The days passed. Every night Youri made his way through the vents to Leonora's room, and he kept his promise. On each visit, he taught her to read. He told her stories about the world outside — about skies without ceilings and streets full of people and places untouched by white walls and blinking monitors. She learned quickly. It didn't take long before she could read on her own, and once she could, Youri made it a tradition to bring her a new book every time he came. Night after night, month after month, the two of them shared those quiet hours together.
Then one night, as he was crawling through the vents toward her room, he heard voices below, and panic seized his chest. He hurried to the grate and looked down. Leonora was lying motionless on her bed with her eyes closed. The monitors around her were screaming, and two nurses were scrambling to inject her with one needle after another. Then Malden rushed in, glanced at the monitors, and stepped closer to the bed.
"She doesn't have much time," he said. "We'll have to do the transfusion live. Take her to the operating room. If she dies, we're finished." And he turned and stormed out.
Something twisted inside Youri. He pulled himself back from the grate and raced through the narrow shafts as fast as his body would let him. He had only just reached his room and dropped into his bed when, just as fate would have it, Malden came into the hall. The ceiling lights came on one by one along his path. He stopped beside Youri's bed and pressed down on his shoulder.
"Wake up, EH36. It's time for your next phase."
Youri sat up, pretending to be dazed, and Malden kept his hand on his shoulder. "We're going to perform a cell replacement. We'll be replacing another body's cells with yours. We have a little girl's life to save — you should be proud of that."
Youri knew at once whom he meant. A faint smile touched his face as he stood and followed Malden through the sterile corridors to the operating room.
The room was blindingly bright, enclosed by smooth white panels, with two operating tables in its center. Leonora lay on one of them, asleep under anesthetic. Malden led Youri to the table beside hers, where robotic arms hovered over both tables and three monitors to the left streamed data without end. Youri lay down, and Malden leaned over him.
"You'll have to tough it out, EH36. We don't have time to anesthetize you."
Youri said nothing.
Malden activated the arms, and the procedure began. One arm slid a needle into Youri while another extended a long tube. On Leonora's side the same thing happened. Then the two tubes connected, and Youri's blood began to flow into her body while hers was drained away.
As he lay there, he turned his head and looked at her pale face. A faint smile formed as a memory surfaced — one of the last nights they had spent together.
He had slipped into her room through the vent a few nights earlier, the metal squeaking softly as he dropped down, and Leonora had stirred and lifted her head.
"Thirty-six, you're back!" Her face had lit up, and then she had noticed that one of his eyes was swollen nearly shut from one of the tests. "What happened to your eye?" she asked, touching it gently.
He forced a smile. "Oh, nothing. I tripped and fell."
She frowned. "You should be more careful."
To change the subject, he had pulled a book out from behind his back. "Look. I brought you a new one."
Her eyes went wide. "Wow — Caspia. It's huge!"
He smiled. "There's a girl in the story who's just like you. I know you'll love it."
She had looked at him with her eyes shining. "Thank you, Thirty-six. Thank you."
Back in the operating room, Youri gazed at her fragile face, and one thought echoed through his mind: Thank you, Leonora. Thank you for making my life a little more bearable. For the first time, he felt free. There was no regret in him — only peace. And the last thing he thought before he lost consciousness was that he had given her one final gift: a life outside this hell.
The procedure took hours, but it worked. Leonora stabilized. The dying cells in her body were gone, destroyed by Youri's blood and his unique genetic makeup. Her life and her future were saved.
Youri stayed unconscious for days. Any ordinary human would have died partway through, but his body endured, and a week later he slowly opened his eyes to the sound of machines beeping around him. He was no longer in his chamber, but in a medical room lined with white panels, lying in a bed between two tall monitors. As he tried to sit up, the door hissed open and Malden came in, adjusting his glasses.
"So you did wake up."
"How long was I asleep?" Youri asked.
"A week." Malden noticed him staring at his own hand. "You need more rest. Your body hasn't recovered the blood it lost yet. We've discovered something truly unique about your blood, EH36, and I believe you will be an enormous help to the future of medicine." Youri's face didn't change, and Malden went on. "We have a new child arriving who suffers from the same disease as the girl, so we'll be needing more of that precious blood of yours. Rest up. As soon as you're ready, we'll begin the procedure again."
Years passed. Children came and went. All of them received the same treatment, and every time, Youri gave his blood to save a life. Every time, he lost a little more of himself. Memories faded. Faces blurred. Leonora's face stayed with him the longest of all, but in the end even she became a weight, and it dragged him down into a deep depression, until five years after he had saved her, Youri barely ate or slept or spoke at all.
One day, Malden came into his room. "EH36, I may be able to relieve you of your pain."
For the first time in years, Youri's eyes widened.
Malden came closer. "I can turn your brain into a machine. Those thoughts that haunt you will never plague you again."
Youri lunged forward and seized him by the collar. "Do it," he said. "Please. Do it."
So Malden shut off Youri's emotions and turned him into a vessel for science.
But fate was not finished with him. One day, as he stood motionless beside his bed, heavy footsteps echoed down the hall, each step louder than the last, until a figure stopped in front of his room and a shadow fell across Youri's face. He looked up.
Barnaby was standing on the other side of the glass, smiling.
"Missed me?"