Am I half done? No, just 5000 words behind ;)… read on, folks!

Word Count: 45,363

However, I was wrong about the dinner. It ended up being quite normal, and I learned that I was assuming far too much about these people. Doradwe, while a strange young man, was actually a pleasant gentleman who knew extensively about everything he spoke about. He was always lively and full of conversation, to the point where he overwhelmed some of the older members of the group, although older members were sparse. I was possibly the oldest man (or woman) in the room, and I didn’t consider myself that old. It was strange to be in a room full of children all sitting down to a fancy dinner that they themselves had planned. I didn’t know what to think of it – I mean, of course they weren’t actually children, they were about twenty-five years old, perhaps. I just chose not to think at all. I sat at the elliptical table and ate my dinner cheerily, and up to the first bite I had actually begun to enjoy myself.

Doradwe raised his glass and spoke as formally as possible. “A toast, I say! A toast to our dear Ethan Hemmings, who delightfully decided to join our dinner tonight in hopes that we might aid his research on one of the most dreadful of diseases. And may we help him as much as possible! Share your advice with him; do not be afraid to tell him everything you know as time goes on. And now, all say cheers!”

“Cheers!” the crowd jeered, and glasses clanked together. Several gulped down the liquid as though it were mere water, and asked for refills. They received it promptly. I, who was not a drinker, requested water. “Are you mad?” the man sitting next to me said. “We don’t drink water here – only liquor. Don’t mention your request to Tamben, or he’ll have a fit. He hates seeing people with lo tolerance to alcohol.”

“But he’s the one who invited me. I’m sure he’ll understand that not everybody can drink so much alcohol at once.” I looked at my glass, which was entirely full; half of it was ice, so I assumed this was a strong beverage. I swirled the contents around by spinning the glass, hoping that somebody would take this as a sign that I was enjoying the drink, even though I hadn’t tasted it. Strange butlers delivered food. I didn’t even know that people used butlers in those days – it was something I would have expected fifty years prior, but by this time there were other means of getting what you wanted delivered to you easily. And home robots were on their way. Recently in the news was shown a robot that could walk and pick up object in an almost human-like manner. It could also fully understand human speech and respond to it in many different ways – several of those ways which were completely dynamic, but many which were static, calculated responses to generic situations. Was it ready for public consumption? No, but it was certainly moving in that direction. And it was better than a butler, anyway. I felt as though I had gone back in time half a century to an aristocrat’s fancy get together.

The food placed in front of me certainly reeked of it. I jabbed it with my fork, and barely touched it with my knife. It was a steak – a meal I had hardly ever seen in my poor, middle class life. I ate steak perhaps once every few months. But this steak was gargantuan. How could they afford such meat, and for every soul in the room no less? It was baffling. I was tempted to eat it, but thought that it must be contaminated. It must have been tampered with. Something must have been done to it, because no normal person could afford this. Then again, this was not a normal dinner. It was downright strange. People continued to consume alcohol. One man was on his eleventh glass by the start of dinner – he just chugged and chugged. I watched him from behind my own glass. He consumed alcohol faster than he consumed the meat, and it became clear that testing his own limits was a very, very important hobby to him. In fact, it seemed like this was an important hobby for everybody. They lived and breathed to try themselves, to stretch how far the human body could go. Instead of performing death-defying stunts, however, they simply drank poison and hoped for the best. Endless amounts of point, all down the hatch.

I succumbed to hunger and began to eat the steak. It was lavishly prepared, just like the room and the building. It tasted as lavish as it was prepared as well, and I knew that this was a dinner to win me over for something. This was meant to impress me. To show me who these people were. The man next to me, while drinking his fifth glass of liquor, turned and spoke to me. “So, you’re the guy everyone’s been talking about, eh?”

“Everyone’s been talking about me? That’s certainly something new to my ears. Please continue.”

“You’re famous around here. You’re looking up that crazy disease – doesn’t even have a name yet, does it? We’ve been interested in it for a while, ever since we heard about your research. It’s astounding, I believe. U should be proud to discover such a disease. And a cure in one week!” he chortled heartily. “You were a fool to even attempt it without our help. I assure you, we know exactly how to aid you in this.” He chugged more alcohol. Surprisingly, he wasn’t completely drunk yet.

“Hemmings, look here and listen!” a woman said from across the table. “You’ve got to earn this food that you’re eating. We all had to earn it, but you’re special. You get to try it before you buy it. So you’d better be buying, or else you’re not hearing anything from me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “None of you have told me anything. What are you all talking about?” I put down my fork and finished chewing before speaking. “There’s no possible way you know about this disease. I’ve kept it as hidden as possible. Why, there are only a few men to get out in the open with this illness as far as I know, and I know they’d never brak—” A man on my left, near the end of the table, waved to me. It was the warehouse worker. What the hell was he doing there? He delivered the letter, but I didn’t expect him to be a guest. He seemed too lowly for this party, but perhaps it was less selective than I imagined.

“I hope you don’t mind, but ah tipped ‘em off. The guys here, they’re friends uh mine. I know a bunch of ‘em quite well, really, and they were anxious to see how I was after I wasn’t dead. I told ‘em all about you and how helpful you were, and how we stuck together that night figuring things out. They all said they wanted ta meetcha, and I said ‘Sure, here’s his address from the phone book, let me deliver the letter an’ I’ll make sure he gets to ya safe.’ And I did, an here ya are.” He smiled widely, and I forced a smile back. Although I wasn’t distraught to see him, I was a little nervous with him here, spilling out all the secrets of my research. It wasn’t right, I thought, to spread such confidential information. He’d run away so fast after being released that I suppose there was no doubt he was up to something, but a dinner party for me? All these acclaimed doctors? He outdid himself – or rather, these people were outdoing themselves. I didn’t have plans to tell them much.

The dinner became slightly more awkward, but never horrible. Mr. Doradwe asked me to sit nearby him so that he could speak to me. It was more awkward than anything else to speak with this man who was so much younger than I was and yet so much more successful than I’d ever been in my entire life. I felt lowly before him, but there was something familiar about him that kept me on a friendly level, as he did with me. We spoke about our own experiences, but eventually got to talking about the strange bacteria. He already knew so much about them – almost as much as I knew, or possibly just as much. As the night went further, I began to think that he knew even more than I did about this strange bacterium, and by the time the dinner was almost done I was certain that he was hiding all of his knowledge from me and that it was my job – my quest, or so speak – to rip this information out of him. I switched focus. Instead of letting him ask me questions, and then going back and forth, I tried to ask him as many questions as possible to reveal how much he really knew. What was his experience working with medicine and this disease? He had had years of experience. How was he connected to the warehouse worker? The warehouse worker’s father had been a good friend of his, but was unfortunately deceased at this time. Deceased by what means?

By this disease.

It was confirmed, then, that my “first four” were not actually the first four to contract the disease – just the first four in an epidemic that swept the entire hospital and caused it to be closed down. I knew that it was spreading to more areas than just the hospital, but I also now knew that it wasn’t I who was spreading it. A weight on my shoulders was lifted, and I relaxed and looked at the ceiling.

On the ceiling was a large rendition of the painting I ate under twice daily. Now I was eating under it again.

The man in the painting was ripping a cadaver’s arm apart. He displayed it to many men, as a show of his knowledge, of his strength to endure the gruesome inside of the body and learn from it. I, like him, learned from examining the inside of the body. But his face was one of pure learning, and it looked at me accusingly – was I researching for the sake of learning? Why did I eat under that painting at every meal, except breakfast, which I never even ate? But there was no time for to answer these questions for myself – I had to continue finding out everything that Doradwe knew if I was to know it. I wanted to be then one to cure this disease, but it seemed like he was far ahead of me. I didn’t stand a chance. Doradwe, rather than becoming an aid, was becoming a rival.

Finally, the dinner ended. I could eat no more. I had partaken of the steak, and all of the side dishes, including the potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, soup, and even a sip of wine that stood alone amidst all of the hard liquor that the other guests consumed. Desert came, but I couldn’t eat it, as tantalizing as it looked. They all just wanted to keep me in that room forever, and once the dinner was done they would talk to me, help me. I knew it. They would have to tell me something – perhaps they were going to offer me a laboratory to work in. I needed a suitable laboratory now that the hospital was closed. They never did offer me a laboratory, but what they did offer me would change my life’s plans for a while.

Once everything was cleared off of the table (by the butlers, of course, and not by their pristine hands), all rose. They followed Doradwe through the halls, and beckoned me to follow. I followed.

The halls became darker as we walked through them endlessly – I didn’t even know that the building was this big, and I couldn’t imagine where the extra space came from. Perhaps it extended into the two buildings to either side, secretly. All of these hallways did seem mightily secret. Finally, the line of people ceased to move. We were in front of two more large double doors, completely wooden and completely rotten. I heard from the back of the line Doradwe opening these two doors and locking them in place. All of the people in line began to move again, and we flooded into the new mysterious room together.

The room was round, and the roof was dome-shaped. It was a completely unified and organized room with no fault to it. The walls were made of wood and never painted over, and glazed over with varnish so that they would never need refinishing. Everything in this room was made to keep itself. There were books on the selves around the circular room, but they were books that I could see nobody ever had plans to read, thus they became ornaments. Everything else was arranged in a circular pattern, so that it all matched the room. If anything was out of place, you would have seen it immediately. And what was out of place right now was I, who was the only person not in a circle.

The rest of them had formed a circle, winding around the perimeter of the room, with Doradwe standing directly across from the entrance. I stood at the entrance, but was not in a specific pattern as everybody else was. My position threw off the symmetry of the room. The organization of the room began to frighten me. This dinner was obviously not what I had expected it to be.

“Mr. Hemmings, please step forward. Step into the center of the circle, so that we can all see you!” Doradwe shouted with eager breath. I stepped forward. He clapped his hands only once, and spoke again. “I promised that I would help you, did I not? I will do more than that tonight. I will secure you.

My medical expertise did not come out of thin air, but it did also not come from medical school. In truth, I’ve never been to college. You can tell because I look young. But why do I look so young? You surely must have been thinking this throughout the dinner. I wanted you to see our exclusive club because coming to this room, because we are all young as I am. We are young this way for a reason, and one that relates directly to your research.” He stopped for a moment, and unclasped his hands which had been together for the duration of those few sentences. “Mr. Hemmings, we are the infected. Each one of us in this room harbors inside the dreaded disease you wish to cure.”

That was what they had really called me here for? To tell me that they were infected with the disease? It was vital information, of course, to know that there was a society of people, entirely intact and living day by day knowing they were infested with bacteria, but to what purpose did I serve?

“You are actively perusing a cure for this disease. We do not want it. It is this wonderful abomination that has kept us young and fit. God’s light has shown upon us, the blessed infected ones. We live almost forever! I have aged physically not five years since the day I respawned. Surely this is how God truly intended humans to evolve. We gather here to worship our new savior – God’s microscopic creation – and pay tribute to His generosity in guiding us further along the evolutionary line.

We want to share this joy with the world. But alas, there are many who don’t want the gift of life that we have. So we would like to support you in finding your cure. We cannot offer much advice on our own, as we do not seek it, but being who I am, I have many connections. One of them is to a pharmaceutical company called Pharand, Inc. Pharand, Inc. specializes in antibiotic medicine, and was the site where Emeticillin was first created, as I’m sure you know.”

I did know. But I was shocked, and I couldn’t express my thoughts and emotions clearly. These people could stand living with such a grotesque infestation? Impossible – I didn’t care what kind of “life” it gave them. It was horribly disgusting either way. I let him continue, though I really had no choice, being unable to move or think properly.

“I am offering you a job at Pharand. A temporary job, until your hospital is restored. There you will work under the most brilliant chemists and engineers in the world, designing a cure for Athan’s Disease. If you did not know this infection by a name before this, which is the name we have given it. We are a secret people, so the name must not be known to anybody outside of us. A cure for Athan’s Disease has been well under development for quite some time, but very secretly. Few know about the development, much less its existence.”

I interrupted him. “Why has it been in development for so long? It’s not an epidemic—”

“Oh, but it is. Have you not paid attention to the news at all, Hemmings? People across the world are dying! It’s a beautiful thing – if you enjoy the site, as I do.”

“That’s impossible; I had the hospital shut down so that the disease wouldn’t spread.”

“You honestly thought that closing down a building could stop the spread of Athan’s Disease? You clearly don’t know what you’re up against, but no matter. You’ll learn soon enough. So, tell me – no, tell us – will you offer up yourself to this opportunity?” He grinned. His young smile looked especially villainous, but I had no choice but to accept his offer. What else could I have done? I was running low on cash without a job, and although the hospital would be re-opening in several days, I had no source of income and didn’t want to clean up the dead bodies in the hospital if they were still dead. But I also didn’t like the prospect of being relocated, possibly to another country. In the end, however, that sad prospect was outweighed. I had to cure everybody – no matter what the cost. It was my mission, and I would do it as their missionary.

“I’ll take the job,” I said quietly.

“What’s that? You’ll need to speak louder, boy.” Boy, he had called me. I was a boy, and he the man! A twenty-five year old was naming me a mere boy. I wondered how old he really was, what “Athan’s Disease” had done to his body and mind to make him the way he was at that moment.

“I said that I’ll take the job.”

The entire room began to shake with the jeers of the crowd, none of whom were drunk; even the man who had downed over twenty tall glasses of hard liquor by the end of the dinner wasn’t even feeling tipsy. Although I wasn’t a drinker, I felt bad for that man. His body must be stuck in a permanent, or seemingly-permanent, limbo – suspended from all bodily dysfunction, and in addition, all pleasures. I wondered if he could even taste the food that he ate. I worried about Shane, who had expressed fears that he looked the same now as he did when he awoke from death. I knew now that those fears were not unfounded. Left untreated, Shane would become one of these people – a member of this strange secret organization, destined to live out his days in solitude with the company of these excitable men and women, even if it was the remarkable Dr. Tamben Doradwe – one of the sad individuals who, although they might conglomerate in a room together and worship the same illness together, were so very much isolated from one another.