Jane 23

Jane 23 Part 3

Jane had been speaking with her eyes closed. Opening them, she saw herself in the mirror and gasped. Such a dramatic difference with just a change of hair. The wig was cut in a straight bob at the jawline and framed her face. The bangs swept to the side across the top half of her forehead.

“What do you think?” Tristan’s question startled her.

“What?”

“The wig. What do you think? Only a woman would be distracted from the end of the world by a bloody wig.” He began digging around in a plastic unit with many small drawers. “Here. Put this around your eyes.” Tristan handed her a short stick of kohl. “And this.” He held out some black mascara. “Do your eyebrows, too.”

“We have to hurry.”

 “Then make it fast.”

“Fine. What if they find us here?”

“Then you can do whatever you did back at my flat, which I don’t want to think about too hard.”

“I don’t know if I could. I can’t control…I haven’t figured out…” She made a futile gesture with her hands.

He kneeled beside her and turned her face to him. “Look at me.” She glanced at him and then away. “No. Look at me.” She met his eyes. They were blue. “You will be all right.”

She touched his cheek briefly, like an inquisitive butterfly. “But what about you? What about…everyone else?”

“One thing at a time. Put your make-up on.”

*

Yancy had finished testing the last subject and ran his fingers through his shaggy dark blond hair. His grandfather had been a renowned surgeon. He had always been seeking the future of medicine and improving anything he touched. His patients nearly worshiped him. His father had worked for NASA, designing space suits and the living spaces for astronauts inside the shuttles. His mother had been botanist, discovering two new types of fungus when he was a child. Her name was still in many botany texts. He had always wanted to be a scientist of some kind, to make a bigger contribution than his grandfather, father, or mother had.

For his doctorate, he had combined biology and technology, creating a symbiotic machine. The tiny machine would be implanted into the body of an ailing or disabled person. It would be programmed to fix the damaged part, and then hibernate until needed again. His advising professor, Dr. Bachman, had encouraged him to take the idea further, guiding him into nano technology.

This would be his crowning achievement, his path into textbooks and scientific immortality. As he wrote his dissertation, Dr. Bachman had casually suggested they think about conducting a study. Yancy thought they would use pigs or monkeys, or dogs.

When Dr. Bachman introduced him to a colleague of his, Dr. Wertz, Yancy thought he would be the one who would provide the animal test subjects. Yancy preferred not to use living creatures for his tests, but it could not be avoided. This was medicine married with technology, and simulations could only take you so far. His invention could revolutionize medicine, improve health and longevity, create jobs, eradicate AIDS and cancer. The possibilities were endless.

Dr. Wertz had set up a small facility in England. He said he had contracted with the government to use life sentence criminals as test subjects. They would be compensated with reduced sentences. Yancy was initially reluctant, but Bachman and Wertz convinced him it was a win-win situation.

When the first two subjects were brought in by Dr. Wertz, he believed that they were from the prison. They were unconscious, “to speed along the process and make it more humane, so the subject would not panic or feel discomfort.” They died. Yancy was at first adamant about stopping the tests. He would record the results and turn in his paper. Perhaps, in time, he could figure out what went wrong and correct the issues, then continue if possible.