The System

“Does this mean what I think it means?” Lucy asked her father as she walked over to him. She tugged on the back of his shirt. “Does it?”

“I need to examine some results,” was all her father said and he led the way, picking up his pace. Lucy skipped to keep up. They exited the gym area and made it halfway down the hall before he slowed his stride.

“Dad—” she continued to press, and Scott spun: he looked so tired and weary, that Lucy hesitated. There were dark circles under his eyes that she had never seen before and his hair seemed peppered with gray. His cheeks were sallow and saggy. She realized that he had aged more in a month than in an entire decade. He seemed like a mere shadow of the man she remembered from their life in Portland. And Lucy’s throat went dry and she started to speak, but no words came out.

Her father had always been a handsome man. She was young, in elementary school, when she first noticed the way people looked at him—as if his ruggedness, his youthful face, seemed out of place with the rest of his life. They watched him—the attractive scientist, with the ever-growing family—and talked about him behind his back. Then he’d speak, and he’d fumble a joke, refuse a handshake, his neuroses glaring to those who knew him best. It was those small details of her dad that made him so special to her. So real.

Her hero. Her rock.

And he ruined everything.

In an instant, he was nothing like the man she thought raised her. Somewhere, deep down, the Scott King she idolized was still living and breathing beneath the shell, but something else had taken him. He was lost to her.

It seemed like a lifetime ago when she was sitting in Wyoming, playing with the flowers, reluctant to leave the beauty and tranquility of the mountains to join a family forever altered. Deep down, even then, she knew this would happen. Seeing him, facing him, accepting him. She couldn’t forgive him.

Scott opened his mouth, as if he were to tell her something, then he stopped and turned his head. He measured the way she was looking at him. And his face fell. Then it flashed, with something unrecognizable: fear or scorn, confusion or anger. She braced herself for scolding; prepared for him to unleash the deluge of his pent up emotions. But instead Scott took giant steps back to her and without warning enveloped Lucy in a hug, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

“Dad,” she whispered, but Scott hushed her.

She sunk into him. They stood for a long moment in the hallway just holding each other—a few people scooted around them on their way to the elevators or into the Center, but neither of them minded. Scott pulled back and held Lucy out from him at arm’s length, his hands still on her shoulders.

“There’s something I have to say—” he started.

Lucy looked at the ground and pushed her eyes shut; she tried not to cry. When she looked up, she saw the worry on her father’s face. “Just say you’re sorry,” she whispered.

He flinched at her words and then he drew her back into him. “I’m sorry,” he replied. “There are so many things I wish I could explain. But please know…I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Will you save Grant?” she asked next, her cheek still pushed against her father’s chest, his heartbeat thumping in her ear.

There was a period of prolonged silence and Lucy could taste the apprehension in the air. Her father wasn’t convinced Grant was worth saving? Or: he was simply scared. It dawned on her in that moment how fear was the ultimate motivator and perhaps she had spent so much time angry with her dad that she hadn’t been able to recognize his own worries. Still, Lucy didn’t fully understand, and couldn’t rationalize how there was any other option. He had to free Grant.

“Yes,” he answered. “I will save him.” Then he paused and shook his head. “No, that’s not right. We will save Grant. Or rather, I will save Grant because of you.”

Lucy was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. She was afraid to think that this was just another trick before she encountered another setback.

But her father leaned down closer and tucked a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I haven’t caught the ball yet.”

Lucy threw herself into her father’s chest and smiled into the folds of his soft, cotton shirt.

They stood and watched as Scott gathered up the files. He spread them out over the metal bed and shook his head. He flipped through pages and pages of data, examining and crosschecking, mumbling to himself. Lucy watched, but she knew better than to say anything. Grant, released from his closet, stood by her, his hand intertwined with hers. His Romero poster had been rolled up and Grant carried it under his arm. He had asked Scott if he’d have to give the poster back, but Scott had only laughed in reply. Unwilling to part with it, he held it to his body with such force that his bicep began to ache.

“Well,” Scott finally mumbled. He turned back to the kids and gave them a weak laugh. “Here’s to undoing some science.” Gathering back up the papers, Scott walked over to the counter. He opened the lower cupboard and searched around until he found a box of matches. Then walking over to the sink, he lit the match and began to burn the papers. Letting it ignite, he then ran the water over the flames, creating an ashy, chalky mess. One by one, paper by paper, he destroyed everything in Grant’s file.

“It’s genetic then,” Grant said when Scott was done.

Lucy’s dad picked up the remains of his work and plopped the soggy mess inside a plastic container. Then he shoved the plastic container into the bottom of one of the freezers. And he shrugged.

“Without another comparative sample, it’s all conjecture. But yes. I think your immunity is inherited.”

Lucy turned to Grant and searched his face. They seemed to all understand the ramifications of that analysis immediately: both within the System and beyond its walls.

“Does that mean? Could he be…” Lucy started, but Grant gave her hand a squeeze, silencing her.

“Look,” Scott said to them, his face intense. “Listen to me carefully. Repeat this…repeat it in your head, imprint it on your heart…you can never utter those words again. Your immunity has no known cause. You are a miracle.”

“I understand,” Grant said. “If he thinks there are others like me, he’ll use me to get to them. Right, I know.” He nodded once, his eyes on Scott—an understanding passed between them.

“He may use you to get to them anyway, Grant. But this is your only hope. Say it, please,” Scott instructed.

“I am a miracle,” Grant echoed. He turned to Lucy and gri

Scott clapped Grant on the back. “Just keep telling yourself that. Let it sink in.”

“No, I got it, Mr. King,” Grant nodded. “I’m a miracle. Back from the dead.”