Thrusting that morbid thought from my brain, I wave away the list. I hear Matt inhale next to me like he’s been holding his breath for a while. I consider logging off but decide to keep going since Matt seems so sucked in. I open the folder where they keep the files on all the victims: one for each, living or dead. They’re not numbered—they all start with F-339145, and then have a random letter after the program identifier—so it’s hard to tell which folder belongs to which person. Matt watches as I play a silent game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
When I open “moe,” I immediately recognize Mason’s handwriting. The page is dated December 5, 2001: the day of the bus crash.
Back when the program started, apparently God was paranoid about the Internet and made agents take notes on paper. Eventually, he got over his technophobia and had all of the paper files scanned in and then destroyed. But the handwritten notes are the most real. As I look at Mason’s harried scrawl, I actually feel how dire the situation was, much more than if I was reading a typed report.
“Wow,” I murmur.
“What?” Matt asks.
“Nothing, it’s just the handwriting,” I say. “It’s Mason’s, and it looks so… crazy.”
Matt nods, but he still looks confused. I point at the date.
“This was the day of the crash,” I explain. “The agents had to take quick notes between patients. I’m sure it was chaotic. And it had to be so frustrating for them. Mason and the others were supposed to bring twenty-one people back to life with only a syringe, and that’s it.”
Matt lets my words sink in for a few seconds. “But if the drug didn’t work, they tried other ways to save you guys, too, right?” he asks.
“No, that’s the point,” I say. “To truly test the drug, they could only use Revive. Like, they couldn’t even do CPR.”
“But…” Matt’s words fade.
“Can you imagine being a doctor and knowing all these lifesaving techniques and not being able to use them?” I ask.
“Kind of like having a sister with cancer and knowing about a lifesaving drug that she can’t have,” Matt says, staring right at me.
“I guess so,” I say quietly.
“Sorry,” Matt says.
“Don’t apologize. You’re right.”
Matt steers the conversation back to the screen. Or rather, he looks at the notes and starts reading. Not really knowing what else to say, I read, too.
CASE NUMBER: 16
NAME: KELSEY STROUD
AGE: 6
PARENTS: JONATHAN AND NANCY STROUD
(CONSENT GIVEN AT 9:17 AM)
LOCATION OF BODY: LODGED UNDER SEAT EIGHT (MIDDLE LEFT)
PRESUMED CAUSE OF DEATH: SEVERE HEAD TRAUMA (METAL OBJECT PENETRATED HEAD JUST ABOVE LEFT TEMPLE; SIGNIFICANT SUBSEQUENT BLOOD LOSS; GLASGOW COMA SCALE RATING 1 FOR VISUAL, VERBAL, MOTOR)
FIRST DOSAGE: ONE VIAL, 9:18 AM
REACTION: NONE
REPEAT DOSAGE: NONE
RECOMMENDATION: AUTOPSY TO DETERMINE DEFINITIVE CAUSE OF DEATH TO COMPARE AGAINST OTHER REACTIONS TO DRUG. TEST TISSUE AND HAIR SAMPLES FOR RESISTANT MARKERS DESPITE CLEAR INDICATORS THAT POINT TO HEAD TRAUMA AS COD. RELO PARENTS DESPITE FAILED ATTEMPT?
“Damn,” Matt says quietly, shaking his head.