you’re doing?”
“I’m planning to kill you.”
Mellson’s head cocked slightly. His hands grasp the flashlight even harder.
“No. You’re coming with me,” he returned.
Barton moved slowly towards him. “No. I am going to stick to my plans.”
Mellson saw the patient in the bed, bound and gagged. “That is one of Whitmere’s patients. What are you doing?”
“I am going to change her,” Barton said. “Make her more like me, less like you.”
Mellson froze. His nervousness showed. “They would never let you do that. Not down here. Not on your own.”
“I make the plans now. None of you have control over me anymore.”
Barton came within arm’s reach and stopped. Mellson stared into his cold eyes, expecting the confrontation. It was coming; he could see it.
“I never trusted you. You should be the one bound and gagged.” Mellson stepped forward. “They never should have brought you here.”
“I agree.”
“They should’ve killed you!”
Mellson lunged forward, swinging his flashlight down, missing Barton’s head. He felt a stinging sensation against his neck then, and he fell against the bed. He rushed quickly to stand, already aware of his vision blurring, of the dizziness setting in, of his attacker moving in the darkness.
Then the light shut off. Mellson swung his arms about, striking nothing. His breathing became hard, his inhaling was thinning. As he toppled to the floor gasping for air, the light overhead came on. But it was too late.
Mellson was turning numb; his sight was turning grey. Barton stood over him, humored by something, appearing as a predator watching its injured prey slowly die. Mellson stared fixedly as the darkness overcame him.
Barton watched until Mellson’s eyes went flat, the struggling turning motionless. He wondered how good it would feel to have Whitmere laying before him.
He turned, aware suddenly of another presence. In the bed, Adelle’s eyes were open. She had seen it all. Barton walked closer to her. Her screaming was muffled by the cloths gagging her. Her hands and legs began thrashing against the bands tying her to the bed.
Barton stared at her for a second longer, and then bent down to pick up Mellson’s body. He lifted him up onto one shoulder, then walked to dispose of him.
Adelle watched the door shut closed behind him, then frantically worked on breaking her restraints. He was going to kill her, she knew. Bits of memories slipped into place. All that had happened from the time of her arrival was out in the open. There were no more barricades to hide the truth. She knew what was happening. She knew what the orange pills were really doing. And what Barton really was.
The bands pulled taut around her wrists, rubbing her flesh, exposing what lay beneath, as she tugged and twisted her hands free. The pain from doing so was excruciating. Quickly she pulled the strips of cloth from her mouth, spitting the taste with it. She sat up quickly; a pain deep within her chest prevented her from untying her feet.
“What did…?” Barton was surprised, shutting the door as he stepped in.
“Stay away from me!” Adelle panicked. “I know what you did! I saw you kill him!”
Barton turned to his table, moving casually, not at all threatened or concerned. He filled his injection gun with one of his serums, and then moved closer to her.
“He needed to die.”
Adelle began to kick her legs hard, trying to break the rubber-like bands. She began crying. “Darryl!”
Barton moved in closer. Adelle kept an eye on his every move. She saw the needle. Her screaming became hysterical then.
“No need for all that,” he said.
“Don’t touch me!”
“You think you would be in better hands if I left you alone?” Barton laughed coldly. “I am going to inject you with this. When you wake, you’ll see things in a new light.”
“No, no. Please, don’t. Please, just let me go.”
“It’s going to hurt a little.”
Adelle stopped crying, stopped flailing her hands to keep him away. Her body ached. She felt nauseated. Cold chills replaced the warmth of her anger.
“What did you do to me?”
“Sh. Relax.”
Adelle was aware of him talking, of his arm reaching down towards hers, but none of it registered. Something was not right in her body. She lacked the ability to move. The desire was not there. She looked from the light overhead down to her forearm where he had already stuck the needle home. She hadn’t even realized it.
“Good girl.”
Barton tied her arms again, putting the gags back in her mouth as well. Adelle didn’t fight him. Her head felt like it was vibrating, rendering her helpless.
“When you awake, things will be different.” Barton bent close and whispered, “See you soon.”
In a second, she was asleep.
Barton marveled at that. The serum used on her worked to perfection. It was made to slow the human body down long enough, slow enough, to allow the nanomachines to work, to change the necessary structure within the blood. Through trial and error, it was discovered that a direct injection was too accelerated for the body to handle; the change came too rapidly. Slow the heart rate, slow the body, and give the host a chance.
The idea came to Barton suddenly. He slowed his movements towards the table, stopped his train of thought completely, and stared at the vial containing Whitmere’s new serum.
He would have created them to live in the environment of the solution. The serum. The serum…
His train of thoughts sped towards conclusion. His breathing quickened with anticipation. He was discovering what he had overlooked for so long.
He reached down and took hold of the vial and stared into its silver liquid. The serum. His ideas began clicking faster and faster, one after another, until its entirety was before him.
Barton began working right away. It was painstaking and tedious, and all the right tools were not with him for the extraction. Seated at his table with the vials before him, he began to counter Whitmere’s serum with something much faster; something that would not allow the body to slow, but to speed it up. The solution would not work in a patient unless it had already been subject to their plague.
After a few hours, Barton stood. His work was complete. A vial of black liquid was in his hands.
Now to test it.
He used a small sample of blood from a tube and placed it into his hand held machine. Once the image came up, he added a small drop of his new invention.
“Of course.”
Doctor Barton’s lips curled up. He saw what Whitmere had implanted previously and watched his own inseminations destroy them. They worked perfectly. His plan was brilliant, flawed only by the length of time it took to achieve it.
Barton stared at the vision for a few more seconds, marveling at his creation, before shutting down. The blood sample was removed and set in a holding case alongside other sample tubes. He turned then, staring at the figure in the bed behind him. The woman, gagged and bound, asleep now, but changing all the while, would be necessary to his fate. If she survives, then he could.
And now, the slave becomes the master.
T E N
Darryl sweated freely. He stood beside the treadmill and waited for Whitmere to finish up what he was doing in his lab. He had managed to run a good length without tiring, though his chest still felt strange when he breathed in deeply. Once while running, his sight blurred, just a quick white flare, just enough to cause him to slow and wait for something else to happen. But no other affects showed. He had slowed his pace regardless, wondering if he had pushed himself too hard.
The hologram in the lab disappeared and Whitmere stepped out of his lab and walked over to Darryl. The smile he gave offset the concern in his eyes.
“Well?” asked Darryl. He wiped his face on a towel.
Whitmere stared as if he was working out a problem in his head. “You seem to be moving in the r
ight direction. You’re getting stronger. Your stamina is increasing already. And that’s remarkable, considering your physical health when you arrived. You are sleeping more solidly now, as well. It’s all moving in the right direction.”
Whitmere lied. The test results showed that his work had no affect on Darryl. It was troubling. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that Darryl didn’t need to know.
“What’s next?” Darryl asked. The doctor’s good words made him chipper.
The door burst open then, startling the two, as a man rushed in, breathing hard and angry. “You need to see this! It cannot wait!”
Whitmere excused himself and rushed over to the door to meet the man he knew as Ren. “What are you talking about? I’m with a patient.”
“It cannot wait!”
Darryl watched, listening to what he could, catching only patches of their heated conversation. He felt slightly awkward, knowing he was not meant to hear their hushed words.
“Calm down,” Whitmere began, moving in close to Ren.
Ren looked at Darryl for a second, and then leaned in close to Whitmere. His eyes were hurt and angry as he began to speak. “I have something troubling to show you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s about our search for your…colleague.”
Whitmere didn’t care for the other’s mocking tone. “Get to the point.”
“In the lower level, something was found.” Anger laced Ren’s words. “You need to come with me now.”
“Give me a moment,” Whitmere motioned towards Darryl.
Ren frowned. “I’ll meet you at the lower level corridor in five minutes.”
Whitmere watched the other man turn and leave, then he
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