Point one five rules und.., p.3
Point One Five (Rules Undying Book 4), page 3
She took one more moment to adjust her frilly cotton camisole. She ran her fingers along her neck, pausing ever so briefly on her scar. “If only you had visited me, Lord Ash,” she said in a horrible imitation of a British accent. “Instead, I must be content to see you only in my dreams.”
She giggled and slipped back into her bedroom where her copy of Touched by Ashes waited for her with a cup of steaming herbal tea and a half-eaten packet of cookies. She curled up in her bed and took a deep breath before flipping her paperback open. She had no sooner gotten to the point where the desperate cursed vampire had finally stolen into the home of his virginal desire when Gail’s phone buzzed on her nightstand.
She grumbled as she listened to an automated message that her prescription was ready. This prompted a full five minutes of pillow fluffing, crumb brushing, and generally getting comfortable again. “I’ll just read one more chapter and get an early night,” she promised herself.
By the time Gail finally closed her novel and rubbed her eyes, the clock on her nightstand showed three AM. She groaned before burying her face in the pillow. Less than three hours later, she dragged herself in a distinctly zombie-like fashion to her coffee machine.
“Sleep is for the weak,” she chided herself as she went about her morning routine. She did, however, smack herself in the forehead as her appointment reminder flashed on her phone. Any semblance of a leisurely morning dissolved into a mad dash to yank on clothes and shoes. Her destination ended up being a rather nondescript brick building tucked behind one of the many strip malls of this Austin suburb.
She grabbed yet another coffee out of her cup holder as she rushed past a little sign that read “Dr. Isang.” Gail smiled apologetically to the young man sitting behind the reception desk. He raised a perfectly groomed brow as Gail stumbled in.
“Why hello there,” he said in a smooth Southern drawl. “Dr. Isang will be right with you, sugar.”
Gail settled into a mauve waiting room chair. She had a perfect view of a little orange fishes darting around some bright fake coral. “Oh, I found Nemo,” she said as one swam in front. She blinked a few times as the fluorescents in the tank flickered and caused a strange reflection. Gail blinked a few times but only saw her own pale face in the glass. The door behind the reception desk slid open.
“Gail, is that you?” a sweet voice called from the shadows.
“Sorry I’m a little late, Doctor,” Gail apologized.
“Don’t you worry. I was just finishing up breakfast,” Dr. Isang said quickly. She swept a bottle off her desk as she led her patient inside. Gail’s gaze lingered on the staining around the doctor’s lip. “They say beets are a superfood.” Isang sighed. “But I think they are bloody awful. Dale calls it the crimson kale, and I can’t wait for the trend to end. How about you? Are you a fan of juicing?”
“I need solid food, or I get really mean, really fast,” Gail said while sitting down. “Oh, and even though I’m late, I still need to leave on time today. Dr. Nakano needs me on a special project.”
“Well then, we best get started, Gail. Do you want to start by telling me how you’ve been feeling?” the doctor asked.
“Fine, honestly,” Gail said as she stifled a yawn.
“Trouble sleeping?”
“I was just reading a really good book. I meant to just read a chapter and you know how that goes—”
The doctor nodded. “So, no more bad dreams?”
“I wouldn’t say they were bad. I um, had some rather pleasant ones, mostly about the characters in the books. They are… um… romance novels.”
“Are you feeling embarrassed to talk about romantic or sexual dreams, Gail?”
“No!” She said turning bright pink. She shuffled in her seat. “Well… yes. It’s just that the dreams I have, they are . . . well, they are about vampires.”
Dr. Isang’s face remained impassive. Her hand slid over to her phone, however, and she started up a recording session. “Vampires… like Count Dracula?”
“Well, he’s just a character in one of the series I read. You see, he’s a rather tortured soul who loves the wife of another man. I mean Mina, she really loves him, but she can’t get away to be with him. It’s a bit of a twist on the old Bram Stoker because this Mina is a successful artist and not some Victorian school mistress. It’s silly, though. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about the books I’m reading.”
“Well, if they are important to you, I’d love to hear about them. Do you read other books?”
“Not recently. I mean, I had one with vampires and werewolves, but mostly I stick to vampires.”
“And what draws you to these stories, Gail?”
“I don’t know, honestly. I used to never read them. I mean, I always liked romances, but it was always mysterious cowboys and pirates and rogue Scottish lords. I guess I always dreamed of being swept away by someone brooding and dark and…” Her words devolved into a heartfelt sigh.
“What changed?”
“After I was attacked . . .I dunno, I almost died due to blood loss. You’re the doctor. Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m fantasizing about vampires because of that?”
“I’m not here to tell you anything, Gail. I’m here to listen and to help you express your feelings right now. There is nothing right or wrong about how you feel. It is interesting that you drew this conclusion. Does it feel right to you?”
“I may have spent far too many hours analyzing myself by talking to folks on the Internet,” Gail confessed. “I’m not crazy, am I? I just have this childish fantasy that if only vampires were real… that… that… Well, it would be far less horrible to be attacked by a vampire than to imagine that someone stabbed me and left me to die in an alley. I mean, that’s just boring.”
“You think that violence is boring?”
“No, but I know the feds think I must have seen something, but honestly, don’t you think I’d remember something like that? What if it was just random and I was stabbed by a druggie or a psycho? That would make the most sense, and it would mean that all this hiding and witness protection is just a taxpayer drain that amounts to nothing!”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“Pretty crappy.” Gail sighed. “My whole life I feel like that’s all I deserve. I’m just average, Doctor.”
“And these vampires in your stories? I’m guessing that they are extraordinary.”
“Oh, yes. They have . . . lives of excitement and adventure.”
“And you want that life?”
“It’s the weirdest thing. I don’t know, but somehow, I feel like I could have had that life, yet it was never meant for me. Do you think I’m substituting vampires for my family? I mean, my dad was… well he was not a nice man, and my uncle was worse. What if I’m imagining vampires because I don’t want to admit that part of me wanted the more exciting life of my family even though I knew it was wrong?”
“Now, is that you, Gail, or your Internet analysts talking?” Dr. Isang asked with a slight smile.
“Bit of both,” Gail confessed.
“There is a very big difference between your family and vampires though, Gail. You know what that is?”
“My family is real and vampires are not?” she offered.
“Exactly. Vampires are not real,” Doctor Isang said, peering over her glasses rather pointedly at Gail. She gave the slightest of nods.
“Vampires are not real,” Gail said in the exact same tone. She blinked rapidly again. “I’m sorry, what were we talking about?”
“You were telling me about your books and your dreams. You have been having some pretty fantastical dreams, have you not, Gail?”
“I don’t remember most of my dreams, but I had one the other night, that I have a few flashes of. It was amazing. There was a ball, a fancy ball with all this dancing and music, but I think it was set in the Eighties…”
“The Eighties?”
“Yeah. I was out there in the middle of all these beautiful couples, dancing with a handsome stranger,” she sighed as she closed her eyes. “I remember dark hair and green eyes. We were dancing among all these people but then I closed my eyes, held my breath, and all of a sudden, I was the only person in the room. It was so magical, so beautiful, and then – poof – I woke up. For just the briefest of moments, all eyes were on me for a change.”
“And you feel like you’re forever lost in the crowd, Gail. Is that it?”
“Yes, lost… just… a bit player in some grand story with no direction, no purpose. I feel like I have no direction at all. Maybe I’m just drifting. It’s not that I lost my memory because something bad happened. Part of me just feels like I was so dull, so ordinary, that I just let it go. Just once I’d like to be the girl in the center of the room with all eyes on her. Just once I want to be the heart of the story,” she said softly. “Is that… wrong?”
“There is no right or wrong, Gail. Just tell me, do you remember anything else in particular about this dream? Anything about the man with dark hair and green eyes?”
“No, not really,” she muttered as she finally opened her eyes. “Wait, one thing. I think he might have been a robot.”
“A… robot?”
“His arm. When the sleeve pulled away, it didn’t look like skin. There was… circuitry.”
3
Gail took a deep breath as she checked and double checked her box of supplies. She swept the cardboard out of exam room four and into the waiting arms of a whistling janitor. She paused briefly as she saw bright red Chucks poking from under the blue scrubs.
“Gracias,” her helper said as he swept away the last of the cardboard.
Before she could pay any more attention to the cleaning guy, another pair of folks walked down the hall. Gail planted her best smile on her face as her diminutive boss walked down the hall with a guy that looked more at home in a goth club than a lab. He stared through a shelf of black and green hair with haunted, smoky eyes.
“Dr. Nakano?” Gail asked.
“Yes?” both her boss and the young man asked at once.
The young man stretched out a hand, revealing black painted fingernails and five clunky skull rings. “Dr. Rikuto Nakano, at your service,” he said. Gail, however, could only stare at the ink peeking from under his black ribbed sleeve – circuitry breaking through his skin. He smiled. “You like the tattoos? I got this one in honor of my brother.”
Gail smiled weakly, especially as she noticed the dagger eyes from her boss. “I’ve seen a lot of tattoos,” she said blandly as she led him back to the exam room. “It’s nice.”
“That’s a new one,” he said, plopping onto the bed and rolling up his sleeve like an old pro. “I like evoking The Terminator personally. Ah’ll be baaaaahk. Right, mom?”
“You watched it every day for a month until I finally got Predator—” Dr. Nakano sighed.
“We watched it, Haha,” Rikuto corrected. “But I forget, you can’t stand for me to even mention him, can you?”
Gail kept her attention focused firmly on pulling out the blood pressure cuff and thermometer. While she collected his vitals, Dr. Nakano let out a rapid-fire tirade in Japanese. Rikuto returned the favor until Gail finally had to whirl around and point to the door.
“I’m sorry, but I need to get this set up, Dr. Nakano,” Gail snapped. “Would you mind waiting outside?”
Rikuto broke out in a huge grin. “Sugoi,” he mouthed. “I like her, Haha. Is she employed by the family, too?”
“No, she is an independent contractor for Biogenesys Labs, so please don’t treat her as you would family, Riku. Gail, I’m sorry. I’ll leave you to your work. Riku, once you are set up, I’d love to talk to you—”
“Nah, I brought a book,” the other Dr. Nakano said, pointing to his bag.
Gail’s boss flipped over the flap on her son’s messenger bag and turned dreadfully pale. She yanked the bag closed and darted to the door. “Later, Riku. We are talking later,” she said before slamming it behind her.
“My mom’s been through a lot,” Rikuto explained right before Gail shoved a thermometer into his mouth. They waited patiently for the beep. “I still feel the need to taunt her at every turn. I am glad she got me Predator, though. You’d be surprised at how instrumental that film became to a budding physicist’s career.”
“Mhmm,” Gail muttered while she prepped the IV. “Get to the choppah?”
Rikuto’s eyes lit up. “You’ve seen it? You have no idea how dreadful it is when you start with ‘if it bleeds…’ and no one follows up with—”
“We can kill it?” Gail finished without skipping a beat. “We’re just about ready. I just need to review a few things from your file.”
“No, I haven’t had any changes in medication.” Rikuto sighed. “I still can’t have allergic reactions, even though mom freaks out and demands an Epi-Pen every damn time I sit down. She simply won’t accept that I will never get any better even though she is absolutely the single most qualified person on the planet to know that I won’t.”
“She’s a mom. And there is a note about a reaction.”
“I had a panic attack,” Rikuto said with an exaggerated eye roll. “I totally medicate for that—”
“There is no anti-anxiety—” Gail trailed off abruptly as her patient made an exaggerated puffing pantomime while leaning back against the pillow. “Oh, you’re self-medicating. Look, I’m not going to judge you, but you really should disclose that if you ever need to get anesthesia. We won’t judge you, but it can affect medi—”
“Please, my mom does read this. You think I’m going to tell everything? I’m pretty sure she still thinks I’m a virgin and like women, Miss… Miss?”
“Foster, Gail Foster.”
“Uh-huh, married name?” he asked quickly.
“No, why are you asking?” she asked as she raised a brow.
“Don’t look like a Foster. Um, anyway, I like to talk, especially right before needles. When my brother and I used to get infusions, and hell, even before when we got the injections, we would just talk non-stop to distract from the poking and the blood and the general squickiness of it all. Anyway, do you mind if I just keep talking?”
Gail shook her head.
“Anyway, you like Arnold movies? I can’t get enough of them. I actually made it my life’s work to try and bring all the pseudo-science from his films to real life. I mean, some people wanted to look at the stars because of a sense of wonder. I was always more of a fan for looking up there so we could see if aliens were coming.” He paused to wince as the needle went in. “Anyway, Predator got me interested in the science of reflection and refraction, and I figured it would be far easier to invent stealth technology rather than time travel,” he continued.
“Seems valid. Hold still, please.”
“Anyway, I love working with reflection and refraction and the physics of light,” he babbled. As she hooked up the IV, he went on about fiber optic fabric and reverse illumination. Once it was finally taped and secure, he flopped back on the bed and said something about refraction angles and surface materials. Gail nodded and smiled while loading the readout of his infusion on her tablet. She remained totally focused on the lines showing the levels of remaining solution until she heard him mutter the words, “and then, of course, there are vampires and their lack of reflection.”
“Excuse me?” Gail asked.
“I lost you somewhere among the personal stealth technology ranting, didn’t I?” Rikuto said.
“Well, I was kinda paying attention to your lifesaving treatment,” she said. “But… vampires? Is that normally what inspires a scientist?”
Rikuto smiled slyly, all but winking at his nurse. She leaned back and sighed, crossing her arms, as she waited for him to stop mugging and actually respond.
He untangled himself just enough to grab his bag and drag it to his feet. “Well, don’t you ever wonder how vampires have no reflection?” Rikuto asked in a surprisingly serious tone.
“Isn’t it because they have no souls?” she asked. “It’s part of their curse.”
“Yeah, but what if it was just physics?” he asked. “What if they don’t have reflections because light bends around them?”
“Like the Predator?” Gail said. She helped him get settled back into bed and cocked her head. “But wouldn’t that just make them invisible?”
Rikuto squealed and jumped in his seat. “Finally, someone with half a brain to talk to. Wait, were you really listening?”
“I just thought, if light was really bending, then we couldn’t see vampires either. I don’t know if I was just half listening to you or still imagining the movie, honestly.”
“But you are so right! The physics don’t work. If light was truly being warped, then it should be no different to our eyes than a reflective surface because the angle of light would be the same. I’m digressing, though. Did I mention yet that you are really good with needles? I barely felt a thing.” He rifled through his bag until he yanked out his own tablet. He scribbled a bit and flipped around a dazzling array of stick figures, lines and a mirror. One of the figures had two pointy teeth and a cape.
“I’m glad it didn’t hurt,” she said as she leaned over to look at his drawings.
He made little whooshing sound effects as he drew a lightbulb behind them and traced more lines. “See, that is the light. If it went around the vampire, it would bounce back the same way and then you wouldn’t see it either.”
He drew little sound bubbles of “rawr!” and “eek!” Gail smiled.
“So, unless physics as we know them somehow take vacations, then it must be a different rationale.”
“Um, could it possibly just be magic?” Gail asked.
“Well, magic is ridiculous,” Rikuto scoffed.
“So are vampires. I mean, it’s not like they are real, so we don’t have to worry about their physics, Dr. Nakano,” Gail said.
