Covenant (boyxboy)

Chapter Two

I winced, more on Connor's behalf than my own, as Bo threaded a catheter into Connor's urinary tract for what had to be the twentieth time. It pinched and burned, which I knew because I always stayed inside Connor's awareness when he went through this.

Bo did his best to guide the tube with minimal discomfort. One of the many advantages to a Nephilim doctor was that we could visit a patient's senses while treating them, which meant we could reduce the pain of certain procedures.

Bo was the physician, not me, so he was better at this than I would have been. I knew Connor wouldn't like it that I always experienced these moments with him, when it wasn't necessary. But he was only going through this because of me. I couldn't let him endure it alone.

"There we are," Bo said, checking the ultrasound monitor for placement. "Easy peasy. Now we can go ahead with the injection. You're in for a nice bed rest. You can count on this guy," he jerked a thumb at me, "waiting on you hand and foot, just watch."

"Bo, you checked his antibodies, right?"

"Four times, my paranoid friend. And I'm guessing that's about a tenth the number of checks that you did yourself."

"And you have the antivirals ready?"

"Of course."

"Antihistamines, too?"

"I have absolutely everything starting with 'anti,' okay? He's going to be fine. The data we're going to collect will save a lot of people."

I didn't give a shit about other people. We were about to deliberately infect Connor with the 2019 novel coronavirus that was spreading rapidly around the globe, and it felt like my stomach was sitting at the back of my throat.

Our people were well versed in the devastation a pandemic could bring. While Nephilim developed antibodies to toxins almost instantaneously, our Elioud were human. Protecting them was paramount. As with the Black Plague and Spanish Influenza, we knew we could develop a vaccination using Nephilim blood cells. But it would have to be adjusted to each Elioud's tolerance level for Nephilim DNA, or it could kill them.

That was where Connor came in. As an EBG research asset, he was considered the prime substrate for development of the vaccine. We already knew his N-tolerance, which happened to be on the high end of average. We'd also treated him two weeks ago with a serum made from blood donated by members of Tianshimu, our Nephilim community in Beijing. That had been stressful in and of itself, he'd developed a rash and respiratory symptoms. Luckily, it had turned out to be an allergic reaction that we were able to get under control.

But the next steps were to calculate the rate at which he developed immunity after the serum treatment, and the rate at which those new antibodies would fight off the virus. Using that data, we would be able to develop an individualized vaccine for every Elioud in Creation.

I'd spent the last week mixing Connor's daily blood samples with varying concentrations of the virus, to measure its reaction. Bo and I had daily calls from Lemuel Cambrias, the EBG CEO, and he was increasingly impatient with my requests for more time. There were top-secret reports from the west coast that the virus might already have arrived in the States, and that news, combined with word that two Elioud in China had been put on ventilators this morning, triggered an ultimatum.

"By Michael's rank merkin, you boys are putting that Eljo to use today. Or I'm declassifying his project and sending in someone else to do the job, you hear?"

Hazardous as the coronavirus was, it was nothing compared to the peril of Connor's intersex condition being discovered. Besides, his immune response had been building well, and we were starting him off with only a quarter of the viral load that my tests had shown he could handle. Statistically, the virus' symptoms were milder in young, healthy patients; many were completely asymptomatic. There was every reason to expect Connor would be okay. He was ready.