She started walking, and I followed her back out into the main room. The koi pond reflected the early morning sun, and the lights behind the waterfall had been turned a burnt orange color. The room was even more stunning this morning then it had been in the rain yesterday afternoon. May led me to a table that was set up by the floor to ceiling windows.
As I approached, a man rose from the only other seat and moved towards us. May took that as a signal and turned to leave without saying another word. The man moved forward with grace. He had a willowy build and was easily a foot and a half taller than me. He gave off an air of superiority, but since all of this was his I guess that was to be expected. His smile was warm and caring, but his eyes were constantly evaluating me and the room around us. What actually drove this man, the smile, or his calculating nature? I was about to find out.
“It’s nice to meet you, Samantha.” He extended his hand for me to shake. “I’m Dr. Marcom.”
Funny how no one else had used his name, and he gave it to me freely in the first ten seconds of us meeting. I realized I had been standing there for a second without moving, so I quickly grabbed his hand. “So I have you to thank for my freedom.”
Hey, there was no reason that I couldn’t play nice. It was harder to mend bridges then it was to burn them. Until I knew exactly what was going on it paid to keep things friendly.
He waved a hand as if getting me out of jail was of no consequence, and maybe to him it wasn’t. “Please, join me for breakfast.” He motioned to the table and the chair that was waiting for me there. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you.” He didn’t wait to see if I was going to follow his instructions he just turned and went back towards his own chair.
Looking over the mini buffet, I filled my plate with a few items that looked too good to pass up, mainly sweets. Dr. Marcom looked over at me but didn’t say anything about my lack of selecting any real food. His eyes only widened slightly at the sight of the doughnut, cinnamon roll, and biscuit covered in honey that had found its way onto my plate. Maybe he just understood how all of this was a little disconcerting and that when I felt uncomfortable, the sweets helped me. He gave me a weak smile once it became apparent that I was only nibbling at my food. He pushed his own plate away, clearly ready to start discussing why he had brought me here.
“Samantha, I’m sorry for the way all of this has happened. I want you to know that we will be able to get the blame shifted from you to another suspect. Unfortunately, we can’t tell the police what really happened, I hope you can understand that.”
What was he asking me to understand? That I was being blamed for murders that I hadn’t committed, or that he wanted me to lie to the police about everything that happened. “I’m not really sure that I do understand. That man, Landon, is a monster and deserves whatever the police have in store for him.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do at all, Miss Ripley.” The doctor turned to face me, favoring me with a look that said I should know my place in all of this. “You see, the matter has already been resolved internally.”
“What in the fuck does that mean?” Nothing was resolved until the bastard that killed Lenny was in jail. There was no way I was going to just let this get swept under the rug.
He motioned to the screen, and I watched as Landon’s body shook and he hit the ground. The doctor walked out of the room, and two orderlies came in and loaded Landon’s body into a bag. The camera followed them through the facility until they came into a room with a large furnace. One of the men opened the door, and they stuffed Landon’s body inside. The same man closed the door to the furnace and then the camera feed stopped.
I stood up backing away from the table. The glasses rattled on the surface as my leg bumped the edge of the table in my haste to get away. My chair clattered to the ground behind me, and a little scream escaped from my throat. I was trapped in the room with a madman. I had to get out of here. “You killed him?” I took a few steps further away as Dr. Marcom stood up.
“I thought you wanted him to get what he deserves?” He turned to face me and held his hands out in a placating gesture. “Do you disagree with the outcome?”
I didn’t really, but the fact that the doctor killed him bothered me. He just killed him in cold blood, and for what? To keep whatever he was working on a secret? Taking a life so callously didn’t make him much better than Landon.
“You can’t just kill people?” Was all I managed to mumble out.
“In fact, I can,” he said, rising from the table and taking a step closer to me. “Now please come sit back down. We have a lot to discuss.” He bent to pick up my chair and then placed it back where it had been before returning to his own seat.
I was in over my head. I could see that clearly for the first time. It had been a mistake to come here despite whatever charges I might have been facing with the police. “I don’t want anything else from you.” I turned and ran back towards the door. Two men moved in from the lobby blocking my way. They wore matching black suits and sunglasses. Each of them had a comm unit on their right ear. Even if I managed to get past these two, I had a feeling there were more waiting outside of the door.
Reason wasn’t controlling my need to get out of the room any longer, it was pure fear drenched in adrenaline. I charged the two men slamming my shoulder into one. As I bounced off of his heavier frame, I kicked out at the other man. I must have caught something sensitive because he doubled over. I grabbed his jacket and tossed him into the other security guard, before opening the door to the lobby.
Something hard slammed into my belly as I ran into the room. Pain flooded into my chest, what in the hell had I been hit with? I must have passed out for a moment because the next thing I knew, I was on the floor with no idea on how I had gotten there. Spit bubbled at the corners of my lips, and it was hard to breathe.
Two arms slid under my shoulders, and I was lifted partially into the air and then dragged back into the penthouse. Sooner than I would have liked, I found myself back in my chair looking out over the city. Dr. Marcom started to talk, but I couldn’t turn my head to look at him.
“I wish this would have gone differently. I had a nice little speech planned out with an offer for employment. I hoped that once you saw the importance of what we were doing, you’d understand.”
His face came into view as he knelt before me. The doctor picked up one of my hands and held it in both of his. For the first time, I saw emotion in his eyes and it scared the shit out of me.
“I think you might be the key to unlocking some of our future research. I want to let you know how much I respect you for the sacrifices you are about to make. The initial transformation can be somewhat painful, but I have no doubt that you will come out of it on top.”
He replaced my hand on my lap and stood up. I tried to scream out, but only a whimper and a little bit of drool escaped my lips. My body still wouldn’t move. What in the hell had they done to me? Dr. Marcom sat down and picked a file up from his stack of papers. He started to read pausing intermittently to take a bite of his breakfast.
“Get her on the transport and prepped for surgery. I’ll be back to the facility this afternoon.”
“Yes, sir,” someone said from behind me.
This time they didn’t wait on ceremony. The man that picked me up slung me over his shoulder and headed for the door. My limbs flopped around still unwilling to follow any commands. This was it, I'd made a couple of bad decisions, and now I was going to die for them. I should have stuck to the fucking plan. Head down, until I got off this damn planet. Jesus, it wasn’t really going to end like this, was it?
Chapter 13
Dr. Marcom
“Is the patient ready?”
“Yes, Dr. Marcom.”
“I’m heading down now.”
It was finally time to start Subject Thirty’s surgery. She had already proven to be a trying patient. Running our initial tests had been difficult eventually forcing us to restrain her. Didn’t she under
stand this was her chance to claim a place in history? I’d never understood people that didn’t aspire to be great. Aside from the power and wealth, which brought me no small amount of joy, creating something in your image was the only way to live forever.
Entering the room, I moved to the sink and started to scrub my hands. For me, this was the quiet before the storm. As my hands automatically went about the ritual, I watched the surgery play out in my mind. It was the perfect dress rehearsal. I’d only lost one patient this year during the initial surgery, a rate that exceeded my nearest peer by almost five hundred percent.
As the last of the soap was washed away by the steaming water a sense of giddiness settled over me. Today was different, Subject Thirty was different. She had an inherent ability to block some of the telepathic signals our creations could employ. If this worked out, we would have created something that exceeded the original program’s goals.
I held out my hands and a nurse came forward and dried them before slipping the first set of gloves on. The second set of gloves slid into place, and I walked over to look down on Subject Thirty. She looked just as fierce as she had while trying to escape the penthouse. Her attempts to wiggle free of the operating table were just as vain.
“It’s good to see you again, Subject Thirty.”
“My name is Samantha.” She spat.
“I’m sorry that we can’t put you under, but we can help to make you more comfortable.”
“I don’t want anything from you, you bastard!”
I patted her shoulder. “As you wish.” Turning away from the subject I looked over to my nurses. “Please prepare her head.”
The woman moved forward with authority. She hit the controls to lift and spin the bed. Subject Thirty was now facing the floor as my nurse aligned the machine next to the subject’s head and moved out of the way. The subject struggled against the restraints so hard the table started to shake.
I hit a button to lift the subject higher into the air. Now that she was hanging at eye level I waited for her to look at me before speaking. “Subject Thirty, I can’t guarantee you won’t come out of this operation without significant brain damage if you continue to struggle.”
She shook against the restraints and continued to scream obscenities. I waited for the right time and shoved the mouth guard into place. My nurse fastened the straps into place behind the subject’s head and then I lowered the table.
She was still fighting, something none of the others had done, I really liked that in a subject. She had spirit, and that would translate well into her accelerated training program. Moving to the computer’s controls, I started to plug in the sequence. She would calm down as soon as the drilling started. They always did. With the sequence in place, I activated the system and fit the machine to the side of her head. The machine adjusted itself based on the specifications I had entered and then clamped itself tightly against her skull.
The subject let out a scream. They always did that too, even when they were sedated. “Subject Thirty, try and stay still, and I promise this will be over soon.”
The subject rattled in her straps letting out a scream of fury. The machine started, and her body went rigid as the sound of the drill by her ear started. Everything was so much easier now that the machine guided the drill. I hoped Subject Thirty appreciated that no expense was being spared for her surgery.
The drill finished placing the three holes into her skull. The saw moved in and connected the dots with small cuts until a small section of the skull was removed. Now came the tricky part. I had to insert the control node directly into her brain. Once that was completed the synthetic threads from the node would move down her spinal column. It wouldn’t be today, but soon those threads would be used to connect the cybernetic implants we planned to install.
The machine guided me to the proper place to insert the node. Hitting the button to complete the installation was almost a relief. There was a soft hiss of air and then Subject Thirty started to whimper. The machine replaced the section of missing skull and glued it back into place. Once that was done, the suction released, and the machine moved back into resting position.
The fight had gone out of the subject, and that was normal after this surgery. I moved the table back towards the floor and rotated it so the subject was now lying on her back again. A smile twitched at the corners of my mouth as I thought about her potential. “All done, for now.” For the first time, I found myself feeling a sense of attachment towards one of our subjects. There was no logical reason for it and yet it was there. Placing a hand on her shoulder, I gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re the one, I know it.”
It had been two months since we started work on Subject Thirty. Twenty-seven surgeries later and all of her major bones had been enhanced, and her muscles augmented. Then we started working with the nanobots to improve healing, and last night she had been given the final injection. The virus had been supplied by my employer. I’d never been able to test the virus samples in the lab, unfortunately the entire injection was needed to produce the desired results. I was sure that was just how my employer planned it.
For the last twenty-four hours, the virus would have ravaged her system. Now she would function purely on a liquid diet. Losing the ability to eat solid food was a small sacrifice to make for all the benefits that the virus provided. Heightened strength and speed along with low-level telepathics was just the beginning. Augmenting the body with the cybernetics first tended to help them survive the transformation.
Sitting down at my desk I poured a drink and turned on the monitor. This was the moment of truth. If everything worked, Subject Thirty would be waking up shortly, and the subject would be hungry. This was the final test to see if the subject would qualify for the program or if they had to be rejected. There was just something about Subject Thirty, a quiet fierceness and a will to survive I hadn’t seen before. I truly hoped she made it.
Her body started to spasm on the floor. I watched as the shaking snapped her body back and forth. Finally, it subsided, and her eyes opened. Subject Thirty seemed to be looking directly at me, but it was more likely that her ears had sensed the small humming sound given off by the camera’s battery. She moved with a grace that wouldn’t have been possible before we had augmented her. She searched the room and then cried out in frustration when she couldn’t find a way out.
The wine I was drinking had a slight berry taste to it. I found it enjoyable compared to the bitterness of the white I had sampled night. Just the way Subject Thirty moved around the room showed me enough to know she had taken to the transformation like a newborn duck to water. I sipped contentedly at my glass as I hit the intercom button on my desk.
“What can I help you with, Dr. Marcom?”
“Please inform Mr. Reyes that we are ready to proceed with phase two.”
“I’m messaging him now, sir. Is there anything else?”
“That will be all, May. Thank you.”
I closed the comm line and sat back. The wine swirled in my stomach at the mere thought of what was going to happen next. I learned quickly during subject one’s trial that food wasn’t a good option for me on these nights. At least if the wine came back up, it would be easy to clean.
A panel slid open at the back of the room. Subject Thirty’s head turned towards the sound. She leapt to the roof of the room and clung there. It was an impressive feat, one that normally took a subject more than a month to grasp the basics of. She stayed on the roof, the only movement she made was the slight twitch of her head when the man walked into the back of her cell.
The subject’s body went on alert as the smell of the man reached her. She didn’t rush forward right away. Again she was showing control beyond what I had expected. She slowly moved across the roof, as the man called out. He had his arms out in front of himself unable to see in the dark. The man continued to take slow steps into the room as Subject Thirty crawled past him on the ceiling.
She dropped down behind the man. He didn’t turn
so she must have done it silently. The subject let him take a few more steps forward and then she struck. It happened so fast, I couldn’t tell you what move she made first. All that mattered now was that she had her arms wrapped around him, and her mouth at his throat. She stayed that way for a few heartbeats and then pulled her mouth away. The dark liquid staining her lips let me know she had fed.
Subject Thirty had passed her first test. She was ready to enter the program. Once we had her appetite under control, we could introduce her to others, and her training would begin. If she applied the same kind of tenacity to her training here as she had in flight school, I had no doubt we would achieve our goal. Now that the grim test was done, and the wine had stayed down, I found that I might be hungry after all.
I turned off the monitor and headed towards the door. Tonight the future of our project and securing the funding that we needed to stay operational seemed almost assured. Subject Thirty was the key, I just knew it.
Chapter 14
Captain Drake, A.E. 3124
“Captain, we’ve reached Jutoh.”
Good, I was starting to lose my mind just walking around this damn ship. It wasn’t something that happened to me often, but for some damn reason, I just felt like I needed to have my feet on the ground. Maybe it was all that shit from back at the club and maybe it wasn’t, but being trapped on my ship seemed like an awful lot right now.
When those feelings started to press in on me, I tried to remember what I was thankful for. Kyra was ok, all of us got off planet, and we ended the existence of a few truly evil individuals. The world was a little better for our efforts, but I was a little worse. The last thing I needed were more nightmares, I’d earned enough of those during the war.
Maze seemed to be doing a little bit better as well. She had returned to her bunk last night for the first time. As glad as I was that she was feeling better, I missed her lying next to me. It just reminded me that I needed to talk with her about our relationship. I was pretty sure I was ready for more, but how much more? Opening up to people had never really been my specialty. I wondered if she even knew how I felt. Women were intuitive right? The only problem I saw was that she was just too damned good for me.
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