Once in the lab, I pull my own personal supplies from my lunchbox-size cooler and place them on a long, empty metal table. I then visit the consecutive lab doors until I find the one with the coolers and cabinets that hold the serum. There are only six tiny jars of ImagiSerum.
I use a dead computer monitor to break the glass on the cabinet, then lift one jar from its little bed of foam. A sudden image of my hand slipping and the vial smashing on the vinyl lab floor makes my fingers tighten. No mistakes. This is my only shot.
I return to my own lab area and boot up the ImagiLife programming device, jerry-rigged to The Fire Swamp’s generator. It should power the thing for at least a couple hours.
I follow Nole’s notes like I would a recipe until I get to my own alterations. I carefully pour two vials of unprogrammed ImagiSerum into the device. Then comes the fun.
I imagine novelists or game designers or screenwriters feel this way when they stare at a blank page with nothing but the story in their head. Visuals of a whole world known only to them.
Except this time I’m not programming a world. I’m programming an alert to the brain to wake up—to leave the dreamscape. My fingers fly. I’ve done it a hundred times in my mind and a dozen times in real life. This is one thing I was born understanding.
I program the serum and then send the command for it to eject from the device. I place an empty beaker in the spot to catch it like one would a cup of coffee from a Keurig. A preparation clock shows a twelve-minute wait. I spend that time reading and re-reading and checking my math.
The serum dribbles out, looking the same as it did going in. My breathing quickens, and I stare at it for a long moment before I dare to start mixing. I stretch every neuron in my brain and take copious notes on every single action and adjustment I make.
I need Nole. I need his brain. He’d do this faster. He’d do this right.
But he’d also tell me to shut up and get the job done.
I let myself imagine what might happen if this works. I’ll have a solution. Everyone else gave up on a cure months ago. Scientists worked tirelessly on an antidote until they realized 90 percent of the world was infected. Then no one was left to work on it.
Once they gave up, what was left of the government spent trillions of dollars outfitting every pop-up hospital they could with LifeSuPods. For the elite, of course.
But Nole never lost hope, even once he was infected. That gave me the courage to hold on too. If this cure works, we’ll be the kids who rescued humanity. Nole would not die forgotten.
I also really want to live.
A night-shattering clang startles me so severely I almost drop the beaker. My head turns toward the sound, pulse slamming in my skull like the beat of a kick drum.
My alarm clock. It vibrates so hard against the metal table that it inches toward the edge. I catch it before it falls. I check its face. Once. Twice. There is no way eight hours have passed! I haven’t slept and I’ve eaten only one potato.
My blinks turn to sandpaper, assuring me that eight hours have, indeed, flown by. The Nightmare is coming for me again.
“Wait, wait.” I scrambled for my phone. It has 10 percent battery. “I’m not ready.” I plug it into The Fire Swamp generator.
My alarm ticks toward the second warning—the five-minute countdown. I open Nole’s video channel and start a Live recording. Only as I stare at myself on the screen do I realize how hard I’m breathing.
“Okay, Cain Cross here. It’s September, uh, fourth, and I’ve been infected with the virus for sixteen days. It is supposed to strike at 6:00 a.m., except . . .” I hold up the clear beaker. My hand shakes. “I have what I hope is a cure.”
I want to give credit to Nole. I want to say something deep. But my alarm goes off again. I silence it. “Five minutes.”
I leave the recording going and grab the concoction, then consult the notebook one last time. I don’t want to overdose. Nole said different amounts are needed for different stages of the virus.
I place a tiny dosage cup on a scale and fill it with the amount that should be appropriate for a person sixteen-days infected.
My heart drums a rat-a-tat of anticipation.
“Here we go.” I down the mixture with a splash against my throat. One swallow.
It tastes stale and strange, leaving a metallic aftertaste on my tongue. Entrance into a dreamscape is typically done intravenously, but Nole insisted on concocting an oral cure. Either that or a cure through eye drops, but he couldn’t fit the proper dosage into eye drops. He said oral dosage would be easier for average people to administer.
I place the now empty beaker back on the table, then I glance at the clock. 5:59 a.m.
“One minute to go.”
The seconds close in. I hold my breath. I probably should have drunk the serum sooner, but this is going to work. Not because of my smarts, but because of Nole’s.
Thirty seconds.
I see the mist. “Man.” I press a hand against the table. “Sorry guys,” I say to the livestream. “I see the mist.” The Nightmare vapor that always precedes entrapment. “I’ll try again when I wake up next.”
Though I can’t fathom what I need to change in the formula. Thanks a lot, God. The two people who trusted Him the most are both dead. I shouldn’t have expected any help from Him in the first place, but I thought maybe He’d take pity on me after everything He took away.
Ten seconds.
Nole’s followers are all going to watch me crumble into a pathetic heap. I don’t want to be seen in that vulnerable state. I’m about to turn off the live stream, except the mist lags, like a pale morning fog instead of a black ocean of cloud.
I rub my eyes against the pull of sleep, feel it calling to me. But as the fog reaches me, I stare it down. I don’t waiver. The cure is in me. Nole knew what he was doing.
I shift my thinking and send up a desperate prayer—habit, I suppose.
The cloud fingers recoil. A flash of black crosses my vision and then . . . then my alarm turns off. And 6:00 clicks to 6:01.
I am still awake.
The cure. It worked.
“No way,” I breathe. I feel my face. Blink my eyes. Check the numbers on my alarm clock again. “Wha . . . ?” I reach for the notebook. Gaze at the beaker. As though staring at objects will help me process what just happened.
