Chapter 12: Death Touch


At last, the time machine came to a halt, just outside the University of Chicago, mere seconds after it had left, on October 27th, 1985. Their job was done, and the monstrous being from beyond wouldn't be able to enter their world; at least not yet. Still, neither inhabitant of the time machine bothered to dismount yet. Hill still had a feeling that something else was wrong, and Lisa still hadn't said a word since they'd left for October. She had a crestfallen expression on her face, and was looking out the side of the machine, but Hill wasn't sure why. In spite of the success of their mission, she was definitely acting as if something was still horribly wrong.

"Lisa..." Hill said, looking over at her, and just starting to feel a bit more curious about the woman. When she turned to look at him, there was a profound sadness in her face, which concerned him even more. He had to know what was really going on.

"Lisa." Hill repeated, "What's wrong? What's the problem?"

Lisa tried to fake a smile just then, but Hill had no trouble seeing through it, and as his expression remained entirely serious, she soon looked away again with a sigh. At last, she responded to his question, sounding very half-hearted.

"I'm worried, Hill. You see, I'm still a familiar. To change the kind of person I was, I needed to bond with someone else."

At first, Hill wasn't sure what she was saying, but suddenly, it dawned on him just what she meant, and the thought sent a chill down his spine.

"Are you..." Hill stammered, "Are you saying that you've bonded yourself... to me?"

"It was the only way to do what you asked me to." Lisa replied sadly, "I knew it would be difficult and risky to attempt, and I'm still worried. I don't know what's going to happen when you travel to another time. Maybe I'll cease to exist. Maybe I'll lose all of my powers, and become a human. Maybe I'll travel with you. I can't say. As I said, there were risks."

"Then can't you just bond yourself to someone from this time period?" Hill asked, starting to feel worried about Lisa, "Wouldn't that eliminate the risk?"

"Probably," Lisa replied, "but I can't. Not now."

For a moment, Lisa paused, but then she turned back to look into Hill's face, with an expression that seemed almost pleading.

"I never realized what I was missing out on, Hill. I've only been your familiar for less than a day, but I can feel the compassion and care that you have for me; that you've always had, in spite of your fears. You've never shown me anything but plain, human respect, and I... I don't know if I can go back to being without it... Even if it means dying or losing my powers."

"There must be some people in this time period who are the same as me." Hill replied, but Lisa had shaken her head tearfully, and responded almost as soon as Hill had spoken.

"I don't know! I don't think so! Most people who find themselves with a beautiful woman as their familiar would treat me as an object and nothing else. I've... I've let it happen in the past, because I thought it would help others to develop, but I never really saw the harm. Now... with you... I feel so much more... human."

Once again, Hill felt genuinely sorry for Lisa, but he was still somewhat afraid of her, and of her powers, and he knew that he couldn't agree to what she seemed to be asking for.

"If you're trying to ask me to take you with me, I think you know I can't." Hill said, but Lisa had turned away by that point, looking sad.

"I know." she replied, "You're an adult, and a mortal. You can't adjust to my presence so easily, but... well... I just wanted you to know how much of an effect you've had on me. I've seen your heart, and it's pure and decent, in a mature and unsuppressed way. I want you to know what that means to me."

Then, before his very eyes, Lisa began to fade away, disappearing gradually, and becoming half-transparent, then mostly invisible, until, at last, she'd faded away completely. The last that Hill ever heard of her was an echo of her voice, which he heard in his ears, though her lips had already vanished by that point.

"Good-bye, time traveler."


It had only been a minute or so of real time since the time traveler had left Dobson and West talking in the classroom together, and they were still talking when he got back. Still, both had clearly noticed that he'd been gone, and Dobson, in particular, asked him where he'd been. Hill gave her a short reply about how he'd seen someone he recognized, which Dobson didn't seem completely satisfied with, but nonetheless, she apparently concluded that there was no point in arguing about the topic, and in a moment, the discussion with West seemed to be coming to a close as well, as he picked up a small case from one corner of the room, and tucked it under one arm with a smirk.

"I'm ready to go when you are." West said, heading for the door.

"Wait a minute." Lightley interrupted, feeling as if he'd missed something.

"No." Herbert West replied, perfectly seriously, "Every minute counts. The sooner we can complete these experiments, the better."

"That's not what I mean." Mark Lightley explained, "It's just that I don't think..."

However, West still had the case under one of his arms as he turned to look Lightley in the face with a hard expression, and Mark truly felt worried about the man once again.

"Dr. Lightley," West said gravely, "If you came here to offer me the chance to complete my experiments in some other time period, then let's procede. If not, then why did you come here? Either way, I would very much appreciate it if you didn't waste my time. Dr. Vaughn here has explained your skittishness about letting others use your time machine. I understand that. I sympathise; believe me. However, my main concern here is completing my experiments. If you've got misgivings about that, sort them out. Psychology isn't my field."

Once again, West was proving to be a very blunt and unusual kind of man, and once again, Lightley found himself in a hard situation; forced to make a tough choice about what to do next. It was hard to decide, when it came to time travel, since one never really knew the effect that one's actions would have. Still, what Mark had to do next was pretty obvious, even though he didn't like it.


In only another couple of minutes, all three of them were back inside the time machine, with Dobson and Hill in the front seats, and West taking up a position in the middle of the back seat. He looked amazed when Tron activated and asked if it was time to go back to 1946. Still, he didn't interrupt when Hill gave his instructions, and soon, they were off through time, watching the buildings of the Chicago skyline grow smaller and newer-looking. West almost yelped when he witnessed that, since it was pretty obvious that he hadn't really believed in time travel until the very moment when he saw it for himself, but at last, the time machine began to slow, the air around them became chilly, and a light frost spread across the windows of the surrounding buildings, as the time machine came to rest in November 10th, 1946. West was actually the first to dismount, and it was several seconds before he seemed able to say anything aloud.

West was still staring at the older-model cars, the different clothes and hairstyles, still apparently having difficulty believing what had just happened to him, while Mark removed his key from the machine, and turned to face Dobson.

"I don't suppose you brought anything valuable, that we could trade for lodgings, did you?"

"It's the past, Lightley." Dobson replied cryptically, however, "I don't need to resort to that. Give me three hours, and I'll make you a hundred thousand bucks."

For some reason, Lightley didn't like the sound of that, but he let Dobson go a moment later, and gave Tron some instructions, then dismounted, watching as the time machine once again vanished, before he approached West again, who, it seemed, had only just realized that their means of returning home had disappeared.

"Lightley!" West exclaimed, rushing back, "Where's the machine?"

"It's fine." Lightley replied with what he hoped would be a calming smile, "Don't worry. Tron will bring it back when we need to travel again. However, the next thing to do is to spend a while in this time period. This is apparently where your reagent is most needed."

"What about Dr. Vaughn?" West asked, as Dobson had also apparently vanished, but once Lightley had explained her plans to make them some money, and get them a place to room for the week, West's expression began to turn even more sour.

"I thought you'd have a laboratory ready, or some other place for performing further experiments. Are you telling me that you don't even have a place for us to stay?"

"Well, not yet. Don't worry, though. We'll take care of..."

"Can you at least tell me what, exactly, you brought me here to do?" West asked, but when perplexed silence was his only answer, he sighed and looked at the ground.

"Dr. Lightley, I'm frankly astonished, and very impressed by the scope of your accomplishments in the development of technology. Being able to travel through time is an incredible breakthrough, with a world of additional potential, but you don't seem to have thought this thing through. You seem to be aware that you'll need my reagent for something in this time period, but you don't look as if you know what that something is. Am I right?"

Lightley looked away for just a moment, which West seemed to take as a "yes," and soon, he spoke again.

"Maybe if you told me where you've gotten your information, I could help."

For just a moment, Mark Lightley actually thought about confiding in Herbert West, but there was still a lot about the young scientist that he didn't like or trust, and he was pretty sure that West wouldn't have trusted him either, if he found out that Mark had been getting his instructions from a girl who'd claimed to be a psychic. Finally, he responded with as much confidence as he could manage.

"I've been to a time period further in the future than 1985." Lightley said, "That's why I know we need to be here, and that's why I can't reveal too much to you just yet. I'm sorry."

West still looked far from satisfied, of course, but at last, with a scowl, he spoke up one last time.

"In that case, just answer one question for me. How long do you plan on staying in this time period?"

"About a week."

West was starting to look distraught, but Lightley spoke up again before he could lodge any more complaints.

"Remember, we have a time machine. When you return to 1985, you can go back to almost the very moment that you left. I promise, you won't be missed.

"I won't be missed, no matter what." West responded grimly, "Those university types wouldn't care if I dropped off the face of the Earth. My research exposes too many of their pet theories."

"Speaking of that..." Lightley remarked, hoping to change the subject, while they waited for Dobson to return, "I've been impressed with your results, of course, but it seems I haven't heard the whole story. Are you saying that there are others, who've opposed your research?"

"Certainly." West replied, straightening his glasses for a moment, "Beating death is a touchy subject, even among scientists. It's hard to even get a fair hearing, no matter what kind of evidence you can present."

"You must have strong evidence, to be able to say something like that." Lightley remarked, but rather than respond to his question, West began looking down at the ground, and talking to himself.

"I'm so close. I've reanimated dead tissue several times already. The only problem is getting it to behave like real, living matter."

"B-behave?" Lightley asked, half-wishing that West wouldn't expand on that point, but soon enough, the young scientist had started to explain himself.

"Reanimated tissue tends not to behave as though it... Well, it often acts as though it doesn't want to be alive. It's ridiculous, of course, but I've reanimated a hand, that kept trying to bury itself. Larger or more central parts of human anatomy tend to behave better, but never quite like actual, living things. It's a shame. In all other respects, my work is essentially finished. I can literally bring the dead back to life with my reagent, but making them live, just as they did before... Duplicating the work of Doctor Frankenstein... That's still beyond me. It's the final stage of my research."

"Frankenstein certainly accomplished a lot." Lightley admitted, "I've met him a few times. He was a very committed man."

"He was one of my first inspirations." West explained, "I was able to locate some of his research notes during my early years in high school; not enough to serve as a guide to the process, but enough to set me on the right track. From that point on, I read everything I could get my hands on about reanimating the dead. I was sure that a man like Victor Frankenstein must have left behind some clue, to indicate how he'd accomplished it, and sure enough; I found it."

"The missing piece to Frankenstein's work?"

"One of them, anyway. You see, Frankenstein wrote in his notes that reanimating the dead required an energized chemical compound, which, in his words, 'could not be replicated through mere chemistry.' Those words were quite a puzzler. I couldn't understand what he meant, until I heard a legend of a man who could raise the dead, and I put two and two together. Doctor Frankenstein had been experimenting with human biochemical engineering; using the bloodstreams of actual, living, human beings to cobble together biochemical formulas for raising the dead, perhaps without them even knowing. He would mix various biochemical compounds into the bloodstream of a living person, until he found something that did what he wanted it to do. I can barely imagine the work that must have been involved in such a project."

"That's horrific." was all that Lightley could say, with no trace of emotion behind his words, but West just shrugged, the moment that he said it.

"That's science. You don't get anywhere in science by playing it safe. In any case, I studied several more historical records, learning the names of the people who Doctor Frankenstein had most likely used for those kinds of experiments, and sure enough, one of those names was familiar. It was the same man I'd heard of in one of the old legends; a story about a man who brought the dead back to life."

"So you started investigating the history of that man." Lightley anticipated, and sure enough, West was smiling as he continuned to recount his past efforts.

"His name was Garrity, and I found a clear record of his visit to a small, western town named Happiness, Arizona, dated August 21st, 1863. Apparently, he offered to bring back some dead people from that town, then left a short while later. Here's the strange part. The people in town reported that at least seventeen of their citizens actually did come back from the dead on the very day when Garrity left town, and a band of horsemen went after Garrity; chasing him all the way to California. I found out where his remains were buried, and tracked down his gravestone, dug up a sample of his body, and believe it or not, his genes were still intact. It's hard to believe, but somehow, whatever was in his bloodstream had helped his genetic material to survive for almost sixty years after his death. There wasn't enough there to give me a full answer to the question of how to raise the dead, but replicating his genes proved to be the first step in the development of my reagent. All of a sudden, cells that were previously lifeless, began springing to life, as soon as I administered the formula. There was still a problem, however."

"The problem was that it only worked on cells that were still whole, or which still had all their components. Tissue that was missing cells only reanimated partway. Because of that, I knew that if I wanted to really strike at the root of death, I needed some means of re-growing dead tissue rapidly."

"Well, the last big breakthrough only happened a fairly short time ago in Canada." West explained, "A boy was found, with hair that had grown to an unnatural length, with tremendous speed. Samples were sent all over the continent, and I managed to get one. There was some kind of highly-organized energy flowing through the hair, and when I combined it with my reagent, it became even more powerful, and increased its ability to regenerate dead or missing cells. As things stand now, as I said, the reagent is virtually perfect. The only problem is these strange, inhuman behaviors, which the reanimated dead exhibit."

"That's certainly a lot of work to have to go through, for a large breakthrough like yours." Lightley observed, though West didn't look as if the remark had even registered on him, "I'm a bit surprised by how much of it was research."

"These days, breakthroughs in science aren't the fruit of just one man's genius." West explained, "A half-dozen men, each making breakthroughs of their own, need to pool their findings somehow, to develop just one really applicable device or formula. Some are just more applicable than others. I'm sure you know what I mean from experience."

"Yes; my time machine." Lightley noted, "I developed the core mechanics mostly by myself, but I needed to consult with several other people, and rely on help from even more, before it became the finished product that you rode in. Maybe if we work together, we can help each other in the same way."

West fell silent for a few moments at that point, but finally, he remarked, "Yeah. Maybe."

The two of them largely waited in silence together from that point onward, until Dobson returned early in the evening, and sure enough, she had a briefcase full of the local currency.


"I just want to know where you got the money from."

"And I said, it's not important."

"Did you rob a bank?!"

At that point, Dobson turned to look at Lightley with a frustrated expression on her face, and when she spoke again, there was a very severe edge to her voice.

"Firstly," she began, "Robbing a bank could have been done in fifteen minutes, so the fact that I took three hours should indicate otherwise, just by itself. Secondly, you and I are geniuses, Mark. Petty robbery is beneath us. There are much better, simpler ways for us to make money. Finally, we're also time-travelers, and you can't tell me there are no ways to make money off of that."

"So that's it." Mark said aloud, as a realization dawned on him, "Gambling."

In a flash, Dobson had pulled a small device from one of her pockets, tapped the screen on one side of it, causing it to light up, and poked one of the symbols on the screen. Soon, a voice was coming out of the device. The voice sounded strange and artificial, since it often mispronounced certain words, but it was clear what it was trying to say.

"The results of the big afternoon race in Chicago, ending at 6:03 PM on November 10th, 1946 AD, were as follows. Jetchaser in first place in preliminary race 1, followed by..."

"Be careful." Lightley advised her, however, still not particularly happy with what Dobson had done, even as she turned off her machine, "If you use that method too often, you might wind up changing the future."

"I know what I'm doing." Dobson replied a bit flippantly, as she put her mobile device back into her pocket. However, Mark wasn't convinced.

"I don't see how you can say that." Mark said, already starting to get a bit angry with Dobson's attitude, "I've been at this longer than you have, and I don't even know exactly what I'm doing. I have to follow leads and clues, and try to figure things out a bit at a time. Even so, a lot of this is mainly guesswork. What makes you think you can just waltz through time, and not have to worry about the consequences of your actions?"

Dobson, however, was smiling again when she replied to his question.

"You know, when I was young, I might have worried about that kind of thing. I might have spent a lot of time trying to figure out every possible result of everything I could have done. I might have wasted a whole lot of time, and worked myself up over nothing; especially if I'd had a time machine. A time machine really opens up your options; it really increases the scope of what you can do, and that, of course, means there's that much more that can go wrong."

"There is a lot that can go wrong." Mark agreed, "So why don't you put a little effort into preventing that?"

"Because there's no point." Dobson replied with a sideways look, "Even if I tried to set things up, so that my actions have a certain set of consequences, there's no guarantee they will. Plus, there's always the chance that I might make a mistake, and have to go back to correct it. In science, we do that sort of thing all the time. It's how we refine data through experimentation. Most of the time, you get a chance to correct your mistakes; especially when you've got a time machine, so just don't worry about it. You'll live longer. Now, I've got some errands to run."

With those words, Stephanie Dobson stepped out into the street, and died.


The sharp, thudding noise of two bodies hitting the pavement simultaneously had been clearly audible from inside the building, and at once, Mark Lightley had rushed outside, to see what was going on. However, to his surprise, he'd found Dobson lying on the pavement nearby; her eyes glassy and lifeless, but with no other sign of visible injury. Opposite her, there was, Mark was amazed to see, a little, blond boy; no more than ten years old, who was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Young man..." Mark said, getting to his feet, "What just happened he..."

"No!" the boy exclaimed, however, through choked sobs, "Stay away! Don't touch me! Don't touch me or you'll die!"

At first, Mark thought that the boy was just making idle threats, but then he remembered all the strange things he'd seen up to that point, and glanced back at Dobson, who still lay dead on the pavement. In a moment of gut-wrenching clarity, he began to see what had happened. The boy had been running down the street; perhaps fleeing some other scene of tragedy, when he'd collided with Dobson, and... She'd died somehow. It was strange, but far from the strangest thing he'd seen in his travels through time, and it was quickly becoming obvious what he needed to do.

"Young man; listen to me." Mark said again, taking a step back away from him. That seemed to have had a good effect. The boy had started trying to scramble to his feet, but had paused when he saw that Mark wasn't getting any closer.

"I believe you." Mark said, trying his best to remain calm, in spite of the recent death of his companion, "I believe that you can kill me just by touching me. That's why I think it's incredibly-important to get you off the street, right now. I don't want anyone else to die. Do you agree?"

"Of... Of course."

"I have a friend who's a biochemist; a doctor." Mark said as he opened the door to the apartment building that Dobson had rented for them, "He may be able to help, but be careful on the way up, and try to stay out of people's way. Alright?"

"Al... alright."

Then, taking the lifeless body of Stephanie Dobson in his arms, Mark followed the boy upstairs, through the apartment building, to the room where Herbert West was staying.


Once West had been warned about the danger, and gotten a look at Dobson's body, his response had been very professional. In seconds, he'd pulled a reclining chair and his own bed out from where they'd been, setting them up in the center of the room, as if in an attempt to design an operating room for himself. Dobson had been laid on the bed, and the boy had taken a seat on the chair, following West's advice of leaning back in it, as far as he could, and staying there. In seconds, West had begun examining Dobson's eyes, hair, fingernails, and even took a blood sample, which he put into a small tray, and examined carefully, combining it with one chemical, then another. At last, it turned a thick, muddy color, and West turned back to look at Mark with a grim expression on his face.

"Well, I can tell you one thing." West said, putting down the sample, "Dr. Vaughn didn't die from a collision with a child, or any other kind of collision. She was killed by radiation poisoning."

"No!" the boy exclaimed right away, "I did it! It's my fault! Everything I touch dies!"

"Could there be a connection between the radiation and the boy?" Mark asked, softly enough that he hoped the kid wouldn't hear.

"Anything's possible," West replied, "but this would be a lot easier with a geiger counter of some sort. It's the only safe way to detect the presence of radiation."

"If it's that useful, I'm a little surprised that Vaughn isn't carrying one." Mark responded sadly, but no sooner had he suggested it, than West had grabbed one of Dobson's arms, pulling back her sleeve, and there; sure enough, there were metal components attached directly to her skin. Thin bands of metal were strapped to her arms, and as it turned out, also to her legs and torso, and connected to those bands were many small devices of various types; undoubtedly intended to be used in a variety of circumstances. West began searching the ones on her lower arms, until he'd found a component that he recognized, removing it from her arm-housing with a click. The boy was starting to look amazed, as it all happened in front of him.

"Yes; it's smaller than I'm used to seeing, but this is definitely a geiger counter." West observed, turning on the small device, and passing it briefly over the body of the boy. Apparently, he was impressed by the readings that he was getting, because West had whistled aloud in amazement a short time later.

"What? What did you find?"

"The readings are subdued, like the readings just outside the shielding of a reactor, but there's definitely something radioactive here. There's one more thing I want to try."

In a moment, West had reached into his case, and removed a small mouse from it. The mouse was lethargic, and appeared to be sedated. However, it was clearly alive. Soon, West had placed it on the chair, near the boy, and aimed his geiger counter at it, then told the boy to touch it, which, after some hesitation, he did.

At once, the mouse collapsed, limp and lifeless in the chair, and West gasped in alarm at what he saw on the geiger counter.

"For a moment, the readings just went all the way up!" West exclaimed, "There must be some kind of biological mechanism, which only allows the radiation to travel through physical contact with other biological organisms. Otherwise, we'd all be dead by now, and this whole city would be a hot zone."

The boy looked like he was about to cry again, but at least they knew the truth about him; his merest touch was highly radioactive and deadly. Still, Mark decided that it would be in their best interests to try to calm him down.

"Young man; don't worry. We'll find some way to fix this. What's your name?"

The boy still looked very scared, and there were still tears leaking out of his eyes, but his voice sounded a lot more steady as he replied.

"C-Colin Rukh."