Zeke and I are standing at the entrance to Matthew's lab, just staring at the deer that is standing in the middle of the room. "How?" I manage to breathe. Not moment's ago I was standing in this room looking at a failed experiment.
Matthew's smile stretches from ear to ear, "It was Christina, she zapped it."
I had enough time to wonder what he meant by zapped it but Christina's Candor tendencies give me no time to ask. "When you left the room, the heart monitor flickered. It was the first sign of life we had seen so I tried the defibrillator. It worked, it actually worked!"
"I would like to monitor the deer for another 24hrs before we put it to human trial to make sure it stays alive but I have complete faith. Most of the serum's work under a time constraint, as a simulation that eventually wears off. I have tried to replicate aspects of the memory and death serum as these one's are definite in there effect. On top of that, as you can see the deer still has signs of the wounds it inflicted before death as the serum didn't heal that but it's alive."
Matthew has spent the last several weeks trying to produce a life serum. Seeing Tris lying there wasn't enough, when I returned I had to see the site too to believe it was real. There was nothing but a strong bleach smell, the room already stripped bare and cleaned, but on closer inspection I found a canister of the death serum that failed to activate when she exploded through the doors. If the government could create all these serum's to manipulate people to be a certain way- to not lie, to forget things, to feel fear, feel pain, to die- why couldn't one create life?
I took the canister straight to Matthew where he has since been analysing the serum to use as a basis to producing a serum with opposite effects. Christina has spent a lot of time trying to help, although to what extent I haven't been sure, although obviously she has been able to contribute something. Tris could be alive.
I observed a trickle of blood running down the deer's leg from where it had been shot. I think of the multiple bullet wounds Tris sustained, "What about the bullets?"
Matthew rubs the bridge of his nose, a nervous stress habit I have noticed he does, "We will have to do extensive preparation on her body to extract the bullets and repair the damage. It's hard to say how she will be if she does wake up. I've read the report but some vital organs were hit, she's just lucky her brain, heart and spine were left unscathed. If the serum works, and I'm hoping because she is currently brain dead that her simulation awareness won't complicate that, then she will still wake up in a lot of pain. The shot in her arm will be easy but the one that hit her liver and lungs is more complicated. She bled a lot, Four, so we will need to find out her blood type and organise a transfusion too. It's not going to be easy."
I may not be Erudite, but I had considered some of this. Even then, it was still a lot to take in having been told it. That her genetic pureness might reject the serum, that she could be different when she woke, that there could be lasting repercussions. I think back to our last night together, waking to her in my arms. I think of what she told Caleb, "I didn't want to leave him." I was mad at first but I reviewed the security footage, I played it over and over in my head and I began to see reason. I understood why she did what she did, I forgive her, and if she didn't want to leave me surely she would be glad I brought her back. Matthew was right, it won't be easy, but she is worth it. I love her and that's why I nod and tell him, "Do it."
