Reaping What Grows

The doctor didn't strap her hands down again, but she's too tired to take advantage of that. She leaves them where they are and tries to sleep.

 

Baines and Noel are missing, their posts abandoned. Instead, there’s a woman at Katters’ desk, rummaging through her things.

Katters freezes, stopping some ways away from the woman, but it’s too late. She’s been spotted, and the woman smiles and waves her over.

“Dr. Jones,” the woman says, tapping a stack of Katters’ notes into a square pile. “What a pleasure to finally see you.”

Shit.

“I hope you weren’t waiting for me long, Ms. Lennox,” Katters says. Ms. Lennox is her supervisor, and Katters has met with her before, of course, but not often and it was never a pleasure. This is a bad sign — the entire situation is a bad sign.

“It’s fine.” Lennox gives Katters another tight smile. “You’re heading the silphium project, correct? CH-FP-3059-B, I believe?”

Shit.

“Yes, that’s mine.”

“Mmm.” She flips through the papers, leaving Katters to stand in silence while she reads.

She tries to stand still, hands clasping each other in moral support.

“There have been issues with this project,” Lennox says, finally.

“It’s been a challenge. We’ve had some problems trying to meet the company’s request — ran into some dead ends.” Katters regrets elaborating as soon as she’s done talking, the tight smile she’s given in response yet another ill omen.

“Might be too much for you to handle, hmm?”

“Oh, no, I think — there have been setbacks, but — we’re making progress.”

“CH-FP-3059-B is currently under observation by our emergency care team,” Lennox says.

“Yes, that — yes.”

“This is progress?”

“One of the setbacks, actually.”

The smile becomes thinner, tighter, edging closer to a sneer.

“I’ve requested some samples that I hope will explain the specimen’s reaction to our formula,” Katters explains, “and with that information we can work around it and see some real positive results.”

“I’m sure that will be invaluable to whoever ends up heading the project.”

Katters’ stomach drops. “Ms. Lennox,” she says, “I, I know this is, honestly it’s a major setback, and I’m sorry it happened on my watch, but—”

Lennox raises a hand and Katters stops talking, her mouth hanging open. “You assaulted the specimen, yes?”

“Attempted assault, yes,” Katters admits.

“And now your specimen is dying,” Lennox continues.

“I believe it’s in stable condition, at the moment.”

“It doesn’t seem to do very well in your care, does it?”

Katters does not want to admit that this is the case, so she says nothing, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other.

Lennox sighs, spreads her hands over the papers on the desk. “You were,” she says. “Promising. We enjoyed your enthusiasm. But your enthusiasm has become less enjoyable, of late. It has become something of a liability.”

“I can be less enthusiastic,” Katters says.

“You can try,” Lennox tells her, looking back up. “I do recommend you try something, because your recent decisions have not been working for you. We will keep you on while the specimen recovers.” She does sneer at Katters’ poorly hidden relief, and continues with not a little disdain in her tone. “We hope to see more progress and fewer setbacks, or we will transfer this project to someone who can live up to their promise.”

“Thank you,” Katters says. “You won’t be disappointed.”

Lennox stands. “I’m sure,” she says, and leaves.

 

Vivi doesn't feel like she's actively dying when she wakes up. Dying, yes, but not so overwhelmingly as before. Her hands are still free, and she lifts one to touch her face.

It's still her face, as far as she can tell. She's still got - well, most of her leaves. Whatever the doctor did, it seems to have mostly affected her insides. The - she has to consciously keep herself from trying to touch the tube in her throat. Even if it's not supposed to be there, she needs it to stay alive.

 

It’s not long after the girl wakes up that a woman in scrubs enters the room.

 

Vivi freezes, then waves at her awkwardly.

 

“Hello.” The woman smiles briefly before her expression falls back into something more business-like. She does something beyond the girl’s line of sight, pulling things out of cabinets and drawers, before she appears at her bedside.

“We need some samples to find out what’s going on,” she says.

 

She can't see the pad and pencil, but maybe they're still in the room. She still doesn't feel up to moving her head, even just to nod or shake it, so she mimes writing and hopes the doctor understands.

 

The woman isn’t looking at the girl, instead tearing open an alcohol swab, and so she doesn’t notice her request for a writing utensil.

She wipes the girl’s arm, disposes of the swab, and takes up a small syringe.

“Little pinch,” she says, and this time she does look at the girl, to smile again. She injects something into the girl’s arm, and the area quickly goes numb.

 

Vivi makes a face.

 

She follows up with a biopsy punch — a smaller size than the ones Katters was using. She sticks a bandage on the resulting wound before it can bleed much, and then packs up.

“All done,” she says, leaving. “You get your rest, we’ll be bringing you dinner soon.”

 

How's she going to eat it? Unless they're going to take the tube out of her throat..

She smiles vaguely at the thought and relaxes.

 

The woman comes back an hour later with a bowl of soup and a bottle of water, on a tray she balances over the girl’s lap. Then she raises the bed with a button on its railing, shifting the girl into more of a seated position.

The girl is still too weak to sit up on her own, let alone feed herself, so the woman sits by her bed and feeds her. It’s slow, but the tube turns out to be less of a hindrance to eating than one would think.

When they’re done, the woman leaves. She leaves the water with the girl.

 

Vivi watches in frustration as the woman leaves. The tube is still in, she can't even feed herself, and the woman still hadn't noticed her trying to ask for the writing pad. She balls her hands up into weak fists, but that's all she can do.

 

A sample is waiting for Katters and her lackeys the following morning, and they waste no time in picking it apart.

“Well,” Noel says, “the good news is that C-25 is working.”

“What do you mean it’s working?” Katters asks. “It’s damn near killed Thirty-Fifty-Nine.”

“Technically, no — it hasn’t killed anything. The specimen is killing itself.”

“It would.”

Baines looks up from his work. “What are you getting at, Tans?”

“The formula is working as expected,” Noel says. “It’s changing the cells it comes in contact with into plant cells, and leaving instructions in those cells to pass on the changes to their neighbours. But the specimen’s immune system doesn’t recognise those cells anymore, and kills them.”

“And kills the specimen,” Katters says.

“That’s right.”

“So it’s allergic to being turned into a plant.”

“I guess you could say that.”

Katters frowns. “Okay,” she says. “So how do we fix it.”

“Can we wait it out?” Baines asks. “Wait for its immune system to kill off all of the affected cells, or for the changes to out-pace the immune system until it’s forced to recognise the new cells as self-cells?”

“There’s no guarantee that would happen — its immune system may never accept the new cells,” Noel says. “And right now they’ve reached an equilibrium, the new cells are being made at the same rate they’re dying.”

“We could suppress its immune system, give the formula a chance to finish the job.”

“And possibly kill it,” Noel reiterates.

“Park would never go for that, anyway,” Katters says.

“Boosting its immune system could kill it, too,” Baines says. “And the formula is working, we shouldn’t waste it.”

“Can’t work on a corpse.” Katters stands. “All of these options suck, from what I hear,” she says. “Let’s take lunch, maybe we can come up with a way to Kobayashi Maru it.”

“You mean cheat?” Noel asks.

“So long as we win, I don’t care how we manage it.”

Baines smirks. “All’s fair,” he says, “in love, war, and getting promoted in Cheiron.”

 

It's still exhausting to move, so Vivi tries to stay still. She's going to survive this, to escape. Maybe stab the first doctor a little. Or a lot. That would be pretty great. But she still has to rest, and get better, and get back to her scissors.

She can wait. She can wait as long as it takes.

A smile spreads across Vivi's face as she plans.

 

Katters doesn’t get lunch. Instead, she winds her way back through the wards, to Park’s office.

Whatever they decide to do, they’ll have to go through Park for it, so there’s no sense in trying to keep him out of the loop. And maybe he’s got a good idea hiding in him, somewhere.

He is not happy to see her, his face falling as she darkens his doorway. “I wanted to thank you for the sample,” she says.

“You’re welcome.”

“With it, we figured out what’s killing Thirty-Fifty-Nine.”

“Your formula is killing Thirty-Fifty-Nine,” Park says. He’s tapping his pen against his desk arrhythmically, staring at Katters like she’s there to peddle some hot, new religion.

“But we know how.”

“I look forward to the report I’m sure you’re going to submit on that.”

“Well, I figured you might want to know, uh, now,” Katters says. “Seeing as your patient is dying, and all. Thought we might try to cure it before it does. Die, I mean.”

Park sighs. “What did you find?”

Katters grins and slips into his office, into the chair opposite him. She leans her elbows on his desk, mussing his papers, and he sighs again. “It’s her immune system,” she says.

“Yes, I had suspected.”

“You are a very smart doctor.”

“Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

“Well, we also had ideas for curing it — her. We thought we might suppress her immune system—”

“No.”

“—And give the formula a chance to, uh.”

“No.”

“Okay,” Katters says, frowning. “I did think that one was a long shot. Boosting her immune system could also help, kick it into high-gear.”

“No.”

“We did throw around the idea of waiting it out, but it seems that has a high chance of, you know, ending badly. Loss of resources, if you follow. Demotions all around. If we’re lucky.”

“Are you done?” Park asks.

“Well, I did try to think of a fourth option, but I think those about have it covered, yeah.”

“Good. Now, why don’t you go write up that report, and leave the medical decisions up to the real doctors, please.”

Katters’ frown deepens. “Oh,” she says. Fuck you, she doesn’t say. Instead, she leaves, pausing at the door for a moment where she continues to not swear at Dr. Park.

Park returns to his paperwork.

 

After all, it is the doctor's fault that Vivi is dying now. She deserves to suffer in turn. Nice sharp scissors, good for cutting, good for stabbing. The doctor won't die easy, might not die at all, but she'll hurt. She'll be scared and in pain and alone.

And that's just as good, isn't it?

 

Katters detours to the vending machines instead of returning to her desk. She could probably still manage a proper lunch and get back before anyone misses her, but she’s not actually that hungry. A nervousness sits in her stomach, tying knots and taking up room.

The machines are tucked in the back of the building, far away from the labs and the offices. It’s quiet back there — the hum and whir of machinery replacing all signs of human life. If Katters is remembering the floorplan correctly, this nook is directly above the MRI machine, and she fancies she can feel the floor buzzing through her sneakers. But she may be imagining that.

The vending machines are half-full of ostensibly healthy snacks, crackers and chips with just as many preservatives as the junk food but none of the flavour. That’s kept at eye-level, so Katters crouches to look at the more appetising snacks stocked below.

They can’t count on C-25. Maybe, with some alterations to the formula, they can find some way around that whole ‘killing the specimen’ problem, but this situation has been such a glaring fuck-up that her higher-ups aren’t going to approve anything that smells even a little like C-25 for a while. They’ll have to find some other way. A plan B — no, C. Shit. D? Whatever.

Those Twix look good. Probably shouldn’t have candy for lunch, though.

Maybe they’re coming at this from the wrong direction. Well, it is the right direction, C-25 would work if Dr. Park didn’t have such an enormous stick up his— but maybe there’s a second direction that will work, and isn’t currently being blocked by a loathsome bridge-troll.

Cheetos are always good, and kind of filling.

How is it the specimens get turned into plant people in the first place? They’re dragged off to who-knows-where and put in an environment that starts mutating them, isn’t that right? What if they replicated that environment? Maybe being put somewhere less sterile and more homely — for a plant — would put the specimen in more of a flowering mood.

Honestly, Katters kind of just wants to bury the girl and see what happens, but Cheiron probably wouldn’t go for that.

She stands up and slots some change into the vending machine. It’s an idea, at any rate. Maybe it’ll work.

 

When the doctor enters, she doesn't tell Vivi what she's about to do, just tells her to stay still. Vivi does, trying to relax as the doctor moves her head. After a moment the doctor tells her to open her mouth, and when she does so the doctor removes the tube. Finally. She could cry with relief, if her head didn't feel so weird.

She swallows and clears her throat. "I'm not dying anymore?"

"Your throat isn't closed up anymore," the doctor says.

"But am I dying?"

"Not at the moment, no."

Vivi grins. She'll be able to get back to the scissors soon, then.

 

Days pass. CH-FP-3059-B gets better. Katters buries herself in paperwork. Noel and Baines bury themselves in research.

One day, there are no doctors. After lunch, a guard escorts the girl out of her room, and down several halls.