by Nick Thacker
The gun.
The horrid sound of hundreds of miniature explosions rocking the gunman back and forth on the side-mounted machine gun.
The one he’d fired into the students. His students.
A seizure of pain overtook him, but he couldn’t tell if it was merely psychological. He closed his eyes again, breathing. Still, his hands and legs and arms, everything, was frozen in place.
Where am I?
Just then, he heard a beeping sound. It had grown louder — or had he just now noticed it?
He pushed his eyelids apart and tried to look for the source of the sound. As his eyes opened, the beeping grew more intense; quicker.
He heard footsteps. Running.
“…Patient experiencing some sort of shock. Possible reaction…”
Voices drifted in and out. They were in the room.
Who were ‘they?’
Malcolm was growing agitated. He wanted answers, and he wanted to be able to move.
“He’s awake!”
More footsteps.
Now he could hear multiple people — three? — moving around his bed.
I’m in a hospital. It must be. I’m paralyzed.
“He’s no longer comatose?” one voice asked.
“No, he’s got his eyes open.”
The voices were hurried; frantic.
“Okay, let’s get some acetaminophen into him; he’s probably going to be a little rough around the edges.”
“Got it. We’re keeping him up?”
“No, no. That’s just to hold him over until he goes under again. It shouldn’t be long.”
Malcolm heard a popping sound, followed by the smell of something bitter. Some sort of chemical. A bag of liquid was suddenly passed directly over his face. He saw a strange assortment of letters and numbers, then a few letters that his brain computed as words.
Global. D-something Global.
“Ok, right. DG headquarters is going to be here tomorrow morning, and we need to get him back down.” Another pop, followed by a sloshing sound, reached Malcolm’s ears.
He tried to speak, but he wasn’t sure he had control of his vocal cords. It didn’t matter, anyway, as he realized he couldn’t even open his mouth.
A small hand pulled his chin down, forcing his mouth open, and he felt — sort of — a pill being inserted into it.
“It won’t matter — I’ve already reported that we’ve achieved success.”
“Yes, I know, I read the report,” the first voice — a man’s — said. “Still, they won’t want to see him awake. They’ll need him under for the final round of testing, so there’s no reason to let him become too aware.”
Malcolm tried to piece things together. He was paralyzed. Waking from a coma, anyway.
“How’d he wake up?” the second voice asked. It was a woman, probably the one who’d forced his mouth open.
“It’s a standard reaction to the chemical; almost like developing an immunity. Most subjects awaken after four to six months. He made it to five and a half.”
“Can we up the dosage?”
“No, a higher dosage will likely kill him. Keep the mg count steady; just track it closer. Any increase in heart rate or changes in sleep cycles, have someone come in and check it out.”
“Got it.”
Malcolm heard them finish up, then leave the room. He was left to his own thoughts and the slow, methodical beeping noise.
He suddenly felt the pricking of thousands of nerve endings flaring up in his neck and head, as if needles just below the surface of his skin were trying to poke their way out. It was painful, but it meant something else.
He could move his head.
It was the same feeling he’d had when a body part fell asleep. He could feel the line of nerves crawling up and around his face. Slowly, painfully, he tried to move the outer muscles in his face — cheeks, lips, ears. He thought he could feel the slightest of motions.
His face continued to “wake up.” He’d have preferred the traditional feeling of being awake, rather than the feeling of millions of ants crawling over his head, but he didn’t argue. He moved his mouth.
Using an unbelievable amount of energy, he tried lifting his head. Yes! It was moving. His head was lifting up from the bed, slowly, surely…
It fell. He could hold it no longer. His head fell backwards onto the pillow that had been placed below him.
With a deep, exhaling breath, he recovered and tried again. A little farther this time.
He could now see his body. It was covered in a sheet, and his feet poked out from the bottom of it. Behind that was the door to the room he was in. It too was white, the off-white color no doubt picked for its price and not is appeal.
Again, his head fell back to the pillow.
This is good, he told himself. I’m getting stronger each time.
As Malcolm tried for the third time, however, he realized something. They’d injected him with something. Possibly multiple things.
He was probably only minutes away from passing out into a coma once again.
I need to get out of here.
He lay back for a few extra seconds, summoning energy, then he tried once more to lift his head.
He wanted to scream. Pain shot through his head, worse than any migraine he’d ever experienced. Don’t. Stop. He chanted to himself over and over again. Don’t. Stop.
His head was now fully upright, perpendicular to his body and the flat bed on which he rested. Now what? He forced his neck to each side, glancing down at the maze of tubes that were inserted into different parts of his body. He had no idea what they did or what human bodily function they were intended to perform. Some seemed empty — maybe those were waste tubes?
Others had clear liquids running through them, and a few had deep crimson liquid coursing through them.
He didn’t have much choice. He could still only move his head, and he didn’t have the luxury to wait around for more of his body to wake up. He looked down and to his right, noticing a small clear tube that had been inserted into the soft skin underneath his upper arm, just below his shoulder.
If I can reach that…
He struggled again, forcing his head forward and down. A little more…
His lips were on the tube now, but there was no way his teeth were going to reach that far. He needed a little more. Millimeters more.
Come on, Malcolm. He willed himself to push forward again. The pain was unbearable, his face no doubt bright red.
Just a few millimeters more. It had to be.
Don’t. Stop.
He exhaled the last of the air that was in his lungs, and his face shot forward just enough. He could feel the cold steel of the IV line’s end hit his mouth, and he clamped down. He didn’t care what he yanked out, as long as he disconnected something.
Yes!
He bit down as hard as he could with his teeth as his head forced itself back down and onto the pillow. He felt a dull throb in his shoulder, but he didn’t move. He waited a moment, letting his body regroup. Finally, he lifted his tongue up and felt for his prize.
It was there, cold steel and clear plastic tubing. It bumped up against his mouth as it fell, and he was ecstatic.
He’d done it.
He could see the plastic tube out of the corner of his eye, disappearing off the side of the bed and around the room somewhere, its contents no longer able to enter Malcolm’s body.
He smiled — or what he thought was a smile — and closed his eyes again.
Only a matter of time…
He waited for the drug’s effects to wear off; waited for the prickling line of needles to expand their reach, overtaking his body with the beautiful gift of motion. Any moment now, and he’d be able to move again.
What was that?
He felt something, or rather, understood something. It wasn’t a feeling as much as a sort of knowing. His body was crashing, falling again. He felt the line of needles receding, going back down into the surface of his bo
dy.
No!
Just a little more time.
But it was not to be. Malcolm’s body was going to sleep again. He could do nothing but watch, helpless, as his eyes closed out the world around him. He could hear his breathing, feel the rising and falling of his chest, but it was odd, as if it were not his own body that was controlling it.
To be sure, he tried lifting his head again. Nothing.
He couldn’t cry out, couldn’t make a sound. His mind was shutting down, sending him to sleep once again, and he couldn’t think…
21
“Any results yet?” Dr. Torres was beginning to get frustrated as she waited for her assistant, Charlie, to return to her table with the results of the latest tests they’d been putting the sample through.
“Not yet,” Charlie muttered under his breath. They’d put the sample through a battering ram of tests — the standard lab-required composition, attributes, and plausible generation tests, as well as a few others Dr. Torres ordered hours ago. Charlie was currently finishing with the last of these, a test to determine any possible effects external forces might have on the sample.
Charlie returned to the table carrying a petri dish with a swab of the sample inside. Moving the sample from an observation plate to the dish made prescribing tests much easier.
“I don’t understand why you won’t just send an email to Levels 4 through 8,” Charlie said as he set the dish down on the table in front of Dr. Torres. “What can possibly go wrong by getting more people involved?”
Dr. Torres almost didn’t respond, but as she grabbed the dish, she turned to face her assistant. “Come on, Charlie, you know the rules. This one isn’t company sanctioned, so there’s no way we’re doing that.”
“Yeah, but don’t they encourage us to take on private jobs?”
“They do, but only if they can maintain the standpoint of plausible deniability for any of their scientists’ clients’ work,” Dr. Torres answered.
Charlie frowned. “Seems like a backwards way of doing business, in my opinion.”
Dr. Torres sighed. “Well, in my opinion, it seems like a good way for them to stay out of trouble. You and I both know that there’s enough non-sanctioned work going on here that’s ended in all but disaster. One of those leaks, and we’ve got incriminating evidence on our hands. For all of us.” Dr. Torres gave Charlie a look that was supposed to mean the conversation was over, but Charlie continued.
“I get it. The company won’t take credit for anything unless it ends in dollar signs for them.”
“Welcome to America, Charlie.”
Charlie let the insult slide. He had been raised in Idaho, and had lived in just about every small town anyone from Idaho had ever heard of. Hope, Irwin, Twin Falls, and his parents now lived in Mud Lake. Now that he worked in Twin Falls, it seemed like Charlie was going to spend the rest of his life inside the borders of his home state.
He’d grown up like most normal American boys. Street hockey in the summer, pond hockey in the winter, with other random sports thrown in during the off-season. He was of average build, not tall but not short either, making him an ideal candidate to fill out a team roster for just about any sport he tried out for.
Much to his father’s dismay, however, sports were not Charlie’s strong suit. Before football practice and after school during the fall semesters, Charlie spent his time in the science club at his local high school. What his parents thought — and hoped — would be a temporary, fleeting interest, turned out to be a career choice for the young man. He enrolled in night classes at the local university while only a junior in high school, convincing his parents that it would be good for his future. While it was certainly useful later in life, the truth of the matter was that Charlie was actually just interested in studying robotics, something his local high school did not have a program for.
He ditched the robotics studies after his first semester in college, opting instead to study microbiology. After graduating summa cum laude, he was quickly tapped for an internship at a local clinical research firm, then a pharmaceutical company, and finally as an assistant to Dr. Torres.
Charlie enjoyed the job; Dr. Torres was a good boss, and she treated him appropriately — hard enough that he was challenged to continue learning, but friendly enough that he knew she still cared about his education. It was because of this relationship, and Dr. Torres’ leadership, that he was able to succeed in the role while gaining worldly experience at the firm. As even-keeled and mild-tempered as he was, however, it was on nights like these that Charlie wished he were working somewhere else.
Dr. Torres just wouldn’t stop. They’d been at it for over three hours straight now, with no end in sight. He enjoyed discovering and learning just like any other scientist, but he also enjoyed sleep. Furthermore, he could already feel himself growing hungry again.
“Hey, boss, it’s getting late,” Charlie said. He hated to play that card, but he was long past his ability to be effective.
“Huh?” Dr. Torres said softly as she stared down at the sample and the associated report. “Oh, right, I guess it is getting a little late.”
She looked at her watch.
10:57 PM.
She pushed her glasses back onto her nose and straightened the pile of papers in front of her as she stood up from the table. “Are you heading out?”
Charlie had worked with Dr. Torres long enough to know what the question really meant. Had enough? Can’t handle the grind of real science?
He had also worked with her long enough to know how to handle the situation. “Yeah, exactly.” He laughed. “We’ve done every test in the book and all the reports are there in front of you. I’m happy to stay and read them to you, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got it covered on your own.” He grinned, a half-smile from the left side of his mouth. It was enough to tell Dr. Torres that he was seriously tired, but not serious enough to tell her that he didn’t care. “Plus, you know that I’m only an email away.”
“You’re right. I guess I should be getting some sleep sometime tonight as well. Let me finish up here, and I’ll be on my way out, too.”
Charlie left, and Dr. Torres found herself alone in the sprawling laboratory. It was a state-of-the-art facility, one that she was constantly amazed with. It had everything she could possibly conceive of that she might need for her research, as well as gadgets, tools, and instruments that she could only guess were used by others in the building.
The company they worked for had been around for over forty years, and from stories she’d heard, it had been successful from day one. Operating in the black each and every fiscal year since, she was not surprised that the company spared no expense for its top-notch scientists.
Dr. Torres herself was a fantastic scientist, and she knew it. But working here, during the few times she was able to work side-by-side with other employees, she felt as though she were somewhere in the middle of the pack as far as qualifications went. There were scientists working here she had never met, who had been published in every month of every trade journal she subscribed to. There were also scientists who had spoken at every conference she had ever heard of.
Most of all, however, Dr. Torres enjoyed her position in the company. While she was certainly not the most tenured, nor the most esteemed scientist in the building, she knew that the only way she could improve was by challenging herself. World renowned or not, working somewhere where you were only a number among many other numbers caused you to strive for more than you thought you were capable of. Most days, Dr. Torres felt this way. It was the reason she had come so far in her career, and it was the reason she was not slowing down yet.
She grabbed a stack of papers and the small petri dish from the table and carried them down the hall to her office. Charlie had affixed a lid on the Petri dish and taped it shut, complete with a label signifying what the sample contained.
Unknown s.248 — sample 248.
The viral/bacterial infection that she’d been sent to study.
Her email application was still front and center on the screen. She clicked on the last email she’d received and replied.
>To: Harvey ‘Ben’ Bennett
>From: Diana Torres
>Subject: Re:
>Body: I think we’ve figured part of this out. report attached; p-protected. use my bdate with his first name.
miss you. are you ok?
She read through the email to make sure it included the attachment and the information he would need. She was still surprised by the recipient, though not as overwhelmed as she had been when she’d first heard from him.
It must be more than ten years, she thought. She couldn’t actually remember the last time they’d spoken on the phone. Still, it was amazing to hear from him. These weren’t exactly the best of circumstances, but she knew that if he was contacting her, it must be something important.
Just then, she heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Was Charlie coming back?
No, she thought, Charlie was wearing sneakers all day. These footsteps were clearly made by either a heeled woman’s shoe or a man’s dress shoe. Her ears perked up as she listened to the sound, now growing louder.
It lacked the purposeful quickness of a woman in high heels, and it seemed heavier. Who was visiting her?
She knew for a fact that no one else on her floor was currently in. After three or four trips to and from the lab on the fourth level, she could tell in a quick glance up and down the hallway that there were no other lights on besides her own.
The footsteps continued toward her open door. She stood up from the computer, forgetting about the email for a moment and turning toward the door.