Chapter 10: Outsiders in the Storm
Sumas looked back up and then fell over giggling. Suraci caught them and looked concerned. He looked at Leira and said "I'm guessing they have been getting progressively more intoxicated seeming which is why you were willing to go out on a limb and talk to me."
Leira, still guarded replied "Pretty much. Can you explain why they are getting reverse sober by the minute?"
Suraci had to keep moving Sumas's hand away from his crotch. Sumas got the hint and started grabbing his ass. "Sumas, you need to stop right now, we can do this later ok?" He whispered in their ear.
"I WANNA DO IT NOW!" Sumas shouted and then laughed again.
"I'll do whatever you want later, but you have to let me scan you first." He said to Sumas, then looking at Leira "Is there a place we can bring them?"
Leira shot Suraci an annoyed look. "Yeah." she said and then pulled up a screen on the wall, went through various security protocols and then a door opened. She casually motioned for him to follow.
He scooped Sumas up and and carried them through. Finding a diagnostic table he set Sumas down and started to scan them. "They weren't even remotely like this last night." Suraci said nervously.
"What do you think it is?" Leira went right to the point.
"Acutely, it's liver failure, but the question is why. They show large amounts of the drug metabolites in their blood, meaning their liver has been very slow breaking down the medication they took causing delayed effects. Can we talk outside for a moment?" Suraci said.
Leira motioned to some lab technicians to monitor Sumas while she lead Suraci outside. They stood at a large clear window that overlooked the ocean. Amethyst water with glowing aquatic creatures surrounded them.
"How much do you know about your friend, specifically about their species?" Suraci asked.
"Not much" Leira answered. "Sumas was pretty adamant about us staying away from humans."
"Haven't you ever wondered why they look so different from other humans you've seen?" Suraci asked.
"Often, but I assumed it was a side effect of their illness or maybe even sexual dimorphism. I've only seen a handful of humans and most of them were men." Leira thought. "Why?"
"Can I have my tablet a minute?" Suraci had been without it since the interrogation.
"Oh, sorry. I forgot to give this back to you." Leira said handing it to him.
"Thanks." He pulled up some footage that he took of the reaper he took the first day out in the field. "What do you know about this."
Leira looked in awe. Reapers were almost like gods to them. "I know they have a will of their own however capricious they may seem. Whenever Sumas is close by they are like storms that choose to be calm. I've seen an active storm calm just because Sumas showed up."
Suraci took a deep breath and set the tablet to project 3D images. "We call them reapers. So this is the structure of human DNA." He showed Leira a double helix. "This is a reaper wave pattern, and this is Sumas's DNA."
Leira gasped. "How."
"I'm not sure. I mean yesterday was literally my first day in the field by myself. I haven't had much time to really research. I could throw out some educated guesses, but that's neither here nor there. What's important is that to date they're literally the only test subject that survived. The rest have all melted down like a malfunctioning nuclear reactor. If they were just simply human that would be one thing, but they're not. This isn't simply liver failure, their body is shutting down, they're losing the capability to contain what rivals the energy of a small star." Suraci looked very serious. "I'm not sure what's made them so unstable recently, but the amount of energy they contain is also greater than that of any other hybrid, likewise a lot was done to contain those hybrids when they started to come undone. If Sumas comes apart, this entire planet could be destroyed or at very least uninhabitable."
"We have to save them." Leira's voice almost cracked.
"I agree, and I think I might know how, at least for now, but I need a few things." Suraci said.
"Anything." Leira's left eye let a tear spill down her face.
"Here's a list. Hey, are we good?" Suraci asked.
"Yeah, we're good." Leira said. "I'll have these things brought here."
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Suraci worked long into the night until he had stabilized Sumas's health. He tucked them in a bed in the executive suite of the embassy, then walked out to have another conversation with Leira. "I think they're out of the woods for now. I will keep an eye on them overnight, but I think it's important, at least until we can find out what triggered their sudden decline before, that we don't tell them the truth of what they are. I don't think volatile emotions would help contribute to any sort of physical stability for them. There's still a lot of problems we're going to have to figure out how to solve with them. There's still an entire military base looking for them and eventually they'll come looking for me too. I don't think the time is right to add one more thing that could potentially push them over the edge."
Leira nodded. "I'll be in the next room. Let me know if you need anything. There's a lot of wrap up I need to do on the official side of this. So far we've been able to keep the press out of it, but just to be safe I've reserved a facility where you can do lab work that will be out of the public eye. Oh and Suraci, thank you."
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