Separation by J.S. Frankel Page B

Harry
had met others like him before. They exuded authority even if they
didn’t have the brains to back it up. Some of his university
professors had acted the same way. Once he’d shown them his
results, they clammed up and left him alone. However, that had been
a year and a bodily transformation ago...
    “Did he say anything else?”
    Leo shook his head. “No, he just say he
search for someone and then tell us to leave.”
    “Thanks.”
    Harry walked over to the wall, thinking about
Allenby’s plan and running some permutations through his gray
matter. An awful thought occurred to him, but while he was thinking
things through, Anastasia walked over and tapped him on the
shoulder, interrupting his train of thought. “So,” she prodded,
“spill.”
    “He needs Istvan’s blood. I can figure out
that much.”
    A warning light flared in her eyes. “We have
to get him out of here. If the citizen’s groups don’t get him and
everyone else first, Allenby’s brood will.”
    “You’re my top priority.”
    Anastasia’s expression softened. “Thank you.”
She leaned up to kiss him. “But I can handle myself. I know my
body... sort of. Outside of throwing up, I can deal with this.
Don’t worry.”
    Easy for her to say, Harry thought as they
searched for Istvan. They found him sleeping in an adjacent chamber
and woke him up. He sat up, rubbing his porcine face. “What is
it?”
    “We have to get you out of here,” Harry said.
“Farrell and our other man need you back in the States.”
    “Can you guarantee my safety?” Istvan’s
question was simply put, but the answer was complex. “Here, I have
some. I know why they want me. I remember you tell me my blood is
special. If it is special, perhaps many people want it.”
    It was special, but being special also
meant problems associated with the uniqueness of it all. Harry had
researched it in the past, and even though he doubted the people
here had the proper equipment, still, he had to try. After finding
Carlo, he asked him what kind of medical equipment they had.
    “We have IV bags, bandages and some syringes,
among other basic items. What else do you need?”
    A centrifuge and a DNA differentiator
happened to be the two most needed items, but without them, Harry
had to rely on his knowledge and intuition. “If you have a few
glass slides and a microscope, I can run some preliminary tests. I
also need a couple of sterile syringes.”
    “I will get what you ask for.”
    Once Carlo had gathered the materials, Harry
used the syringe to withdraw some blood from Istvan. The little
pig-man stoically offered his arm up, but he sounded most dubious.
“You know my blood is special. You say so to me. Why you need
now?”
    Harry had tested Istvan before, once in
Hungary, but he had to make sure of something. Even without
specialized equipment, he was able to run the most basic tests.
“Trust me, it won’t take very long.”
    Dropping a little blood on a glass slide, he
examined the platelets under the microscope, squinting to make sure
of, and... there! It couldn’t be, yet it was. He then fed a few
computations into the computer, went up to the surface, ran the
equations, and sweated as he waited out the results as much from
anticipation as fear of being caught. He then returned below. “What
is it?” asked Istvan, once he came back.
    It turned out Harry’s hunch had been correct.
“Your blood is different, yes,” he said, “but not in the way
you think.”
    “I do not understand.”
    While the little man’s blood carried an
enzyme capable of mitigating if not curing a whole host of
diseases, it had a time limit. “It can only be used within a
seventy-two hour time period,” said Harry.
    “I still do not understand.”
    Keep it simple. “I have to make sure,
but if I’m right, the enzyme in your blood can stop or even cure
diseases if it’s combined with conventional medicine. The problem
is the enzyme breaks down after three days.
    “In you, it’s