The Click

Hitch, Elana, Barnaby, and Meta sat together in front of an oversized hologram

screen projecting up from a computation shell in the hospital conference room directly across from Christopher’s room. Hitch purposely placed himself in clear view of his grandson’s bed. Kathy could be seen sitting next to Christopher and Dr. Ringthaller seemed to come and go.

A conference with President Wainwright and Yennie, both in the Oval Office, was in progress. At that moment the president was speaking directly to Hitch who she knew quite well from her early days as head of the NSA before her reign as Governor of Florida.

“I have to admit, Oliver, I always worried someday you might start a world war.” “Now, Madame president, back then most of the time we were coconspirators. But

this time around you’re the Queen Bee of this hornets’ nest.”

“Maybe so. But you need to know that this Queen Bee is looking at twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours, before she has no control over the soldier bees that will swarm over DanSheba faster than you can open a jar of honey.”

“Not much of a window. And let’s hope that the VAMA contingency sitting within rock throwing distance from the wharf here in DanSheba doesn’t go rogue. In the meantime, you better talk with Elana... Dr. Wu,” Hitch said and moved to the next chair allowing Elana to take his seat.”

“Now then Dr. Wu, the UN is flying in a team of experts to verify your results. It must be unanimous. Do you understand?”

“Yes, unanimous. … I welcome their input, Madam President.”

“How confident are you that the Click is in fact part of the ERAM-V vaccine? More important, can you prove it within the time frame you have?”

Elana hesitated and looked over at Barnaby who gave her a questioning expression and then a nod. “I am one hundred percent confident. We will prove it. I would stake my life on it.”

“Well, it may be your life and everyone there if you don’t. And the reality is that if you all fail, not only will DanSheba be invaded, but I will not go public with the Smotecal Decretum.”

With that overt threat the Oval Office closed communication. Elana glanced over at the other three in the room and insisted they follow her into the hall, around the corner from Christopher’s room. At the same time Hitch noticed Dr. Ringthaller step into the hall, but gave that little thought.

As soon as Hitch, Meta, and Barnaby, huddled around Elana, she started to speak but seemed unable to get the words out.

“What?” Hitch asked.

“I just lied to the president,” she said causing Meta to flinch.

“Lied? What do you …”

“We need the real thing. The synthetic version will work with unvaccinated blood to make a Click-free vaccine but not to prove the Click is part of the ERAM vaccine. I was sure it would work but it doesn’t”

Elana’s pronouncement was lost on Hitch. “What do you mean the real thing? What the hell is she talking about, Barnaby?”

“She means the virus itself.”

Elana was adamant. “Without the actual virus we can’t prove a thing. We need it to infect some poor Guinea pigs before vaccinating them.”

“Unless we find a carrier,” Barnaby added.

“Of what?” Meta asked.

“Of the plague,” Elana answered. “Someone who carries it but was not infected. But even if there are people like that, they would never know it. Besides, we don’t have the time to find such a person and then extract the virus.”

It was as if she dropped a bomb that exploded at Hitch’s feet and blew him back to Ralph Delahunt’s office. “Two Preemies in one family does not appear to be coincidental,” Ralph said. “Are you saying it’s because of …” Edna started to say but never finished her question. Hitch finished it this time “because of Oliver being a carrier, carrier, carrier.”

Hitch turned away from Elana, Meta, and Barnaby. He was the reason Christopher was dying. He was the reason OJ died. He was, was, was, was …

He heard Meta between the self-incriminating voices he knew so well. She asked if he was all right.

All right! No, damn it, I’m all wrong, he wanted to scream.

“I’m a carrier,” he finally declared. He went weak at the knees but held himself up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Christopher’s doctor, Ringthaller, run down the hall and out of the hospital, but again didn’t give that a thought.

An hour or so later, Hitch stood with Elana, Barnaby, and Kathy in Elana’s lab staring at vials of blood. Elana and Barnaby were explaining exactly how they were going to extract the ERAM virus from his body. They were not talking about a normal blood donation. Elana made it clear that it was more akin to a chemically induced bilateral transfusion that sometimes causes the body’s DNA to creep up or down its chain. That caused both Hitch and Kathy to recoil.

“You will be injected with a substance that isolates the virus without harming ...” Elana started to explain but was interrupted by Barnaby.

“Enough! We will monitor all your critical organs, I promise, but we must move

on.”

“But he needs to know the risk,” Elana snapped. For a moment the room went silent, as if Barnaby didn’t want to say what the risk was, as if Kathy didn’t what to know. But Hitch wanted to know.

Elana finally spoke up. “It could trigger the onset of the Click.”

“Jesus! That wasn’t something Hitch had expected. “What are the odds?”

“There’s a twenty-five percent chance …”

“A pretty good bet then,” Hitch said.

“That the Click won’t trigger but of course most of this is speculation since there’s really no data to support any real prediction.”

“There’s something else,” Barnaby said, almost in a whisper. “We suspect you may have a rare DNA mutation that somehow coupled itself with the virus you carry. Probably helped make you a Beater... and pass it on. For sure it explains why you look decades younger than your actual age, and that could …”

“Kill me.”

This time Elana recoiled. Hitch turned to her. “So, the odds of living through this at all are stacked against me... but if I make it... what? I’ll look like I’m your grandfather?”

That was enough. Elana put a stop to the discussion. Hitch could only imagine how somber he looked. Elana reached for his hand. He sighed. Elana and Barnaby shared a look of concern. Kathy turned away from them, edged to the window.

“My God!”

Hitch walked out leaving all three to wallow in the wake of all the dire possibilities. He wasn’t going to show weakness. He was after all Oliver Hitchcock, a Beater, a man with a body and mind of a much younger man. He kept repeating that as he marched down the hall passing lab workers who greeted him kindly. He acknowledged them with a nod but his eyes never wavered from a blank straight-ahead stare.

He entered the restroom and was greeted there by lines of white porcelain sinks under one continuous mirror and immediately lost his bravado. A DanSheban around sixty in a lab coat was washing his hands. Hitch slinked away to the furthest sink and bent over, gripping the porcelain as if its cold surface would somehow chill the anxiety that held captive all the muscles in his body.

The DanSheban looked over. “Are you okay, Mr. Hitchcock?” Hitch started to nod when he saw Kathy burst through the door. “Dad?” She gestured for the DanSheban to go and he quickly complied.

Hitch remained at the sink, trying to ignore her. She approached and stood next to him. From the corner of one eye he could see her gaze fixed on his image in the mirror.

“My God! You’re not going through with it!”

She might as well have been speaking in a language he was only slightly familiar with. He understood the tone of her accusations but couldn’t quite process the words.

“I’m ... I don’t know …”

He could feel her swing him around. SLAP, across the face. He heard it. He saw it.

But at that moment he could feel nothing.

“How can you even look at yourself?”

Again he couldn’t process the accusation and didn’t respond, causing her to stomp towards the door. She stopped and turned. “The invincible CIA spy and lady’s man, adulterer I might add ... too damn scared to save his daughter’s son.”

“He’s my grandson too.”

“By default and that’s the truth.”

He turned away hoping she would leave, hoping he could be alone, wishing he was on another planet.

“I knew you were a carrier. Ralph Delahunt told me. So what?

So what! So what! First OJ, now Christopher” Hitch could hardly process those two words. He turned back to his daughter. “You have no idea what it’s like … to know …”

“Well, you have the chance to make things right. If not for us … for Mother.” Before that admonition had a chance to cut through him, she was gone.

Hitch turned back to the sink and focused hard on the man in the mirror.