didn’t catch you. There’s a refrigerator in the staff kitchen, from now on use that.”
“I will. Uh, where exactly is the staff kitchen?”
“Exit the lab, turn left, and go to the end of the corridor.”
“Thanks.” I wheeled past her, sweat beads dripping down my face, despite the cold.
“Hey, Kwan . . . I enjoyed listening to you play. Maybe you could play for me again sometime when Li-ling’s not around.”
“That would be great. I’m playing in Jesse Gordon’s band; maybe you could come to our next Saturday jam session?”
“Okay.”
Leaving her to feed the rats, I exited through the anteroom into the corridor, the door sealing shut behind me. I rolled down the empty hallway toward the kitchen, detouring into the men’s bathroom.
Pushing my way inside a handicap stall, I pulled out my laptop and checked the security cameras in BSL3-C. Anya was inside the refrigerator, looking around for anything that appeared out of place.
Accessing the stored video, I replayed the time line from where I had entered the walk-in, erasing the minute and thirty-four seconds which showed me rooting through the stem cell inventory. With that section deleted, it now appeared as if I had rolled in and removed my sandwich and soda from a shelf—something I had done before leaving the walk-in. Hopefully, no one would notice the missing minute and a half of video.
Shutting down the laptop, I washed my hands and exited the bathroom. I ate my dinner in the staff kitchen, worked another twenty minutes mindlessly entering data, then took the elevator up to the main floor. I exited past the unmanned security desk and wheeled out to the circular drive where Bill was smoking a cigarette beside the van.
It took fifty minutes to drive back to my grandmother’s house. She was already in bed by the time I keyed in. I waited another ten minutes just to be sure, then set to work.
Sun Jung kept a second refrigerator in the garage. Before leaving for school, I had left a small Tupperware bowl of lettuce in the veggie compartment. Opening it now, I removed a handful of salad and hid two of the three stem cell pouches inside the plastic container, burying them beneath lettuce. Then I replaced the bowl and went to my bedroom, locking the door.
Inside my closet, hidden in the pocket of my varsity letterman jacket was a half-full IV bag of saline still attached to an intravenous needle. I had removed it from my arm during the last day of my hospital stay between staff shifts, informing the incoming nurse that I had finished my last bag an hour earlier and no longer needed fluids as I was leaving the next morning. She never bothered to check.
Using one of the empty HGH syringes, I methodically drained needle after needle of the shark stem cells, injecting them into the bag of saline. When I was through, I hid the evidence in the false lining of my Doors backpack. Then I set my CD alarm clock to awaken me an hour earlier than usual.
I pulled myself out of my wheelchair and undressed, my upper body shaking with adrenaline. I rigged the IV bag of saline and stem cells to my bed’s overhead bar; then, using an alcohol pad, I sterilized the IV needle and the flesh along my left forearm.
I had spent eleven days in the hospital. The first twenty-four hours were almost unbearable. I was depressed, emotional, and trapped. Trapped in a body that anchored me to a wheelchair. Trapped in a house with a relative who was more caretaker than grandmother.
As the days passed, my thoughts turned to a place I had not visited since the accident . . . suicide. If there was an afterlife, then I welcomed it. If there was a price to pay for taking the easy road out, then I’d do my time in hell . . . anything had to be better than this.
On the seventh day Anya had come to see me, offering me a third option—an option of salvation. If the stem cell therapy worked, I would no longer be held a prisoner to my paralysis. If the HGH failed to prevent the
“I will. Uh, where exactly is the staff kitchen?”
“Exit the lab, turn left, and go to the end of the corridor.”
“Thanks.” I wheeled past her, sweat beads dripping down my face, despite the cold.
“Hey, Kwan . . . I enjoyed listening to you play. Maybe you could play for me again sometime when Li-ling’s not around.”
“That would be great. I’m playing in Jesse Gordon’s band; maybe you could come to our next Saturday jam session?”
“Okay.”
Leaving her to feed the rats, I exited through the anteroom into the corridor, the door sealing shut behind me. I rolled down the empty hallway toward the kitchen, detouring into the men’s bathroom.
Pushing my way inside a handicap stall, I pulled out my laptop and checked the security cameras in BSL3-C. Anya was inside the refrigerator, looking around for anything that appeared out of place.
Accessing the stored video, I replayed the time line from where I had entered the walk-in, erasing the minute and thirty-four seconds which showed me rooting through the stem cell inventory. With that section deleted, it now appeared as if I had rolled in and removed my sandwich and soda from a shelf—something I had done before leaving the walk-in. Hopefully, no one would notice the missing minute and a half of video.
Shutting down the laptop, I washed my hands and exited the bathroom. I ate my dinner in the staff kitchen, worked another twenty minutes mindlessly entering data, then took the elevator up to the main floor. I exited past the unmanned security desk and wheeled out to the circular drive where Bill was smoking a cigarette beside the van.
It took fifty minutes to drive back to my grandmother’s house. She was already in bed by the time I keyed in. I waited another ten minutes just to be sure, then set to work.
Sun Jung kept a second refrigerator in the garage. Before leaving for school, I had left a small Tupperware bowl of lettuce in the veggie compartment. Opening it now, I removed a handful of salad and hid two of the three stem cell pouches inside the plastic container, burying them beneath lettuce. Then I replaced the bowl and went to my bedroom, locking the door.
Inside my closet, hidden in the pocket of my varsity letterman jacket was a half-full IV bag of saline still attached to an intravenous needle. I had removed it from my arm during the last day of my hospital stay between staff shifts, informing the incoming nurse that I had finished my last bag an hour earlier and no longer needed fluids as I was leaving the next morning. She never bothered to check.
Using one of the empty HGH syringes, I methodically drained needle after needle of the shark stem cells, injecting them into the bag of saline. When I was through, I hid the evidence in the false lining of my Doors backpack. Then I set my CD alarm clock to awaken me an hour earlier than usual.
I pulled myself out of my wheelchair and undressed, my upper body shaking with adrenaline. I rigged the IV bag of saline and stem cells to my bed’s overhead bar; then, using an alcohol pad, I sterilized the IV needle and the flesh along my left forearm.
I had spent eleven days in the hospital. The first twenty-four hours were almost unbearable. I was depressed, emotional, and trapped. Trapped in a body that anchored me to a wheelchair. Trapped in a house with a relative who was more caretaker than grandmother.
As the days passed, my thoughts turned to a place I had not visited since the accident . . . suicide. If there was an afterlife, then I welcomed it. If there was a price to pay for taking the easy road out, then I’d do my time in hell . . . anything had to be better than this.
On the seventh day Anya had come to see me, offering me a third option—an option of salvation. If the stem cell therapy worked, I would no longer be held a prisoner to my paralysis. If the HGH failed to prevent the
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