Discarded

by Mark A. Ciccone

  An angry shadow flitted over his face. ‘I told them it was impossible, something only a rabid sci-fi reader would think of. It didn’t matter. They kept pressing me, demanding I perform some form of adult testing. I kept resisting, pointing out the million different unknowns: the possible psychological effects, the unclear longevity of the compound in adult subjects, the eventual breakdown of tissue due to constant regeneration. None of it registered – or it did, and they ignored it.

  ‘Finally, word came that unless I went forward with the testing, not only would DARPA confiscate all my research and facilities and proceed with the work, but I would likely be tossed into Leavenworth or the just-rebuilt Gitmo, as a safeguard against taking my worries public.’ The flash of anger came again, stronger, mixed with helplessness. ‘I couldn’t allow them to go forward, creating even more cripples for the sake of a policy – but I also couldn’t face prison.’ He turned to them. ‘In the end, I agreed, on the condition that I would handle every second of organising, administrating, and assessing the tests, with minimal oversight.’

  He stared off into the distance, hands folded on the head of his cane. ‘The injections were only the first step, and the easiest: administer the ARC, and monitor for adverse reactions. Most of the subjects didn’t show any changes at all as I’d told their superiors, countless times. No measurable increases in strength, no improvements in vision, speed or agility; everything they’d expected, and exactly what didn’t happen. Unless they were injured in some way, there wasn’t any way of knowing if the ARC even worked – and there were many, when the physical element of the tests started. Lifting 200-pound weights for hours at a stretch, thirty-mile nonstop sprints, even more hours swimming in the Sound or pool treadmills, breaking through or scaling walls with no more support than standard combat loads—’

  He paused. ‘It was a nightmare, those four years. So many left with severe injuries in their first week: broken arms, legs, necks; a few left as para- or quadriplegics. No one died, or went insane from the injections – that was a minor concern of mine, from the first tests years before. And it did its job, when the injuries were minor or life-threatening; subjects who cursed me for putting them through it would prostrate in thanks in between. But every time another of them went down screaming…’

  Another pause, a longer one. When he resumed, it was with a new undercurrent of anger – and self-hatred. ‘I compiled all the data, and sent it on as required. I thought that by itself would show the sick, twisted fools mistakenly called generals that ARC was useless as a weapon, that its only use was in restoring those they sent out to be killed or crippled. Instead, a week after the final test wrapped up, I received orders to continue research, with positive results expected in no less than three months. Snyder had taken over fully by then, and I suppose he wanted to move the process along even faster, to bolster the “Measured Response” policy.

  ‘I objected, the moment I saw the email. I’d have done better shouting at an avalanche, or in outer space. And the same threats were still attached: work, or jail. By then, I was almost ready to demand they slap on the cuffs and hood, or destroy my research and go underground. I’d had enough of seeing young men and women broken for policy, and my work made into a tool of war.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Leah said. She stared at the Doctor, as though afraid to come closer – or holding back from charging, knife in hand. Her voice was shaking, from lingering shock and growing anger. ‘You stayed – and kept working.’ She stabbed a finger at the tanks. ‘How long before you got to this, whatever the fuck’—she drew the curse out—‘it is?’

  Garrett kept staring at the gruesome display. It was some time before he began again, in a more set tone. ‘I wanted to quit – with all my soul. I’d already sacrificed my family; I wasn’t about to do the same for so many more. But I knew it wouldn’t end if I quit, or died. There would only be more experiments, more projects, more searches for the ultimate warrior, at the cost of dozens, hundreds, thousands of lesser ones. And my work would help advance that, with or without me. Without, I’d go to my grave a spineless coward, giving up everything in the name of pride, or a principle that no one would believe when set against what I’d helped create. With, I had the smallest chance of keeping the death and cripple rate to a minimum – and maybe even advancing humanity, a little bit further.’

  Cayden moved up to the platform. Seeing his expression, Greg started to do the same; enraged as he was, he didn’t want the older Golem losing it, either. Cayden made no move for a weapon, or any of the Doctor’s vital spots. Instead, he stood close to the man, looming over him. ‘How?’ he rumbled.

  Garrett faced him, and Greg and Leah. His face had changed again, becoming more reflective, analytical. In a half-musing tone, he said, ‘Most people in this country – in the world – don’t really understand how vital the donation process is for the world of medicine. Kidneys, corneas, livers, hearts, lungs, bone marrow, sperm, eggs, blood, glands. Millions of people – no, billions, I’m sure by now – have gotten a transplant of some kind with one or more of these, or donated them at death or to make quick cash, willingly and not. Every day, before and since the Turmoil, somebody keels over from a stroke, or dies in an accident, or goes into an exam room with a specialist or a cup. And every day, somebody ends up in a hospital needing something from these donations to live, whether it’s one year more, or fifty.’

  The dark, determined look re-emerged. ‘Plenty of the recruits who went through the first ARC tests needed many of both, even with the compound to accelerate tissue healing. When I finally decided to heed D.C.’s demands, I made it very clear that I would not allow anyone else to endure the tests – and what would certainly come later – unless I had total control of every part of the process. Oversight would continue, and I would obey the core directives, but only the President or the Joint Chiefs could make or suggest changes.’ A bitter, knowing smirk. ‘And since neither wanted too much involvement, beyond the end results, for the usual political reasons, I had the closest thing to autonomy I would ever have.’ The smirk died, returning his features to complete solemnity. ‘Enough to take the Project to a new stage – one where its graduates would not only be able to endure its demands – but have that endurance within their very selves, from the beginning.’

  ‘What new stage? Greg demanded. Leah edged up next to him. She looked as impatient and edgy as he felt, although she was keeping her hands in the open, away from any weapons or sure killing blows. ‘How could—’

  He stopped. His eyes went from the Doctor to the tanks, and back again. A sickening, penetrating coldness spread from his head to his toes. A sudden lightheadedness followed hard on its heels; it took all his energy to keep steady. Leah, sensing this, took his arm. He looked at her, mutely; the words were clear enough in his stare. Her face drained of what little colour it had regained. Her eyes went wide: so much, the pupils almost seemed to disappear. Her mouth shaped a silent word: No. Unable to hold her gaze, he looked to Cayden. The other Golem’s features were bone-white; more from fury than horror, by his judgement. His hands were trembling, as though itching to rip the Doctor to pieces, and the room next.

  Numb with his own shock, disbelief, and fury, Greg turned back to Garrett. The Doctor was regarding them all with sad sympathy. Greg almost lashed out at him then; that was the last emotion he wanted. Before he could, the older man began to speak once more. ‘I knew from the first test results that ARC could never work in adults, other than in the hospitals. Testing on children was obviously impossible, for countless reasons, and not just my own revulsion.’ He swallowed, and straightened, balancing himself more evenly with minimal help from the cane. ‘So I decided to start even earlier.’

  He looked to the closest tank, watching the little corpse sway in the dense liquid with an eerie detachment. ‘When I was at CellWorx, there was a joint project that never got much beyond the planning stage; an idea that Sam and I bounced around in a few bull sessions, before he… left. We’d worke
d with patients and tissue continuing some of the most debilitating inherited and acquired afflictions known to man, often with little more than painkillers to help those enduring them, or their children. The latter resonated with me most of all; how many millions of people who knowingly or unknowingly carried the genes for these tortures had to watch their offspring manifest and suffer them? We wanted to do something more. Create a means to prevent the most harmful effects of a person or couple’s genes from being realised, while still giving them a child that was wholly theirs.’

  His arm moved out, to take in all the tanks. ‘So many eggs and sperm sit around the country, waiting for their turn in the testing lab or procedure. And the final design for the artificial womb – what we simply called the NeoMater, in the planning stage, and it stuck – was relatively simple, for myself and Sam. Between the two of us, we had more background, knowledge, and training in genetics, micro- and neurobiology and surgery than probably ninety-five per cent of the medical field at the time, and we had access to other specialists and labs of similar calibre to fill in the blanks. The only thing we needed was an Everest of funding, and permission to set up a facility that turned out babies on demand, free of whatever faults the parents didn’t want.’

  He grunted, in irony or black humour. ‘Needless to say, D.C. wasn’t inclined to waste money on what they and the more… devout factions backing them already considered a potentially blasphemous idea. And there were plenty of doctors and professionals with perfectly good arguments against it, moral and legal. We shelved the plan, and soon after Sam went his own way. I didn’t even recall it – until the “continue” order came in.’ The Doctor studied the dead foetus again. ‘When it did, I realised I had a way of controlling the Project, literally from birth to death. Nothing else was acceptable. If the Pentagon wanted a breed of supersoldier so badly, they’d get it – and I would see it done right, without needless deaths or lifelong pain.’

  He put a hand to the tank’s glass, gently. ‘I pulled the NeoMater design out of the files, and presented it to DARPA and the Joint Chiefs along with an outline of my intended process. They agreed without too much discussion; “Measured Response” was in full swing by then, and the demands for boots on the ground were multiplying every day. With the blank cheque I now had, there was little to no trouble building the first five devices.’ His eyes flicked in Cayden’s direction. The older Golem’s chin went up and down an inch in acknowledgement, without a change in his fixed, tense look. Garrett turned to face Greg and Leah again. ‘After that, it was an even simpler matter to get access to the right DNA – and begin the gestational process.’

  ‘The right DNA.’ Leah’s voice was hollow, almost devoid of emotion. ‘From where?’

  Garrett’s sober look said he understood the real question. ‘Most of the sperm and eggs I requested came from the NIH, through acquisitions by shell foundations and labs. Others came from the Army Medical Research and Material Command; the crises and weekly bioweapon scares at that time meant they were frequently acquiring the bodies of soldiers after death, for experimentation. There were no names attached to the donations, when they came to me. The military didn’t want any chance of their being traced to me – and I didn’t want to know who had given them up.’

  Leah’s eyes shone, in anger and grief. Greg felt a tickling in his own eyes. Blinking it away as best he could, he moved another step closer. ‘What about these?’ He made himself look to the tanks, and point to them. ‘They weren’t just wombs, were they?’ He had to force the words out. ‘There was something else – otherwise we’d never have become… this.’ He waved at the decaying sights before them.

  Garrett inclined his head in assent. He brushed his hand against the screens on the nearest tank. ‘The most important work was done well before these were necessary – but they were still a vital part of the procedure.’ The hand shifted, pointing to one of the rooms on the opposite side, which was a bit larger than the rest. ‘That was the lab, where it started, with the assessment and selection step. We – or rather I – had access to almost every kind of sperm and egg material in the country, but it wouldn’t work to just bring two of any kind together and make changes as it grew. Days or weeks would be wasted, to say nothing of material.

  ‘Screening was necessary. First for inheritable diseases or conditions, such as predispositions for stroke, heart disease, diabetes, brain tumours, mental disease where possible – the list was near-endless, and plenty of samples were set aside for later work, or destroyed; less of a paper trail. Then there was a battery of checks, for any undesirable traits.’ He touched at his glasses. ‘Myopia and farsightedness, to start with. Every one of you was gifted with 20/20 vision from birth, and you’ll have it till the day you pass.’ He squinted a little at each of their faces. ‘The glow in your irises is a side effect of that, apparently. I’ve never been able to pin down the exact cause, only that it’s related.’ He adjusted the glasses again, then continued. ‘Deafness and muteness were next, and a shorter list of others after that. Much of these first two rounds was done by the NIH or Army facilities sending the material, and based off donor histories, yet I still performed many myself to be sure.

  ‘By then, the number of samples least in need of modification was small – but still well into the hundreds. At that stage, it was time to move from analysis to alteration.’ His finger moved, to the next room down. ‘That was the lab where the samples were fertilised, and then modified. In my few light moments, I slipped and referred to it as the Backseat.’ Garrett showed no sign of lightness now, although he seemed to take some mild professional pleasure in the recollection. ‘The first changes eliminated any hints of… deficiencies that slipped through. Next came the improvements the Pentagon wanted: increased height, muscle mass, agility.’ He looked at each of the three Golems. ‘The implantation of the ARC capability was easy, from a purely technical standpoint. Insert the coded gene into the fertilised egg’s DNA, and monitor for any adverse changes elsewhere; a first-year geneticist can do it.

  ‘The problem was, the gene, while still ultimately composed from human tissue and sequences, was still an artificial component. Hundreds if not thousands of replacement organs get rejected every year by the bodies they’re implanted in; the risk was no less great here. And there was always the chance of unexpected consequences with the egg, or later foetus, once the gene was implanted. Very little of what was being done in this lab had even gotten past the debate stage, not to mention the technology. The potential for mistakes and rejects was huge.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ Leah asked. ‘The mistakes, and the rejects?’ She’d blinked away the angry sheen in her eyes, but the faint tremble in her otherwise empty voice told how affected she was. ‘Did they get tossed out, like the “unwanted” ones at the start?’

  Garrett regarded her kindly. ‘Very few did, I’m relieved to say. When they did, most often at the earliest stages of growth… I saw to it they were ended, painlessly.’ A wispy chuckle. ‘Something the pro-lifers would gnash their teeth over, I’m sure.’ He became sober again at once. ‘I knew I was playing with lives, on a slide and when grown. The technology for the entire process was new but I had designed the bulk of it, and I knew where to look first when there were problems. In a matter of months, these were gone from the tech itself, and down to almost none in the fertilisation and alteration parts of the process. Once the ARC was inserted, and the other genes tailored as needed, I moved on to the next, most important stage.’

  He stepped down from the platform, moving back several paces to take in the entire display – yet still in easy reach of any of his guests. ‘The theory for workable artificial wombs had existed for close to a century. Money, ethics, and the nagging workability questions kept it a theory for all that time, before Sam and I dreamed up our rough version. Here, it was even harder. It wasn’t simply designing a device that could sustain an embryo, then a foetus, then a fully-grown infant. Technology already existed for each of those stages: some cr
ude, some state-of-the-art.’

  The Doctor paused. His look became more wary, apprehensive. Not for himself, Greg judged, or not completely; more for them, as if he were worried they couldn’t handle it. He choked back a caustic laugh. I’ve come this far without crushing his head like an egg, and he’s worried about me? Keeping this to himself, he gave Garrett a brusque nod. The Doctor nodded back, seemingly reassured, and continued. ‘As I said, the technology and technique was there, for each part of the gestation period up to birth. Umbilical nutrition, growth monitoring and enhancement, general health – everything. I had a working prototype here within six months, and all ten you see here in a little over twelve. But the natural birthing process takes nine months, in a healthy woman, and another eighteen years for the infant to come close to maturity. D.C. wanted the… final specimens the day before yesterday, despite my warnings about the need for more testing and observation.’ He looked at the floor. ‘So I went back to the drawing board. In less than a month, I found a way to redesign the prototype to not only shorten the time between creation and birth – but also to accelerate the growth of every child born.’

  Greg’s mouth was dry as a desert. ‘How much?’ he managed to croak.