While both strips were tinged red, one was beginning to change color.
Shepherd had the syringe in one hand, and when he saw the strip turning, he reached for the red vial in my hand and extracted the medicine. With haste, he gripped Adam’s arm and held a small plastic device over it. A laser illuminated his skin.
“You got good veins, kid.” Shepherd slid the needle in and pressed the plunger.
“How long till he wakes up?” I asked.
Shepherd sat back and dropped his equipment near his bag. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“What do you mean, you’ve never done this before? Are you fucking kidding me?”
He stared at the kid and pulled up one of his eyelids. “Maggie had all this knowledge but couldn’t put it out there. Humans have regulations and approved test studies. She had all the science in her head, but she couldn’t test it on anyone. She tried getting a job at a pharmaceutical company but never got that far. After her murder, her family put her things in storage. They let me collect my stuff, but I also took these. Maggie said they would save lives and change the world.”
“Let’s hope for your sake she was right.”
Adam’s face took on a pinkish hue, and his eyes fluttered. He still looked poorly with bluish lips and a cold sweat all over, but seeing him respond gave me hope.
Shepherd touched his hand but wasn’t feeling for a pulse. His tactile ability allowed him to sense Adam’s emotions, his pain, and what he was experiencing in that moment. It made me consider how Sensors could be exceptional doctors.
A tear rolled down his cheek and disappeared into his whiskery jaw. “It worked, Maggie.”
Adam groaned and rolled to his side, just in time to retch.
Shepherd took off his backpack and found a bottle of water. “Drink this, kid. Even if you want to puke, hold it down and drink. You need to stay hydrated for the medicine to work through you.”
Adam reluctantly took the water and gulped it. “Eve,” he rasped.
“She’s fine,” I said, even though I had no idea what was happening behind us.
I looked at Shepherd in disbelief. “Do you know how to make more of that stuff?”
He shook his head. “These are the only two in existence. Doesn’t matter anyhow.”
“Why not?”
He wrapped up his instruments and put them in the bag. “This is Hunter’s legacy. He knows all this shit, and when the time comes, what he does with that knowledge will be up to him. At least I can tell him it works.”
“It would save a lot of lives.”
“Yeah, tell that to the pharmaceutical companies. You think they want people getting their hands on cures?” He drew his gun and looked to the right. “The sicker you are, the more money they make.”
“You should give it to a doctor or something.”
He shook his head. “That’s your human side talking. Toss out everything you know about the world you lived in. There’s a lot of red tape. You can’t just walk up with a cure in your hand, and we have to be careful about how much attention we draw to ourselves. All shit like this does is put a target on your back.”
I could see that. There were a lot of factions who wouldn’t like the idea of us giving cures to humans.
Shepherd touched the boy again. “Hopefully he doesn’t have any nerve damage. I don’t feel anything.”
I jumped when Claude crashed onto the scene with Eve. They hurtled over the bush and dropped to the ground.
Eve crawled over to her brother. “Adam! Are you okay? What happened?”
“Get back before I puke on you,” he said, still working on the water and struggling not to throw it all up.
Claude was on the verge of flipping his switch, but if Matteo was right, his first instinct was to protect the children and not hunt down the person responsible.
Speaking of…
