Dave Butler lay back on his hospital bed as one of the VA nurses checked his vitals. Despite the high dose of pain medication he’d been given, the ache of the cancer was punching through the drugs with a vengeance. After nearly seventy years on this Earth, the last thing he’d wanted was to leave it under a haze of narcotics, but the pain had been excruciating. He thought he’d be strong enough to deal with it.

He wasn’t.

Back in ’68, he’d taken a sniper round through his leg, and ever since then he’d believed that he knew the worst pain imaginable. Well, cancer had beaten that sniper round by a good measure. Metastatic osteosarcoma, they called it. Bone cancer. He’d never even known bones could ache. He now knew differently.

He’d been given only a few weeks to live when he agreed to be part of a new clinical trial at the VA. There were risks, of course, but he didn’t even care what they were. What the hell did he have to lose?

The doctor had said it was an allogenic stem cell transplant, and it would bootstrap his immune system, educating it so it could better attack the foreign cells.

Dave didn’t understand the details. He just knew the trial was supposed to somehow use his body’s own defenses to fight the cancer.

A nurse poked her head in and saw him shivering. “Did you need some warming blankets, Mr. Butler?”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”

“Not at all.” She disappeared, then returned moments later with a thick blanket that she lay over his legs and chest. “Fresh from the warmer. We want you comfortable for the procedure. It’ll also help with your circulation.”

Dave sighed contentedly as the warmth of the blankets seeped into his body.

He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew was he was in an operating room, hooked up to an IV, surrounded by doctors or techs setting up equipment.

One of the people noticed he’d opened his eyes and came over. “Ah, Mr. Butler,” he said. He spoke in a thick German accent. “It looks like you’ve woken up just in time for us to sedate you.” He smiled.

“I thought I wouldn’t have to be knocked out,” Dave said.

“Don’t worry—it’ll only make you groggy. You’ll be awake through the procedure, and I’ll keep you apprised of what’s happening.”

“Dr. Müller,” said a voice behind Dave. “We’re ready with the infusion.”

The doctor nodded, and Dave watched a pair of hands inject a milky white substance into his IV port. As the drug wended its way down the tube into his vein, he felt his arm grow warm.