When she woke up gasping for air the third night in a row, Lucrecia knew there was a problem. She pushed herself into a sitting position, and reached for her husband.
“Hojo?” she began quietly, but when he didn’t respond, she panicked. “Hojo! Wake up!” Usually her breathing fixed itself when she was awake, but Lucrecia was still gasping. She tried to tell herself it was a panic attack, but she didn’t believe it. She wanted to find out for sure. What was the point of being married to a doctor if he couldn’t tell you what was wrong?
Finally, Hojo sat up and reached for his glasses, then turned to his wife. “Lu? What is it?”
“I can’t,” she paused, gasping, “can’t breathe.” She no longer cared whether it was panic or biology, she just wanted her lungs to work. She breathed deeply, but it didn’t seem to be doing her any good.
“Deep, slow breaths, Lu. You can’t –” he flicked on the bedside light. “Shiva’s tits, Lu, your lips are blue! I’d better get you downstairs. Can you stand?” It took a few minutes for Lucrecia to manage it, between the lightheadedness and the awkward center of gravity from her pregnancy. Hojo was supporting nearly all of her weight as he led her downstairs.
Once in the lab, he handed her an oxygen mask, which Lucrecia gratefully strapped over her mouth — but the improvement was minimal. Scared now, Lucrecia’s vision darted over the room. She settled on the medical packs of mako sitting on the desk.
“Hojo,” she said, pulling the mask off to talk, “I need mako.”
“What? Lu, that doesn’t make any sense and you’re not due for another dose until– well, tomorrow morning, but still.”
“Better idea?”
“Well, no,” Hojo admitted. “But I’m telling Gast it was your idea.”
“Fine,” she answered as he prepared the solution and the intravenous needle, then swabbed her elbow and inserted it. The mako was ice in her veins but it was only a few minutes before she began to breathe easier.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Hojo said, watching her. “Mako doesn’t carry oxygen. It must be a placebo effect.”
Lucrecia shrugged. “Maybe. I just know it worked.”
“I’m worried you might be getting addicted or something,” he frowned. “I’m going to run a few more tests than usual tomorrow.”
“Fine. As long as I can breathe, I’m fine.”
When he approached her the next evening with a sheaf of paper, he was sweating. “The, ah, the Jenova samples have proven to be more virulent in the host than we expected.”
“What is it doing to me?” she asked, rubbing the skin above the scab from her earlier IV.
“I’m not sure yet, I need more results, but it looks like gene therapy.” He flipped through the papers quickly, almost dropping them. He was that nervous? He was the one who was supposed to know what they were doing. Lucrecia began to worry seriously.
“But we expected that, didn’t we? It wasn’t supposed to hurt me.”
“I told you, it’s more virulent than we expected.”
“How virulent?”
“Right now,” Hojo sighed and pushed his glasses up on his nose, “the fetus is more human than you are.”
“I’m… becoming less human?” Lucrecia asked slowly.
“That’s a little melodramatic, but essentially true.” They looked at each other for a long minute.
“So…” she broke the silence. “Now what?” They increased the frequency of the mako infusions, which helped. It wasn’t fun, but Lucrecia adapted. Her older sister was diabetic, after all, and this wasn’t much worse than insulin.
By studying her blood samples, Hojo was able to determine that the shortness of breath was a side effect, the way her body instinctively reacted when it wasn’t getting enough raw materials.
“But what does that mean?”
“You’re a fish out of mako,” he answered.
“So are we just going to keep giving me more mako? Won’t that kill me at some point?” Lucrecia didn’t like where this seemed to be going.
“I need to talk to Gast,” Hojo said.
Lucrecia didn’t want go, but she followed him up to the office anyway. “This doesn’t look good,” the elder scientist told them. “You’ll need to keep her stable through the pregnancy in whatever way possible. After the birth we can look into putting her through detox and withdrawal. If she doesn’t stabilize, we’ll have to look into more drastic measures.”
“Drastic measures?” she repeated, but he continued talking to Hojo as if she weren’t there.
She was almost grateful when her water broke three weeks early. This whole, horrible mess was almost over. She didn’t even care about the pain of labor, and Hojo had foresight enough to give her a mako IV while she was in labor, keeping her from going into shock on the bed.
She pushed, and pushed past the pain, and felt like she was looking down on her body from above. Finally, finally, Hojo stood up holding a tiny, perfect baby.
“Can I… Can I hold…?” she asked weakly.
“Of course. Just let me cut the cord and clean up a bit…” Lucrecia would have nodded, but she saw only black as she passed out.
She woke up and realized she was sitting, not lying down anymore. Every part of her body ached, especially her thighs and her crotch.
“Hojo?” she asked weakly. The surface underneath her was very, very cold, and when she tried to stretch her legs, she realized she was in a very small space.
“Hojo! Hojo, what is this?!” she screamed.
“It’s a tank, Lu.” His voice was muffled. He was outside. She was inside. Inside the tank. She was on her feet in an instant, pain or no, pressing the walls in search of a way out.
“Let me out! Please, please, oh god, don’t do this!”
“I have to. You’ll die if I don’t.”
“I don’t want to spend my life in a– a glass cage.”
“You won’t. I’ll find a cure, I’ll get you out. Gast and I are working on one already,” he insisted.
~Working on it? Is that what you call it when you two sit around and get drunk?~
Hojo’s head jerked up from the control panel. “How did you know about that?”
“Know about what?” Lucrecia answered blankly. If he wouldn’t listen to her, maybe he’d listen to It, maybe she just had to show him what this was really doing to her.
~I know every thought in that pretty little head of yours.~ She felt her lips pulling back in a smirk.
“I’m going to start the suspension process,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“What? Now? Where’s my child? You said I could hold the baby! You said it! You said it wasn’t that bad yet!” She continued screaming as the tank quickly filled with liquid mako. It was so cold against her skin and she wished she could get away, but banging on the smooth walls was useless.
“He’ll be well cared for, Lu,” he said without looking at her.
“Let me hold my baby!” she screamed finally, using both voices, and Hojo doubled over and pressed his hands to his head. She could tell he was in pain, but it didn’t register on her emotionally. She’d given up on words and she was just screaming incoherently, desperately, and didn’t even notice when the mako slipped into her mouth and nose.
When she opened her eyes, it was hard to make anything out. The world beyond the tank was blurry. Hojo, she saw, was on the floor, curled up. Good. He deserved that. She wanted to do something more, but she could feel the suspension agents working their way into her system. Her thoughts were growing sluggish. She shook her head, trying to stay awake, but it was a lost cause.
But she’d had a boy. He’d survived the birth, at least, and Hojo had assured her that was the hardest part.
If he… if he could be okay… Her thoughts were losing coherence, but she focused on him. She wanted her son back. She would find some way to him, even if it took years. She would find him.
And he would know his mother.
