Chapter 37: A Deal Signed in Blood
Hoa brought Khai Minh to a small room tucked behind a
shop that had been shuttered for years.
He had no idea where it was.
On the way, she changed cars twice, led him down a narrow
stone-paved passage, then down thirteen steps. The room had no windows, but the
air moved cleanly through it. A faint trace of antiseptic hung in it.
“Is this a clinic?”
“Just a place for a preliminary checkup.”
Khai Minh stayed planted by the door.
“I haven’t agreed to any checkup.”
“No one’s forcing you.”
Hoa set a bag of clothes on the table.
“You can shower, eat, and rest. If you want to leave in
the morning, I’ll take you back myself.”
“What about the people under the bridge?”
“I had someone check. No one is following Old Tu or the
girl.”
“Your people?”
“Yes.”
Khai Minh heard her pull out a chair and lay a sheaf of
papers on the table. The pages whispered against each other with a crisp,
expensive sound, nothing like the cheap files that got shuffled around
hospitals.
“This is their offer.”
“I can’t read it.”
“I’ll read you every word.”
“You could skip the parts that work against me.”
“Then go find someone else to read it to you.”
Khai Minh faltered.
In four years, almost no one had spoken to him without
circling and hedging. Her bluntness didn’t make him trust her. But it did, at
least, make the air easier to breathe.
“So your people want the blood in my body too.”
“Truong Sinh wants you alive for the same reason.”
A thin smile crossed his face.
“Then how is your organization any different?”
“The difference is that you’ll know exactly what’s being
done to you.”
Hoa didn’t dress it up.
“They want to draw your serum on a regular schedule. They
want to test your neural responses, your immune function, and whatever changes
trace back to your exposure to MK-2. If the results hold up, they’ll use that
data as the foundation for a vaccine against the effects of D-17.”
“A vaccine?”
“Yes. That’s the goal.”
“And the risks to me?”
“Repeated draws will wear your body down if it isn’t
managed carefully. Some of the tests may cause nerve pain, sensory
disturbances, or interfere with the treatment of your eyes later on. But all of
that is still theoretical.”
Khai Minh tilted his head.
“Anything else you haven’t said?”
“The research could fail.”
“How long until it’s finished?”
“No one knows.”
“A year? Five? The rest of my life?”
Hoa didn’t answer.
Khai Minh laughed.
“So they want to buy my body and keep it until they’ve
wrung out what they need.”
“Yes.”
Hoa turned a page and continued.
“In exchange, they’ll take you abroad, treat your eyes,
rebuild your health, and set up a proper education for you.”
“And my inheritance?”
“If you grow strong enough to stand on your own, they’ll
give you the chance to go back and take it all.”
“The chance.”
Khai Minh repeated the word.
“Not a promise.”
“I told you I wouldn’t lie to you.”
His fingers traced along the edge of the table.
“You’re sure about all this?”
Hoa paused a beat.
“It’s true as far as I’ve been allowed to know.”
Khai Minh rose to his feet.
“Take me back.”
“All right.”
She gathered the papers. Her hand had just touched the bag
when he spoke again.
“If I refuse, what will you do?”
“Move you out from under that bridge before Minh Quan’s
people come back. After that, where you go is your own business.”
“And your organization will just let me walk?”
“I won’t report where you are.”
“You’d betray them?”
“I haven’t been ordered to bring you in.”
“And if the order comes?”
Hoa met his blind eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Khai Minh turned it over in silence. Then he sat back
down.
“Read me the rest.”
Hoa opened the file again.
The final section laid out the terms of consent. Khai Minh
had the right to see any test results that concerned him directly. Every
medical procedure had to be explained to him in advance, barring emergencies.
The organization reserved the right to store his serum samples and research
data for an unspecified period.
“Unspecified meaning how long?”
“Until the project ends, or until the samples lose
research value.”
“Meaning they could keep my blood after I’m dead.”
“They could.”
“And if they use it for something else?”
“The document restricts use to research connected to D-17
and MK-2.”
“Paper can be rewritten.”
“It can.”
“Signatures can be forged too. Are you saving me, or
delivering a lab specimen?”
Hoa didn’t flinch from it.
“Both. I won’t lie to you.”
For one suspended moment, Khai Minh thought of his mother.
She had told him once that there were losses money could always mend, but that
a person who hurt others for money would never mend what that broke. Then she
died, and the ones left alive had traded his body, his fortune, and even his
name for their own gain.
He had once been the heir to Vinh An. Now the only thing
of value left to him ran in his own veins.
“If I go, when do we leave?”
“As soon as possible.”
“And An Nhien?”
“I’ll keep searching for her. For you.”
“For me.”
Hoa held his blind gaze, then nodded.
“Yes. For you.”
It struck Khai Minh then that ever since his parents died,
he had lived for no purpose except not dying.
But merely surviving was not the same as winning. If he
stayed in Dong Cang, sooner or later Minh Quan would find him. And if the man
never did, then Khai Minh would go on burrowing through the city like this
until he died a nameless beggar, carrying every secret into the ground with
him. Whether An Nhien was alive or dead, he would never learn. And everything
his parents had left him would settle, unchallenged, into other men’s hands.
He held out his palm.
“Pen.”
Hoa placed a pen between his fingers and guided its tip to
the signature line.
Khai Minh stopped.
“Before I sign, I have one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Every research result that comes from my blood, I get
access to it.”
“Done. I’ll write it into the contract.”
“And if I ever find out they’re doing what Truong Sinh
did…”
His grip tightened around the pen.
“I will destroy the entire project with my own hands.”
“I’ll record that word for word.”
Khai Minh set the pen to paper. The first strokes wavered
badly; it had been years since he’d written anything. But by the last
character, his hand had steadied: Lam Khai Minh.
When it was done, he asked one more question.
“When do you people fix my eyes?”
“The moment the arrangements to get you out of the country
are complete.”
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