by Nick Thacker
"Get down, now! On your knees!" Ben shouted at Dr. Canavero. The man complied. Ben knew he wouldn't stay there, but for the moment, he could at least focus on Eliza's battle.
Two of the chimps made it past the airlock doors just as Ben reached Lars and Eliza. There was a third still inside, but the two that had appeared in the surgical suite were spread out, flanked around the sides of the guard.
This isn’t going to end well for him, Ben thought.
The guard stood his ground, slowly raising his weapon up and aiming it toward the chimp on the right.
Ben smashed the butt of his rifle against the back of Lars' head, and the man rolled off of Eliza. He was mildly injured but still awake. He rolled away and came up to a crouching position, unsteady.
The guard near the airlock tried to trick the apes — at the last moment, he swung his gun around to the left side and quickly opened fire. The rounds sang out from his weapon and swept in a wide arc around to where the chimp was.
Or at least, had been.
That chimp had anticipated the attack and was running on all fours behind the guard. With a smooth, calculated motion, the chimp pushed off the edge of a table and launched itself into the air toward the guard’s back.
It latched on, hanging from the man, while the second ape lunged.
Directly toward the guard’s face.
With an equally swift and smooth motion, this chimp pressed its fingers into the man’s eye sockets and then pulled, yanking away flesh and bone as if it were paper mâché.
The guard screamed in agony, a bloodcurdling noise that startled everyone in the room — man and ape.
The first ape fell from the man’s back as he fell forward, facedown on the floor, his own face bleeding and staring back at him from a few feet away.
Both chimps looked directly at Ben, then Eliza, then at Lars.
And then they began to creep back toward the doorway.
“They’re afraid,” Eliza whispered.
“Of him?” Ben asked.
Lars was groaning, seated in front of one of the tables, rubbing the back of his head. His brow was covered in sweat, and he was breathing heavily, but otherwise he seemed to be okay.
“Of this room,” Dr. Canavero said. “They know what happens here. They refuse to be in here any longer than necessary.”
Ben nodded. “Great. You’ve been torturing the poor guys their entire lives so much that they’ve got PTSD because of a room. You know how screwed up that is? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Eliza stood and brushed herself off. Her hair was falling out of the many ties that had been in it, and a few strands of bright red hung from over her forehead, but she too seemed to be fine. She took an aggressive step toward Lars, and the man winced.
“It’s over,” Ben said. “Finished. We’re done here. All of us.”
“And what are you planning to do about them?” Lars suddenly asked. His finger was shaking, pointing at the chimps guarding the airlock.
Ben shrugged. “No idea. Seems to me we don’t need to do anything. Those guys know exactly who the enemy is here. And it’s not me or her.”
Eliza nodded, then moved to the far wall away from Ben. She seemed to be trying to put more distance between herself and the airlock, just in case. “That’s right,” she added. “They’ll let us leave. Not you two.”
Canavero seemed to be amused by this statement, and even Ben wondered if it were true. “You believe that, do you?” Canavero asked. “You think they are as intelligent as that gorilla? As Jonas? You are mistaken, my dear friends. These beasts are just that — beasts. Operating more from instinct than a desire for revenge."
“Then why did they kill that guard and then back out of the room?”
“They have an instinctual fear of this place. It’s something that has been ingrained in their beings from birth. They don’t care who’s in here — they’ll kill any one of us if we try to leave.”
Ben nodded. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll take my chances.”
He started back toward the table that held Alina’s body. When he got there, he looked down at the young woman lying on the bed.
Her eyes were open, staring up at him.
62
Ben
“Can you move?” Ben asked the girl.
She looked up at him, confused, then slowly shook her head. “I — I do not think so,” she finally uttered. “My body… it feels as though I am asleep.”
Her English was good, but she spoke slowly and deliberately, following Ben with her eyes. She was scared, but she seemed calm.
“Okay,” Ben said. “Just rest. We’re going to get —“
“You will do no such thing,” Lars said, now standing behind Ben. “This… this is not finished. We must —“
“No, Lars,” another voice said. Ben looked over. Canavero. He was standing closer now, behind one of the tables with a computer on it. “This man is correct. It is over.”
“But the research…” Lars said. “All the work. And my —“
“The research is all still here, my friend.” He threw an arm out and swung it around the room. “Nothing is missing. Every bit of it is here. All of my work, it’s —“
“My work, you mean,” Lars interrupted. “This is all my work. My dream. I slaved over this for years, working to pull it together. I hired you to see it through; to do the mundane work I could not. Everything here is mine.”
Ben frowned, still standing next to Alina’s bed. He gripped the rifle in his hands. As he’d said before, he didn’t want to use it unless it was absolutely necessary — they might need all the ammunition to fight their way out of here.
Canavero smiled. “Of course. You do believe that.”
Lars sniffed and then started toward Canavero. “It’s the truth, Canavero. It would be wise for you to remember that —“
“Your leadership is a joke here, Tennyson,” Canavero said. “Your dream is nothing but a pipe dream. A hopeless waste of precious resources.”
Ben wasn’t sure if Tennyson was about to cry or start trying to rip the doctor’s head off. It was a twist in the discussion; a turn Ben hadn’t seen coming.
But he knew the important thing was to get ready to leave. They needed to be out of here as soon as possible, and they needed to make sure this young woman was able to come with them.
He leaned down again and began slowly moving her leg, bending her knee. “I need to see if you can walk, eventually,” he said. “Does this hurt?”
She shook her head. "No, actually it feels better. I believe I can move if you will give me a few minutes."
Ben nodded, then set her leg back down. She grimaced in pain, but she did try to wiggle her feet and legs as well.
He turned back to listen to the conversation between Tennyson and Canavero.
“You think this all for you, don’t you?” Canavero said, his voice now rising. Tennyson had stopped about ten feet in front of the man. The doctor was still at the workstation, standing behind it as he faced the others in the room. “You believe this is all part of some plan you put in motion? That this is all your work?”
“I built this division from the ground up!” Tennyson yelled. “I made this happen. All of it. It was —“
"It was your grandfather who did it,” Canavero said. “After the accident — after your sister, we needed a way to push this forward while still keeping you involved in the process. He hired me years ago to begin research; I was available at the company when you brought me here because I was told to be, Tennyson.”
Tennyson stopped. The mere mention of his sister had seemed to spook him. “What… what are you saying?”
“Your… whatever he was… Dietrich? He was the real brains behind the operation, Tennyson. What, did you think, that you’d just happened to meet him at university all those years ago, and that you just happened to have the same interests? That he just happened to be of the personality that wanted you to dominate his entire life?”
Tennyson licked his lips, and
Ben could see his nostrils flaring and his eyes firing. The man had been riled up, and he still couldn’t tell if any of it was true. But something had clearly struck a nerve with Lars.
Canavero continued his barrage. “For three years, Lars, I have been putting everything into this project. The real project. The actual reason we are here—the actual reason Baden Tennyson built this place. Your idiotic pet project of saving your sister’s life was a decent side job, something we would work on if time permitted.
“But that — all of that little dream of yours — is nothing compared to what we are actually doing here.”
“And what is that?” Tennyson asked. He seemed to be in denial, crossing his arms over his chest and dropping his head back a bit. Testing his lead doctor.
“You don’t know? You can’t see it?" Canavero was legitimately worked up; now, he seemed as angry as Tennyson had been a moment earlier. "You simply are not capable of understanding. The research, the trials, the successes we have had here. Lars, you have seen the investment. The men and women who had offered their support of this place. Do you believe they are hoping for an altruistic end to all of this? That they wish to spend their fortunes and their futures on philanthropic endeavors?”
Lars looked perplexed. Ben glanced over at Eliza, who was watching on from her spot alongside the far wall, near the bedroom door of Lars’ sister.
The temperature in the room had seemed to level off, and while Ben and Eliza both still wore their blankets, the other men were not wearing extra covering. They must both be cold, but neither seemed to show it. Besides, they hadn’t been in the room for very long.
Ben shivered, wishing he hadn’t reminded himself of the chill in the air.
“They are supporting this vision because it is also their vision, Lars,” Canavero said. “They want what we want — what your grandfather and I want.”
“Again, please,” Lars said, “fill me in. You seem to be so much more in the know than I am.”
Canavero actually laughed at this. “Are you actually this far removed, Tennyson? You have been working nights, early mornings, purposefully isolating yourself. You have not been around enough, apparently. Yet every signature on every paper is yours — surely you understand what this all about?”
Lars didn’t speak.
“You think this is about you. Your sister. But it’s not. It never has been. Dietrich knew it, and it was his main job to keep you working toward your goal, because for a long while your goal aligned with our goal.”
“Dietrich was loyal to me.”
“Dietrich was loyal to your grandfather, Lars. He may have expressed other feelings toward you, but his main concern was in getting to market with this technology. Getting into the hands of the people who want it most. The people who paid for it.”
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Ben
Ben's ears perked up at this. He had been in situations before that involved wealthy, influential people exchanging money for things they believed they needed. But knowing a bit about what EKG was doing here, what they had been working toward, gave Ben an idea as to what Canavero was talking about.
“This place was created by the people, like your grandfather, who were especially interested in taking advantage of this technology.”
“You mean my sister’s life —“
“Your sister was to be the final phase of the transference test, Lars,” Canavero answered. “She may have lived, but she was only ever to be an experiment. A proof of concept, if you will. But with the progress we have been making — progress you have been behind, I might add — her successful transference is unnecessary.”
Transference. That word again. Ben walked a few steps toward Canavero’s workstation. “You’ve said that to us before. ‘Transference.’ What does it really mean?”
Canavero seemed glad to have the question, impressed that Ben had asked it. "Have you not wondered why we are not calling these trials simply 'transplants,' my friend?"
Ben nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, that is what I was just explaining to Lars. The fact that he could not see it — the fact that he has been blinded to Dietrich’s betrayal and the rest of his team’s focus elsewhere — proves how lost in his sister’s life he has become.
“But what our investors are interested in is far more than some organ farm. The research we have done here provides us with the ability to go beyond mere transplants — placing one organ inside a new body, a new host. It gives us the ability to fully transfer a human life. From one host into another.”
Ben saw Eliza’s hand go to her mouth, something she clearly did to register the shock she was feeling. Ben didn’t have a similar tell, but he was feeling exactly the same way.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.
“Must I?” Canavero asked. “And why is that? Is it beyond reason that there are people who wish to continue their lives long after their physical bodies have given up? Is it unreasonable to expect that medicine and science simply halt after exploring the possibilities of brain transplant and neural function reconditioning? Why? Because of human-created ethics?”
Ben didn’t respond.
“The men and women who have built this place want more, my friends. They want true freedom, forever. To be able to jump from one host to another, at will, whenever their current biological vehicle gets too old? Can you imagine the possibilities?”
Ben could, and he didn't like it. Besides the terrifying experimentation that had led them down this path, he couldn't understand how anyone would ever be able to justify the killing of one human so another could take its shape and form.
Transference.
It was a crushing realization, but Canavero had made his point. There were people out there who wanted this, and those people would stop at nothing to make it happen.
"But… but I can't…" Tennyson seemed broken, an android unable to perform his built-in programming. He stumbled to the side, the shock of it all, not allowing him to react properly. Finally, he placed a hand on the table, favoring his good leg, and looked up at Canavero. "You… asshole. This — this was mine. Everything here was going to save her… and — oh, my God.”
He fell forward, almost completely losing his balance, but gripping a stool and hovering precariously for a moment. "You… you are going to kill her. You can’t —“
He stopped, turned to Eliza and the door she was next to. He started toward her, limping along quickly, ignoring the pain.
Eliza's eyes widened, and she slid to the side. Lars didn't change course.
“Lars,” Canavero’s voice called out. “Why do you believe we are the twisted ones? Why do you think we are to blame? Are we not the ones working to advance the science of medicine?”
Lars didn’t stop. He reached the doorway, completely ignoring Eliza, and pushed it open.
“What do you think I have been doing over here, my friend?” Canavero asked.
At this, Lars did stop. He held the handle of the door in his hand, halfway over the threshold.
He released the handle, turned around slowly, and stared at Canavero. There were tears in his eyes. He seemed completely beaten.
Ben kept the rifle ready, preparing to take out one or both of these men if they decided to hash out their differences physically and get Eliza or him involved.
“Lars, you were always bright, but naive. You believed in something impossible. But you had to know it was never going to work this early, right? And yet you kept her alive — or whatever you might call that — for three years.
“My friend, that alone seems like torture. What life is that? Lying empty on a bed while your thoughts and dreams and memories race through your mind, unable to wake up or go to sleep or do anything at all that resembles human life?”
Lars shook his head. “No… she… she is —“
“She is dead, Tennyson. Just like the day you brought her in here.”
Canavero made a point to click a key on the computer’s keyboard loudly
, with deliberate precision.
“No — what have you —“ Lars’ voice faltered, and he fell to his knees in the doorway.
“She is dead, Lars.”
An alarm sounded, a quiet yet noticeable beeping that emanated from the young woman’s private room. Lars turned his head to look, then he stood and raced into the room.
“What did you do?” Ben asked. He began moving toward Canavero. “What the hell did you do?”
"Anaphylactic shock," Canavero said, raising his hands in the air as if trying to prove his innocence. "By altering the compound that is running into her body, it was an immediate reaction. Within two minutes, she'll be gone."
“Two minutes?”
“Or sooner,” the doctor said. “She was frail, weakened from years of consuming nothing but liquids and existing in a less-than-human state.”
Eliza walked over from the doorway. “That was not your call to make,” she said. “Her life was not yours to take.”
Canavero raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And your decision would have been different? You would have chosen to keep the poor girl alive, even if it meant years of living in a hospital bed?”
Ben didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He felt something tugging at his heart, pulling it side to side as his internal psyche fought with itself. It all seemed wrong, and yet he wasn’t sure Canavero was wrong.
There was a scream — a deep, throaty yell — from the room, and Ben knew Lars was watching his sister die, completely unable to stop it. The man was broken, completely destroyed, and still this final piece of his life was being ripped away from him, brutally and slowly.
After a few seconds, Ben heard footsteps. Running.
Out of the room came Lars, barreling toward Canavero. Ben stepped to the side. He watched as the two men squared off near the airlock.
The distance closed, and Ben wondered how long he would allow them to fight before stepping in to end it.
And then, just before Lars reached Canavero, the chimpanzees made their move.