Discarded

by Mark A. Ciccone

The Doctor spread his hands, keeping his cane to the floor. ‘It varied for a little while. The system didn’t have every kink worked out, not until the “First Five” were already grown.’ He cast a look Cayden’s way; the older Golem returned it coldly. ‘The average was within three years, although some developed quicker or slower. Even after the last bug was solved, though, and the… batches were coming smoothly off the line, I watched every one of you, every step of the process. From the day you left the tank, through all the surgeries and tests. From your first day of training, with the clingers and other weapons, to your last mission as adults. I’d done all I could to give you the best possible start, before you even drew breath, and I wasn’t about to send the power-mad idiots in D.C. anything but the best.’ He looked at the three Golems with the same infuriating little smile. ‘It looks like I did, in the end.’

  Batches. Off the line. The words tolled in Greg’s mind, with a new, morbid understanding. He glanced down at his arm, to the site of the tattoo he’d borne since birth – or whenever it had actually been done. One eye swung to the tanks, then just as quickly away. How long had he spent in his, unconscious and unaware of the life already planned for him? How many of the others had gone to their graves – or nearly, in Taylor’s case – without ever knowing the truth?

  ‘What about the memories?’ Cayden’s growl yanked him from these thoughts. He was now only a foot or so away from the Doctor, the fingertips of one hand perilously close to the butt of his pistol. ‘We went through all this’ – he jabbed his free hand at the tanks, and the entire Facility—’but we can’t remember any of it. How?’ His sudden, sharp grip on the pistol said the answer had better be good.

  Garrett didn’t seem fazed. ‘One of the slightly brighter bulbs in DARPA raised the very same issue, midway through yours and the other Five’s gestation,’ he replied. ‘The worry was that, if any of you were told the truth about your origins, whether from the tanks or the petri dish, you would react dangerously. Enough that you could potentially wreck the Project, or break out and go “freelance”, for any of the at-home terror and militia groups, or the highest bidding enemy nation.’ He scowled. ‘They whispered in the right ears at the Pentagon, and the Chiefs demanded safeguards. Some I was already implementing, as basic security measures: keeping you in small groups, out of any unauthorised eyesight, and plenty of guards and other measures.’ The scowl grew – aimed at himself, it appeared, along with the long-gone overseers. ‘That wasn’t enough – not for those who’d demanded the perfect soldier, and now rightly feared them. They wanted more ways to keep you caged and docile when not on assignment, preferably unaware of the bars. And others to bring you down quickly, should those bars break open.’

  Leah’s face coloured, a furious pale red. ‘The Pax Contingency,’ she ground out.

  ‘You know the name?’ For the first time, Garrett looked honestly surprised. ‘I never did, even when I submitted it to the DARPA watchdogs. To me it was simply a modified tranquiliser, meant for those with your genetic makeup. I honestly thought it had been lost in the coup against Snyder; the anti-Vanguard mobs went after every federal agency they could, and the transition government’s still doing the same from what I hear, albeit more surgically.’

  He made the merest twitch of a shrug. ‘It didn’t matter what they called it, in the end. I shared some concerns regarding your learning the full story – but I also wasn’t about to become a jailer as well as a scientist.’ His scowl took on a craftier edge. ‘So I sent the earliest version of the Pax to the Army, with a working model of the delivery system. What I may have failed to include was a warning about the estimated longevity of any effects. They never tested it, or even asked – and I never got around to clarifying the matter.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Greg bit off, in a voice that was anything but grateful. ‘Except we didn’t forget anything after getting hit with the “effects.” And none of what we’ve remembered is gone either; hell, it’s gotten clearer every second we’ve been in this place.’ He came closer to Garrett himself, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Cayden. ‘What “other measures” were there?’ The urge to take the Doctor by the head and plough him through every tank and window in the room was stronger than ever.

  Garrett didn’t answer, at first. Instead of nervous or sombre, he now seemed resigned, almost relieved – even pleased. Before Greg could speak again, or make him talk somehow, the Doctor reached out and took him by the left wrist. He started to draw back, then desisted; he could snap the older man like a twig at the first sign of trouble. Garrett turned the arm over, feeling gently along the clinger sleeve until he reached the crook of the elbow. He probed with his thumb, a little harder. ‘There,’ he murmured. Seeing Greg and the others’ puzzlement, he let go, that strange vague pleasure still on his face. ‘You recall the shots you received, as adults? The ones that came mainly at the start of and during your training, but also after missions, and other points?’

  ‘ARC boosters,’ Leah said, with an unwilling nod. ‘Megavitamins, for when we weren’t sure of eating for days or weeks. Vaccines, too, for specific disease hotspots. And what you kept calling all-purpose inhibitors, to suppress certain… urges or suspected conditions we might have picked up on past assignments – or inherited – that might be problematic in the field.’ She looked to Greg, her lip curling up in a real smile for the briefest of seconds. He found himself returning the look, though still not entirely sure what they were smiling about. Then she faced Garrett again, and it was gone, back to grim, angry purpose. ‘They were more than that, though – weren’t they?’ Now she came closer, hand to her pistol. ‘A lot more.’

  The Doctor took no obvious notice of this. ‘Some were boosters. The ARC was part of you from the very beginning – but there were times when it needed help. More acceleration, in short.’ He pointed to the next room down from the ‘Backseat’ lab. ‘When I saw how some of you were returning with still-healing wounds, I cobbled together a stimulant that would boost the regeneration process, several times over. The drawback was a spike in pain reception – more so if the damage was neurological along with everything else – but it meant a much shorter recovery period.’

  Greg nodded; he remembered some of the quick repairs others had gone through in the field – and his own, after Lake Balkash. Taylor must not have received any, that time… or it had only made his injuries worse. ‘And the others?’ he asked, woodenly. ‘What help were they supposed to be?’

  Garrett stayed quiet, for another long moment. When he did speak, it was in that same mingling of pleasure and relieved resignation. ‘You were already perfect, in nearly every respect. Regenerative capability, up to near-fatal injury. Genetically improved strength, vision, hearing and speed. Immune to most diseases, thanks to the ARC or the work in the labs and in utero. The best possible soldiers, in D.C.’s eyes – and the world’s greatest threat, should you go AWOL or worse.’ He looked each of them in the eye again, his gaze regretful and stoic. ‘They wanted you to be the new face of the American military, crushing any and all threats – but they also wanted protections. Not just the locks and weapons upstairs, or the Pax, both of which only kept you contained physically. Methods that would keep you tame, wouldn’t affect your skills – and which you wouldn’t think twice about.’

  He held up his own arm. ‘The inhibitors, as you call them – they were exactly that. A cocktail of hormone and psychotropic suppressants, like those in standard uppers or downers. These controlled emotional responses that might endanger a mission or your training – and other, natural progressions in your growth, keeping them low-key or blocking them altogether. There were hints of longer-lasting effects, such as sterility, or increased growth rate for tumours or other conditions; nothing ever came to light, though. Long story short, they remained in your system longer than the ARC boosters and other injections you received; still, it was decided to combine them into one procedure, to be administered immediately prior to missions, and following, if injuries occurred. If not, the inj
ections were delayed until your next weekly physical. You’d remain focused, and battle-ready, without any desire to find out anything beyond the day’s lesson, or expected threats and mission resistance.’

  He lowered the proffered limb. ‘I could see the basic wisdom in this policy, though I still hated it, and its secrecy. It was an unnecessary extra control, given other options being considered for dealing with potential leaks or desertions, and it threw grit into every part of the Project’s mission.’ The resignation grew stronger, alongside a new surge of self-reproach. ‘Except I didn’t know all of that grit’s impact, until it was much too late.’

  Cayden took another step toward the Doctor, almost closing the distance between them. He didn’t draw or reach for a weapon or make any other moves; he just stood stock-still, waiting. Greg and Leah joined him. Garrett didn’t back away, but his body sagged, shrinking in on itself. All at once, he truly looked old. ‘Every drug has side effects, alone or in combination,’ he said softly. ‘You were supposed to be proof against the more conventional ones, and those from deliberate poisonings. I had a small part in the initial design of the inhibitors, to ensure against either, and so I believed – or was led to – that they were just what they claimed to be.’ Garrett raised his head, meeting Cayden’s eyes. ‘It wasn’t until you and the rest of the First Five came back from the Korea mission that I saw what was wrong – and that I wouldn’t be able to stop it from becoming standard policy, for you and all the others.’

  Cayden didn’t press him aloud, though his posture screamed for the Doctor to go on. Garrett’s words came out even lower. ‘When you came back… you barely recognised me, or the Facility. You knew who I was, who you were, and the details of your mission – but everything else was gone. And not from any blows to the head, or some unknown agent exposure. The only agents present in your system, apart from the ARC, were the inhibitors. When I examined samples of these, and observed the effects on you more closely, I found that the combination contained markers for a side effect I hadn’t known was possible, during the development process.’

  His head drooped again. ‘I didn’t want to believe it at first. That anyone would even try something so grotesque, or that I would be such a key, unwitting and unwilling part—’ He let out a raspy sigh. ‘The cocktail interfered with or outright blocked memory formation, at all levels: long, short, intermediate. Over time, every one of you would gradually forget almost everything about your service and time in the Project, apart from selective or immediate details. Nor did any of you show any signs of wondering about this, or trying to figure it out; the memories faded too rapidly, and the other cocktails stifled any discontent. Certain memories formed before the injections remained partly intact, or simply buried. The operations you went through as children, for example, to reinforce bone and strengthen muscle mass where the gene therapy hadn’t – and your recovery afterward. Your basic recall was also left intact: place and person names, your training and other education, certain noteworthy missions, and other memories of that kind. Everything else… ’

  He trailed off. When he began again, there was a newer strength in his manner – and a greater self-hatred. ‘I fought with them. DARPA, the Pentagon – even Snyder, when he finally realised the danger in putting off the man behind the linchpin for “Measured Response”. His hands squeezed tighter on the head of the cane. ‘I tried to make them see the inhumanity of the “safeguards”, the threats they posed not just to the health of all the Project’s offspring, but to them, if it ever came out. None of them budged.’ His grip relaxed, but the bitter tone only got stronger. ‘I couldn’t quit by then, or go public. I’d already sold my soul, by agreeing to stay before, and there was even less chance of going public to force their hand.’ His face became even more deeply lined. ‘The only choice I had was to go back to work – and hope that one day someone would see the danger.’

  ‘But they didn’t,’ Cayden said. His voice was shaking now. ‘They kept us dosed, brainwashed – docile. And you helped them.’ He slid in front of the two other Golems. ‘You made us, for them. From day one, we existed for them – and for you. That’s why you never backed out; not at the start, and not then – not during any part of the Project.’

  His hands were clenching and opening, his fingers like claws. ‘Because we were your greatest work. We belonged to you, and no one else. And when the time came that somebody finally tried to destroy it all, to wipe this place out, and every one of the “graduates” you’d made… you scattered us to the winds, without a clue of what happened, or how to find out. All to protect your best experiment.’

  He snatched the canister out of Garrett’s grip, holding it accusingly in front of the Doctor’s eyes. Garrett held still, not speaking. Greg’s blood hammered in his ears. Everything they’d seen and heard kept washing over him, like waves against rock – and a little more control washed away, each time. Anger, shock, hatred, grief – all these fused into a roiling sea inside him. Leah’s stricken, tormented face said the same struggle was tearing at her. He didn’t know which of them wanted more badly to reach out and crush the life out of the old man – only that the other would be half a step behind.

  The tomblike quiet stretched. Garrett made no move to run; he seemed to have turned to stone, his eyes fixed on Cayden. Jerkily, Cayden lowered the canister. His expression was completely flat, a mask like none other. ‘Just one answer left, after all the rest,’ he said, in a similarly empty tone. He lifted the canister again, balancing it in the palm of his hand. ‘When they showed up my door with this’—he made a tiny jerk of his head toward the other two Golems—‘they walked me through the security. Said what was in here was the key to the Project, and that only you had the key. You – or somebody with a similar bio-signature. A genetic match, or enough of a connection to equal one.’ His breath came in quicker, nearly silent puffs through his nose.

  He pressed his thumb against the aperture. In the deathly silence, the snick of the needle was almost like a gunshot. When the top unsealed, he flipped it back hard enough to nearly snap it off, and jammed his hand inside. The tiny flash drive winked in the light when he pulled it free.

  He pushed it into the Doctor’s face. ‘I was more than just the First,’ he ground out. ‘More than the first one in the field, out of the tube, or slapped together in the petri dish.’ There was a new sheen in his eyes, unlike anything Greg had seen: grief, anger, disbelief. ‘You made me – from you. Your first experiment, with some random eggs and your own swimmers – all to make your very own, pet Golem.’ He held the drive even closer. ‘That’s why you made me. That’s why you always favoured me, with the best gear and assignments. I remember that much, and never knew why – till now. To see if the Project worked – and to have a son as proof. Isn’t it?’ The drive was a millimetre before Garrett’s right eye. ‘Isn’t it?’ he whispered again. The Doctor said nothing. ‘Isn’t it!?’ Cayden roared.

  The echo rolled and reverberated across the chamber. Still Garrett made no sound or movement. The look on his face was somewhere between grief and hate – of himself, Greg judged, and a deeper kind than any other. Finally, when the quiet had returned, a murmur escaped his lips, almost too soft to hear. ‘Yes.’

  Leah let out a choked sob. Cayden withdrew his hand. The drive fell from his fingers, landing with a clatter on the linoleum. His entire body was quaking. Greg had a vivid image of him seizing the Doctor by the neck and tearing his head from his shoulders, or hurling him into the blue-eyed screen. Instead, with a roar of inarticulate fury, he hurled the canister at the nearest tank. It punched through the tempered glass, throwing shards in all directions, and smashed into the one next to it, breaking that capsule as well. Twin floods of milky, tan liquid splashed across the floor, spraying the three Golems’ clothes. Bits of watery dead flesh floated in the mire… and two larger misshapen lumps.

  The sight and sound broke something inside Greg. He lashed out with his fist, aiming for Garrett’s mournful face. He pulled the punch at the
last millisecond – or had the Doctor managed to duck most of it? – but it was still enough to hurl the old man backwards, into the far wall, his glasses flying away in two separate chunks. Not stopping or caring to see what the damage was, he spun and charged at the closest tank still standing. His shoulder bashed into the readout monitors; the force of the hit wrenched the tank free from its base, and smashing into its neighbour, toppling them like dominoes. More fluids and decayed matter spattered over his arms and chest. He barely noticed, swinging out for his next target. The world became a blur of noise and motion, with burst of pain as his foot or fist struck something harder than expected, before breaking through and collapsing it to pieces. Somewhere nearby, he heard Leah screaming like a banshee, and the sound of heavy glass crashing to the floor. In one of his few half-sane instants, he saw her standing in the gap of a shattered opaque office window, an office chair in both hands. She hurled it through the next-door wall as he turned away, bringing another cacophony of breaking glass, then tore at the bare metal frame, screaming still.

  At last, he paused, breathing in great, sucking gasps. This brought his other senses rushing back, including a steadily decreasing pain in his hands and heels. He looked around. Every one of the five tanks were toppled over and broken open, their grisly contents spread over almost the entire floor. Liquid dripped in a cheerful patter from the broken edges, forming tan-white puddles. The labs and offices stood open to each other, and the main floor, their walls now jagged holes, or empty, sagging frames; slivers of glass still hung or dropped from some of these. Spiralling cracks at random spots on the wall told of fists or feet punching at full speed and strength. Greg had little doubt they’d come from him. Looking up, he saw the jagged edge of a tank’s lid, protruding from Gaia’s main screen. The blue-eye image flickered and danced over the fractured screen, laced with corrupted data; maybe the whole program was damaged beyond repair. Good.