Huxley

“Goddamnit,” Banks mutters as he hangs up his cell phone and shoves it in the pocket of his slacks.

I’ve just come into the study to pour myself a glass of whiskey. It’s late, and I didn’t think anyone else was awake, but I should have known the man would still be up, poring over his papers. He sleeps less than I do, and that’s saying something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked cautiously as I pour two glasses, then hand him one.

He takes a deep swallow before answering. “One of my patients just hemorrhaged at twenty-eight weeks. Both she and the baby died.”

“Shit. I’m sorry.”

“I thought...” He scrubs his hands over his face. “I really thought I was getting somewhere with my research.”

“You’re worried about Tia?”

“I’m always fucking worried about Tia.” He sits back at the desk and starts typing on his laptop. “But I believe she’ll survive this; that the babies will. Her body isn’t rejecting the female fetuses--”

“Fetuses? There’s more than one girl?”

His lips twitch. “I haven’t told anyone yet, but my last tests confirmed that she’s carrying three girls and three boys.”

I inhale a long deep breath. “Somehow it makes it more real, knowing.”

“Yeah.” He leans with his elbows on the desk, head in his hands.

I finish my drink and pour another one. “You ready to make sacrifices to keep them safe?”

“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing these past months?”

I place my drink on his desk and lean on my palms, forcing him to meet my gaze. “I mean deleting her files. All of them. Shred every piece of evidence that she was ever patient C65. Erase her bloodwork. Her DNA samples. Everything. Make Christina Thorne disappear.”

“You’re insane. That’s impossible. Both Thorne and The Director have access--”

“Digital files can be swept clean. I can do it tonight. Once Thorne is dead, no one will have any reason to come after her.”

“You know what you’re suggesting?”

“Yes. I’m suggesting you find another cure. Because I won’t let you or anyone else sacrifice our children’s lives.”

“I had no intention--”

“Then we erase the data.”

His nostrils flare, I can see the war going on in his head, the same one I saw in Tia’s earlier.

Banks holds my gaze and a long silence stretches between us. Finally, he nods. “Do it.”

I let go of the breath I was holding in, and nod before pulling out my phone, and making the call to my top hacker. “Code twelve, twenty-two, fifty, zero, six,” I say. “Wipe it all.”

When I hang up, Banks shakes his head at me. “You know, I’m fucking glad you’re on our side.”

I grunt. “Tia still needs to go to Sal’s mom’s bunker. She’ll be safer there. At least, until Thorne is dead.”

“You don’t think someone else will want to replace him? That his studies won’t continue even when that bastard is gone?”

“That’s why I’ve got ATV news ready to broadcast leaked information as soon as the man’s death is confirmed,” I say, having thought of everything. “There’ll be a national outcry over the atrocities that man has done.”

“Too bad he won’t be alive to see it,” Banks mutters. “A public execution is more deserving.”

“Maybe. But I won’t take any chances that he walks away from this. He has to pay for his crimes.”

“I agree.” Banks dark gaze is trained on me. “But you’re risking a lot.”

“I take risks every day. At least now, they’re for something.”

He nods, and I see understanding in his eyes.

I turn to leave, but Banks stops me. “What else do you need me to do?”

“Find a cure that doesn’t involve our wife and children,” I say over my shoulder.

He blows out a heavy breath. “You think I haven’t been working night and day trying to create one?”

I shrug. “Maybe that’s the problem. Science got us into this mess. Maybe you’re looking at it all wrong. If nature wants us to survive then maybe it’s already provided a way. You said yourself that the flower Emerson brought back is helping with Tia’s hormones. Maybe it can help with others. Grace said she never lost a mother or child.”

“The epidemic has spread, grown--”

“And yet, that tiny little island hasn’t seen a mother or child die in years.”

He frowns. “Because there’s barely anyone living there.”

“You’re a smart guy, Banks. You look at the cure like a web of information that needs to be pieced together. But sometimes the simplest solution is the answer.”

“I’ll run some more tests,” He grumbles, but I see a flicker of hope behind his bruised ego. “See if Miriam Ward will allow me to administer the flower in different potencies to some of our more critical patients. I guess it can’t hurt to try.”

“Anything we can give the public, even the tiniest amount of hope is better than nothing.”

As I walk away, I know I need my own words just as much as Banks does. Because what I just did, deleting Tia’s records, all the data Banks and Thorne had compiled on her, I know I just snuffed out the hope for millions of women and children.

And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.