Fear Nothing

deeper source.
        “I had to let them take their goddamn blood samples the day after Christmas.”
        “Who?
        “The project at Wyvern.”
        “Project?”
        “And once a month ever since-their sample. Like my body isn't mine, like I've got to pay a rent in blood just to be allowed to go on living in it.”
        “Wyvern has been closed a year and a half”
        “Not all of it. Some things don't die. Can't die. No matter how much we wish them dead.”
        Although she was thin almost to the point of gauntness, Angela had always been pretty in her way. Porcelain skin, a graceful brow, high cheekbones, sculpted nose, a generous mouth that balanced the otherwise vertical lines of her face and paid out a wealth of smiles - these qualities, combined with her selfless heart, made her lovely in spite of the fact that her skull was too near the skin, her skeleton too ill-concealed beneath the illusion of immortality that the flesh provides. Now, however, her face was hard and cold and ugly, fiercely sharpened at every edge by the grinding wheel of anger.
        “If I ever refuse to give them the monthly sample, they'll kill me. I'm sure of that. Or lock me away in some secret hospital out there where they can keep a closer watch on me.”
        “What's the sample for? What're they afraid of?”
        She seemed about to tell me, but then she pressed her lips together.
        “Angela?”
        I gave a sample every month myself, for Dr. Cleveland, and often Angela drew it. In my case it was for an experimental procedure that might detect early indications of skin and eye cancers from subtle changes in blood chemistry. Although giving the samples was painless and for my own good, I resented the invasion, and I could imagine how deeply I would resent it if it were compulsory rather than voluntary.
        She said, “Maybe I shouldn't tell you. Even though you need to know to… to defend yourself. Telling you all of it is like lighting a fuse. Sooner or later, your whole world blows up.”
        “Was the monkey carrying a disease?”
        “I wish it were a disease. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe I'd be cured by now. Or dead. Dead would be better than what's coming.
        She snatched up her empty cordial glass, made a fist around it, and for a moment I thought she would hurl it across the room.
        “The monkey never bit me,” she insisted, “never clawed me, never even touched me, for God's sake. But they won't believe me. I'm not sure even Rod believed me. They won't take any chances. They made me… Rod made me submit to sterilization.”
        Tears stood in her eyes, unshed but shimmering like the votive light in the red glass candleholders.
        “I was forty-five years old then,” she said, “and I'd never had a child, because I was already sterile. We'd tried so hard to have a baby - fertility doctors, hormone therapy, everything, everything - and nothing worked.”
        Oppressed by the suffering in Angela's voice, I was barely able to remain in my chair, looking passively up at her. I had the urge to stand, to put my arms around her. To be the nurse this time.
        With a tremor of rage in her voice, she said, “And still the bastards made me have the surgery, permanent surgery, didn't just tie my tubes but removed my ovaries, cut me, cut out all hope.” Her voice almost broke, but she was strong. “I was forty-five, and I'd given up hope anyway, or pretended to give it up. But to have it cut out of me… The humiliation of it, the hopelessness. They wouldn't even tell me why. Rod took me out to the base the day after Christmas, supposedly for an interview about the monkey, about its behavior. He wouldn't elaborate. Very mysterious. He took me into this place… this place out there that even most people on the base didn't know existed. They sedated me against my will, performed the surgery without my permission. And when it was all over, the sons of bitches wouldn't even tell me why!”
        I pushed my chair away from the table and got to my feet. My shoulders ached, and my legs felt weak. I hadn't been expecting to hear a story of this weight.
        Although I wanted to comfort her, I didn't attempt to approach Angela. The cordial glass was still sealed in the hard shell of her fist. Grinding anger had sharpened her once-pretty face into a collection of knives. I didn't think she would want me to touch her just