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Nobody speaks in the treatment room. Even the heart and respiratory monitor are muted. Otto calibrates the lasers from behind a computer, Linda affixes the various IV bags and lines to Joey’s forearms, Jess holds Joey’s hand while watching the doctors work, and Joey and Lena observe everyone silently. All of them wear the infrared blocking contacts, barely noticeable if not for the faint green circle around their irises.
Linda turns the last roller clamp on an IV line, then holds her hands together in front of herself and looks to Joey. “I must warn you again: the virus has been in your system for a long time. It could be overwhelming to regain feeling so quickly. We’ll try to moderate the speed of the treatment so it isn’t so abrupt, but we can’t make any promises.”
Joey and Jess nod synchronously. Joey turns his head to look at Lena, his large, dark eyes vacant and unmoving. Lena’s sure there’s an emotion to his stare, but she can’t quite place it. Maybe in a few hours, she will.
Otto starts the dialysis machine, and then they wait.
An hour later, Jess nearly falls out of her seat. Lena scrambles up to help her, but she stops at Jess’ gasp.
“Joey? Are you squeezing my hand?”
Jess pushes up his long, scraggly hair out of his eyes. What Lena thought were dilated pupils begin to break apart and dissolve, black ashes dispersing out into his sclera and revealing the same colorful irises and pale pupils as his sister.
“I love you,” Joey whispers with a giggle.
“I love you, too, kid.”
“I love you,” he repeats, smile growing on his face. “I’m happy. I’m sad we left home, and I’m mad at our family for not leaving with us. But you’re here, and that makes me happy.” His body begins to shake, and tears start flowing through the crinkles in his cheeks formed by his smile. “I can feel you touching my head. Your hands are cold. My shirt tag is poking my neck. My clothes are soft. My nose is warm. My feet are warm. My arm…”
His voice fades, and he begins to whimper.
“Joey?” Jess sniffs and clears her throat. “What’s wrong?” She whips around to the Plastinos, eyes brimming with fear and rage as Joey continues whimpering softly. “What’s wrong?”
“It could be shock,” Otto mumbles. Linda adjusts the clamps on the IV lines with a frown.
Lena jumps up to the thermostat and sets it as low as possible. “Can it be the infrared?”
“Unlikely. The lasers aren’t pointing at him directly.”
“I’m sorry, Jess.” Joey interrupts. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry--” He devolves into another language, phonemes that Lena’s human vocal cords could never replicate, and Jess attempts to prevent his hand from clawing deep into his chest and his feet kicking the bed. Through it all, he dutifully keeps the arm connected to the dialysis machine planted firmly and unmoving next to his side. He cries loudly, sometimes making words but mostly sustaining a prolonged yowl of pain that makes Jess cry harder and speak faster and hold tighter, and the scientists raise their voices to deliberate over the screams.
“Allergic reaction?”
“He doesn’t have anything other than saline and serum entering his system, both of which he didn’t have any reaction to in preliminary trials.”
“Then the only difference is the lasers.”
“And the dying viruses.”
“We should see how much living virus is still in his system.”
“That doesn’t solve the immediate problem.”
“It’ll tell us if it’s working.”
“It’s obviously working if he’s regaining feeling so quickly.”
“We can take a serum sample while we pause the treatment. There’s no reason to prolong this.”
“No!” Joey shouts. “Jess is sad and she’ll stop being sad when--” His voice cracks into a scream, and the scientists simultaneously cringe.
Otto places his hand gently on Jess’ shoulder. “Do you want to stop?”
“I want to feel! I want to feel I want to feel I want… to...”
His voice fades and body falls limp. Jess frantically runs his hands over him, methodically applying pressure at various joints, and Linda adjusts his IV’s once more.
“Stop the treatment,” Lena orders.
“No!” Jess yells. “You heard him! He wants this! You can’t make him go through this again.” She yanks off her jacket and jumps onto the second clinical bed. “Take more serum from me. He’s just in shock, right? He might need more. Please!”
The room falls silent save for the mechanical pumping of the dialysis machine and the low hum of the lasers, and all eyes turn to Lena.
She looks back to Jess who still has tears streaming down her face, streaks of her orange skin showing through her make-up, then to Joey, contorted with the sheets trapped between his clenched fingers. His eyes rolled down into his cheeks far enough that only the tops of his irises are visible, the rest of his sclera peppered black.
“We don’t know if that will work.”
“Please!”
Lena feels her lip quiver and distracts herself by looking at her right wrist. Joey’s lavender bond glimmers with a richness she hasn’t seen since the first day she met him.
“Keep him sedated,” she concedes. “This stops if his vitals fall any further. Where are your blood draw supplies?”
Otto wheels Jess’ bed closer to Joey’s, and Jess reaches for Joey’s hand immediately. Although preoccupied with preparing Jess’ forearm for the serum extraction and taking deep, even breaths, Lena watches Jess pry Joey’s fingers open and replace the sheets with her fingers. She doesn’t move in any other capacity until Lena eases the needle into her forearm and elicits a small wince.
“I’m sorry for being difficult,” Jess mumbles. “I don’t even know if this will help. I just can’t imagine not doing anything. This is all I can do, and it’s nothing.”
Lena tapes the needle and line to Jess’ arm, then keeps her eyes on the blood bag filling with the thin, orange oil of Dyrlian serum. She takes several more moments to breathe until her throat holds enough air to keep her voice from wavering.
“I would’ve done anything to save my brother,” she exhales. “You don’t need to apologize for doing the same.”
Jess’ hand flexes and releases.
Lena limits Jess to one bag of serum despite the latter’s protests. They monitor Joey in shifts, deciding that fresh air and stretching is necessary for however long it will take, and Lena orders food delivered to the incubator.
Nobody eats.
Three hours in to the treatment, Linda announces that the virus concentration decreased by 35%.
“Let’s stop here,” she suggests. “It’s possible that later rounds won’t be as severe as his body acclimates. We don’t know how much stress he’s under right now since he can’t show it. We can wean him off the sedatives and reassess when he wakes up.”
Jess looks to Lena, and Lena nods.
“Okay,” Jess answers. The Plastinos disengage the dialysis machine and the lasers, and Lena moves to clean up Jess’ arm.
“It’s okay, Ms. Luthor,” Jess assures. “You don’t have to stay.”
“Nonsense.”
“Really.” Jess blocks her from the bandage wrapped around her arm. “I know how busy you are, and we’ve taken enough of your time. We’ll be okay.”
Lena can’t restrain the glare that fires from her tired eyes. “And who will take you back?”
Jess, to her credit, doesn’t flinch. “I was thinking of staying the night.”
“All of you?”
“We need to finish up notes for the trial report,” Otto defends.
“I can call somebody to stay with us once they leave,” Jess adds.
“But we won’t leave until they’re here,” Linda finishes.
Lena feels her glare weaken as she takes a lingering look at Joey’s limp body crumpled on the bed.
“You’ll be the first to know when he wakes up,” Jess confirms.
Lena sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Anything less and you’re fired.”
“Got it.”