-Chapter 17: Hyper Lethal Vector-
"Ben would have loved this," Angela said, eyeing one of the solutions smoking under the steam hood. It was a clear pink color and small bubbles rose to the surface of the beaker every few seconds.
"Manganese chloride?" I asked, securing the cap on the container of acid and putting it back on the shelf. I moved to look at the centrifuge, which had another minute or two to go until it was finished.
"No," Angela answered, moving away from the gentle humming of the exhaust fan and toward the bench I was working on. Well, I was actually working on all the lab benches, but this was the one I was sitting at. "I mean this," she waved her arms about, indicating she was talking about the lab. "Super human serums, powers, working in a lab at night."
"He was a bit of a geek, was he?" I smirked as I flipped the centrifuge out and poured the top, liquid part of the vial down the sink.
"Yes," Angela smiled as she stared through the desk, remembering his obsession with action movies and comic books. A flash of what happened to her boyfriend went through her thoughts, but she merely swallowed and pushed the memories back.
We were currently working in a college chemistry lab in San Luis Potosi. After our Walmart heist, we relaxed in a motel for a few days while I scouted for the appropriate chemicals to whip up some of my HLV2 formula.
Well, whip up was a bit of an oversimplification. The process was…involved.
My lips curled up in a smile as I recalled my own laboratory back home in Seattle. When I had first purchased Brock Labs I hadn't realized how much I would enjoy it. Sure, I had broken into labs like this before – and yes, it was a rush – but the feeling of owning one was entirely different.
I felt myself start to slip into a vision of the building in question. The picture was dim and blurred, since I wasn't focusing on a single individual, but it still looked alright from the outside. The pictures started to shimmer and I pushed them away and out of my head before I got too immersed in them.
I didn't want to turn into another Alice.
The slight sound of fabric brushing the floor whispered from the hallway outside the lab and my body immediately froze. My ears and mind strained, but as far as I could tell, the guard was still asleep.
He could have been dead, and would have been, had it not been for Angela's waterworks. She had said that breaking into a university lab and using their resources was bad enough – that we didn't need to kill anyone.
But I really, really wanted to.
I removed a bubbling beaker off of the hot plate in front of me and set it down on the counter top. Then I flipped open the fume hood with my mind and floated the pink solution over to me. Angela moved closer, trying to get a look at the liquid, but I held up a hand for her to stand back. It wasn't that the solution was immediately dangerous to a human, but prolonged exposure had serious health risks.
Quickly, so fast some of the movements must have blurred to Angela's eyes, I added all the ingredients to the larger beaker. The colors mixed and swirled together, creating a murky brownish-black color. I capped the container with one of the lids I found in a drawer and set it down, letting out a sigh of relief.
"So, that's it?" Angela asked skeptically, eyeing the muddy concoction. I huffed out a laugh and shook my head.
"It takes about half a day to set," I explained as I began the cleanup procedure, wiping down the table top and washing out the glassware I had used. "And by then half of what's in there will be floating at the top as a precipitate. The formula itself is actually very nice looking, if I do say so myself."
Angela sent out a wave of disbelief but didn't say anything. She joined in, helping me with the cleanup process. She was sluggish, though, and was more of a hindrance than a help. She yawned and swayed on her feet, and I kicked myself for not remembering she needed to sleep.
How odd that human habits could become so foreign to me so quickly.
Once the laboratory was spotless, I gathered the few items we had brought with us – a water bottle, a package of rubber gloves, and some uneaten granola bars – and stuffed them inside Angela's backpack. I fastened it to my back and picked up the proto-serum carefully, rotating it in my hands and watching the cloudy liquid slosh around inside.
"Angela," I called lowly, causing the girl in question to turn and glance at me through hooded eyes. "Can you stay awake long enough for us to get back to the hotel room? You'll have to carry the serum while I carry you."
"Yeah," Angela blinked forcefully, shaking off the encroaching sleep. I pushed a wave of excitement at her, causing a smile to form on her face and her entire posture to straighten.
"Let's go, then," I said, handing the container carefully to Angela. She cradled it in her arms against her chest, giving it no chance to fall to the floor and splatter. I grasped her lightly and rotated her slowly, so I didn't startle her, and nestled her in my arms.
I activated Angela's talent, letting my senses dull themselves under the sheet-like cloak that fell over us. Then I took off out of the laboratory and through the hallway, heading for the door that led outside. The snoozing security guard's thoughts grew and waned as we passed by the golf cart he used to patrol the campus. Once we were outside, I increased my speed and made a b-line for the hotel – crossing through highways and crowds of people without notice.
The laptop I had "borrowed" from a nearby apartment wasn't really fast enough for my taste, but it would just have to do until I could either steal or buy a better one. My fingers flew over the keyboard a mile a minute as I scoured the web for information on any mysterious deaths or disappearances.
The fact that I was once again sitting in a hotel room on a laptop, searching the local news for vampires, did not escape me.
There were a few disappearances – well, more than a few – but there weren't any strange deaths. I couldn't find anything on bodies being drained of blood or corpses set on fire. Missing persons were being reported disappearing around the outskirts of the city with greater frequency than was normal, though, and that was good enough for me to check out.
Angela's heart rate sped up as she slipped back into the conscious world, rolling over in the bed and groaning. I shut the lid of the laptop and moved over to the mini fridge that was next to the broken microwave. A smile crept onto my face as I peered at my creation.
Frost was creeping up the side of the glass container, which housed a midnight blue liquid that was settled at the bottom. On top of the liquid, which wasn't quite finished yet, was an almost violet-black sludge. I knew from experience it was closer to the consistency of frozen honey, though a thousand times more toxic to the human body.
The bedsprings gave and the sound of feet touching the carpeted floor behind me made me turn my head. Angela shuffled over to me and bent down to look inside the refrigerator as well. I moved to the side to give her an unobstructed view, and she looked at it for a few seconds as a frown built up on her face.
"Is that it?" she asked again, not impressed with this version either, though her voice held nothing but curiosity. I nodded.
"Yes," I said, taking it out of the winter environment and walking over to the sink outside of the bathroom. Angela followed me over. "It's not quite done, but it is getting very close."
I pulled the ice bucket off of the microwave with my mind and placed it on the counter as well. I took the lid off the bucket and removed the thin plastic bag that lined it, checking it for holes before setting it next to the serum.
I removed the lid to the container of the heterogeneous solution and reached for the ice scoop, cursing mentally when I remembered it was usually kept with the ice machine instead of with the bucket. I'm sure I made a face as I stuck my bare hand carefully through the top sludge of the container and scooped out a handful, depositing it in the adjacent plastic bag.
"How many…doses will that do?" Angela asked as I scooped the last of the precipitate into the bag and resealed the container, sticking it in the fridge again.
"Well," I started, scrunching up my eyebrows in thought. "It's biological in nature – more like a virus than vampire venom – so it could probably infect about…twenty people or so. It all depends on the strength of the immune system, though. For instance, if I were to infect a collection of all AIDS afflicted individuals, I could probably get around forty or fifty people."
"You make it sound like a disease," Angela scrunched up her nose and thought of the possible affects it could have on a human body. "What exactly does it do? I mean, I know you told me it makes a human stronger and…ageless, but how much so? And are there any side effects?" I cracked a small smile at her interest – for she truly was interested in a way my brother never was.
"I designed it originally just because I could," I began as I dumped the bag of sludge in the toilet and flushed it. The particles broke apart and dissolved in the swirling water as it went down the drain. "HLV1 was an exercise in immortality – of agelessness. The human body is inherently flawed and is bound to break down from cell damage over time. I found a way to fix it." I shrugged and sifted through the foggy memories.
"The first serum allowed me to heal at a slightly faster rate – not anything so drastic – it was only about four times the normal rate." I said.
"That's not so insignificant," Angela interjected, and then blushed when she realized she had interrupted my story. "Sorry." I waved my hand dismissively at her and continued.
"HLV2, however," I gestured to the refrigerator, which was humming away in the silent room. "was more of an upgrade. I had already fixed the aging issue, so I tackled other areas while improving on the original design.
"It sped up mental processing significantly; like, super-computer speeds. Physical strength was also augmented to…well," I paused. "Let's just say it went beyond Olympic athlete levels of strength. I think…about ten to eleven times the norm for the individual."
"You could probably lift a car with that kind of muscle!" Angela's eyes bugged out and I laughed and shook my head.
"Maybe Ryan," I disagreed. "I'm not very physically intimidating – not exactly rolling in the muscle department – so it only allowed me to lift about nine-hundred pounds or so. Ryan could lift a little over two thousand pounds after I injected him."
"That's…" Angela seemed flabbergasted.
"Impressive?" I smirked. "Yeah, well, that's nothing compared to what I managed to crank the healing abilities of the human body to." Angela waited in silence for me to continue, completely enraptured. "I increased the 'healing factor' of the original formula tenfold."
"Forty times faster than a normal person?" Angela questioned, repeating the very simple math in her head again and again.
"Thank you!" I held my hands up in an appreciative gesture. "That was the reaction I expected out of my brother. He just never got it." I shook my head.
"Emily," Angela said, staring at the refrigerator. "If your serum can do all that, why haven't you released it to the public? So much good could come out of it."
"Because," I rubbed my face in a very human way. "It can be passed down to children – it's hereditary, even after the virus works its way out of the system. Imagine it: never aging people who create more never aging people; again and again and again. The whole world would collapse.
"I thought about doing just what you suggested several times, though," I admitted. "It wouldn't be so hard to add in a sterilization effect to the virus so anyone infected wouldn't be able to have children, but I could never bring myself to do it. It would go against everything I am to make something less perfect."
"And that," Angela nodded to the refrigerator. "is more than is necessary for Henry?" I nodded immediately, pondering when the right time would be scrape the rest of the sludge off the top.
I was mentally interrupted by the image of Angela drinking some of the formula and fighting vampires alongside of me. My eyes widened and my mouth gaped for a millisecond before I returned my face to a passive mask. I turned my head and cocked an eyebrow at the girl beside me.
"I guess you heard that," Angela sighed and blushed. "I just want to help you stop the Volturi, and I figured if I were stronger I could do it." Her head tilted down and a smidge of embarrassment flew over my skin, coming off of Angela in waves.
"They're no match for me, Angela," I said, shaking my head. "Besides, you still wouldn't be able to fight off a vampire; even with the extra strength." My last moments as a human flashed in my head. The helplessness and the fear as Felix held me up like a toy bubbled through the surface and I ground my teeth together to keep from snarling.
"But I would be less helpless, right?" Angela asked. "That's why you made it in the first place."
"Not to fight vampires," I countered. "Besides, the serum was nothing more than a supplement for me – my real weapons are my abilities. Well, that and my knife; but I don't have it with me right now, so…" I cut off, realizing I was rambling into a tangent.
"I knew I should have taken you back to Henry already," I sighed. "Angela, listen. I know you want to help – I'm an empath; I can tell – but I can do this myself. You don't want to do that to yourself," I nodded to the seemingly popular refrigerator. "for a bit of revenge. You could go back home after this and have a normal – ish – life."
"You don't really mean what you just said, do you?" Angela eyed me critically for a moment and I let out a breath and gave a low chuckle.
"No," I rolled my eyes. "Most of that was the sort of drivel I would expect from Rosalie or Edward. Of course you could never have a normal life – you're a meta-human who knows about vampires and shape shifting wolves. But the rest is true enough; you wouldn't be much help in a fight against the Volturi – or even one vampire."
"I wouldn't be completely helpless, though," Angela shook her head and narrowed her eyes in concentration. She flickered out of sight and back a few times. "Being able to stay unseen has to give me an advantage, right?"
"It does," I smiled, looking at the ceiling and trying to figure out what to do.
She had a point: she wasn't completely helpless. Sure, she couldn't do any damage to a vampire by herself, but anyone would be hard pressed to find her, much less damage her, in a fight. That could be solved, though.
My mind started putting together various weapons she could use to kill a vampire. A flamethrower? Too bulky and awkward. Divinium? No, I didn't want to make any more of that – there was enough in the world already. It would have to be fire, but how could that be weaponized effectively without being awkward to carry?
The scene from Watchmen came to mind, where Rorschach took a can of hairspray and a match and turned them into a makeshift flamethrower. That would be easy enough to put together, but it would have a very short range. A vampire could move the wrong way and crush her accidentally before she could even get a shot off.
Wait, shot?
A flare gun? It wouldn't be strong enough to do serious damage to a vampire by itself, but I could modify one easily. Thermite was extremely easy to come by and had an insane temperature as it burned. A shot of that out of a gun was sure to take a vampire down – or at least damage it permanently.
"Emily?" Angela asked, looking concerned. I blinked and refocused on the girl, tilting my head to the side.
"I'll inject you if you want it," I said, instantly making Angela's eyes light up. "But you need to make sure you know what you're getting into. You won't age, you won't grow old, and you will die a violent death."
"What?" Angela whispered, feeling confused and surprised.
"Agelessness doesn't mean you'll live forever," I shook my head and sighed. "Even vampires can be destroyed. If you live for a billion years, Angela, eventually something will come along and wipe out life on this planet. Maybe it'll be the sun burning out, or maybe a meteor, but eventually even those who 'live forever' will be killed."
Angela hadn't been expecting this, I could tell from her thoughts. I wasn't surprised, though; even the Cullens had illusions of living until the end of time, even though they knew better than most how easily dispatched a vampire was. Hell, I died and I was ageless. I know these things.
"It's worth it to me," Angela said with complete sincerity.
"It's worth it, no doubt," I echoed her and moved back to the refrigerator.
I took the container out and put it on the sink again. The sludge build-up was significantly less than before, though the effect it had on the solution below it was drastic. The midnight blue hue it had sported a few hours ago had melted into a bright, electric blue that caught the light like a sapphire.
Quickly, I repeated the precipitate-extraction process and dumped the waste in the toilet. I grabbed the container and moved back into the room, where Angela was sitting on one of the beds. As she caught sight of me, her eyes flew to the solution in my hands and she let out a quiet gasp.
"It looks so different," Angela murmured. "Wait, are we going to do this now?" Angela's pupils grew wide with fear as I moved closer and sat down on the opposite bed with the HLV2 in my hands.
"The process takes about a week to complete, so yes; the sooner the better," I shrugged and rotated the glass in my hands, watching the blue slosh around in tiny waves.
"Will it hurt?" Angela asked timidly.
"It'll get pretty bad around the fourth or fifth day," I said. "But it's mostly like a really bad case of the flu. Your body will start to fight it off and you'll get very sick."
"Alright," Angela took a breath and stuck out her hand, waiting for me to give it to her. I snickered under my breath and shook my head.
"You can't drink it," I said. "The most effective method is injection, but since I don't have any needles on me we'll just have to rub it into a cut on your arm."
"But I don't have any c-gahh!" Angela shrieked as I raked my fingernail across her thin skin, slicing easily through the surface and sending an appealing aroma through the room.
I closed my eyes and took in a breath, enjoying the phantom flavor on my tongue, even though I knew I wouldn't get to taste it. When my eyes opened, Angela was holding her right hand over the cut on her left arm and wincing in pain. A small trickle of blood dribbled down her arm and I had to consider if I cut her too deeply. Not that it would matter in a few moments, after I infected her.
"Hold still and remove your hand," I said as I removed the top on the container and telekinetically lifted a small stream of the blue liquid into the air.
She did as I asked, and I maneuvered the serum through the air and onto the surface of the cut, holding it there. The cut bubbled and foamed slightly upon contact with the foreign substance, and Angela hissed and flinched. Her hand moved to cover the cut again, but she put it back down as I held up my hand.
Slowly, I pushed most of the liquid into the cut. A bead or two dripped down her arm, soaking into her jeans. I moved forward and grasped her arm in my hands gently, inspecting the cut. Bracing myself and clamping down with a firmer grip on Angela's arm, I leaned in and swiped the reddened wound with my tongue.
The small amount of venom wasn't enough to change someone, but it sealed the cut well enough and healed over almost instantly – ensuring the serum was locked inside Angela's body. I let go of her arm and she shuffled back on the bed, her heartbeat erratic. In her thoughts, I could see myself – eyes jet black and a look of hunger on my face.
"I-I don't feel any different," Angela whispered so softly I wouldn't have been able to hear her if I were not a vampire.
"It'll take a few hours," I smirked as I sealed the container up again and put it back in the refrigerator. I'd have to take it back down to Henry soon – maybe tomorrow. The solution wouldn't hold forever, even in a low-temperature environment, but it would stay good for a few weeks. After Angela was finished and back in full health, we would take the formula down to Henry.
"Hold down the fort, OK?" I jested, pulling on my hoodie and walking to the door. I made sure I had my card key with me, as well as my phone. My checklist was interrupted as my hand fell to my belt, feeling for the knife it knew should be there. I scrunched up my nose in distaste and sighed. Months without the damn thing and I still miss it. Ridiculous.
"O-OK," Angela stuttered, not moving from her place on the bed. "I'll be here."
I nodded and went invisible before walking through the doorway and out into the world.
It was time for some mischief.
End notes: There you go, some back story on the serum Emily and Ryan used before finding out about vampires.
I realize I haven't covered exactly what happened to Emily to make her so different from other vampires. Sure, there are major hints and you can probably piece it together. But for those of you who are still confused, there will be (hopefully) a more in-depth explanation a few chapters from here.
Bye, now.