Origin Z

by Tony Hartzell

  Bald Guy looked at him. “That wasn’t shit, unless his asshole is on his obliques.”

  _______

  Raines left his room and walked down the hallway to the room with the windows overlooking the lab tables. He stared down at the now-empty tables. No more experimenting needed; they had their miracle. The thing he couldn’t understand was that it wasn’t in the news that it had come from Bio-Sure. This was a miracle. Why the secrecy? He thought, Why haven’t they started to try to market the enhancement? We can’t even say anything to the other soldiers in our platoon. Something is really off about what’s going on here. He heard someone move into the room behind him and turned away so that they wouldn’t see his face.

  He recognized Marty’s voice saying, “Everything OK with you, Raines?”

  Raines didn’t say anything.

  “Of course it is. You wouldn’t be inside the building unless it was. What’s it like?”

  Marty stepped forward to try to look at him.

  Raines turned a little to keep his face in the shadows. “Not all it’s hyped up to be, unless you like killing women and children.”

  His head bowed a little, and Marty could only say, “Ah, uh.”

  He had a sheepish look on his face. Raines was taking a peek to try to gauge what Marty was thinking when the light clicked on in the room. Marty caught a glimpse of his face before he turned away.

  Teeny walked in the room. “Hi, Marty. I was thinking…”

  Then she saw Raines standing there and Marty with his mouth hanging open. Marty stepped forward and pulled on Raines’s shoulder to try to turn him. Raines resisted, so Marty moved around to face him as Teeny came at him from the other side. Teeny reached up to lift his chin, and he no longer resisted their inspection.

  “He’s losing pigmentation in his skin.”

  Marty reached up and pulled an eye open. “His eyes are becoming glazed too.”

  They looked at each other and then back at Raines.

  “You have to come with us, James.”

  He looked from her to Marty, who was nodding. Raines croaked when he started talking. “I don’t see you two around when the others are giving us assignments. How do you feel about Reed?”

  They looked at each other again and said in unison, “He’s an asshole!”

  Any of his buddies would have laughed his ass off at that, but their faces stayed serious.

  He looked from one to the other. “OK. There’s that, then.” That came out as a croak again. His mouth was always dry now. He drank water, and it would only help for a few minutes.

  Teeny and Marty led him down the hallway and into an examination room. Teeny grabbed a light to check his eyes as Marty grabbed a blood-pressure cuff and wrapped it around his arm.

  Teeny asked him, “Have you had problems with your eyes in the past, James?”

  He didn’t answer. Or even show that he had heard her.

  “James?”

  She looked at him; he showed no comprehension of his own name.

  He licked his lips. “My name is Raines, James Raines.”

  She looked at him. “James, have you had any problems with your eyes? You look like you have advanced cataracts in both eyes.”

  He shrugged and shook his head as Marty deflated the blood-pressure cuff, repositioned it, and hit the button for it to start pumping again. Teeny took the light and started inspecting his ears.

  James kept looking at Teeny. “You smell good.”

  Marty said, “Shit.”

  He deflated the cuff again and reached down and put two fingers to Raines’s wrist.

  He moved it around as he looked at Teeny. “I can’t find a pulse.”

  Teeny grabbed Raines’s other wrist and tried there. “It’s there, but it’s very weak and slow. Maybe forty beats per minute.”

  They looked at each other but didn’t say anything. Raines decided that that was because they didn’t know what to say.

  After some unsaid things were passed in their eyes, Teeny turned to Raines.

  “Corporal Raines, you need to get some tests done. There’s a room down on the first floor where we would like you to stay while we find out what’s wrong.”

  Raines looked at the floor for a good thirty seconds as Marty shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet, and Teeny just stared at him. He finally looked up and nodded slowly.

  Marty stepped into the hallway and then looked back in with eyes wide for a split second. Teeny shooed Raines with her hand to get him to stand flat against the wall closest to the door. She jumped up on the table and started flexing her knee while probing where her ACL would be located with her fingers. Michael appeared outside the doorway and looked in. Marty was standing in the doorway so he couldn’t step in and see Raines.

  “Hi, Michael.”

  Michael looked at him with suspicion in his eyes. “Good morning, Dr. Whyte.”

  Marty smiled as Michael looked in at Teeny. Marty looked at her and then back at Michael. “She hurt her knee, but I don’t think it’s anything serious.”

  Michael looked back at him and smiled, then moved on. Marty watched him disappear around a corner and waited a few seconds before waving his hand for them to move fast. Teeny moved fast, and Raines moved as fast as he could. He suddenly felt as if his joints had all stiffened. They moved down the hall and into a stairwell, then down to the first floor. When they got there, Marty stepped out first again while Teeny and Raines waited. They saw Marty walk down the hall and heard him exchange some words with two guys in lab coats. When they walked by the window in the door, Teeny made sure they were back in the shadows so they wouldn’t be noticed. The stairwell had some lights out, so it was dark. Raines was behind her as she kept peeking out the skinny window in the door. Raines made a low moaning sound that sent chills up her spine. Suddenly she felt very uncomfortable being in there alone with him. He was standing looking at her, rocking side to side, and every once in a while, he would moan again. When Marty unexpectedly stuck his head back in and waved them out into the hallway, she yelped and jumped.

  They went about twenty yards and turned into a little-used part of the building. They all entered a room that had an exam table and some cabinets. Raines walked into the room and sat on the table. He looked up at the ceiling, shook his head, and then lay back and felt as if he should be crying. But nothing was coming out of his eyes. Just dry, racking sobs, with no fluids escaping any of the places that they should. That only made him sob more.

  ROCKY J, FOXY LOXY, AND THE BIG BAD WOLF

  Anderson slammed out of the gym door with a nightmare-monster look on his face. He lived and breathed making fun of other people, but only rarely was he on the receiving end of the snickers and behind-the-hand comments. He didn’t take it well, to say the least, and usually lashed out violently when subjected to it. He stomped across the campus toward Building 51 with his face screwed up so tight people who saw him coming crossed the street or turned down side paths before he reached them. He was an imposing figure at six five and 350 pounds. All muscle! When you see someone coming who is that big and obviously irritated, you head the other way.

  He became even more irritated as people cleared the way. He was just short of snorting like a bull ready to charge, and his steroid-fueled aura of anger was emanating from him like waves of heat.

  As he was passing the bench where Laudner fed his critter friends, they all scattered and ran up nearby trees. Laudner’s little friend Rocky J ran up the closest tree and turned at the mouth of his hollowed-out hole to chitter loudly. Anderson growled, grabbed a fist-sized rock, and sent a fastball right at Rocky. The squirrel didn’t have time to react, but luckily, the rock banged off the tree just below where he was. The impact knocked him into the air, making him fall all the way to the ground. He quickly ran back up the tree and ducked into his hole. Anderson laughed evilly. In his rage he ha
d dropped his gym bag and realized that the black, rotting ooze spot on his shirt was huge now. He put his hand over it and then pulled it away with the blackness on his fingers. Now he was embarrassed more than angry. Pulling the bag from the ground and covering the spot, he looked around to see only two people within sight. They were hurrying away from the raging behemoth. He rushed toward Building 51 holding the bag tight to his side.

  _______

  Anderson walked up to the door lost in his own dark thoughts. Johnson was on duty and woke up, saying, “Holy shit, what is that smell?”

  Anderson snarled and walked right past him to open and enter the door. Johnson started to speak up. “I’ll need to see your…”

  By that time the door was swinging shut.

  “Fuck it. Not worth getting my ass kicked by that asshole.”

  Anderson walked down the hallway and saw Marty through one of the doors. He stopped to poke his finger at him. “You, rainbow flag. I need you and tiny tot in an exam room now!”

  Marty didn’t even have time for the smartass comment that he had loaded onto his tongue before Anderson stalked the rest of the way down the hall, pushed the door to the exam room hard, and jumped up on the table. He lay back and put one hand on his injury and the other wrist on his forehead.

  “Fuck!”

  Teeny came into the room with a thundercloud over her head, and Marty had a green trepidatious look on his face. Teeny got half of her first sentence out of her mouth. “What is your issue, Meat…Holy shit, what the hell is that smell?”

  Anderson sat up fast with a snarl on his face and sat forward.

  Teeny didn’t shrink. She put her hands on her hips and spat out, “You better back that shit off right now, shorty. I am not scared of you!”

  His eyebrows went up for a split second and then back down as he said evenly, “You should be.”

  She just clucked her tongue. “Let me see what’s making that god-awful smell, Corporal.”

  He gave her one more ineffective stare and pulled up his shirt. She screwed up her face from the smell and moved over to look at the injury.

  She pulled some latex gloves from a box near the sink on the wall and returned to probe the area with her finger. She turned. “Marty.”

  He jumped as if he were in a trance, still standing at the door as if he were ready to bolt if Anderson went batshit.

  She gave him a hands-on-hips “I don’t believe you would desert me” look. “OK, hero. Go get the ultrasound machine.”

  He snapped out of his fear stupor and hurried out the door to fetch the machine. Teeny stared at Anderson sitting on the table with a sneer on his face wishing that Marty would hurry the hell up.

  A few minutes later, she was rubbing the ultrasound wand across the split in Anderson’s abdomen.

  “Ah. Your intestine has an opening that is leaking bile. You have to be careful when your internal organs are damaged. You can’t push them together so that they can heal properly.”

  Marty was standing behind her nodding. Anderson looked at him and rolled his eyes.

  Teeny looked at him. “Please go get Dr. Leonard and tell him to bring a surgery cart. We’ll need to open his abdominal cavity to close that hole.”

  Marty ran out and detoured to get Leonard. He knocked on Michael’s door and quickly opened it to see that Abraham was in there too.

  “Got some shit going down in exam room three.”

  He didn’t give them time to react. He just backed out and continued on to get Leonard.

  Dr. Leonard actually got a big smile on his face when Marty told him what was going on. He grabbed a cart and pulled it rattling down the hall toward exam room three, with Marty following.

  When Leonard and Marty got back to the exam room, Michael and Dr. Abraham were standing in the room with sour looks on their faces. Leonard looked at them questioningly. He didn’t look as if he even noticed the reeking smell that was likely going to have to be washed off the walls when they were done.

  Leonard pushed Anderson back on the table and cleaned where more ooze was leaking out. “Dr. Lisandro, please assist.”

  Teeny grabbed a surgical mask from the cart and noticed a small jar of menthol gel next to them. She dipped her finger in and rubbed it on the inside of the mask. When she placed it over her mouth and nose, it was a blessed relief from the smell. After she did that, everyone else except Leonard did the same.

  Leonard looked at Marty. “Dr. Whyte. Go get a saline bag, IV, and anesthetic.”

  Marty stared at him defiantly for five seconds, then rolled his eyes and threw back his head. “Sure. Why not you too! Everyone is Marty’s boss around here!”

  He continued complaining as he walked. “Next thing you know, the chimp is going to order me to wipe his ass! And I’ll probably do it!” He spoke loudly because he was in the hallway and wanted to make sure they all heard the complaint.

  When he returned, Marty pulled the oxygen mask over the patient’s face as Teeny pushed the anesthetic into the IV portal. They all watched and expected him to go out, but he just continued to stare at the ceiling. Leonard instructed her to keep giving him doses until he was out. After the third normal dose, Anderson’s eyes flickered a few times and then slowly closed. She then pushed a couple of buttons on the vitals-monitoring equipment and nodded to Leonard. “Good to go.”

  Leonard started washing the wound, and Teeny nodded her head to Dr. Abraham to go out into the hallway with her.

  “I’ll be back in just a minute or two, Dr. Leonard.”

  “Yes, yes. Go whisper in the hall.”

  Teeny just gave him an even look and moved to the door. Abraham and Michael both moved toward the door. Teeny moved her eyes to the uninvited guest. Abraham looked over his shoulder and waved Michael to stay. He stared at Teeny for a few seconds but turned back to what Leonard was doing.

  When they reached the hall, Teeny turned to Abraham. “Anderson has some serious issues, Eli.”

  He looked back at her with a puzzled look.

  She continued. “He came in here like he was going to destroy Tokyo. Stomping and snorting like a bull. The steroids are affecting him in a very negative manner.”

  She hesitated and thought for a second as Abraham started to let that sink in. Then she looked at him again. “I think some previous steroid use and a predisposition toward violence may be the problem.”

  Dr. Abraham looked as if he was struggling with a decision, so Teeny spoke up again. “I’ll talk to Lieutenant Hardt about him. I don’t know how safe it is to send him out on any more missions for now.”

  That sparked a nerve. “Dr. Lisandro, the missions—they’re imperative to national security!”

  He was more animated in that statement than she had ever seen. She was a little taken aback by that. She literally had to take a step backward due to him leaning forward. He noticed the look on her face and collected himself enough to step back.

  She thought about it for a few seconds. “Look. He’s not the only one of the Spartan Team having issues.”

  Now he got a shocked look. “Are there others violent like Anderson?”

  She crossed her arms under her breasts and came very close to tapping her toes as if she was the one who should be offended. Abraham crossed his arms and took on a smug look to call her bluff. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat.

  “Raines has a very different issue. Very low vitals, pigmentation leaving his skin and eyes, and he is losing brain functionality. He can’t eat or drink anything that will give him any sustenance. He got bit by a snake and should be dead, Eli! But he still is very much alive, or sort of…”

  Abraham uncrossed one of his arms and put his hand on his chin, thinking about the situation. “First of all, there will be disciplinary action for not informing me of the Raines issue. Second, make sure I’m involved in your meeting with Hardt
. Lastly, get Raines into a more controlled environment so that we can do some tests.”

  She nodded her head and pushed the door open to go back into the exam room. Marty was now assisting Leonard.

  “Oh, nice of you to join us. Let me go ahead and cover for you again!”

  “Get over it, Marty, or I’ll stuff a Tampax up your ass to see if that solves your problems!”

  Leonard giggled at that. Michael just had a serious look on his face. She figured it was due to his not being included in the hallway conversation. Marty put on his pouty face.

  _______

  Anderson woke up to Tiny Tot, Tin, and the old doctor. He sat up and looked at his abdomen to see a pink scar where the black patch of ooze had been. He smiled. “All better, Doc?”

  Teeny hesitated and replied with a disgusted tone.

  “Physically, yes. Don’t know about your mental health, though, Corporal.”

  He could see Anderson start to get angry and then realize that he wouldn’t do himself any favors. He shook his head. “Sorry, Doc. I wasn’t very nice, was I?”

  She made her eyes slits and slowly shook her head.

  “I was in pain and embarrassed about the stink.”

  He looked back and forth between her and Tin, trying to decide whom he should be addressing. He settled on Tin because he was the real authority over him. “It caught me at a bad time. I was lifting at the gym, and everyone was there watching. You should have seen m…”

  He stopped because he realized that he wasn’t supposed to be showing any of his enhanced abilities.

  Tin gave him an even stare. “What did you do, Corporal?”

  Anderson shook his head. “I had been lifting more and more every week before this whole thing started.”

  Tin pressed him then. “How much, Corporal?”

  The answer was simply “Five hundred.”

  Tin got a flabbergasted look on his face and turned, throwing his hands in the air. “What the hell is your malfunction, Anderson? You were clearly ordered to keep this a secret!”

  Anderson’s head was down now. Tin had his hands on his hips, and Teeny was leaning up against the door leading to the hall.