Project Human

by Sean McKenzie

light blinded him. He closed his eyes. The car slammed hard into something. His head struck the steering wheel, glass broke, and she screamed anew.

  The car wasn’t moving any more. Neither was he. He didn’t know if he could. It hurt to find out.

  “Darryl! Darryl get up! Darryl wake up! Darryl!”

  Her voice turned in to one long, terrified scream. Darryl slumped back from the wheel, looking over to her. But the door was open and she was gone. Hands were pulling at him then, dragging him out of the car. He heard voices. Many hurried voices.

  “Darryl! Help me! Darryl! Darryl!”

  Darryl opened his eyes. It was pitch black. He could still her voice, screaming his name like a prayer that would save her.

  But he hadn’t.

  It hurt.

  He had not ventured that far into the dream before. He had not seen her eyes before. As he lay in the bed, the event played out before him again and again. The darkness and the swirling fogginess were gone. Things were clearly evident. It wasn’t the dream this time, it was his memory.

  Her voice cried his name. He saw her eyes through the car window. Slowly her face began to materialize.

  It was Adelle.

  Darryl stopped breathing. He swallowed hard. He remembered her.

  He could hear the low and steady buzzing of the machine. He could feel it wrapped around his face, and the tubes in his nostrils went deep. He couldn’t move.

  He coughed and choked when he tried to call her name. He panicked then. He felt as if something was wrong, as if everything was terribly sinking out of reach and he too would be lost. It was too late.

  No!

  Darryl thrashed and squirmed in failed efforts to break free.

  “I have a series of needles attached to your main arteries. Lay still. It will be over in a few hours.” Whitmere said, standing over Darryl, preparing his machine to run.

  Doctor Whitmere would extract his serum from Darryl, withdrawing it out of his blood and tissue, to mesh and invade Adelle’s. It was a primitive method, but he had no other time to create his formulas and now, he had not the care to do otherwise. The humans were nothing to him. He was tired of the false pretense he had shown for them. They would be changed, or they would be dead.

  They would be his, he corrected.

  The door buzzed. Doctor Whitmere frowned, grunting something unpleasant beneath his breath, and walked to the door. Opening it, he saw eyes filled with concern.

  “You need to come with me,” Jean said. She spoke loud, allowing her voice to be thrown over the series of alarms in the distance.

  Whitmere looked both ways in the hall, finding no other guards to offer her assistance. “What is it? I’m busy.”

  “You’re going to want to see this. They found Barton.”

  With nothing further, Whitmere quickly motioned for her to lead the way.

  They were down the hall, turning away, out of sight, when a door across the hall opened and Barton stepped out. He looked both ways, and then entered Whitmere’s room.

  He saw the two beds, saw most of the patients underneath the extractors, and knew he had little time. The tubes were not yet pumping blood, the bodies were still, not squirming in pain, so he knew the operation had not yet began. If it had, there would be no helping them.

  Nothing outside of killing them before it was complete, rather.

  Barton rushed over to the controls on Darryl’s machine. Incompletely set, he saw. He began to deactivate the timing sequence, shutting the system down, aborting its program. Once it began, he turned and did the same to Adelle’s.

  Darryl screamed under the mask, feeling a terrible pain throughout his body as the needles and tubes began to exit up through his throat and mouth, off his neck, and chest. As the device cleared and began to ascend up into the larger unit, his voice shattered the stillness. His screaming cry lasted until Barton rushed over to him, firmly placing a hand over his mouth.

  “Sh!” Barton whispered. “We don’t have much time. Can you stand?”

  Darryl didn’t move. It was Barton. It was the alien.

  Barton didn’t wait for a response; he rushed over to Adelle. Barton leaned over motionless form. “Adelle, we are leaving. Hang on to whatever faith you still have.”

  She said nothing.

  Barton turned back to Darryl. “Did you hear me? We have to leave now!”

  Darryl stared at Barton. He wished Adelle would wake up and tell him that it was okay. Everything he had been told about Barton scared him.

  No. That’s just what they wanted you to believe. He’s human, like us. It was Adelle’s voice Darryl heard in his mind. It was comforting.

  “I think her body’s slipped into shock. I don’t have time to help her now. She’ll be fine, with us.” Barton stated. “Are you okay?”

  Barton shook Darryl slightly, wanting a response. The fears Darryl had about Barton were being pushed aside as he saw Adelle in the bed. She wasn’t moving.

  Darryl swallowed hard. “What did you do to her?”

  “There’s no time for that. We have to get out of here. Can you run?”

  Barton rushed to the door and looked into the hall, then back to Darryl. Darryl was sitting upright, testing his strength.

  Darryl spoke. “She said you changed her. Healed her. You helped her remember. She told me to trust you. Can you help me too?”

  Barton stopped what he was doing and stared at Darryl in pity. He thought for a second, and then searched his pockets for his tools, withdrawing his injection gun and needle. He worked quickly, taking his own blood instead of Adelle’s, knowing that hers had been compromised.

  “This blood, mine, will change you. But it will render you unconscious for a while as it works. Right now, I need you. I need you to be able to run, and fight if we have to. But I promise, after we’re out of here, I will help you.”

  Darryl nodded. “But what about Adelle?”

  “She’s already fighting. We can do without her for a few moments.”

  Barton found a white lab coat used by doctors and threw it at Darryl. “You don’t have a choice. Soon this whole place is going to be crushed like a tin can.”

  Barton rushed over to Adelle and threw a bed sheet over her, draping down onto the floor on both sides. He would hide under the bed as Darryl pushed it down the hall. The sham wouldn’t last long, but they only needed to get to the control center. Once they were out of the doctor’s ward, he would not be so easily recognized.

  “Darryl, listen carefully,” Barton began, watching Darryl put on the coat. “Take us down the hall to the left, all the way, then to the right. If anyone stops you, you’re taking your patient to the incinerator. Tell them that it is contagious and they had better stand clear.”

  Darryl’s head began to shake before Barton was finished. “I can’t do this. It’s not going to work. They won’t believe me.”

  Barton grabbed Darryl by the shoulders and pressed his forehead against his. “Listen to me—make it work! We have once chance on getting out of here and back home! Do you understand what I’m telling you? If they catch us, we are dead!”

  Darryl swallowed his fear as Barton crawled onto the framework under Adelle’s bed and disappear under the sheet.

  He stared at Adelle. Her chest rose and fell slowly. Her face still had the imprint of the device on it. Her beautiful face, he thought.

  It hurt everywhere at once then, nearly bringing him helplessly to his knees. The thought of his wife knowing for so long who she was, who he was and where they were, all the while he knew nothing and couldn’t help her, was crippling. He went to her and kissed her forehead, holding her hands within his own.

  “I love you, Adelle,” he whispered in her ear. “I won’t leave you.”

  He saw his tears fall onto her cheeks and he wiped them off gently. Her skin was soft, warm. He would do as Barton asked. He would make it work.

  “Let’s go!” growled Barton from beneath the bed.

  Darryl gathered his composure and b
egan to push the bed to the door. He entered the hall unnoticed and followed Barton’s directions. He saw no one. The sound of an alarm filled the silence. As he moved, he thought he felt a tremor.

  Let’s go home.

  T W E N T Y - S I X

  Jean could feel the heat radiating off of Whitmere as he moved quickly beside her through the hall. He was so caught up in the notion of finding Barton that he would forget his other patients, she knew. They would have time to escape. She would have the redemption she sought.

  She stared at him for a moment, not moving her head, only her eyes, then turned facing forward again. If anything were to happen, she thought, she would kill him too.

  “What is that alarm?” Whitmere asked, his voice filled with agitation.

  Jean didn’t look at him. “The shield has been compromised. They are working on it.”

  Whitmere’s agitation intensified. “What? Do you know the risk of—”

  “Here.” Jean broke off his belittling question.

  Whitmere rushed into the room as Jean held open the door. He saw the dead guards immediately and a sizzling corpse amidst a pile of debris. Whitmere covered his mouth and gasped, staring in shock. Jean walked in and stood next to him. Whitmere was in utter disbelief. Beads of sweat lined his glossy face.

  “What happened?”

  “He attacked us,” she said sadly. “I had no other choice.”

  “I didn’t want him dead like this.” Whitmere spoke to himself. “Not like this.”

  “He’s dead. This is what you wanted.”

  “No, Jean. I wanted to kill him myself. After I had my answers. Now I have…”

  Whitmere bent and studied the corpse. The face was