Chapter 4: Vector

Monday 9:22 AM January 3rd 2000, Unknown Village, Carpathian Mountains, Romania

12 years earlier…

The amount of time it took for Miranda to fully react to the situation at hand felt like an eternity, despite it being only half a dozen seconds. Her mind was too shocked for words at the fact that her patient had just awoken from not only a self-induced state of unconsciousness, but from the powerful sedative she administered to him. A sedative that she had concocted herself for use in her experiments. The thought of someone actually having some form of immunity or resistance to her sedatives was a first for Miranda, which soon sent her mind into a frenzied panic.

'I gave him enough sedative to have him out for at least another day! ' thought a panicked Miranda, 'How is this possible?!'

But Miranda herself knew the answer. It was the substance in his body. It gave him advanced healing. And now the ability to burn through foreign chemicals like they were nothing? But she suddenly took into consideration something else. Back at the helicopter, the man was trying to reach out for his weapon when she and Karl approached him like they were threats. Could it be that he still viewed her as a potential danger? Was he trying to fight off the medicine in an attempt to potentially escape from her and save himself?

Despite his weakened state and still lying on the table, the man's grip on her wrist did not loosen and didn't take his eyes off her. Miranda looked into the man's eyes. They were green in colour. But colour was not the only thing she could see in them. She saw a series of conflicting emotions fighting for dominance. Fear. Distrust. Pain. Confusion. And it was he who expressed those emotions with the first words.

"W-w-who…are…y-you?" moaned the man in agony, "What…a-are…you…d-doing…to…m-me?

Miranda knew she had to speak for herself as soon as she can. Only more distrust will be created out of this situation if she didn't speak what she was doing. Taking a deep breath and clearing her mind, she responded to the man's questions.

"My name is Mother Miranda and I'm not a threat to you. I'm trying to save your life," spoke Miranda while motioning the metal in his chest, "I got you away from your helicopter wreckage and brought you here to my home to be healed."

The man raised an eyebrow at the mention of her name. Miranda guessed he maybe never met someone who sounded like a religious figure. Even less one who was a medical professional. Nonetheless, he gently released Miranda's hand. His eyes trained down until they reached his injury. He looked at it in horror.

"Oh, my god," muttered the man, shedding his stuttering, "but…thank you for…helping me."

"Except I'm not done yet and it's worse than it looks," said Miranda, "But I administered some anaesthesia to numb out the pain while I removed the metal in your body. This one is the final obstruction that needs to be removed from your body."

"The fact that I'm…still alive indicates that it missed my…heart," replied the man before coughing a little bit of blood, letting it trick from his mouth, "But I'm finding it…difficult and gradually…more painful to…breathe."

Miranda sighed in relief. This man seemed to have enough knowledge of human biology to understand his own situation. His heart is fine, but his finishing words brought new concern to her mind. If he was having trouble breathing, then that means the heart was spared, but the left lung was ruptured. And the anaesthesia was beginning to wear off as well. He should have been drowning in his own blood by now, but the unknown substance was trying to do its job inside, keeping the blood at bay.

"If I don't get it out, you will continue to have breathing problems and you'll develop an infection.", said Miranda, "But you seem to have an abnormality. Your other wounds closed up fast once I removed the metal shards. I need to know what it is."

"It was an experimental treatment serum I had some years ago.", replied the man, "But you're right about the job at hand. The longer it stays there, the worse the infection will be. We need to get it out now!"

Miranda looked at him with a surprised look. Sure, his resistance to the chemicals implied great strength in his body, but this man was still in no condition to treat himself, but maybe she can use this opportunity to one much needed piece of information out of this man.

"We?" asked Miranda incredulously, "You are in no condition to help, Mr…."

"Vector. My name is Vector." interrupted the man quickly.

Now it was Miranda's turn to raise an eyebrow. She was glad that her plan to getting some form of identity out of this man went in her direction, but she didn't expect an answer like this one. Vector? What kind of name was that? Did he mean Victor? Viktor? Maybe it was his codename? If he was a military man, maybe Vector was his callsign. Strangely, after seeing him in his suit, the name suited him.

"Vector?" asked Miranda.

"It's the name I went by most of my life." replied Vector, "And I can help. The shard is wedged in pretty deep and I can provide the strength to help lift it out."

'Most of his life? What kind of life did Vector have to be given a name like this?' thought Miranda, "Okay, but would you mind letting go own my wrist?"

Complying, Vector let go of Miranda's wrist and redirected his hand onto the shard, just beneath Miranda's own hand. Wincing in pain, he refocused his gaze on Miranda, who gazed back at him in waiting. For a moment, Miranda couldn't help but feel like Vector's own eyes weren't just looking into her eyes, but looking for something that might tell him what kind of person she was on the inside. Miranda tried to do the same, but the windows that were Vector's eyes were foggy with mystery. Like he didn't want anyone to see who he really was.

"On three," grunted Vector, "One…two…three!"

"He woke up? In the middle of a surgery?" asked Rose with surprise in her voice, "Isn't that usually dangerous?"

"Normally, yes, but Vector was resilient. So resilient that he woke up to help me pull the last piece out." explained Miranda, "And I knew from that resilience that he was a strong person."

"Vector? Was that his name?" asked Eveline.

"Yes. He told me his name when he woke up." replied Miranda.

"Weird name." said Rose simply.

"That's what I thought. But I knew that it wasn't his real name,", said Miranda, "Maybe he didn't trust me enough to tell me his real name."

"Why wouldn't he trust you? You were trying to save his life." asked Eveline

"If you were to wake up and find someone who wasn't dressed like a doctor performing surgery on you, would you want to tell them your real name?" asked Miranda.

"I suppose not. Stranger danger." said Eveline, "So, Mama, what happened next?"

"After I introduced myself, I told him I had pulled him out of his helicopter wreckage and brought him back to my place save his life, "Miranda continued, "When it came time to remove the metal in his chest, we pulled hard and it was released from his body. After that, I hurried to clean and close up the wound before an infection could occur."

Miranda knew that the children expected to be told that Vector had survived. That he had then recovered and could live his life like normal again. Then they would ask what Vector had to do with how she met her husband. A child's mind couldn't be expected to comprehend the real world and all of its complexities.

Much like the complexity behind the simplification of her story. The last stage of the surgery involved giving him something that would ultimately decide whether he was suitable for her original goal, knowing that what he had in him would keep him alive.

But in the wake of what happened after the metal shard was pulled out, the last stage of the surgery was the only way that she could save Vector's life.

At once, they sharply yanked the metal shard out of his chest, but the man held a more firm grip to it when Miranda let go of the metal. The man screamed in agony, indicating that the anaesthesia had finally worn off. He threw the metal shard at the wall, and it bounced off and landed on the floor, but not before it left a splatter of his blood in its wake.

His body shivered as if it was excruciatingly cold within the laboratory, despite it actually being on the warmer side. Miranda knew this was a symptom of early stages of shock. She tried to hold down Vector's arms as he shivered, but it did nothing as he continued to writhe in pain and phantom cold. He gurgled as he coughed up more blood from his mouth. Much more than he had before. Miranda took notice of this with surprise.

"Wait a minute." she muttered as she gaped at the wound. She expected it to be closing as fast as the previous wounds before it, but what she saw completely shocked her.

The wound was not healing itself as fast as it should have been! It was letting more blood to seep out of its opening and filling the lung inside. Could it be that the serum he mentioned had reached its limit after the body had sustained so much damage? That it had inevitably worn out after the body had been dealt so much punishment and it was straining itself by keeping the wounds from bleeding out uncontrollably. Using his previously injured arm, the man pushed some pressure down on the wound, attempting to stop the bleeding.

But Miranda had other plans for him. "Lean your head back, close your eyes and let go of the wound. I have something that may help."

Vector tried to say something, but the blood gurgling in his mouth made his intended words sound like speaking underwater. His eyes lost focus again, going back to the pain ravaging his body. Ignoring it, Miranda quickly restrained his arms and legs with rope bindings at the table's edges. Vector attempted to struggle some more once his mind got back out from pain.

"I said I have something that will help!" reassured Miranda, "But you being awake and struggling is not going to make it any easier! I'm going to give you a second sedative to put you to sleep."

Taking a second syringe of sedative from the table and holding down Vector's shivering torso, Miranda sunk the needle directly into Vector's chest. His movements become less erratic after a few minutes. His eyelids began to get heavy on his face. It looked like sleep was about to take him away again, but not before he sputtered out a few words after swallowing some blood.

"B-box…" groaned out Vector, "… he-helicopter…"

Finally, Vector succumbed to the effects of the second sedative, laying still. Miranda was left a little confused by his last words, but she decided to dwell on them later. She then administered a second dose of anaesthesia, not wanting her patient to awaken again in pain. If she wanted to ensure Vector's survival and test whether he was indeed to solution to bring back her daughter, the final stage of the surgery must completed.

Out of what would have been Vector's line of sight, Miranda brought a small jar next to Vector's head. It contained a grey fleshy organism shaped like an underdeveloped fetus, floating around in water. No arms. No legs. No neck. And seemingly devoid of life. A single word was written on a label.

Cadou.

Miranda sighed. This was perhaps the pinnacle of her research with the Mold. She had created many of these Cadou to experiment on the local populace in hopes of bringing back her daughter, only to be met with nothing but failure. Somewhere inside her, a small hope lay in Miranda.

Hope that Vector might be a different result.

A successful result.

Miranda unscrewed the jar and took the Cadou out. It pulsated ever so slightly in her hand as she brought it right above Vector. Looking at the wound, she noticed that it had healed just a little bit, but she needed to slip the Cadou inside his ribcage for it to properly assimilate to his body. Grabbing a nearby scalpel, she proceeded to undo the healing and deeply cut Vector's chest flesh down until it reached just below the ribcage.

And then came the really disgusting part.

Miranda slipped her hand through the incision she made and pulled it back out after a few moments. But when she did, it held nothing. She had slipped the Cadou right inside Vector's ribcage and next to his heart, and finished the job by stitching the wound shut and zipping up his jumpsuit. His restraints remained on his limbs. Now the Cadou would do the rest of the work and try to assimilate itself with his body.

So the only thing Miranda could do was wait. She walked to a nearby tub of water, washing Vector's blood off of her hands.

Prior to and after the Lords, her previous experiments bore unwanted fruit in the forms of dead subjects and feral monsters who served only her. But this man was something different. His blood contained some kind of foreign substance that wasn't normally found in the human body. And the thought of it mixing with the Cadou she had just implanted into Vector's body brought some discomfort into Miranda's mind. Come to think of it, he should have been weakened by the metal impaled in his body to even open the helicopter door. Yet he did it easily. Too easily. Could it be possible that he also attained superhuman strength from whatever was in his body?

She had no idea what was going to come of this experiment. Another death? Another monster? A superior breed of humanoid? Or something else? But something continued to tug at Miranda's insides, telling her to have hope for this one. Miranda stood next to the Vector's body and spoke in a sombre voice.

"Let the power of the Megamycete flow through you," spoke Miranda as if she were reciting a ritual for a ceremony, "May it give you new life."

Miranda could only hope that this effort, unlike so many others, would not go to waste and bare some much-needed fruit of good fortune.

But then she remembered something. The words Vector had said to her before his dozed off again. Box. Helicopter. Miranda's mind struggled for a second to find the connection between them before she thought the obvious. There was a box of some kind within the helicopter. And judging from how Vector was wording it with need, it was of great importance to him.

Miranda re-adorned her robes, placed her mask back on and extended her feathered wings over her body before she left in the direction that Karl had previously did, intent on unraveling the mystery behind this box. This left Vector with the Cadou inside him in the now-quiet laboratory.

"How did it turn out? Did you save Vector?" asked Rose.

"Indeed I did, Rose. After the operation, I had to put Vector to sleep again, but not before he mouthed a couple of words to me. Box and helicopter." said Miranda.

"What did he mean by that?" asked Rose.

"He had something in the helicopter that was incredibly important to him, sweetie," Miranda replied, "I wasn't certain how long he was going to be asleep for, but I was greatly worried for him. I even feared the worst would happen to him. But I had trust in my skills and knew only time would tell how he would turn out. In the meantime, I ventured out back to the helicopter, hoping to find his mysterious box."