The Pain Colony

by Shanon Hunt

  The Pain Colony

  Shanon Hunt

  First published by Narrow Ledge Publishing 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Shanon Hunt

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  First edition

  ISBNs

  978-1-7338212-2-3 (Hardback)

  978-1-7338212-0-9 (Paperback)

  978-1-7338212-1-6 (Ebook)

  Preface

  We live in an age where scientific and technical advances can, and frequently do, outpace our ability as a society to fully understand their future implications. What follows is a work of fiction, though if I have done my storytelling job well it will feel disturbingly real at times. This book pushes not only the boundaries of what’s technically possible in the very near future, but also what’s ethically and morally acceptable. Lean in to the adventure and remember: With pain comes peace.

  col·o·ny

  /ˈkälənē/

  noun

  A group of individuals with common characteristics or interests situated in close association

  // an artist colony

  // a nudist colony

  A group of persons institutionalized away from others

  // a leper colony

  // a penal colony

  An experimental unit of animals, typically housed together for the purpose of selective breeding

  // a C57BL/6J mouse colony

  // a MCH class 1 rhesus monkey breeding colony

  Chapter 1

  Layla scurried down the path to the community building, eager for today’s caning. Morning devotions began promptly at five thirty, and inductees would be scolded for showing up late. She pulled her white wool poncho tighter around her and stepped up her pace, barely able to see the cracks in the river stone in the predawn darkness. It wasn’t easy jogging in the sandals she’d been given. Back in her impure life, she could full-out sprint in six-inch heels. She was sure of this, even though she couldn’t remember ever having done it. But these standard-issue thong sandals, known among the inductees as “slides,” required her to shuffle to keep them from sliding right off.

  The morning bell bonged as she trotted through the wooden double doors into the great room. She exhaled with relief, found a spot in the back of the room, and knelt on the unforgiving cement floor. She carefully folded her poncho and glanced at Isaac in the next space over. He gave her a terse nod. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he panted, unable to get control of his breathing. His face contorted as he shifted to one side and rubbed his bruised shins. She offered a sympathetic smile. Not everyone had the same tolerance for pain or devotion to purification.

  She carefully removed her sandals and rolled her pant legs just past her knees. She paused to collect her inner strength and then rolled onto her swollen, knotted shins, leaning back onto her heels in the heel-sit position. Then just as she’d been taught, she closed her eyes and exhaled into a whisper. “Thank you, Father.”

  All around her, she heard the same breathy whisper from her fellow inductees. “Thank you, Father.”

  She imagined a blue sky. With pain comes peace. With gratitude comes the Father’s love. She selfishly stole a moment to reprimand herself for being late. Even after months at the Colony, she still struggled with the sleep schedule. Father, please help me adjust. The Father was testing her resolve. He needed her strong in mind, body, and spirit before she would be allowed to begin purification. Until then, she would dazedly crawl through her daily schedule on the six hours of sleep inductees were allowed each night.

  Her legs throbbed as she offered one last whispered “Thank you, Father.” The front door opened, and she smiled, thrilled to see that Brother James would be leading the devotions today.

  At six foot four, Brother James towered over the inductees in their heel-sits. Layla dropped her gaze as she always did when he was in the room. She feared he would read her mind, see her attraction to him. Her chances for purification would be ruined.

  “Good morning, everyone,” he said softly. “Let’s start today’s devotions with five minutes of meditation to release the pain.”

  The meditation eased the throbbing in her legs, melting it away into the numbness she’d grown to love—to need—in order to reach a state of physico-mental openness. She took a deep breath and exhaled to the count of four, visualizing pain dissipating into the air along with the poison she’d built up over the years of her impure life.

  Brother James walked among the inductees, gently touching their shoulders as he passed, and Layla smiled at this obvious gesture of love and support. Many of them were sweating or shaking from the weight on their painful bruises. Like her, they were finding their own methods of reaching a higher state.

  Her mind wandered back to the day she decided nothing could be more important than being pure like Brother James. It had been months ago, after she was promoted from the recruiting program, and she’d been excited for her cleanse. She arrived at the purge room a full two hours early. Olivia, who’d been inducted before her, had told her that the Father would be pleased by her eagerness and would bless her with a deeper cleanse. She’d tingled with excitement and fear as she ducked into the small candle-lit chamber. The drab cement room felt like a tomb, and the flickering light of six candles barely illuminated its only feature, a long, narrow stone bench with leather harnesses anchored into the floor at each end, one for each wrist and one for each ankle. Make sure the harnesses are tight, Olivia had said. You don’t want to reflexively pull out of them. The whip hurts a lot more than the cane. Even the Princess of Pain will jump on that first lash.

  Layla felt a squeeze on her shoulder. “Layla, love, are you with us this morning?”

  She opened her eyes, startled, and glanced around the cavernous community room, her head cloudy. Brother James rested his hand on her back and smiled down at her tenderly. Others around the room eyed her.

  “Out partying too late last night?” he asked with good-natured suspicion.

  The others giggled at the ludicrous suggestion. There was no partying during induction. No drugs, no alcohol, and no sex.

  Her face turned beet red and she lowered her eyes to her legs. “I’m so sorry, Brother James.”

  His soft voice didn’t falter. She’d never heard him speak anything but kind words. “No need to be sorry, beautiful girl. I can only assume you were with the Father.”

  He glided to the lectern, where he picked up a heavy wooden rod and addressed the whole room. “Shall we begin? Today is Tuesday, and you know what that means. Let’s line up.”

  Layla hopped up, ignoring the pins and needles that stung the soles of her feet, and shuffled toward the front of the room, intent on being first to show her commitment to devotions after that shameful daydream.

  Brother James gave her a crisp nod as he gestured for her to sit on the austere wrought iron stool. “Layla, the Father is very pleased with you today. I’ve witnessed a warmth from him this morning. Today’s caning will bring you closer to him.”

  It was a great commendation coming from Brother James. He was pure, and as such, he had the immense privilege of communicating directly with the Father.

  “I am at his will.” She inhaled deeply and aligned her toes at the edge of the black rubber mat. Brother James l
iked precision.

  The inductees chanted in unison. “With pain comes peace.”

  She exhaled to the count of four and looked Brother James in the eye. She steeled herself.

  He lifted the cane over his head and brought it down hard across her shins. She winced ever so slightly.

  “Thank you, Layla, for your devotion to purification.” He gave her a satisfied smile.

  “With gratitude comes the Father’s love.”

  Layla rose with a respectful nod and returned to her spot without limping as the canings continued.

  “Crystal, welcome. The Father is with you.”

  “I am at his will,” Crystal croaked. Her head was lowered, and Layla assumed her eyes were squeezed shut. Most new inductees had trouble with their first few canings.

  Layla couldn’t suppress a grin as she rolled onto her newly inflamed shins. She breathed deeply to release the pain and closed her eyes.

  Her day was off to an outstanding start.

  Chapter 2

  Allison Stevens stood beside the stage, hands clasped tightly as her boss clicked to the summary slide for his presentation. Every seat was full, and conference attendees lined the back wall of the auditorium. All eyes were trained on Dr. Harris, CEO of Quandary Therapeutics, enchanted by him. No one even glanced down at their iPhone.

  She wondered if they would all leave when she stepped up to the lectern. Austin was a hard act to follow. He moved so easily across the stage, spoke with such confidence and conviction. He wasn’t just a great presenter; he was a passionate artiste.

  “Just think how far science has come.” His voice boomed over the speakers with a dramatic flair. “Two centuries ago, patients depended on magic potions and local plants to heal life-threatening diseases. And the first antibiotic, penicillin, isn’t even a hundred years old yet—I have a grandma older than penicillin.” He grinned. “Granny smells a little like mold herself, but don’t tell her I said that.” He winked at the audience.

  The crowd laughed. Allison laughed too, even though she’d heard about Austin’s moldy granny a dozen times before. He loved that line, and it worked every time.

  “In the last hundred years, we’ve developed thousands of drugs for hundreds of diseases. In the last thirty, we’ve moved to new approaches for reaching even more targets and curing more diseases using more complex molecules like proteins and monoclonal antibodies. And now in the twenty-first century, with the surge in biotechnology and a better understanding of immunology, we can design and build compounds with multiple objectives—bispecific antibodies with one leg that finds a cancer tumor and another that calls in the body’s own killer T-cells.”

  Her heart jumped as he neared his final point. She was up. Her mouth filled with cotton. She glanced at the lectern for the third time to ensure that her bottle of water hadn’t disappeared.

  “We can remove specific cells that aren’t doing their job, reprogram them, and put them back into a patient’s body, curing cancers and diseases that can’t be treated with conventional medications. What would Granny have thought if she’d heard this outlandish science fiction when she was a child?”

  Again, another round of laughter.

  He lost his smile and put on his serious scientist face. “But where we are today with gene editing is a whole new level addressing the very foundations of what makes us human. It’s truly remarkable to live in these times, and I’m so privileged to work with a team of brilliant scientists and clinicians who’ve taken the next step with me in this journey into gene therapy.”

  As Austin pivoted, a surge of adrenaline raced into her legs. She stood tall, trying to look worthy of the crowd’s attention. Despite the over-air-conditioned room, her armpits felt damp.

  “One of my brilliant scientists happens to be here with me today. Allison Stevens is my right-hand man at Quandary, and she also leads our most advanced clinical program, Enigmax.” He held his hand out to her as if asking her to dance. “Allison?”

  Smiling, she stepped onto the stage and gracefully took his hand. He dropped her hand and put an arm around her shoulder. It was a move they’d rehearsed many times to make it look natural. He’d seen a TV evangelist use this move to give the audience a feeling of wholesomeness, and he thought it might dissuade the skeptics from believing the work they were doing was ungodly. It wasn’t easy being a trendsetter in medical advances.

  “Allison is going to show you what you’ve all come here for today, the astounding early clinical results of Enigmax gene therapy in young patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.”

  The audience applauded as Austin stepped off the stage, allowing her one quick second to take a sip of water, a feeble attempt at replacing the saliva that just wouldn’t come. She picked up the slide advancer, reluctantly stepped out from the lectern, and peered into the audience. Unable to see a single face beyond the blazing stage lights, she tried to focus on the small red dots of phones and recording devices.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for the opportunity to share with you the important work we’ve been doing in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD. And thank you, Austin, for the introduction.

  “DMD is a genetic disorder characterized by muscle degeneration and weakness that begins at a very young age in some children.”

  She kicked off a video of a young boy playing on the grass in a sprinkler with other children. He was limping and listing to one side. “This is one of our patients from Norway, Jakob. At three years old, he’s struggling to walk and can’t run like the other children.”

  Jakob, now a bit older, walked across a doctor’s office. His legs moved slowly, his knees buckled inward, and he moved with an unnatural waddle. “And here is Jakob at age five. His large-motor control had become worse, and he was diagnosed with DMD by a genetic test. By the time Jakob joined our study a year ago, he was confined to a wheelchair.”

  Her voice cracked. She sidled to the lectern for another sip of water, glancing back at a still photo of Jakob sitting awkwardly in his small wheelchair. He was smiling, though, and his eyes twinkled with the energy and optimism of youth. Smiling Jakob had had no quality of life the day Allison had met him, but he’d smiled because he had hope. This was why she loved her job.

  “There is currently no effective medicinal therapy for DMD, and unfortunately, Jakob did not respond to the only available gene therapy at the time, Exondys 51. This isn’t entirely surprising, since Exondys works in only thirteen percent of DMD patients. So Jakob joined our clinical trial and was treated with Enigmax eight months ago.”

  She clicked the slide advancer, and a new video of Jakob began. He stood up from a chair and walked down a long hall toward his mother. He didn’t limp or waddle; he walked like a perfectly normal child. His mother got down on one knee and opened her arms, and he broke into a weak jog and fell into his mother’s embrace.

  The audience murmured in approval.

  Allison smiled back. “Jakob gets stronger every day. He goes to school, plays on the playground with the other kids, and has a very bright future. In fact, I received a call from his physician just yesterday. He told me Jakob can now do a somersault.”

  Scattered applause gathered momentum quickly, and Allison blinked from the eruption of a hundred camera flashes. Damn, Austin was right. Start with Jakob, he’d told her. Trust me. Jakob will take away your stage fright. He brings out the best in you. At that moment, her mouth remembered how to salivate, her hands stopped shaking, and her smile came naturally.

  She strode toward the edge of the stage. “Now let me tell you about Quandary Therapeutics’ amazing new gene editing technology and our future plans for Enigmax.”

  ***

  “Bartender, bring this incredible woman a beer.”

  Austin’s voice was boisterous, as if he were announcing the winner of the World Cup. Despite the tavern’s proximity to the conference center, they sat alone at the bar. Apparently Boston didn’t start drinking before eleven in the morning, despite the city�
��s reputation. Good. Allison settled back on her stool. She was thrilled to have some time alone with Austin, a rare moment when he was neither presenting nor managing an important stakeholder meeting.

  He raised his beer in the air. “To a well-deserved celebration.”

  She beamed and clinked his glass.

  He moved closer, swept her hair off her neck, and punctuated each of his next words with a sensual kiss. “You. Were. Perfect.”

  “Austin? I’m phasing you out.” She’d read enough self-help books to know that threatening a man wouldn’t make him leave his wife, but she at least wanted him to think she wasn’t the spineless gull she knew she was.

  He sat up slightly and smirked. “Are you, now?”

  “I’ve decided you’re not my type.”

  “I believe I’m exactly your type.” His grin widened.

  Cocky bastard.

  “No, it’s become clear to me by your actions—or inaction, as the case may be—that you’re not as serious about our relationship as I am, so I’m going to look for someone more—”

  He booped her nose. “Insecure?”

  “Funny.”

  “Beer-gutted?” He moved in on her again, playing with her hair, then tracing his fingers down the inside of her bare arm.

  “No.” She set her beer down, slightly shaky.

  “Unemployed, living with his mother?” His eyes glistened with lust, following his hand as it wandered down her side and across her thigh.

  God, he was irresistible. But she wasn’t going to wane. She removed his hand. “Someone more unmarried.”