Origin Z

by Tony Hartzell

  “Come in, Mr. Tanner, and have a seat.”

  President Whyte offered his hand palm up at a seat in front of his desk. He then turned to his son, who was still looking at Michael and now smiling.

  “I’ll catch up with you later, son. We’ll get you settled into your dorm and then go have lunch.”

  The young man turned to his father. “OK, Dad. I’ll go get my bags out of the car.”

  With that, he turned and walked out of the office, sparing Michael one more glance as he walked by. Michael didn’t acknowledge the look but mentally noted it.

  Michael moved over to sit in the chair, and Coach Nielson stood up and moved over to lean against a table to the right of the desk. Michael gave the coach a quick glance but made sure not to meet his eyes. He had a definite sinking feeling in his belly now.

  The president started out. “Mr. Tanner.”

  It reminded him of the agent in the Matrix movies, and it almost made him smile. But that would have been completely inappropriate.

  “We have four athletes in the hospital with varying degrees of organ damage.”

  He paused for effect, and Michael swallowed nervously.

  “Mark Vernon and Joseph Johnson have full-on kidney failure.”

  The coach spoke up loudly now. “Digger almost died, you motherfucker!”

  The president turned to Nielson. “Coach, if you can’t control yourself, I’m going to have to ask you to leave!”

  Nielson didn’t stop staring at Michael, who was staring at the floor now. But he backed up and leaned on the table again.

  Whyte looked back at him and started his questioning again. “So, do you know anything about this situation, Mr. Tanner?”

  Michael cleared his throat. “I don’t know why I would, sir.”

  Coach Nielson leaned forward again, and Whyte threw out his hand to settle him back down. “Please understand that these are very serious charges. We haven’t brought in the civilian authorities yet. But it’s inevitable if we can’t clear this up.”

  The coach spoke up again. “Your special shit almost killed some kids, Tanner! Own up, or I’ll jump over this desk and pummel your ass into a bloody puddle!”

  He was leaning over the desk by the time he finished that sentence, and Michael was scooting his chair backward.

  Whyte grabbed and wadded up Nielson’s shirt cloth in his fist. “If you can’t sit down and shut up, I’ll kick you out of my office!”

  Nielson went back to the chair by the window and sat down.

  Whyte watched him until he settled in. “OK, Mr. Tanner. What do you know about what made these athletes sick?”

  Michael’s mind was racing. He took a visible breath to settle himself down.

  Nielson shifted in his seat and said into his knuckles, trying to stifle his commentary, “Here it comes.”

  Michael looked at him and had an epiphany. “Coach Nielson, do you have any knowledge of your athletes using steroids?”

  Nielson was the one who shifted nervously now. “This isn’t about me, shithead!”

  “You should take that as a yes, President Whyte.”

  Nielson shifted forward in his seat. “That was not a yes, you little gay prick!”

  Whyte stood up, pointed at the office door, and demanded, “Out!”

  Nielson stood up and walked slowly toward the door, staring down Michael as he went. Michael, now a little more confident, stared right back.

  After Nielson closed the door behind him, Whyte turned his ire back on Michael. “What have you done? If this gets out, we’ll be ruined! What am I going to tell these kids’ parents?”

  Michael was definitely more confident now. Whyte had all but admitted that he had knowledge of the policy just by the way he had made the statement. He was worried, and Michael wasn’t going to give up this opportunity to take advantage. “I didn’t make them inject steroids, sir. I’m a scientist. If we didn’t keep pushing the envelope, then we couldn’t discover new things.”

  Whyte stood up again and leaned forward on his fists. “Are you saying that you are experimenting on my kids?”

  Michael shrugged. “Nothing that a lot of important people weren’t aware was happening. I’m sure if there is a civilian investigation, many of the athletes you speak of will be telling way more truth than you would like.”

  It was time for Whyte to squirm now. After ruminating for thirty seconds, which felt like an hour to Michael, he said, “This comes to an end, Mr. Tanner. No more steroids will be provided to the athletes. You will keep your head down and leave this university quietly in December. There will also be no word of this outside this room. The affected students will be given compensation for their silence. Is that fully understood and agreed upon?”

  Michael stood up and held out his hand as if to shake on it, but Whyte just stared at him. “Get out of my office, and stay out of my sight!”

  With that, he turned and strode out of the office, leaving the door open. When he got to the door of the outer office, one of the campus cops jumped up and stood in his way.

  Whyte shouted out, “Let him go.”

  Michael waited until the cop moved out of his way before continuing. Michael shot him the finger as he walked by.

  _______

  Several depression-filled days after the meeting in the university president’s office, Michael got a visit from two different people about very different subjects.

  The university president’s freshman son came to see him about a date, and a very intimidating man named Reed came to see him about a job offer. As scary as he was, the offer was too good to pass up.

  Reed told him he would work at a pharmaceutical company called Bio-Sure.

  Things were looking up after all.

  BIO-SURE

  2015

  The chimpanzee named Leonidas bared his teeth and grunted aggressively. His muscles engorged, and the veins on his body stood out like those of a muscle-bound weightlifter.

  Five German shepherd dogs that were surrounding him took a couple of hesitant steps forward. They were growling and had their own teeth bared. One of the five lunged and snapped at the chimp’s arm, but Leonidas was too quick. He pulled his arm back and shot forward with the other hand and smacked the dog on top of the head. The open-hand slap knocked it to the floor. Dogs are known for their lightning-quick reflexes, but the shepherd had no chance to even flinch, much less react. The dog yelped and rolled back to his feet and shook his head to clear the bees that were obviously buzzing away in his head from the blow.

  Two of the dogs lunged at the same time and a third just after them. The chimp grabbed the first by the neck, and there was a yelp and crunching sound as the chimp folded him in half. The second bit into his right forearm, and the third sank his teeth into the left thigh. Leonidas grunted in anger, not pain. The bites seemed to have no painful effect on him. He grabbed the dog on his arm first and managed to throw him against the trunk of the habitat’s only tree. The dog on his leg got a punch to the head as the fourth lunged for his left arm. He avoided the bite as he punched the dog attached to his thigh again.

  The doctors were looking on, and three of them were smiling broadly, obviously excited. Dr. Abraham turned to the man next to him and commented, “Leonidas doesn’t even notice the bites, and they’re hardly bleeding! Dr. Lisandro, your Spartan virus is a great success.”

  The man next to him gave a broad smile. But the woman doctor he was speaking to was shaking in anger and had tears in her eyes.

  The remaining doctor had an impassive look on his face. Business was business, after all.

  Dr. Lisandro turned to Dr. Abraham. “Eli, can’t we test this some other way?”

  He turned to the small black woman. “You should be excited, Dr. Lisandro. This is the culmination of years of your research.”

  She looked at him with tears
welling in her eyes. “This is not what it was meant to do! It’s about healing, not destroying!”

  Dr. Abraham turned to her with an angry stare. “You had to know what this would lead to, Dr. Lisandro. Our armed forces are an important asset. Don’t you think that it’s important to make sure our work is effective?”

  She glanced at the other doctors and then back to Dr. Abraham. “We could test this in a different way!”

  She turned and looked at the scene in the habitat as Leonidas was standing over the last dog’s body and beating his chest while screaming his victory to all that could hear. The doctor who had smiled turned back and visibly shook with pleasure as he exclaimed to Dr. Abraham, “We’re ready to take this to the next level!”

  Dr. Abraham smirked and looked at Teeny. She looked back at him and then stared at each of her fellow colleagues again. They just gave her eyebrow shrugs. She would get no support from them. She then turned and walked away down the hallway.

  Dr. Abraham and the smiling Michael Tanner gave each other knowing looks. Looks that said they would have to deal with that situation eventually. Michael started to comment, but Dr. Abraham put up his hand to stop him. The other doctor took one last look into the habitat to see Leonidas in the top of the habitat tree eating mangos. Then he gave a nod to Dr. Abraham and a cursory glance to Michael before turning and walking away down the hallway toward the pathology lab.

  _______

  The next morning Dr. Abraham sat at his desk poring over files. His assistant, Michael, knocked lightly and entered without being asked. Eli looked up from his desk at his friend and beamed. “The Spartan virus is miraculous, Michael! All of Leonidas’s injuries were closed within an hour!”

  Michael returned his enthusiastic smile. “My enhancement drugs worked perfectly, Eli! Leonidas dispatched those dogs without breaking a sweat! He was enhanced for another nine hours! When we put him in another threatening situation today, his enhancements returned. I believe these enhancements will be able to return for seventy-two hours or more before he will need a booster. And there were minimal side effects from the virus that we used to introduce Spartan. His injuries have all but completely healed in eighteen hours. He was scratching off the scabs today, and there is fully formed pink skin beneath.”

  Michael stepped forward and held a file toward Eli. “Here are the results from his blood work. There are no signs of internal damage from the steroids, either.”

  Eli took the file and opened it. “Excellent.”

  There was a long silence as Dr. Abraham scanned the file. Michael broke the silence by blurting, “So are we going to move to the next phase?”

  Dr. Abraham looked up from the file with a serious expression. “We should, but we will have to tread very lightly for a while. I should have known better than to let her see the display. There will definitely be opposition. Human trials will have to be kept within our small circle.”

  Michael frowned. “What are we going to do about her?”

  Eli frowned back at him and admonished, “I don’t like your implication, Michael. We need her to continue to move forward with this project. There are still many discoveries to be found before we are done. If she stops cooperating now, we will not be able to finish. We need to ensure we can reproduce the effects in humans. After monitoring Leonidas for a few more days, I’ll talk to Major Sanchez about our volunteers.”

  Eli stopped and looked at his friend. “Make sure you get copies of everything. Once we have the final product, I’ll make sure that the original files are corrupted. It’ll take years for them to get back to where we are now. And I plan on being on my own yacht sipping mojitos before they realize we’re gone. We’ll decide what to do with Teeny when the time is right.”

  O’REILLY

  O’Reilly caught up with Private Laudner and snuck up behind him. He flicked Laudner’s right ear and slipped around to his left to smack him on the belly when he turned that way.

  Laudner grunted. “What the fuck, O’Reilly!”

  O’Reilly had already assumed the Marquess of Queensberry stance. “You’re going to have to be more on the ball than that if you’re going to be on my team, Laud-nerd.”

  “What, are you in high school, prick face?”

  O’Reilly took a couple of feigned uppercuts to Laudner’s sternum, but he didn’t flinch this time, so O’Reilly dropped his fight stance and turned to walk. “Nope. Graduated and learned what’s really important: how to pick on army nerds!”

  Laudner gave him a backhand slap to the belly, and O’Reilly grunted and laughed. “I’d rather be an army nerd than an ugly-ass ground pounder like you!” Laudner said.

  They laughed as they approached the team they were relieving. Odet LaClaire (Odie) was a Cajun through and through. You knew that as soon as he said his first word. James Raines was stoic and always in control. He insisted on James or Raines. O’Reilly liked giving him shit by saying, “Lighten up, Jimmy.” James was a good man to have at your back. They made a good match for standing watch. Odie could talk your ear off, and Raines was a good listener—or maybe he was just able to tune out Odie better than anyone else.

  Odie started rambling as soon as they walked up. “So did da lieutenant say wat dat shit was about wit da monke’? I sho do hate dis place, man. Dos petit coshon sho wuz makin’ lots o’ noise until dat monke’ went craz’d! Now day ain’t sayin’ shit!”

  O’Reilly looked up at the windows above them. They were currently closed. He turned to Raines. “Nah, he said he doesn’t even think the major knows when we’re gonna get outta here.”

  “Dat’s bu’shit, man!”

  O’Reilly turned back to him. “I agree, but we could be under a rock in the Iraqi desert.”

  Raines chuckled. “There’s that.”

  O’Reilly cocked his head and looked back up at Building 51. Odie kept going. Once he got started, he was hard to stop.

  “I sho do wish dey would say wat dem animals wuz screamin’ about. Yeah, haven’t heard dat many petit cochon screamin’ at a pig faam. Den der wuz dat monke’ goin’ ape-shit yest’day. Oh. By da way, dat monke’ wuz goin’ apeshit agin’ this monin’. Ain’t nuttin’ makin’ noise in der now!”

  He was really rolling now.

  “Mudda-fucka’s probly killt it along with everythin’ else.”

  O’Reilly knew he needed to stop him before he really got out of control. “All right, Private, that’s enough! First, chimpanzees are not monkeys; they’re apes. So going apeshit is pretty fuckin’ funny and accurate! And second, none of us are happy to be here. Go settle yourself down, and get some food and some sleep.”

  He looked at Raines then, who had a smirk on his face. He gave O’Reilly a wha’sup head flick and smiled. That made O’Reilly give him an incredulous look. He knew that Raines wouldn’t spill about the incident until Tin gave him the go-ahead.

  Laudner spoke up then. “We just have to do what the lieutenant says. He’ll take care of things.”

  They all looked at him.

  “You’re right about that, Laudner. Tin has our backs.”

  Everyone nodded. Odie and Raines turned over the watch and then headed toward the cafeteria. At least the drug company provided good food.

  O’Reilly watched them walk away and turned to Laudner. “I’ll take the entrance first. You walk the perimeter.”

  Laudner walked his path and tried to catch any sounds coming from inside. Things seemed to have settled down. He hated the smell at the back of the building. It smelled like death. The worst was when he passed by the shipping docks at the rear of the building. On one of his perimeter rounds, he heard a couple of men talking and stopped near the gate to listen. He chanced a peek around the corner. It wasn’t against the rules to see anything outside the building that he knew of, but wanted to hear anything that might tip him off to what was going on inside. He saw them taking what looked like pig ca
rcasses out of a cart and throwing them into a biohazard Dumpster.

  Shit. Odie might have been right. Maybe they killed everything after what happened yesterday. Then he saw them taking what looked like dogs and tossing them in too. He repositioned himself to get close enough to hear most of what they were saying.

  The first man commented, “Man that was some scary shit yesterday. Leonidas fucked these hounds up!”

  The second man replied, “Yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in there with him. I thought the dogs would have torn his ass up, but he barely has a mark on him today. Everything went into lockdown after that too! All the PhDs are walking around like they solved world hunger.”

  “Except Teeny. She looks like she’s ready to cut somebody into a million pieces with those laser eyes!”

  The second man chuckled and stopped to look in the Dumpster. “I’m hungry.”

  The first man grimaced. “Gross!” Then he smiled. “But I am too.”

  Laudner watched the two men swipe their key cards and go in through the door they had come out through. He walked over to the Dumpster with one eye on the door and picked up the cover. The smell almost knocked him down! With a grimace and a gag, he looked in to see five dogs piled onto the various other carcasses. Everything looked as if it had been dissected except the dogs. They had definitely died in a much different way. One looked as if his head had been twisted around a couple times, several had legs going in unnatural directions, and one was actually folded in half. He heard the garbage truck coming around the side of the building and quickly moved back to his perimeter path. His mind was racing. He couldn’t figure out what could have happened to them. Why would a drug company do that to those dogs? Nothing made sense. He grumbled under his breath to himself, “Gonna have to run this one past O’Reilly.”

  When he came around to the door where O’Reilly was standing guard, he locked gazes with him and then looked around conspiratorially. The garbage truck was pulling out now, and he stared at it until it was out of sight. Then he turned back to O’Reilly, who had his “cut the bullshit” face on.