St. George cleared his throat. “What’s up, Doc?”
Josh Garcetti glanced up from the chart. “Hey,” he said. Without moving his pocketed hand he hung the clipboard at the end of the bed and held out his left. “Long time no see. What’ve you been up to?”
St. George caught the awkward hand and shook it. “Trying to survive the end of the world. You?”
“Same thing, smaller scale.” He made no attempt at a smile. The two men were close to the same age, the same height, but even slumped Josh’s shoulders were broader. Like so many people these days, his hair had gone gray years before it should have, and a few strands of pure white highlighted the mop. In white makeup, he could’ve passed for a somber Greek statue. In the lab coat, he was almost spectral. They walked back to the hallway. “Heard you’re heading out later today.”
“Around eleven.”
“Who’s going with?”
“Cerberus and Barry. I just came over to tell Connolly you’ll be on solar all afternoon.”
The doctor nodded and leaned against a set of file cabinets. A beat passed. Then another.
“You should come out some time.”
Josh shook his head. “No. Thanks for the offer, but no.”
“I think it’d do you some good.”
“How?”
“You haven’t gone out once. Hell, have you even been near an ex since...?” St. George paused again before giving an awkward nod at the pocketed hand.
“Not really, no.”
“We could use you out there. You’ve got experience.”
“I have experience in field hospitals,” he said with a shake of his head. “I was never much of a fighter. Just good at not getting hurt.”
“You were good at making sure no one else got hurt, too.”
“No,” he said. His face hardened. “No I wasn’t.”
“Fuck. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
He closed his eyes. “I know. Sorry.”
“It’s coming up on two years, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Eleven more days.”
“You know...” said St. George as he edged out onto the emotional thin ice, “last year things were still pretty hectic. You want to get a drink or something? Talk? We could get Barry, Gorgon, maybe even convince Danielle to take the damned armor off.”
Josh turned to the cabinet behind the counter and examined the contents with sudden interest. “Again, thanks but no. I’m just going to stay home. Besides, Gorgon wouldn’t want to see me.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Let’s just drop it, okay?” He massaged his temple with two fingers.
“You should really come out, though.”
Josh opened his eyes. “Look, it’s a nice thought, but let’s face it. I’m too much of a distraction out there.” He pulled his other hand out of the lab coat’s wide pocket. “Everyone’ll just be looking at the damned bite instead of watching their own asses.”
As he raised the hand the sleeve sagged a bit and revealed part of his withered forearm. The flesh was pale and splotched with gray. Dark veins ran into his palm and met up with yellowed fingernails. The teeth marks were still visible, a semicircle of ragged holes just beneath his wrist.
For the first few months of his superhero career Josh Garcetti called himself the Immortal. He could heal from wounds in less time than it took to make them. Fire, bullets, broken limbs—he laughed at all of them. Then he discovered how to share his healing factor with others and he became Regenerator.
Then his wife died. And then the world went to hell. And then an ex bit his right hand. In one of the last field hospitals, as everyone pulled out and all the last-ditch emergency plans kicked in, a dead cop rolled over on the slab and sunk his teeth into Regenerator. Put him in a coma for three weeks, but it didn’t kill him and he didn’t change. For the past fourteen months his healing factor had done nothing but keep the infection from spreading past his bicep.
St. George tried not to stare at the hand. “You can’t hide in here forever, Josh.”
“Of course I can,” he said. “What do you think we’re all doing?”
They looked at each other for a moment. The hero made a noise that was half snort and half sigh, accompanied by a puff of black smoke.
“Look,” said the doctor, “I’ve got some immunizations to get ready for and an inventory to do. It was good seeing you, George. Be careful out there, okay?” He worked the hand back into its pocket, gave a faint bow with his head, and walked away.
St. George stepped back out into the open air. “Hey,” the hero called to the guard with the salt and pepper hair, “what’s your name, anyway?”
“Jarvis,” he said with a grin. The guard gave a sharp, three-fingered salute. “Pleased to meetcha.”
“Same. Melrose gate. Eleven.”
“See you at eleven,” echoed the bearded guard.