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A.R.Yngve
The MSTing Of
DARC AGES
Book 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear
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Chapter 34

The sun sank beyond the distant vertical mountains, and Dohan ceased his fencing exercise - not so much out of exhaustion as boredom. Then again, this pause for rest and leisure was precisely what he needed.

(The police later found his diary, where he had scribbled over and over: "All fencing and no play makes Jack a dull boy.")

And finally, Darc returned... carrying the promised vaccine, the final test of their mutual trust.

(Nice alliteration, shame about the grammar!)

The tall white-haired man tried to relax and not give any impression of doubt, as he walked up to his waiting friend.

(Who is this tall white-haired man, and what's he doing in this story?)

But since the world is a place where absolute certainty does not exist, he felt doubt - in himself.

(MESSAGE!!)

If the vaccine was a failure, and Dohan caught the Plague...

([Sings]"If I could turn back time...")

During this brief walk across the plateau, Darc went over in his mind everything he had discovered in the last few days, checking for any missing details, any clue that could prove him wrong. Of course there were missing details, which only Mechao could help him unveil. And without Dohan, Darc wouldn't get back to Kap Verita in the first place. So he had to begin by taking this chance.

("I will vote Obama! Yes, I can!")

"Darc!" Dohan greeted him out loud. "This is the first time I see you with a beard. Have you looked yourself in a mirror of late?"

("Well, hello Mister Smarty-Pants.")

Darc laughed in reply, grateful for the opportunity to talk nonsense at this critical moment.

("Heh-heh, heh-heh, heh-heh, heh-heh...")

He was tanned, a little grimy with desert dust, and his chin was thick with snow-white stubble.

(John McCain returns from campaigning in the heartland.)

"Naah... I guess I look like death warmed over. You haven't shaved yourself, huh?"

"Should I?"

([Whiny voice] "And do I have to brush my teeth every day?")

"No. If you cut yourself now, you could be infected."

("Because there's germs everywhere! Germs! Germs! They're all over me!")

Darc halted a few steps away from Dohan. Like some kind of stage-magician, he made a stylish gesture and carefully extracted a sterilized injector from his cloak.

(Tonight, in The Magic of David Archibald, David makes a whole mutated population disappear.)

Dohan recognized the gadget's similarity to a doctor's equipment, and his body coiled up with tension.

He had always hated injections.

(Well, look who's a big blubbering baby now! You wanna cry? Huh? Huh?)

"Is that the vaccine, in there?" Dohan asked, pointing at the instrument in Darc's hands.

("No, that's Drano. It'll really clean out your sinuses!")

"Yes. Now, I have used fire, some stuff of Mechao's making, and boiling water to kill off all live germs - in here, on my hands, and on the injector. But just to be sure, I'll burn the injector and clean your arm before I inject you. Show me your arm, please."

("What's the target demographic for this novel?" - "Readers who are afraid of germs.")

Dohan rolled up his left sleeve.

(OH MY GOD NOT THE LEFT SLEEVE!!)

As Darc rubbed sterilizing liquid onto Dohan's thick arm, he became aware of the possibility of complications. What if Dohan had a fatal allergic reaction? Dohan had never been exposed to these antibodies, and Darc knew nothing of the Damon family's health record.

(What if he spontaneously combusted? Get on with it!)

"Kid. Is there... have there been any cases of severe disease in your family before? Are there any medicines, plants, or foods which make you sick?"

Dohan hesitated a little: "There is... a history of heart disease in our family. My grandfather died of a stroke, but he was old then.

("We told him to stop watching Lost, but did the old man listen? Nooo!")

I have not been sick with anything serious... I had the one-year flush, like every other child, when I was thirteen; it was nothing. But that nearly killed you, remember?"

("Can't remember a thing, I was strung out on morphine at the time.")

Darc frowned, and finished wiping the clean spot on Dohan's arm with a drop of Mechao's solution.

("Mechao's Solution - it really hits the spot!")

"If you have second thoughts," Darc explained, "this is where you say stop.

(STOP! Please stop this chapter now! Have mercy!)

I have only had a few days to see the effect on myself and Shara."

"Enough talk, Darc. Do it!"

([Chorus] DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!)

Dohan held out his pale arm, tense and wiry, for the injector. He thought of Meijji, and did something that would have won him heaps of scorn and ridicule in his home city - he shut his eyes hard.

([Chicken noises])

Darc took a deep breath. Then he pressed the knobby end of the injector into the skin of Dohan's arm, right over a thick vein, and pushed the button with his thumb. The vaccine dose shot into the arm with a brief hiss.

(I don't know why, but reading the above paragraph makes me feel dirty.)

Darc immediately removed the injector, added another drop of solution, and opened a pack of sterile bandages.

([Stoned voice] "Man, that's good vaccine!")

He wrapped the minute wound, and nodded.

"Done.

Now we wait a few days. Neither of us will leave this place, before I know it is safe for the world. And our clothes, the Sunray, everything we bring with us from here - all of it must be cleansed from unwanted germs."

("Anyone got some Tide?")

Dohan managed a brave smile, and asked his mentor: "Never did I train to fight such small enemies. Could you make me a sword small enough to strike at a germ?"

(What are you, retarded?)

"Another day, kid," Darc replied. "Another day."

([Yoda voice] "Tomorrow is, hmmm?")



Excerpts from Darc's notebook, Julla (July), 940 A.M.:

DAY 7

No signs of complications yet.

("The hemhorroid ointment seems to be working.")

Dohan stays isolated from the Lepers. He experienced a slight flush, but it passed. The new antibodies from my blood are flowing through his blood.

Shara is doing well. She has built up a steady resistance against Virus A, and possibly also against a few minor sicknesses the Lepers have.

("Her group of plucky guerrillas calls itself The French Antivirus Resistance.")

I'm a little jumpy, with minor stomach problems and headaches.

("I fell asleep with my cell phone on the pillow again.")

Probably a late reaction to unfamiliar bacteria in the environment.

Been working on the hygiene among the Lepers - tried to convince Claw that they could beat the cholera problem, it has nothing to do with the Plague.

("Trying to teach natives not to brush their teeth with raw sewage.")

He wasn't convinced, until I showed him his own skin bacteria through the microscope - he'd never seen germs before, and it shook him up pretty badly.

("He set himself on fire and died horribly. A slight overreaction.")

Now he's getting to be hysterical about cleanliness.

("Germs! Germs! They're crawling all over me!")

Another victory for modern medicine.

Note: Examine that sickly child again - perhaps something could be done.

("Perhaps I could put it to S-L-E-E-P.")


DAY 8

Checked Dohan, Shara, and myself. No complications.

("Only plain, uncomplicated boils.")

The sickly child (name: FOUR-LEG; age: 3) examined. He suffers from:

A) Infected leg sores - the small of both legs are split since birth, into four smaller legs, each with a foot. They are too weak for walking, and their development seems stunted into babyhood. Tried Mechao's antibiotics in small doses, externally and internally.

B) Minor breathing difficulties due to deformed ribcage. Not much I can do here - he needs surgery. <

("And C) Envying the dead.")

Could the deformities be genetically reversed in children, if it's done before they're fully grown? Must find out.

([Chorus] MUST... FIND... OUT!)


DAY 9

No change. Neither Dohan nor I have shaved yet.

("We've started a Beard Club For Men.")

My past life in the 20th century fades into a dream, a fairytale.

("Once upon a time, there was a century of war, genocide and nuclear arms race...")

It seems less real every day.

(Amen to that!)

But the past reminds me too, with little hints of what has been. Especially in the Lepers' stories and legends. If I live through this, I will ask Librian to translate the lore of the Lepers.

(Working title: It Takes a Horribly Deformed Village.)

Eileen and Powers: I won't forget you. If I ever can convince myself that you're dead and gone, I'll erect a grave in your memory.

("I will cherish the memory of Whatzisname and that girl Whatshername.")


DAY 10

I dreamt that Four-Leg had my son's face. Shara cradled me until I fell asleep again. Without her, I wouldn't make it through the bad nights.

("And the bad booze.")


DAY 11

Four-Leg is feeling much better!

("I can breathe without the tube, and the rotted tissue has been burned off! Whee!")

His parents are grateful, and the villagers are enthusiastic.

([Feeble chorus] Yaaay...)

They asked me if I could make his legs normal again, and I had to tell them I don't know yet and lack the surgical equipment.

("And I sold them a Blue Cross insurance policy.")

In the meantime, I've drawn a design for crutches that Four-Leg could learn to use, to move around easier.

("He tested it, and they say he'll never walk again.")

As expected, Dohan is forming his own antibodies now.

(A few days later, His Own Antibodies split and formed the bands Antibody and My Bio-Chemical Romance.)

He could soon be able to shake a Leper's hand without risk. I suggested it to Dohan, but the idea terrified him.

("Actually, any sort of idea scared the crap out of him.")

Kusta? (August?), 940 A.M.:

DAY 12

Today we began disinfecting our clothes and equipment of Virus A.

("They made a nice bonfire.")

Luckily, Virus A isn't airborne, and quickly dies outside the human body - but it can spread short distances through hair, skin, and blood scraps.

("And the unholy touch of Vladimir Putin.")

The Lepers are scrubbing themselves and their houses extra clean, too - guess they've become hypochondriacs.

(Another victory for science and neurosis!)

Shara looks so beautiful, so alive, I could cry.

("And listen to Celine Dion all night.")

I'm beginning to understand how much Dohan misses Meijji - he's been talking about her all day.

("In a muttering, deranged, one-moment-from-going-postal kind of way.")

Four-Leg tried out his new crutches today. It won't be long before he can walk with them. He hugged me, and I blushed like the sentimental old git I've become.

(Ah, the pathos of Charles Dickens... NOT!!)

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