tight, making him look even taller and thinner in form. His shoulders hunched up near his ears and he peered down on Iggy.

Even still, Iggy’s body was acting all on its own. His limbs reached at their own will, only to be stopped by the restraints, and if it weren’t for the sedatives dripping into him at a constant pace, he would have broken through. Iggy took his only comfort in the fact that the internal pain was nothing more than a ravaging sizzle in his esophagus and rawness in his aching stomach. He could clearly see what was happening before his eyes, because no matter what he did, he couldn’t blink.

Jim’s eyes fixated on him piece by piece, beginning on his teeth. He smiled and laughed once. “Record what I say to his file.” Maria stood before the computer again with her fingers positioned over the keys and he cleared his throat before beginning. “Protrusion and sharpness; upper lateral incisors, canines, and first premolars. Bottom…”

Maria stopped typing and she looked up. “Bottom?”

“Bottom canines, to be specific.”

“That’s rather odd,” she noted.

“Precisely. On forth: Venom potency 9.8 out of 10…” She glanced up and a disbelieving grin played on her face. Jim rolled his eyes and waved his hand at her. “Yeah, yeah… We’ll repeat the test, but record every result!” He exhaled and applied pressure to his temple with his fingertips. “Consider this; unmoving stimuli is the weakest form of stimuli that we can use here. This subject’s thirst response is immediately at 100% functioning upon viewing unmoving stimuli. The nutritional test showed us that he is not malnourished. So, I suspect that his thirst response is fixed, regardless of his body’s requirements.” Jim’s tongue rolled over his hilly front teeth and his eyes blindly stared at the blank wall across the room. He smacked his lips. “He has two additional altered teeth and venom concentration of 9.8 out of 10. With such a sensitive reflex, he’d easily be sent into a massacre. With each bite, he’d break more holes and expose more people to the highest concentrated dose of the virus that we’ve ever seen.” Jim folded his hands behind his back. “It wouldn’t end there, either. The infected beyond him would most likely be just as unstable and potent as he is, especially if they are somehow related. Uncontrolled, IF17 has the probable future of infecting a great number of people within a short period of time. I believe I can say, he is the largest public threat since his father, subject FF01, after he escaped from containment decades ago.” Jim’s lips stiffened and then pulled back toward his ears. He looked at the monitor behind Maria’s head and his smile transformed menacingly. Then he said, excitedly, “we’ve found the next candidate for my Foe to Friend program.”

Maria looked up at him, and while her stomach growled, she spoke loudly to unsuccessfully cover it up. “That’s wonderful news… doctor, but what makes you think that they will allow another trial. We’ve tried that program twenty seven times and the boards are spending so much time and money on the human health benefit programs. They’re looking for candidates for the transplant series. Did you forget about that?”

Jim’s hands settled on his bony hips, his shoulders lifted and fell with a breath. He turned his head, still glowing with excitement. The line in between his narrow lips bowed upwards. He shook his head and turned back to Maria defiantly, proudly, and he pointed his thumb into his chest. “I am the behavior specialist,” he said proudly. “If I say that this is my ideal candidate, then I will get another trial, and they will support it. They want changed behavior, and I will get it done.”

“But the other programs-”

“Forget about them! They’re small potatoes compared to what I’m cooking up. Go on, put him out, and then file a financial claim report so that we can get things started.”

Maria nodded once. “Sure, Doc. Any other last minute notes?”

Jim tilted side to side and turned around to face Iggy, again. He sighed with a finger pressed long down his cheek still fantasizing his own success. “Yes,” he said in a distant tone, “add that IF17 has about an 89% average healing rate, and about a 94% caloric requirement. That would be… approximately four liters every 24 hours…” He turned and stood square to Maria who was viciously pounding the words into the keyboard. “Our goal will be to reduce the thirst response from 100% function to less than 20% through maximum desensitization. We also want to reduce his caloric requirements from 4,000 milliliters to 250 milliliters or less.” He gazed down at Iggy’s bare, restrained forearm. “Don’t record this… but this specimen is of the new generation, so I’m going to mark him with an additional letter. Maybe it will inadvertently catch on.”