Page 74 of Even Vampires Bleed
I’m surprised to hear that Cassiopé is the one who asked. I’m even more surprised when she adds, “We can see all the breaks and length that have changed. You know where they are. How can you say it’s too random? You know how the brain works. You know which part is supposed to hold what. So, how can you say that?”
She’s breathless by the end of her monologue as if she didn’t even breathe the entire time she talked.
“It’s random, little miss, because this and this,” the doctor points at parts of the scans, but I’m not looking at his hands, his pissed off expression holding all my attention, “could make him forget how to walk, but it could also make him forget how to talk depending on the strength of the electric shock. It could even make him go back to the same level of knowledge as a newborn. But it could also just give a limp for a few weeks. Well, in addition to his life being erased.”
Here.
This is when all my hope is crushed and walked over.
I sag against the wall.
That doesn’t sound good. Not at all.
I feel like my heart is melting all over the floor or shattering to the wind. I’m not sure which one.
All I know is that I’m in deep shit.
“Do you see a way to get everything out?” Elhyor asks with concern.
Yeah, I’m concerned, too.
“We could open his skull and get the broken pieces out, but it looks like what’s left is still pretty much hooked in the new partsit reaches, so it would prevent miscellaneous parts of his brain from being ‘blurred’ in his mind, but it would still not solve the problem at hand. And like always with brain surgery, there are risks,” the doctor says.
It’s not much more reassuring.
Except what can we do now? I’m not ready to disappear again, but this thing isn’t going to disappear from my brain, either.
“Do you know of any place that doesn’t have any service?” Cassiopé asks the room.
I don’t see why that question just popped, but I wait for the others to answer all the same.
“Everything in France is covered, no?” Angélique asks, but Elhyor seems to be deep in thought.
“I think there might be one place. It doesn’t even have a name except for his former owner’s species. Otocyon. It’s somewhere in the south of France. The land can’t be reached by flying car unless you’re willing to jump from it in flight and there is still a chance you’d break your legs during the fall. It’s been described as a cabin in the woods, but knowing the man who used to live here, it has all the amenities necessary. If you don’t count electricity and service.”
“Is it really empty?” Cassiopé asks, and I’m still not sure where she is going with this idea.
“Léon left a while ago,” Elhyor says. “The weather in France wasn’t warm enough for him. He went back to South Africa. But why do you ask?”
Cassiopé tugs at the bottom of her shirt and fidgets with it.
“Why did he pick somewhere without electricity or service?” I can’t help myself from asking before she can answer Elhyor’s question.
That doesn’t make much sense. Who would want to live that way? I can’t even count the number of things I use daily that need electricity.
Elhyor doesn’t seem to mind and answers my question as he glances at Cassiopé. I have a feeling she’ll answer the question at some point, anyway.
“Léon is a bat-eared fox. They have the most sensitive hearing on Earth. Well, it was already the case on Aléa, but they didn’t have to deal with electricity and holo service there. Because when we arrived on Earth, they discovered they could hear those… and it drove some of them bat-shit crazy. They usually live in parts of the world that are more desert than anything else, but Léon liked forests, and he was smart, too. He built a faraday dome on top of his part of the wood.”
“Wouldn’t that be made from electricity?” Cassiopé asks.
“The thing is powered from the outside and takes its energy from the sun and the ground, so it’s more like a blanket—an invisible one—that protects a huge area of the woods. And if he could probably hear it next to the border, Léon seemed content when he was home and far enough from the limits of his territory.”
“What’s your idea, Cassie?” Angélique asks when her husband finishes explaining.
“I realize that might not be your choice of life,” Cassiopé says while looking at me, “but if there is no service, then nothing can communicate with your microchip. And if nothing can communicate with your microchip, then no one can activate it. If we can’t find a way to destroy it and be sure we really destroyed everything that can activate your chip, it might be the only way for your mind to stay intact. Or you can move to one of the African deserts…”
She finishes her last sentence with a flinch, and I do the same. I’m a cockatoo. I need things to perch on in my animal form.
