Now he sat in the same bleak room he’d used the last time he was in Camp X-Ray. In front of him was an insulated case full of marked syringes, each holding a yellowish liquid.

The product of his exhausting work.

The door opened, and Kathy walked in, her father right behind her. Juan’s throat tightened as he motioned for them to come in.

At the sight of him, Kathy’s expression turned to one of concern. “My God, Juan, you look terrible.”

Through his exhaustion, Juan grinned. “Gee, thanks.”

“No, I mean, you’ve got huge bags under your eyes, and it looks like you’ve lost a bunch of weight. Seriously, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Juan grabbed two alcohol swabs from the bag and said, “I’ve just been working overtime on some of this.” He motioned to the two folding chairs. “Please, sit and I’ll explain what’s going on.”

Juan came around the table and sat so he was facing them both. “I’m going to give you a shot that we’ve created using the DNA I got from Megan.”

“You got Megan’s DNA?” Frank asked.

Juan rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. His head buzzed from lack of sleep. “No, sorry, let me rephrase that. Kathy, I visited your mom and told her you’re both okay. She’s doing fine as well; she seems like a very strong woman. And she gave me some of your DNA—your baby teeth.” He turned to Frank. “And I got your DNA from an old shirt that had unwashed blood on it.”

“Why did you need our DNA?” Kathy asked. “And why get it from Mom? Why not just take a swab from us?”

“I needed a sample of your DNA from before… from before you took the cancer medicine.” Juan skirted around the edges of the things he knew he couldn’t say. “You see, the cancer treatment was a form of gene therapy. It made changes to your cells, helping to fight your cancer, Mr. O’Reilly. Unfortunately, it also had some serious side effects.”

“What kind of side effects?” Frank asked.

Juan frowned. “I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to say. Let’s just say they can be dangerous. But,” he quickly added, “neither of you are suffering from these side effects now. No one in the camp is. It’s just that there’s a risk you could eventually suffer from them.”

He pointed at the syringes on the table. “The good news is, we used your original DNA to come up with a way to reverse what was done to your system. A series of shots that I’ll need to administer every twelve hours. Effectively… it’ll restore you to the way you were before. So you won’t ever suffer from these side effects.”