Demitria Lunetta - In the End

“Harmless,” he says, as if the meaning of what I’m looking at should be obvious to me. “Jacks, you yourself kept records for me.”

Jacks glances at me. “Amy, I swear I didn’t know.” He looks back to Doc, with a look of realization on his face. “I was injected with that F1T13 thing . . . and a bunch of shots before that. What about side effects? And all those women who died last year?”

“That was . . . regrettable.”

After an empty moment, I repeat the word. “Regrettable?”

Doc sits back down. No shrug this time, at least. He plays with his ear nervously. “New Hope sent me a fertility drug to test on the women. I was unprepared for the strength of the adverse reaction. So many died. . . . I had no way of knowing that a side effect would be a high risk of hypertension. As soon as I saw the increase in deaths caused by heart attack and stroke, I discontinued the study.”

“You wouldn’t do something like this. . . .” Jacks’s face betrays his horror. I know what he’s feeling. I felt that way when I found out what my mother had done, what she had created. Jacks backs away, reaching behind him for something to steady himself on.

I reach out and take Jacks’s hand. “You’re responsible for their deaths,” I say to Doc.

“No. No,” Doc protests. “I’m just the observer, the middleman. I get the medicine and instructions. Give this batch to women, give this batch to children. Give the potential Florae vaccine to everyone.”

“You gave that shit to me,” Jacks says, unbelieving.

“Yes, but the Florae vaccine’s only side effect seems to be an increased tendency toward violence.”

He says this as if it’s somehow a good thing. I’m so angry, I have to concentrate on keeping my breathing even. These people are making Fort Black even more dangerous. As if it needed the help. And I can’t even think about the women they so “regrettably” killed.

“What . . . ,” Jacks asks quietly. “What about the Black Pox? Was that you, too?”

“No. That’s just an unfortunate mutation of the chicken pox virus. We had nothing to do with that. I’m not responsible for every disease that manifests. Where there are people, there is sickness. There always has been and always will be.”

“It makes your job easier,” I say with venom in my voice. “When people die by your hand, you can blame some random virus.”

Doc looks down and doesn’t respond.

I give Jacks’s hand a squeeze before releasing it. From my baggy shorts I pull out the sketch of Ken. I hold it up for him to see.

“Do you know this man?”

“No,” he answers quickly.

“He’s lying,” Jacks tells me. I wish Jacks knew sign language. I wish I could take his hand again and have him sign to me, like Rice could. I’d ask him if he really knew Doc was lying or if he was just bluffing again.

“You lied to us for years, Dad ,” he spits out the last word. “About the drugs, about your downward spiral of a career.”

“I haven’t lied to you about any of this, Jacks. I just didn’t tell you. I thought it would be better for you if you didn’t know.”

It stings, knowing Jacks used this exact excuse for not telling me Doc was his father. Like father, like son. Jacks just shakes his head though, and I realize it’s not really the same at all.

“That’s the bullshit you used to give Mom. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry. No, it’s better to have reality come crashing down all at once. It’s better to find out from a random nurse that Mom ran into in the grocery store that your father lost his medical license for stealing drugs. It’s better to find out that we have no money when the car is being repossessed and the house is being foreclosed on. It’s better to find out that your father has been playing mad scientist with people’s lives, years after the fact.”

Doc considers this for a moment, then looks past Jacks at me. “Amy, are you sure you want to dig any deeper?” he pleads. “You have many valuable skills. You could make a good life for yourself in Fort Black.”

“You’re insane,” I whisper.

But he goes on. “Don’t you want to just go back home with Jacks and forget all this? I was going to contact New Hope when you first arrived; I had been told to look out for you. But I saw you two together, and I talked it over with my brother. We knew you and Jacks would get along. We thought it would be better for you both.”

“My uncle . . . he knows about all this?” Jacks asks. He shakes his head. “Of course he does.”

Doc nods, his jaw tight. “The testing has been going on for a long time,” he continues. “My brother sold Fort Black out long before the infection broke. Hutsen-Prime had been using the prisoners as test subjects and paying the Warden a fair price.”

“When he hired you, I actually thought he was trying to help you,” Jacks says. “He even convinced me and Layla to come here to talk to you. To forgive you. That’s why we were here when the infection broke out. I thought he wanted to help us patch things up.”

“Don’t act so naive, Jacks. You know what kind of man your uncle is. But we’re looking out for you.” Doc turns to me. “I was told if you came here to report it immediately to New Hope and we didn’t. If you back down now, you can live here. You’ll be safe with Jacks. Why get involved?”

“I’m already involved,” I tell him. Even if I wanted to forget New Hope, I couldn’t. Not with all I left behind there. I hold up the sketch. “Do. You. Know. Him?”

Doc doesn’t look at it again. Instead he looks at me, his eyes cold. “You’re talking about Ken Oh. He’s a researcher for New Hope. He works on the vaccines and brings them to me when they’re modified.”

I let out a long breath. Finally I’m getting somewhere. “And where can I find him?”

“I’ve already let him know that you’re looking for him.” He taps his ear with a sad smile.

“How . . . ?” I start, but then I realize. He contacted Ken the same way Kay contacted me. Through an earpiece. I can just see it glinting in his ear.

“Ken’s been listening in the whole time,” he says. “He says he doesn’t know what you want with him, but if you’re this determined, he’ll send for you when he has a free moment.” Doc’s eyes narrow as he listens. He looks back up at me. “Go to Jacks’s cell and wait for him.”

I just stare at him, my head spinning. I’ve gotten to Ken? Finally?

“Amy, let’s go,” Jacks says, glaring at Doc. “We got what we came for.”

I turn to Jacks. “How do we know he’s telling the truth? He’s lied to you for years—”

“I didn’t lie. I just kept information from you that was best withheld,” Doc tells Jacks. “Calling the vaccine a flu shot made things simpler.”

I whirl around, my voice shaking with rage. “Do you think people are too stupid to decide for themselves if they want to be tested on, or do you just not care?”

“Amy, relax.” Jacks pulls me from the room and hurries me down the hall.

“Relax?” I ask, my voice a thin screech.

“Don’t be stupid,” he says through clenched teeth. He looks at me with urgency, and I understand: If I want to keep going, I need to stop making trouble . I look at the pain on his face. He’s just gotten a shock as well.

“Okay,” I say softly. “Are you . . . ?”

“I’m fine. . . . I mean, I knew Doc wasn’t going to win any father-of-the-year awards.”

He’s hiding his hurt, and for now I let him. We need to get back to his cell and wait for Ken. I charge forward, into the exercise yard—into chaos. People are running around wildly, trampling through tents and cardboard boxes.