Re -Medic
“One more step, Trish, you can do it! Please!” Steph sobbed quietly. “They could be coming after us at any moment.”
Trish tried to make sense of the words through the overwhelming pain. She dug her weakened nails into the sterilized porcelain of the floor. Desperately, she tried pulling herself forward, but the fire burning in her every tendon produced no movement.
Steph turned, peering deep into the shadows behind them for any sign of movement. Trish was haunted by images of smiling pursuers in pristine lab gowns, but she did not have the strength to look over her shoulder.
Steph grabbed Trish’s arms and pulled. Her hands slipped over the goo oozing from the dozens of burst pustules that covered her skin. The trail of blood and pus Trish had left while dragging herself through hallway after hallway would lead their captors straight to them, if they realized the sisters were missing.
“Look! The doors are so close. You have to make this last effort,” Steph insisted.
Trish wanted to reply, but all she could manage was a soft moan. Steph’s face swam in front of her tear-filled eyes.
Steph looked into those eyes, set in a face she could barely recognize as once identical to her own. Was it still? As deep as she peered into those eyes, there was no strength left to be found in them. She looked back at the doors, ominous slabs of windowless metal, painted in the same soothing pink that covered most of the lab. They had been so close.
“You have to go on,” Trish managed to whisper. “At least one of us has to tell the world what is happening here.”
Steph let go of her sister’s arms and sank to the floor. “I feel so alone without Remi. Without you… I might have the strength to reach the doors… but I don’t have the strength to be alone on the other side. Either we both make it or neither one does.”
Trish sobbed. All this planning, all this waiting, all this pain. She couldn’t let her sister down. A failed escape attempt would make their guardians vigilant. Years of routine dulled their captors' watchfulness; that had been the sister’s only card. The kind-looking, ever-smiling despots would monitor everyone carefully until none remained. There would be no second chance. She couldn’t let sweet, brave Steph rot in this place, but try as she might, her arms refused to obey.
“If you don’t do it for me, then do it for Remi!” Steph growled.
Trish gasped. She couldn’t believe Steph had invoked Remi’s name to coerce her onward. “Remi? That’s not fair… Remi? That’s not fair…” Trish repeated like a mantra, as her arms began pulling her, inch by agonizing inch, toward the end of the hallway. The pain was so great that the world dissolved into a whirling mist. She had no idea if she was going in the right direction. Steph’s voice seemed to be calling through the overwhelming ringing in her ears, but Trish didn’t stop. Remi… Remi… she had to do it for Remi.
To her horror, Trish felt arms seizing her and halting her. She screamed a soundless, powerless rasp, as her arms kept flailing on their own.
“It’s OK Trish,” Steph sobbed in her ear. “Stop. You did it. We crossed. We’re here.”
Trish’s body went limp. She tried to make sense of the words.
“We can’t be in the administrative area,” Trish murmured. "There’s still the same stench of decay and putrefaction as in the lab.”
Steph’s lip quivered. “Honey… that’s us.”
The room slowly started coming into focus in Trish’s eyes. To her horror, she realized that they reached a dead end. The office, small and Spartan, had no doors or windows, save for the one they just crawled through. That didn't make any sense. The researchers who held them captive couldn't just cross through walls!
Steph didn't look worried. She pointed at a machine just a foot away from them. Though the machine itself was unfamiliar, Trish recognized the panel that every child had marveled at on field trips to the tech museum: the control panel of a Re-Timer Inc. Model 1175 time travel module.
*****
“…And that’s where you found them?” Terrence Bradford swirled towards the witness stand and pointed an inquisitive finger at the middle-aged police officer sitting there.
“Five years earlier, but essentially yes,” Officer Lawrence replied. “They arrived back on June 14th, just past midnight. Joey Smalls was on duty as a security guard at the Institute that night. She recognized the familiar hum of the module activating when nobody was scheduled to be there. She had no trouble going in; the room had not been sealed yet. It's my understanding that will happen two years from now. Smalls found the victims unconscious inside and called 911. I was the first on scene. The state they were in was…”
“Objection!” Tanya Ellis, head of the Re-Medic Research Institute’s legal department interjected. “The witness is not a medical expert. His description of the victims’ condition is unqualified.”
“I don’t need Officer Lawrence to describe it,” Terrence thundered. “Are the victims present in this courtroom today, Officer?”
“One is. The other remains in Intensive Care.”
“Would you identify her?”
Officer Lawrence pointed directly at Steph. “Keep in mind, that’s the one in better condition.”
Steph pulled back her hoodie and the courtroom instantly burst in shocked gasps. Even Tanya couldn't stop herself from looking away.
The officer's perfect composure cracked as he turned towards the defendants. “Maybe you, with your medical expertise, think she looks healthy? You monsters!—”
“Objection!”
“Sustained. The last remark will be stricken from the record."
“No further questions,” Terrence said.
Officer Lawrence took his hat and left the stand, his glare drenching the defendants in hate. Steph reached out to him with the bundle of bandages that covered her hands and he lightly squeezed them with extreme tenderness as he passed. Her lips silently said, "Thank you."
“I call Dr. Howard Barker,” Terrence announced.
The stocky old doctor at Tanya’s side rose unsteadily and took the stand. His legs buckled; he slipped to the floor. The bailiff hurried to help him up.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Dr. Barker protested. “Just nerves.” He looked at the judge. “I’m ready.”
“Proceed.”
“You’re Dr. Howard Barker, director of the Re-Medic Research Institute?” Terrence asked.
“I am,” he said, regret heavy in every word that emerged through his bushy white beard. “I bear ultimate responsibility for everything that happens in the Institute. That includes… everything.”
“You recruited 300 sets of identical triplets, offering each ten million dollars, to participate in a one-year study described in the contract as ‘perfectly safe.’ You then deliberately infected them with an incurable virus - agent28f- and kept them prisoners while causing undescribable pain, suffering and, for many, death?”
“The virus was just a vehicle to alter their genes in specific ways," Dr. Barker started to explain but stopped himself. "It doesn’t matter. I'm not going to try to justify myself through a technicality. The gene editing caused the sickness. It was deliberate."
"Objection!" yelled Tanya. "My client is saying 'caused,' 'was,' 'did,' as if the events had already happened. I want to remind the Court that none of this has happened yet. The triplets have been recruited, they have signed contracts, but the study has not started. Not a single one of them has been infected or held against their will."
"Yet," added Terrence.
"None of this has happened," Tanya repeated for emphasis.
"Look at the victim sitting right now in this very room!" Terrence barked. "Look at her and tell me that none of this has happened to her!"
"Counsel, stop talking over each other," the judge ordered.
"We… I did it,” Dr. Barker admitted. “I approved this study because we'd get a cure for a terrible disease; we'd get it immediately; we'd get it within our budget; and nobody would get hurt. It seemed impossible that someone would get hurt.”
“Within budget?" Terrence inquired. "You offered each triplet ten million dollars and the entire funding of the project was just over two hundred million. You never intended to pay the participants and the study was never meant to be safe, correct?” Terrence insisted. "You never intended for any of them to make it out alive, did you?"
“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Dr. Barker stammered. “It was intended to be perfectly safe… in a paradoxical way. Yes, participants would fall gravely ill and many would die. But we had acquired the Re-Timer 1175. With it, we planned to return with the completed research data and prevent the study from ever beginning. No one would be hired. No one would need to be paid. No one would suffer because the entire experiment would never take place. Even knowing that, I never imagined that the effects would be so horrible. In their journals, Drs. Evans and Smith, who were in charge of the project, mentioned that, about a year from now, when I saw the effects of agent28f, I resigned and tried to alert the authorities. Unfortunately, they murdered me before I could.”
“But the suffering is real!” Terrence pointed at his client.
“It appears real,” Dr. Barker conceded. “That’s presumably why, in the future, I tried to stop it.
“It doesn’t just appear real,” Terrence interrupted. “Look at Stephanie Aimes. She is real!”
“It’s real because they escaped into the past... that is, into our present, using the module. Now they’re anchored here, like the research journals. If the Aimes sisters hadn’t escaped, Evans and Smith would have returned and undone everything, except the data that they brought through the module... and their own knowledge, of course, since they would have also returned through the time machine. You must understand that the horrific symptoms caused by agent28f mirror an incurable genetic disorder affecting hundreds of people worldwide today. They suffer like the Aimes sisters did… will… did…"
"Do," Terrence said flatly.
"Those patients have no hope, except through our research,” Dr. Barker said.
“But the study produced no cure. That’s why my clients remain afflicted,” Terrence continued.
“Correct, unfortunately,” Dr. Barker admitted. "The progress shown in the journals is very promising, but no cure has been found yet."
“This is irregular,” the Judge interrupted, “but I need clarity. Mr. Lester,” he addressed the small scientist from Re-Timer Inc, seated at the rear, “your company invented and built the time machine. Explain how it functions. If they travel back in time and prevent the study from ever starting, does the suffering persist in a separate timeline? If it really never happens, how are they able to keep the results they brought back?”
“I came here as a courtesy to you, but we will never disclose our trade secrets,” Lester replied flatly. "Time travel is so obvious once you understand it. You can't imagine how easy it would be for anyone to replicate our machines if I explained, even in the most roundabout way, how they work."
"That sounds dangerously close to contempt of Court, Mr. Lester," the judge warned. "This is more important than a machine or a company. You're not above the law."
“In theory, I'm not above the law. In practice, the law can't touch me. This trial is happening because I want to allow it, despite the harm it's doing to my company's reputation. I want Ms. Aimes to get justice, but I will not sacrifice my company for it. I will not confirm nor deny any speculation on how our machines work. If compelled, as I told you before, my associates will travel back in time and prevent this whole situation. Ms. Aimes would never be found; this trial would never happen; you would never know I refused to answer your questions; and the perpetrators would go unpunished. All I can confirm is that the data and people transported via the 1175 will remain intact even if the originating events are subsequently undone.”
The judge saw unbreakable resolve in Lester’s eyes and relented. They would proceed in ignorance of the mechanics, as the researchers themselves had.
“Where are Drs. Evans and Smith?” Terrence asked.
“Gone. They used the module,” Dr. Barker said. “Likely to a time before conviction or after the statute of limitations. I’m just speculating.”
“We’re here!” Drs. Evans and Smith entered the courtroom.
“Apologies for the delay. We were not fleeing justice nor trying to avoid our punishment. We also never planned to murder you permanently, Howard," said Dr. Evans.
"....Or to cause any permanent harm to a patient," Dr. Smith added. "It would all have been undone when we returned and halted the study. But the Aimes sisters’ escape made that impossible. Undoing the experiment now would not heal them, since they arrived here through the module.
"Instead of escaping, we went forward in time to complete the research during the months that this trial consumed. We were so close already!" Evans said.
"Ms. Aimes, we succeeded. We have the cure for you and your sister." Smith exclaimed. "That’s all we could do now that undoing your suffering from ever happening is not an option.”
"What about Remi?" Steph overcame the terror that the two researchers caused her by thinking of her sister. "What will that cure do for Remi now?"
"Remi Aimes is still alive, just five years younger and perfectly healthy..." Dr. Smith started to explain.
Steph gathered her strength and managed to shout, "What about MY Remi?"
“We returned to accept any punishment the court deems fit,” Evans said. “The true tragedy is not in our original actions, which would have been harmless, but in the escape that rendered them irreversible, at least for the Aimes family. We performed actions that, although horrible, were no more real than a passing thought until the Aimes sisters made them real. They are the real criminals. We were able to perform horrible acts for the greater good because those acts were never going to be real! That's what Barker couldn't understand. That's what the Aimes claimed to understand but didn't! They made our actions real and turned us into criminals. Now the guilt is real for us and we will have to live with it always.” Evans dropped to his knees, sobbing.
*****
By the trial’s end, Stephanie Aimes could walk unaided from the courthouse. The treatment was indeed working.
Outside, the Re-Timer scientist approached her.
“We didn’t make this offer earlier,” Lester said, “because we wanted to see Evans and Smith convicted for misusing our technology. Now that I’ve had the satisfaction of seeing their faces behind bars, we can return and prevent the study before you and your sisters ever signed on. Trish would be healthy; Remi... your Remi, alive. Our commercial modules can't do it, but we have a central machine that can. You must keep that a secret. You will. However, this trial and the doctors’ convictions would vanish. I'll give Evans and Smith the completed journals; they'll cure Evans's daughter and the other patients around the world. They'll have no motivation to perform the study in the first place. That means that those doctors would spend their lives free and guilt-free. Only I would remember their crimes and their punishment. That’s why I leave the choice up to you, Ms. Aimes. After all you went through, if you prefer to keep your revenge instead of undoing time, I’ll allow it."
Lester handed Steph a card. “Contact me with your decision. I already know what it will be.”