Chapter 11:
Morning came too soon. And with it came temptation in the form of a sleepy Wolfgang slipping a hand between her legs and nipping at her neck.
"No, no," she protested weakly, "I am going to be late..." But she didn't fight very hard, giving in to his skillful fingers and the bliss that followed.
In the end, she was only about ten minutes late for the opening talk; it did help, though, that the entire conference was being held in the lavish meeting rooms on the ground floor of her hotel. She crept into the crowded hall, adjusting the blazer and skirt she had hastily changed into, blessing Dr. Tambe when she saw he had saved her a seat. She could have elevated him to sainthood when he offered her a pastry and warm travel cup of milky chai tea as she sat down.
"I remember the first time I flew here, the jet lag almost killed me," he murmured softly in her ear. "Have something to eat and drink, it will help you adjust."
Kala felt a little guilty. He wasn't wrong, she was jetlagged... but still... Pleasurable soreness radiated through her as she shifted in her seat to accept the tea. A woman at the front called them to attention, smiling brightly as she welcomed them. Kala endeavored to focus, sipping at her tea.
"...It is my honour to introduce our keynote speaker Dr. Isabella Gallo, Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the Universita degli studi Firenze, and CEO of Chameleon Solutions."
The hall burst into applause, as an austerely dressed women walked on stage, moving confidently with precise sharp movements. It was only when she approached the podium that Kala noticed the dark glasses and white cane she held; she was blind. Dr. Gallo smiled coolly at her audience before clicking onto the first page of her slide show.
She was an excellent speaker, clear, to the point, extremely professional; Kala quickly lost herself in the flow of her presentation. Chameleon Solutions was a company that specialized in treating rare disorders using a combination of more affordable and readily available drugs, Kala couldn't help but sympathize with the challenges Dr. Gallo laid out. She worried briefly about Wolfgang; they had agreed they would start testing the drug on him tonight.
Dr. Tambe was a bit hard of hearing, so they were sitting near to the front. Unlike most speakers, Dr. Gallo didn't turn her head while she spoke, her face mostly obscured by her large dark glasses and blunt, utilitarian haircut. Which was why Kala felt a sudden shock like a bucket of ice cold water, when, while answering a question posed by a Japanese scientist several rows behind her, she turned her head in Kala's direction. She felt unease creeping though her spine; it was like Gallo could see her. Was she staring at her? She could feel Wolfgang and Nomi at attention in the back of her mind. Dr, Gallo's mouth was set in a tight line, even as she politely answered the question. Surely it was just her imagination.
Halfway through the day, nursing a headache and a third cup of tea, Kala remembered why she didn't go to more conferences. At the best of times, she would have been reaching sheer information overload, as it stood she was under-slept and thoroughly distracted. It seemed that physical contact had strengthened her and Wolfgang's abilities, which would have been scientifically interesting, if it wasn't so diverting. She kept accidently visiting him, flitting back and forth between his sun lit room where he was still lazing around in bed, shivering at the feeling of the sheets on his skin, the pull of his muscles as he stretched luxuriously, the swollen feel of his mouth; and her hard seat in the lecture hall.
"You are doing this on purpose aren't you?" she moaned, resting her aching head against the wall of the empty woman's washroom, on her ten minute break between speakers. He didn't reply, just rolled a bit so the sheets slid down his torso and stretched again, flexing.
Kala huffed in frustration; "I will get you back for this." He seemed to have fallen back asleep, but she knew better, she could feel the smug little grin on his face.
That little... she mentally added a few choice swear words.
Thoroughly distracted, she ran directly into a tall man in a blue suit nearly knocking him over as she exited the bathroom. She must not have hit him hard, because he didn't stop to listen to her fervent apologies, just brushed her off, handing her the purse she dropped with a look of cold disgust. Kala sighed; it was just going to be one of those days.
Lito showed up approximately fifteen seconds after Kala left his hotel room, wearing nothing but a pair of tiny briefs. Wolfgang made a point of acting unfazed.
He partially rolled over, "Can I help you?"
"I doubt it," Lito sighed.
Wolfgang peeled open one eye to look at him. "You look like shit, man," he observed.
Lito tried for a smirk, "Well, I didn't get much sleep last night you know." Wolfgang was suddenly in Mexico City sandwiched between Lito and soundly sleeping Hernando.
"Nope," Wolfgang just reached for a pillow that still smelled faintly of Kala and wrapped his arms around it. "That's not the reason."
"They were protesting," Lito suddenly sounded choked, "At the premiere of my latest movie, some religious group or something, they found out Hernando's name." He swallowed, "They were threatening him, calling him..." Lito shook his head. "Calling him terrible things, it was the first premiere I could have taken him to, and I didn't. I went alone. And I am glad I did." Their eyes rested softly on Hernando's sleeping figure. "I don't care what they say about me, but they threaten him..."
"I understand," Wolfgang's fists clenched. He truly did.
"What am I supposed to do?" Lito seemed to be fighting back tears. "I don't have a career anymore, and I can't protect the people I love. You know people are even threatening Daniela, she didn't even do anything other than stand by my side."
Wolfgang thought about it. "I don't know," he admitted at last. Lito just sighed and stole a pillow from Wolfgang, stretching out his long limbs.
"Look," said Wolfgang starting to get slightly concerned by the intensity of Lito's mournful stare. "You are in the right and they are in the wrong. Their ways are the old ways and you are the future. Find a way to fight back."
A humorless smile flitted across Lito's face, "I don't know how to fight. That is your job."
Kala's determined expression, as she built him a bomb out of kitchen cleaner and spices flashed into his mind. "There are many ways to fight." He murmured at last.
Late afternoon was spent wandering Florence, the collective nervous energy of the cluster making him too antsy to lie in bed any longer. They would test the drug tonight. He could feel Riley hovering anxiously on in his periphery and tried to exude an air of nonchalance. What would be - would be. Kala had assured him that she would start with a low dosage so any side effects should be non-permanent and mild. He could feel her worrying about it even now, as some scientist from Norway droned on about anti-retroviral's.
Kala. Reason number two he was walking aimlessly about the city, and had been for three hours now in the blistering hot sun. What was the word? Paradigm. Paradigm shift. That seemed the appropriate way to describe the last few days. Wolfgang could hardly reconcile this reality with his life a few months ago, even a few weeks ago.
He should be sitting with Felix in their lock shop, smoking a cigarette and tinkering away at a safe with a classic rock station blaring in the background. Or perhaps he should be in some club, avoiding his uncle and his constant 'requests' that he help out more with the family business. But instead he was getting burned to a crisp, in the Florence sunshine, waiting on his girlfriend (for lack of a better descriptor) to come and test her drugs on him. Wolfgang couldn't decide what was most bizarre about this whole situation. Maybe it was that, despite it all, he was really fucking happy.
He must be losing his fucking mind; there was no way that this kind of thing lasted. In his experience happiness had its own steep prices. He didn't deserve her; that was dead obvious. Also, somewhat irrelevant, since when did people get what they deserved? But waking up, half-suffocated by her hair, completely enveloped in the scent of spices and something floral, idiotically happy – that felt stolen from someone else's life. Reality always had a way of asserting itself
Somewhere, on the streets of Nairobi, Capheus was shaking his head at his pessimism.
Collapsing at last into a blissfully cool café and ordering the first iced drink he saw, Wolfgang remembered, belatedly, that he had not messaged Felix. Digging in his pocket for his phone, he saw Felix had got to it first. Typical.
'You know,' the first message read, 'if I didn't know you were a fucking caveman that doesn't know how to work a phone I might think you got abducted by the Italian fucking mafia.'
Wolfgang snorted at that and opened his second message, 'Or maybe you were catfished by your hot Indian girlfriend (serves you right) and now have to go into shameful exile.'
The third message just read, 'I am selling the lock-shop and opening a strip club in your memory.'
He half considered not answering, just to see what Felix would come up with next, but finally laboriously typed a reply, 'I'm fine. Landed. Kala is a real person, shithead.' And then, out of spite, 'How are you and Nurse Felder getting on?'
Felix responded immediately, 'I don't believe you - I demand photo evidence. Felder is the most boring fucking person I have ever met, if I have to hear one more fucking football statistic...'
'I thought you liked football.'
'Nobody likes football that much.'
Wolfgang snorted at that.
Remembering Julia's remonstration he logged into his email. Sure enough she had sent him an update on Will's condition – stable, but she couldn't be sure if there was any internal damage because she lacked equipment. The officer from Berlin Police Department had also sent him an email letting him know that they were done searching his and Felix's apartments and they were clean. Good, thought Wolfgang, they would be able to return home soon, dispense with all this Swiss countryside nonsense. He suddenly missed Berlin intensely: his empty little flat, the orderly grey buildings, the weird little nooks that only he and Felix knew about.
He would miss the lake, though. Idly, he wondered if there was anywhere to swim in Florence. He could look around. Subconsciously, he reached out and brushed Kala's mind. She was eating dinner with Dr. Tambe and several other scientists, networking, he had caught her thinking disgustedly. He could taste the unfamiliar combination of basil and pine nuts in her mouth.
Perhaps he would go back to the restaurant he had taken her to last night. Wandering in that direction, the iced coffee that was way too sweet and milky for his taste still in his hand, Wolfgang suddenly became a aware of prickling sensation on the back of his neck.
Casually, he paused at a street-side cart and pretended to look at a map, scanning the street behind him. It was well after working hours, the sidewalks were crowded, an ideal place to blend in. He carefully looked around again, but nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, a group of Italian businessmen pushed past him, straightening their suit jackets.
He followed closely behind them, and took a round about way to the restaurant; still unable to shake the feeling his was being followed. Luckily Kala was distracted, and he was able to repress that unease before it added to her stress. He was getting better at that, adjusting to the intimacy of sharing emotions, figuring out how to guard himself again.
The wrinkled old restaurant owner looked disappointed he had not brought Kala, but still tugged down on his arm so she could kiss his cheeks, before gesticulating at one of the young waiters who sat him at a little table by the window and brought him a glass of wine – "Compliments of Nona who hopes you will bring your girlfriend back soon."
After ordering Wolfgang kept a watch out the window, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Still he couldn't quite shake the feeling something was wrong. Perhaps, he was just being paranoid.
It was dark again when Kala knocked on his hotel room door. He had felt her anticipation all the way from the lobby. Nervousness, concern that she might hurt him, and something else unrelated, a sensitive tingle in her lower abdomen, increasing her heart rate, making her press her thighs together. Wolfgang was suddenly very strongly tempted to skip the drug test all together. It wouldn't be so hard to distract her, it was easy to make her flustered, see her lips part, eyes widening, a little whimper escape her...
He really wasn't cut out for all this noble self-sacrifice.
Sighing, he opened the door. Kala was chewing her lip on the other side, carrying a large black briefcase in addition to her usual little purse.
"Dr. Dandakar," he gave her a little nod, and returned to his sprawled position on the bed. He patted the spot next to him. "Care to inspect me?"
It was a true mark of her preoccupation that she merely rolled her eyes before dropping the briefcase on the hotel desk, next to the first aid kit and syringes he had brought her and beginning to unpack it. Her hands were doing that nervous clumsy thing again. He dropped his act and gently took over, drawing on her knowledge. She would be a terrible shot, he thought, shaking all over anytime she got too nervous or excited. That filled him with fondness for some reason. He leaned over to kiss her softly; she tasted vaguely of mint and something sugary.
"It's going to be ok," he murmured, carefully drawing the drug into the barrel of the syringe. "I trust you, and no matter what happens it is not your fault."
She was unconvinced; he could feel her apprehension forming an uncomfortable lump in her throat. Wolfgang carefully placed the capped needle in her hands, leaning over her to kiss the top of her head, brushing his hands over her arms and shoulders, before pulling away, allowing her to gather herself.
When she turned to face him, she was all professionalism, clutching a pen and a truly gigantic binder. She took a deep breath.
"Please lay down so that you are comfortable, but you are still able to breathe comfortably. I am going to take your vital signs."
He silently complied, and felt her fumble at his wrist for the pulse. "Sorry," she whispered, "I was never involved in many clinical studies, I am a bit rusty."
Even so, he couldn't help but admire the thoroughness she applied to her work. Halfway through a long medical questionnaire, she started to relax, her voice becoming confident.
"Any adverse reactions to antibiotics?"
"No."
"Pre-existing medical conditions? Heart disease? Respiratory illness?"
"No." he paused, "I am a bit sun burned."
Kala rolled her eyes again.
"Current medication?"
"No" he grimaced and saw her smiling slightly as she moved on to the question of her questionnaire: Does the patient currently smoke?
She checked the 'no' box without asking. Thank you, she mouthed.
Muttering lamely about running and lung volume, he averted his eyes. No way in hell was he ready to admit how far he would go to make her happy.
The tense little line between her eyebrows returned as she wiped his arm down with disinfectant, but her movements were sure. "You will feel a bit of a sting," she said uncapping the needle, "It will take about 10 minutes for the drug to take effect and you should feel its effects for about 6 hours at this dosage."
She paused the needle hovering above his arm. "I will of course be here the whole time." There was a slight quaver to her voice now; he took her free hand in his. The cluster was with them now their anxious eyes on the two of them.
"On the count of three?"
She nodded. "One...Two...Three..." There was a pinch and a sting and then she was turning, capping the needle and dropping it in a biohazard bag.
Nomi was standing beside him, "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," he murmured, "Just a bit fuzzy, maybe." He felt the mattress sink as Kala climbed into bed with him, stroking a gentle hand over his forehead.
A slight ringing started in his ears and the room acquired a soft unfocused glow, belatedly he remembered what Kala had said about blindness being a side effect. Well he supposed, this was a pretty nice way to do it, surrounded by his cluster, Kala's warm body pressed against his side. He reached up to stroke her hair, but suddenly he couldn't find his arm.
"Kala?" his tongue felt numb, his voice thick, "Kala I can't move my arms." He saw her eyes widen slightly, but he couldn't hear her over the ringing in his ears. Panic started to set in. He saw Nomi anxiously hovering, her form shifting and warping nauseatingly, like a TV with poor reception.
He couldn't see Kala anymore, where was she? She had been beside him a second ago. A vicious throbbing pain suddenly spiked between his eyes, agony shooting through his spine, like every part of his body was burning, turned to flames that were trying to escape his body. The ringing was deafening now.
Wolfgang wanted to curl up and cover his ears with his hands but he couldn't move, not even to blink. He couldn't help it; he blacked out.
It hadn't even taken five minutes. Within moments of injecting the drug Wolfgang has started to tremor against her, entire body shaking. He had begun to speak, slowly growing incoherent and then whimpering, this terrifying heart-rending noise that was so unlike him. Kala had frozen as his eyes darted back and forth unseeing.
This went on for several agonizing minutes, Kala desperately taking his hands, begging him to tell her where it hurt, wishing she could do something, anything, to make it stop. She was leaning over him stroking his clammy skin, whispering his name, any soothing thing she could think of - when suddenly, she was overcome by a sharp pinch in her mind.
It was a very clean, neat sensation –a snap, like a stick breaking, or a door closing sharply.
Then her awareness of him was gone.
Next chapter is up on Sunday :)
