by Rena Marks
Robyn’s voice was quiet. “But I’ll have super strength. And if we use Steele’s, quick connecting intelligence. How long before I die?”
“Robyn, you can’t seriously be contemplating this?”
“They’ll die. They don’t deserve that, not after what we’ve done to them. They would never have been revived if I hadn’t hacked into enough files for us to figure out how.” Now she knew it was more dumb luck than anything else.
“You’re talking about death, Robyn. Yours.”
Robyn shrugged. “I know. I’m not trying to make myself out to be the sacrificial lamb, trust me. I’m terrified. But it’s my life…versus theirs. There are many more of them than me. And when I die I’m taking the controversial knowledge of creating life with me. No one will be able to do this to another person.”
Amanda inhaled deeply. “I can’t let you do this.”
Robyn clasped her hands with hers. “Honey, you don’t have a choice. I didn’t want to share this with you yet, and I don’t want to scare you. But this is important. You and I…we’ve been scheduled for an accident once we visit the outer worlds. You can either choose to inject me safely and prolong my life as long as possible, or you run the risk of me attempting it myself and killing myself instantly. Unnecessarily. I’m going to die, and I know that. So let me accomplish something first. Let me save them, prepare them for outside life, and destroy the files.”
Amanda looked indecisive, and then her face crumpled with the effort of not crying. “It won’t take effect right away. The trick is to inject a minute amount that your body won’t fight. Instead, the sample will replicate itself once immersed. But in order to do so, it needs to feed off your blood, which will kill you eventually. A timeline? Perhaps…a week. Two. I have no real idea. Plus, you’ll be active. Will that make it work faster? It’s an untested theory, Robyn.”
“A week is long enough to expose the lab and get the Xeno Sapiens safely out of here.”
“It will take two of us. Two of us to be able to revive the others once we’re safe…get them established and set them up for life away from the island.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Now you know how I felt. And since we’ve pretty much made up our minds, let’s not repeat the entire conversation. Let’s just move forward and let the other do as they choose.”
Robyn took a deep breath. “Agreed.”
Amanda moved to the lab samples. “I’ll use Steele’s sample on you. He’ll give you faster intelligence and added strength, though it won’t be anywhere near Beast’s. Perhaps we should get his?” She shook her head. “No. There’s no time, and Steele’s is available. I’ll inject it directly into the skull, your brain will adapt faster. My sample will take longer to activate, as I’ll inject mine into the blood supply instead of the brain. An estimation would be that it would take a couple weeks to begin to work on me. Lay down, and I’ll get a strong enough needle to penetrate the cranium.” Amanda moved quickly, shaving the smallest patch of hair from the injection site and scrubbing the scalp. She handed Robyn a mask. “This is gas to knock you out. You’ll be under for about five minutes, long enough for me to guide the needle in and inject the drop of hormone. When you wake, I’ll say you just wanted a nap. Try to remember that story. You’ll have a headache, so that’ll help with the believability. Also remember that I’ll avoid you as much as possible, since I’ll be sick for about a week.”
Robyn nodded, and breathed deeply when the gas mask was placed over her mouth and nose.
Chapter Eleven
She woke to a layer of heavy frustration in the air. It was easy to lay low. Her head pounded with a headache at the injection site.
“How is she?” Meade snapped.
“Just a migraine,” she said, wincing. She had no idea he was in the room.
He spoke to Sabin. “Does she have the virus?”
Dr. Sabin went to the small sink and washed his hands. “No. She doesn’t have the same thing Dr. Becker has, or the decontamination unit would have rejected her presence this morning. She should be fine tomorrow.”
“We can still move forward…” Meade said.
Dr. Sabin shook his head. “If Dr. Becker is sick, there might be other personnel infected.”
“It’s still scheduled for tomorrow,” Meade barked, walking away. “We don’t have a week to waste.”
Robyn turned over to sleep off her migraine, barely noticing when they shut out the light and left. For now, there was nothing else she could do.
When she awoke the next day, plans had changed. Not only was Amanda sick, but when they tried to cross the decontamination unit, four other people had been rejected as possible carriers of the same virus that attacked Amanda.
Much to Meade’s frustration, the deaths were rescheduled for one week later. In the meantime, the virus spread, and Robyn got busy while so many lay low.
The hardest part of the week was pretending to not burst with strength and vitality whenever a lab coat was around. When she was alone, though, all hell broke loose.
Being a mimic of a Xeno Sapien was amazing. Her body felt alive and invincible. Her mind whirred, like someone had flipped a switch and dumped the darkened fog from her head. Everything computed so much more cleanly. She saw answers instantly.
In the middle of the night, she gloved her hands and climbed the elevator cables. Her heart didn’t even pound with the exertion. She would never have accomplished it with her human strength. It took about a half hour, but she discovered the secret floor of the elevator led all the way to the surface, to a small version of a deserted lab on top of the island. A clean version that contained none of the dirty secrets from below. She realized it was this mimic of the lab that they intended to pass off one day as the actual lab. She got to work, rebuilding their life support pods to run on solar power instead of electricity. She built a shield system for the island, using technology for the floating cities. Naturally one day they would discover where they were and would send sharpshooters. The shields would not only deflect laser light, but would reflect on the barrier so the flying crafts couldn’t see through to shoot.
She redirected the generators to be used as a backup system for the shields because she was sure that was the first thing they’d do was cut the power. The life support pods she wouldn’t have to worry about, not with their solar reserve tanks. The city could be in blackout for a week or two, and the pods would be fine as long as they were unopened. It definitely wouldn’t take two weeks to wake everyone inside.
She hauled countless loads to the surface, food, medicines, supplies. The supplies shouldn’t be missed, they had enough suites she could raid that no one would notice unless they randomly checked rooms on the other levels. But with the heavy loads, she couldn’t continue climbing the cables. She had to use the elevator. Sometimes she could get away with using it in the dead of night, but it was risky. If one person woke up and wanted to visit another level, and there was a half hour wait for the elevator, it was a huge indication that it was being used to reach the surface. Plus there was the load time; the time it took to load the elevator and unload up top. The half hour it took to send the elevator back down when it was empty.
It was stressful, to say the least.
After a couple of days, she took a more aggressive approach. She gassed the recycled air units for the upper levels. It was a risky move. Too much gas and everyone would be groggy the next day. Too much gas, and it would seep into the lower laboratory. If everyone was groggy at the same time, they’d suspect something was up. But she could get two, possibly three days where they’d excuse the deep sleep as their bodies trying to fight the illness making rounds. It helped that no one was used to being sick. Disease and sickness had been eradicated in the upper ground. But they were below the depths of the ocean, and it was impossible to keep recycled air clean. No, in this case, they’d have to do a complete evacuation to the surface, a purge of the air of the lower labs, decontaminate, and a blast of fresh
air to begin the recycle process over.
Meade was too pressed for time for that. He’d plunge ahead through sickness and health to get to his goal. And predicting his shortfalls worked wonders for her.
Those were simply her nights. During her days, she became his best friend.
She contacted him via comm vision. He answered the call from his personal quarters while she was in the Level One lab.
“Yes. What is it?” His eyes looked swollen and bleary from either the virus or the effects of the gas. She fought against grinning.
“I have a proposal for you. I know your frustration in shutting down the experiment and beginning anew is delayed due to lack of available personnel. I have another proposal.” Bastard had made his intent clear when she’d had her migraine.
“Yes?”
“While I can’t continue with that experiment, since I’m one of the few still healthy thanks to my staying inside Level One. I can begin to revive other test subjects.”
There was a suspicious silence on Meade’s end.
“Why would you do that?”
“It will save us this week’s delay later down the road. Now, to be fair, the revivals won’t be as successful as if I had Amanda and a team to help me. I imagine I’ll have at least one or two safe revivals per batch and will lose the rest. It will be an expensive loss, I know. But if no one knows the exact number of possible revivals compared to the losses…”
Meade sat straight up in his chair. “The government will pay us for revivals. They won’t penalize for the losses because they do not count the unrevived bodies as a loss. As long as there are no bodies as proof.”
“So if on my own, I can revive at least one and…incinerate the others, no one’s the wiser?”
He grew suspicious again. “Why are you willing to do this?”
“I’m healthy. I’m bored. No one is available to help, and quite frankly, I’d like to see how far I’ve advanced. Can I process a revival on my own, using my own self developed computer data and lack of personnel? I think it goes a long way to streamlining the process so we can be more efficient if more equipment than personnel can be utilized. Unfortunately it’s trial and error, and I’d rather no one was around to see the error portion.”
“You developed another program?”
“Yes. I named her Stella. With enough experience in her banks, she’ll be able to hopefully handle revivals autonomously one day.”
She could see when it made sense to him. He thought it was her ego wanting to prove her worth with the program. He thought she was making an effort to prove herself invaluable and thus save her life in the end.
He thought he would use her to establish a machine operated system, much like the self repairing program she’d created for law enforcement. Then, of course he would kill her.
He smiled thinly. “I want to be informed of each success and loss. No bullshitting around. Nothing in writing. Call me each day.”
“I can do that. I’ll give you each revival’s subject number. How many were lost. The revival subjects that are successful, I’ll place in the medical coma to wait for the next phase of personnel. You’ll be the only one aware of their revival as opposed to those who are unrevived.”
He nodded, and she realized she’d just appealed to his own ego.
He was the only one—besides her—with the power to know who was alive and who was in a “waiting” coma. He would kill her and take credit for all the successes. But he didn’t think she knew.
Her next call was to Amanda. But instead of calling her, she texted a temporary message that would delete from the servers.
Go to my suite. My bedroom. Door swipe has been switched to recognize your print.
It took a few minutes before Amanda showed up on the screen. She looked terrible, bleary-eyed and pale.
“Why am I here?” Her voice was nasally, and she sounded miserable.
“Because they’re watching you inside your suite. But since they know I’m staying in Level One, they won’t bother looking in mine. As a precaution, I have you in the bedroom away from the main living area camera.”
“They may have watched me leave my suite.”
“I looped the feed to show you open the door, look out, and come right back in. As if you heard a noise.”
In the background, Amanda sneezed. “Sorry about that. Go on.”
“I have a lot set up now.” She proceeded to give her the details of what she was accomplishing. “Before you sleep at night, wet a towel and roll it under your front door. Try to be a little inconspicuous about it. I’ll turn off the recycled air to your room. It’ll grow stale, but I’ll monitor the oxygen levels to make sure there’s enough for the night. That’ll keep as much gas from you as possible.”
Amanda nodded.
“If we can get you healthy quicker, we can get you back into Level One without the rest of the lab coats running around here. Hopefully you’ll be able to handle Esson Four while I focus on the revivals. I want to secretly record them for our records.”
“How is the Esson Four group?”
“Growing more impatient by the day.”
“I can imagine. They’re wondering what’s up.”
“Yes. And I don’t dare tell them everything.”
* * * * *
With the help of some re-programming of the computer, Amanda was able to clear the decontamination unit within a day. She wasn’t yet over the virus, but the worst thing that would happen is she would contaminate the Xeno Sapiens. No one worried about that since they’d been vaccinated. But it helped to have her available to deal with their growing aggression.
Within a week, she knew it wouldn’t be long before Meade would be cleared to re-enter the lab. She’d been calling him every day with the stats and each day he sounded stronger.
“Yes?”
“Three successful last night. Seven, not.”
“The ratio is getting better.” He looked thoughtful as he placed his elbows on the desk and tapped his temples.
“Yes. Considering the first three attempts I tried were all zero revival rates, until I got that first one on the fourth try.”
“Oddly enough, when you increased the numbers to trying to revive a dozen at a time, you struck gold.”
“It appears I work better under pressure.”
“How many females?”
Robyn gritted her teeth. He asked the same question over and over. And she knew why he wanted females. He was intent on pairing them off with as many males as possible. “Seven successful revivals are female.”
“Go ahead and stop the medication keeping the eighteen successful unconscious. We’ll surprise the other doctors. I’m sure I’ll be able to clear the decontamination unit tonight.”
Time was up.
“I will wake them,” she agreed, and disconnected the call.
And now she knew she was alive. This time, she felt the chilled tentacles clutching, grabbing, reaching and squeezing the pit of her belly. This was the warning she should have paid attention to that one fateful day of death.
From behind the screen, Amanda stepped out. “This is it,” she whispered.
She felt it too.
“Yes.”
“I know you’ve been too busy to deal with Esson Four.” As she spoke, Amanda shined a small light into her eyes. “Your pupils are slowing down.”
“I feel it catching up to me. It’s probably a good thing that we’re done.”
“More so than you realize. Esson Four has been told we were the ones who revived them based on the experiment. They wanted to kill any trust before it could begin. I tried to explain to Renegade that the scientists are in charge, but he was understandably hurt at our deception.”
Robyn felt her jaw drop. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“I wish.” Amanda looked down at her feet. “I know Steele was already suspicious about everything. This seemed to verify his suspicions.”
“I’ll try to talk to them. It may be my last cha
nce. If I can smooth things over just a bit, they’ll follow you easier.”
She’d slipped up. She watched Amanda’s eyes grow round. “Me? What do you mean?”
“Sorry. I meant us. But if I’m distracted doing something else, I’ll need to rely on you to take them to the surface. I’ll come along later.”
It was what Amanda needed to hear. She nodded, relieved. But Robyn had no intention of heading to the surface. She needed to gas the levels here, and make sure they couldn’t be followed.
Plus, her strength was gone. She’d woken this morning and realized she was dragging ass.
Robyn’s fingers continued to fly across the screen. “Oh, God.”
“What?”
“They’re scheduling Esson Four for termination tomorrow. So Meade will surprise the others with the revivals tonight, and get rid of the original experimental group tomorrow.”
“Robyn,” Amanda said suddenly. “I haven’t visited Beast and Steele. But Renegade and Pax are acting different. It goes beyond what they’ve been told.”
Robyn pulled up their emotional brain waves. “Aggression. In both subjects.” She pulled up Beast and Steele. “Same thing. They’re up to something, right under our noses.”
“We haven’t been paying attention. We’re too busy trying not to get too close, to avoid the pain of watching their deaths again.”
That was true. But good lord, there was only two of them against so many.
Robyn pulled up the computer stats in their brain. “They’ve accessed the cyborg instructions in the implants. While Esson Four sleeps, they’re being programmed. That’s why we didn’t notice testosterone levels. Their aggression isn’t chemical.”
“Shit. Can you undo it?”
“No. And after the eighteen are awakened, we need to get them all out of the building tonight.”
“Then what?”
“As Eve, I’ll start the live streaming. The world will watch as Crested Ute is exposed, but these guys will never know it. I’ve blocked all other communication to the outside world. Once we’re free, we’ll allow them to know they’re free to leave the underground labs—to their fate above ground, of course.”