Dr. Snowe was unable to draw blood from Stu's arm; his skin was so durable now that the needles snapped when he attempted to push them in. Stu finally had to take syringe from Dr. Snowe and do it himself, slowly pushing the needle into his arm, drawing blood, and pulling it out before his Regeneration skill could forcibly eject it. "Remarkable," Dr. Snowe murmured. "Virge had the same ability, as I recall, but I never saw it in action."
The Regeneration ability made the lumbar puncture even more difficult. Dr. Snowe recruited Ula -- a blonde woman with a haggard face -- to help with it; the two of them had great difficulty withdrawing the cerebrospinal fluid from his back. Stu was forced the endure the procedure without the benefit of anesthesia, and it was quite painful, but he grit his teeth and bore it as best he could, confident that the Regeneration skill would ultimately heal him. If this serum worked, he told himself, it could rid this world of its zombies. That was worth a few minutes of pain and discomfort.
After they had finished, and after Dr. Snowe had thanked him profusely, Stu put his shirt back on and reunited with Luna, Lucky, and Millie, who had bedded down in the back of an old bookstore. Luna was the only one of them who was still awake, and when she saw Stu, she immediately jogged up to him. "Are you all right?" she asked. "I started thinking it maybe wasn't such a good idea, leaving you with this Dr. Snowe. I thought they might try to dissect you or something."
"He just took some blood," he said, "and some spinal fluid."
"Spinal fluid?"
"It wasn't a pleasant experience," he muttered.
She chewed on her lower lip, obviously anxious. "What did he say? Can he send you home?"
"Not anytime soon. It takes a lot of energy to open up one of those portals, apparently, and they're running low."
"Oh." She looked almost pleased.
"What? You're happy about that?"
"No," she said quickly. "It's just..." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye."
"I told you I'd take you with me."
"And I told you I haven't made up my mind about that yet. I know it's a mess right now, but it's still my world. Leaving it behind forever...that's a big decision."
Stu remembered how disoriented he had been, after arriving in this world for the first time. It wasn't just that the cities were crawling with zombies; this was a world with a different history, different heroes, different technology, different customs. Many of those differences were subtle, but they were there. Luna would probably be just as disoriented if he brought her to his world.
"I get it," he said. "I don't like goodbyes, either. But I promise I won't leave without giving you one, all right?"
She nodded. "What else did he tell you? Did he explain why you were brought here?"
Stu told her everything that Dr. Snowe had told him -- as much as he could remember of it, anyway. By the end of it, her mouth was hanging open.
"The outbreak began with an alien? That's how it started?"
"Apparently."
"And the first zombie...was you?"
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"Well, it was Stuart Brakely, anyway. The Stuart Brakely of this world."
"And this other you is the brainy they call the Dread?"
"Pretty scary, huh?" He wondered about this other version of himself. What would it be like to talk to him? They apparently shared the same DNA, but this Stu had grown up in another world and had had an entirely different upbringing; he wondered how similar they might be to one another. "Anyway, they needed a sample of my DNA or whatever to make this serum. That's why Virge and Wayman kidnapped me."
"A cure," she murmured. "Is it even possible?"
"They seem to have been working on it for a long time. Now that he's got my DNA Dr. Snowe says it'll only take a few hours to make a batch of this serum."
"Huh. And what about your...abilities? Did he have an explanation for that, too?"
Stu had saved this for last. He started to explain, but before he could say anything he was interrupted by a sleepy Lucky. "What's going on?" the kid asked, rubbing his eyes.
This seemed like as good a time as any to explain it to the kid, so he told him all about it, describing the ICON system to him as best he could, and providing both of them with the explanation Dr. Snowe had given him -- all that stuff about nanites. Lucky was skeptical: "There's an alien in your brain? How did it get in there? Did it go up your nose or something?"
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I guess Virge must have implanted it somehow when he touched my forehead." He shrugged. "This technology is obviously pretty advanced."
"Obviously."
"I suppose it was these nanites which healed me after I was shot at the Desert's King camp," Luna mused. "Do you think they're still in my body?"
"I have no idea." Although Dr. Snowe had given him a rough idea of what the ICON system was and how it functioned, many of the details were still mysterious.
"So what do we do now?" Lucky asked.
"What do you mean?"
"We're stuck in this mall, with these people, waiting for the Dread to attack. We don't have the glider, which means we can't get back to Meku, and it doesn't sound like Dr. Snowe is planning on opening this portal anytime soon, which means Stu can't get back to his own world. Where do we go from here? What's the plan?"
"I was actually thinking about taking you with me," Stu said. "To my world."
Lucky frowned. "I don't know about that."
"It would be a lot safer."
By now Millie had awakened as well, and Stu was obliged to tell his story all over again. The cyborg-girl was thoughtful. "Nanites, huh? It's not impossible, I guess.
"It would explain about the zombies," Lucky said. "How they can do the things they do."
"There were a lot of strange creatures in that alien ship," Stu said. "You saw that spider-thing that was living on the Desert King's arm."
"I didn't think we'd ever find out how the outbreak started," Luna said, shaking her head in wonder. "But if Dr. Snowe really can find a cure..." She smiled bleakly. "Virge kept telling you you were the key to everything. I guess he was right."
"We still haven't figured out what to do next," Lucky reminded them.
Millie looked at each of them in turn. "Isn't it obvious? We have to protect Dr. Snowe from the Dread until he finishes his work on this serum. We're talking about a cure here. The Researcher was always talking about finding a cure, but I don't think she was ever really that close to finding one. She might have even given up looking for one. But if Dr. Snowe is the real thing..."
"She's right," Luna agreed, after thinking it over for a moment. "This is bigger than us. We're talking about the fate of the world here. If the Dread attacks, if Dr. Snowe fails...this may be our only chance to stop the zombies, to end this nightmare once and for all." She glanced at her brother. "Lucky?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. What do you think, Stu?"
Stu sighed. He didn't want to stay in this zombie-infested world another minute. He didn't want to fight any more zombies, or face the Dread -- a zombified, funhouse-mirror version of himself. He wanted to go home. And now that this possibility was finally within his reach, he wanted it all the more; he was impatient for it. He had been brought to this world against his will, battled any number of monsters, and seen things that he could never unsee. He had followed Virge's instructions and journeyed to Lon Halos, and just now he had given Dr. Snowe the DNA sample he had needed to create a cure. Hadn't he done enough?
But then he remembered the faces he had seen when he had first entered the mall -- the faces of the people of Georgetown, forced to take shelter behind Dr. Snowe's electric shell while the zombies rampaged outside. He couldn't go back to being the old Stuart Brakely -- the man who had only ever lived for himself, and who had spent most of his life running away from responsibility. His adventures in this world had changed him. He was a new person now. He couldn't abandon these people to their fate -- not while he had the power to help them.
"What do I think?" he muttered. "I think I need some sleep."