Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 61: Fuck

Chapter 61: Fuck

61.

I knew it wasn’t fair to ask Cheng Bo Jing where his loyalties lie, but I needed to know.

If he was going to just turn around and tell Bai Long Qiang or the military what I had just found out, then...

Well, I don’t see that ending well for me.

I needed to take the DNA from his blood, but it was starting to clot. I thought I had more time, but I guess I didn’t. And I wasn’t going to take the chance of taking off his hazmat suit.

"You want to know where my loyalties lie," he said slowly as he walked closer to me. I was frantically trying to get the blood from the syringe. I was lucky that the blood was already at room temperature, or I would have had to wait even longer before I could put it in the centrifuge.

I jumped when I felt an arm slowly wrap itself around my waist and pull me back so I was pressed against his chest.

"My loyalties lie with you," he said. If it weren’t for the fact that we were both in our suits, I would have sworn I could feel his breath against my neck.

"I am serious," I snapped. I needed a pipet of 200µl of whole blood in order to be able to get three to twelve µg of DNA. I barely had enough; there would be no second chances if I fucked this up.

"So am I. More than the military, more than Bai Long Qiang, my loyalties are with you." He sounded so sincere. Could I take the chance and trust him? Could I accept the consequences of not trusting him?

"What I am about to say cannot leave this room," I said, taking the chance. I got my sample into the low binding microcentrifuge tube and waited.

Cheng Bo Jing was silent. I leaned forward and picked up the paper with the first results and then leaned back against him.

"I was talking to Bai Long Qiang the other night, and he mentioned that you all had to take a vaccine before you could return home after the last mission," I started, staring at the results. It was like a pregnancy test where you continued to stare at it, hoping the results would be different if you just willed it to be.

"That is right. We had to stay for a week after. There were two days of side effects and then five days of testing," agreed Cheng Bo Jing, and I felt him shift his feet so he could take more of my weight leaning against him.

"Bai Long Qiang said that you didn’t want the vaccine. You only got it when they threatened your position in the team," I continued.

"Correct."

"Everything in this world has a genetic code of some kind or other. It is literally the building blocks of life because, without it, there would be no life." I knew I was stalling, and I knew that Cheng Bo Jing was already aware of what I was saying.

"The virus going around looks to be a typical mutation to the normal influenza that typically strikes during October and November," I pressed, holding up the paper in my hand so he could see it.

"Okay," he said with a nod.

"Do you know what a vaccine does and why it does it?" I was trying to rack my brain to find another possible solution, but I was running out of time. The machine in front of me beeped to let me know that the DNA from Cheng Bo Jing had been successfully separated from his blood.

"Doesn’t it help keep you healthy?" he asked.

"It does. A vaccine is made up of many different components, most of which freaks people out. However, the most important thing in a vaccine is the antigen. It is a weakened, killed, or synthetically created version of the disease or germ. It is this antigen that teaches your body to attack the real germ or virus inside of you."

"Basically, it is like a police dog that can hunt down an individual if they have something with his or her scent on it," responded Cheng Bo Jing, and I knew he was listening to me.

"Exactly. But that means that the genetic code of the antigen would be somewhat similar to the virus itself. It would have the same markers." I lifted up the sheet again so he could study it. "That means that the top grey lines should match up with the bottom grey lines at least 80%."

"Not a single line matches up," he whispered, and I could feel him stiffening.

"Nope," I replied as I tapped his arm so he could let me go. I took out the sample and transferred it to a clean low binding microcentrifuge tube before adding the distilled water to the spin column. I would need to incubate it at room temperature for five minutes to elute the DNA and then put it back in the centrifuge for another minute at full speed.

This was going to be the longest six minutes of my life.

"So they didn’t give us a vaccine for the flu strand that is going around," he added as he walked around so he could lean against my desk and stare at me.

"No, they didn’t."

"But you and I both know they gave us something. So, what did they give us?"

I could see Cheng Bo Jing’s teeth clench. He was practically vibrating with his anger.

"I don’t know. That is what this next test is for. I am going to extract your DNA and make sure that there had not been anything added, like an unknown mRNA," I admitted.

"Why?"

"Now isn’t that the million dollar question."

Six minutes later, my machine was spitting out the results.

"Fuck."

"You said that," joked Cheng Bo Jing, but I could tell that he was in as good of a mood as I was.

"I think this warrants a swear word or two," I laughed. I placed the new paper on the desk and pointed to some of the results.

"You, my friend, have a few add-ons to your genetic makeup. And unless your mom was messing with a shark or two before you were conceived, I think the military injected you with some shark DNA."

"Fuck," he grumbled, picking up the sheet and studying it.