The seventy-first serum Kozak comes up with does nothing. Neither does the seventy-second. Neither does the seventy-third.
After administration of the seventy-fourth, Nicky spasms on the bed, spits up a bloody froth, and collapses. The heart monitor alerts for a flatline. Booker stares up at the ceiling and waits for Nicky to revive.
And waits.
And waits.
Twenty-four hours later, Kozak regards the body on the gurney dispassionately and tells Keane's men to take it to the freezer for storage. By then Joe has progressed from praying to begging to screaming, and when they unbuckle the straps holding Nicky's lifeless body down, Joe lets out a wail of anguish and nearly comes off the gurney, begging in broken Italian, no, don't take him from me, don't take him, NICOLO -
They take Nicky's body away anyway.
**
"There's no point keeping her alive if we're not getting anything out of her," Merrick says. "Try the latest formula. It may have a different effect on someone who's already been immortal."
It doesn't. Andy thrashes against her restraints, goes grey and then white, sags into the table. The heart rate monitor sounds a flatline for an hour and a half before Kozak turns it off.
**
Quynh barely spoke after they brought her in, and when she did it was only to Andy. Booker sometimes wonders if she forgot how to in her five hundred years of drowning.
After Andy dies, she says only one thing: "Being in the coffin was better than this."
She's silent when Kozak injects her with serum two hundred and three. Four hours later, Booker knows she's going to be silent for good.
**
The only times Joe smiles these days are when Kozak tests a new formula on him. The rest of the time he's either weeping or too lost in his grief for even that. Booker sometimes wonders if he smiles because he hopes each injection will be the one to reunite him with Nicky, or because he wants to be smiling when it does.
Formula four hundred and eighty-two does the trick. Joe's smile finally lasts.
**
"Dad?" Nile asks groggily. It's the first coherent word she's said in an hour. Kozak's latest concoction has done something to her mind. She's been getting more and more confused, and she stopped responding to speech half an hour ago.
She still seems to hear singing, so Booker's been singing. Nursery rhymes, mostly, lullabies he sang to his sons once. None of them are in English, but Nile seems comforted.
The heart monitor sounds a few minutes later. Booker takes a deep breath and keeps singing, so that she'll have something to soothe her when she revives.
He gets all the way through Sur le Pont d'Avignon before he accepts that she isn't going to.
**
"Where are the others?" Copley asks two days later, looking around the room in confusion. One of the two women Marines guarding the door looks over her shoulder, her face tight with horror.
All Booker can do is weep, and wonder why Copley couldn't have waited until Kozak had finished him, too.
FILL: They all die in the lab
The seventy-first serum Kozak comes up with does nothing. Neither does the seventy-second. Neither does the seventy-third.
After administration of the seventy-fourth, Nicky spasms on the bed, spits up a bloody froth, and collapses. The heart monitor alerts for a flatline. Booker stares up at the ceiling and waits for Nicky to revive.
And waits.
And waits.
Twenty-four hours later, Kozak regards the body on the gurney dispassionately and tells Keane's men to take it to the freezer for storage. By then Joe has progressed from praying to begging to screaming, and when they unbuckle the straps holding Nicky's lifeless body down, Joe lets out a wail of anguish and nearly comes off the gurney, begging in broken Italian, no, don't take him from me, don't take him, NICOLO -
They take Nicky's body away anyway.
**
"There's no point keeping her alive if we're not getting anything out of her," Merrick says. "Try the latest formula. It may have a different effect on someone who's already been immortal."
It doesn't. Andy thrashes against her restraints, goes grey and then white, sags into the table. The heart rate monitor sounds a flatline for an hour and a half before Kozak turns it off.
**
Quynh barely spoke after they brought her in, and when she did it was only to Andy. Booker sometimes wonders if she forgot how to in her five hundred years of drowning.
After Andy dies, she says only one thing: "Being in the coffin was better than this."
She's silent when Kozak injects her with serum two hundred and three. Four hours later, Booker knows she's going to be silent for good.
**
The only times Joe smiles these days are when Kozak tests a new formula on him. The rest of the time he's either weeping or too lost in his grief for even that. Booker sometimes wonders if he smiles because he hopes each injection will be the one to reunite him with Nicky, or because he wants to be smiling when it does.
Formula four hundred and eighty-two does the trick. Joe's smile finally lasts.
**
"Dad?" Nile asks groggily. It's the first coherent word she's said in an hour. Kozak's latest concoction has done something to her mind. She's been getting more and more confused, and she stopped responding to speech half an hour ago.
She still seems to hear singing, so Booker's been singing. Nursery rhymes, mostly, lullabies he sang to his sons once. None of them are in English, but Nile seems comforted.
The heart monitor sounds a few minutes later. Booker takes a deep breath and keeps singing, so that she'll have something to soothe her when she revives.
He gets all the way through Sur le Pont d'Avignon before he accepts that she isn't going to.
**
"Where are the others?" Copley asks two days later, looking around the room in confusion. One of the two women Marines guarding the door looks over her shoulder, her face tight with horror.
All Booker can do is weep, and wonder why Copley couldn't have waited until Kozak had finished him, too.