CHUPACABRA

Chapter Five: The Lioness

"They aren't supposed to feel," Dr. Daas' annoyed voice says just a few feet from Forty's head, the woman scribbling something harshly onto her notepad. "She isn't supposed to feel guilt."

"Forty has never been a standard specimen," Dr. Zapata points out, warmth radiating from his palm where it holds a puff of gauze on Forty's head.

"This ruins so much of the trials. How do we get her to eat?" Daas pushes. She sulks for a split second, then goes ram-rod straight and begins frantically cleaning up the successful part of the experiment. "If she doesn't eat, we can't examine how blood processes in her."

"Just give her something dead already," Jane says from her position in the rolling chair next to Forty's hospital bed. "You know she hates killing things."

"That doesn't exactly replicate the conditions of infection, does it Dr. Garcia?" Dr. Daas grits out, stacking a box of unused microscope slides.

"You aren't going to get it any other way," Jane retorts, running an absent couple of fingers through Forty's hair. It feels comforting, Forty realizes, to have someone touch her when she feels down. Even if that person is Jane, who only recently learned to be kind to her.

Dr. Daas looks extremely frustrated for a moment, fingers clenching harshly onto a stack of papers. Forty can practically hear the gears running in her head. Like a timer signaling an oven is done, she clicks her tongue, dark eyes rising to stare at Forty. "Maybe we don't have to get her to eat," she begins, a small smirk stretching the wrinkles around her mouth. "If my theory is correct, she shouldn't even have to eat anything. What will it matter if she filters the blood like the others? That means nothing to me." She clammers over to the cluttered desk in the opposite corner of the room, quickly scribbling a note to herself. "All that matters is if she can fight off the virus."

"You want to infect her again?" Dr. Zapata asks incredulously, pausing his ministrations on Forty's forehead. "The virus mutates too quickly, and she already shows the gene. That will just make her sick for a couple of days."

"No!" Dr. Daas says matter of factly, excitement shining in her usually dull eyes. "That's where you're wrong. Sure, she shows the gene, but look at her! Look at how she eats, heals, acts. She isn't normal."

"We've known that," Jane says. "But is it worth risking her, our only specimen displaying these characteristics, for a theory?"

"Well, I guess I shouldn't have called it a theory," Dr. Daas says icily. "It's more than that. We've been running trials on the rats, the pigs. It shouldn't kill her."

"Aren't the rats and the pigs enough? We're talking about knowingly infecting her with the Chupa virus."

"The virus she already has," Dr. Daas practically spits. "Stop acting like she's human and think about us." She waves her hand around the room, holds her palms up towards the intercom. "Think about what will happen if she's able to cycle the virus."

"Forty could be a living, breathing vaccine," Dr. Zapata says, voice barely above a whisper.

Silence falls across all three monitors, each looking away from each other as if afraid to find what lay in their eyes. Forty still feels a little woozy from banging her head against the cage, but she's awake enough to realize that the coming days will be difficult. She has a feeling that she will see Dr. Daas a lot more, and be subject to her scalpel with an increasing severity.

"But..." Jane begins, voice small. "We must consider the ethical dilemmas."

Dr. Daas rounds on her. "What ethical dilemma?" she yells. She points at Forty. "That is not a human. This is the same as animal testing. It's for the betterment of ourselves."