Radiant - By Christina Daley Page 0,44

showed her what looked like an X-ray of a bunch of little bones. "Humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. Twenty-two autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. So, forty-six in all."

Mary stared at him blankly.

"Just hang with me for a moment," he said. "Forty-six for humans. That's the magic number, got it?"

"Got it," she said.

"Your friend sorta has two more," he continued. "Here, the analysis picked up something, but it's not conclusive. They're like shadows or ghosts of chromosomes."

"Okay," she said. "What's wrong with having more chromosomes?"

"Remember the magic number?" he asked. "Humans have forty-six. Not forty-four. Not forty-eight. People with one extra chromosome, depending on where it is, have things like Down Syndrome. But this is a full pair. Having more or fewer chromosome pairs means you're not human. You're wheat. Or an earthworm. Or a goldfish. Got it? But these are only sorta there. And here's the really weird part. All the other chromosomes seem to be responding to these ghosts at some subatomic frequency."

Blank stares from Mary again. She actually made good grades in science, but this was a little over her head.

Drew tapped his hand on the papers, obviously thinking of how to dumb down the explanation for her. "It's like…it's like music. You hear bad music, you get irritated. You hear good music, you listen in. These ghosts are giving out music that the other chromosomes like. Whatever mutations or genetic anomalies that he has are getting in line. He's like an optimal human being."

"They're healing him," she said to herself.

Drew continued, "Granted, this is just one test. And there wasn't a lot of blood to work with. I wish I could get more samples from him. Hair. Urine. Skin. Hell, I'd love to put him through an MRI and see what his brain is like."

Mary frowned. "I'm not going to ask him to pee into a cup."

Drew shrugged and arranged the paper stack. "Anyway, this is what I found with what you gave me. Nothing conclusive. But wow. Anyway, now we need to figure out a way to get rid of this thing."

Mary said nothing.

Drew raised an eyebrow. "You still wanna help your friend, don't you?"

"Yeah," she said hesitantly. "But…I don't know now."

"What do you mean you don't know now?" he asked.

"Well…it's kinda…complicated," she said.

Drew stared at her. "You're not, like, in love with it. Are you?"

"No!" she said quickly. "I mean—"

"Mary," he said. "This thing isn't human. It needs to be studied in a lab, not out and about possessing human hosts. How would you like it if some kind of alien parasite or something attached itself to your brain and made you do whatever it wanted?"

"I wouldn't like that," she said.

"Then, there you go," he said. "I've got to get to work. But I'll look into some stuff and let you know if I come across anything. And you'll let me know of anything, right?"

She nodded. "All right. Thanks, Drew."

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- 19 -

Translation

Friday finally came. Mary and Mom ate dinner with Ba before Mom went to work.

"I spoke with Mrs. Carmichael a little yesterday," Mom said as she poked at the last of her food. She had liked the leftovers from Spice more than she had admitted. Mary figured that out when Mom showed up that evening with containers of Indian food instead of the usual Vietnamese fare.

"Who?" Mary asked.

"Scotty's mother," Mom said. "You and Carter were in his room that night at the hospital."

"Oh," Mary said, poking at her own food. "How is he?"

"He went home," she answered.

Mary looked at her, surprised.

"That's wonderful!" Ba said. "It's always nice to hear when the little ones are well enough to go home."

"The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with him," Mom said. "Last week, he was dying. But yesterday when he left, he ate like a horse and laughed all the way out the door." She looked at Mary again. "Are you sure Carter didn't do anything to him?"

That was such a loaded question. Surely, Scotty would've told them everything. "Didn't you ask the boy?" Mary asked.

Mom nodded. "He said he didn't remember seeing either of you."

Mary barely breathed a sigh of relief. She could stick with the story that Carter gave that night. But how could Scotty not remember that?

Mary shrugged. "Like we said, he was asleep when we saw him."

Mom didn't look entirely convinced. But she didn't press the matter further.

After Mom left for the hospital, Mary stayed to play a round of gin with Ba, Julia, and Emma.