Guinea Pig

by Curtis, Greg

  Why couldn't he just die? It just wasn't fair. Anyone else would have died. He should have. But instead he had to live. To go on, knowing that worse was coming.

  They couldn't even help him with the pain. As he lay there Will knew that his suffering was probably going to be worse and last longer than it had to simply because the doctor was afraid to give him any pain killers. That seemed cruel to him. Just then he would have welcomed a little morphine – even if it killed him. Especially then.

  But they needn't have worried. He wasn't going to die. He knew that now. That wasn't the plan. Until then, until Adams had hurt him so badly, he hadn't understood that. He hadn't known that there was a plan. But now he knew there was one. As the doctor had drilled into him again and again and he'd screamed in agony, wishing he could finally leave behind the ruin his life had become, he'd discovered that he could not leave. That no matter how bad things got, no matter how badly he was hurt, he would not be allowed to die. Someone had whispered that into his soul as he had lain there and begged for death. A woman. And though he couldn't see her he was sure it was the old woman with the long white hair. The woman who had saved him in the clinic.

  He believed her. While he might not know what the plan was, or whose plan it was, he knew she was telling him the truth. He would not die. He would be saved time and again until the end. He would endure. Or his flesh would. She whispered to him that he had no choice. It was all part of the plan.

  That wasn't fair. But then fair wasn't part of the plan.

  There was one part of the plan that he did understand. That he would fully transform into what he was meant to be. That too had been whispered into his soul by the white haired woman while he'd cried out for death. This transformation he was going through, it would continue no matter what. He had no choice in that. It would continue until it was finally complete. There would be no stopping it. The doctors would not stop it. Even if they discovered a way they would not be permitted. It would not burn out like a disease. His body's immune system would not kill it. Not even death would be allowed to release him from its terrible grip.

  But then when it was done, when he had finally become whatever he was doomed to become, maybe he would be allowed to die? She hadn't told him that. She hadn't told him how it would end or what came next. Only that it would end. That there would come a point when everything that could change had. At least it was something to hope for as he lay there staring at the cracked ceiling tiles of the surgery and hurt.

  As his vision slowly cleared Will recognised the ceiling tiles and he knew he was still lying in the surgery as he had been for many days. Maybe weeks. There were no days and nights here. He had no knowledge of the passage of time. But his flesh was speaking to him of a long time having passed as he slept. Days at the least.

  He hadn't left the theatre for emergency treatment though he surely needed it, and he suspected he would never leave it. That he would remain chained to this steel bed until the end. That too was a plan, but not the plan of whoever had decided he wasn't allowed to die. It was the soldiers' plan. Maybe it was the governments' plan. And possibly it was also the church's plan. The only one whose plan it wasn't was his. He didn't have a plan.

  They were frightened of him, though he couldn't think why. He'd never harmed anyone in his life and he never wanted to. It just wasn't who he was. But still the government and the soldiers and even the church were all afraid of him. Pastor Franks had said it was something to do with him becoming a nephilim. A bad boy half angel as he knew from the movies. But that seemed wrong to him. He wasn't a bad man and he wasn't dangerous. And as for the other part that he'd told him as the soldiers had dragged him away from his flat – that he was somehow responsible for all the disasters – that was complete insanity no matter how his paranoia kept telling him it was true. Or at least he wanted it to be insanity. With all those people dead and injured, the city destroyed, the idea that it could all somehow be because of him was just too much. He didn't want to be responsible for that. He prayed that he wasn't.

  Still, regardless of whether it was true or not he would remain here, chained to a bed in a crumbling surgery in an abandoned hospital surrounded by heavily armed soldiers. He had no choice in the matter. If he tried to leave he knew he would be killed. That is, if the white haired woman would let him be killed. He might well end up back here with more holes in him and more pain as he began the long painful process of healing.

  He remembered seeing the hospital as he'd been brought here in chains. Thinking that it wasn't so much a hospital as the front half of one. The back half was missing and the wings to the side were rubble. Which had made it seem like an odd place to keep him. He'd suspected at the time that it would be more a prison than a hospital. When they'd dragged him out of the truck still in chains that had been obvious. But he had never thought as they'd brought him in and chained him to a steel table that this would be where he would spend the last of his days. Secretly he might have wished for it though. The confusion and the fear then had been very powerful.

  Pastor Franks had been there with him every step of the way as the soldiers had dragged him to his new bed, doing his best to bring him some cheer and promising him that he would not be harmed. But he hadn't been certain, and Will had seen the pain in his face as the pastor understood that all he was doing with his promises was putting a band aid on the gaping wound of his fears. Strangely Doctor Millen had been there as well. In the truck waiting for him, and telling him that he would do everything he could to help him. He was still there with him trying to help him. The doctor couldn't do much for him – Will knew that – but it was still oddly comforting to see him there working on him day after day. Even after what he'd done to him.

  Why Doctor Millen had done what he'd done Will didn't know. Maybe the man had told him but he'd been slipping in and out of consciousness ever since he'd been here. And even when he was awake he wasn't completely there. But he still knew that the man had changed at some point. Sometime after having visited him in his home and declaring William a personal triumph. Something had made him see that what he had done was no triumph. That it was a nightmare. And that in turn had become his nightmare.

  Shame and guilt were driving the doctor to work every hour of the day he could to try and fix his mess. And the understanding that he couldn't fix it was crushing him. The pain was written all over his face as he cared for him, the crushing guilt was in his eyes as he worked at the microscopes and computers studying who knew what. Along with a lot of heavy bruising from something as Will suddenly noticed.

  The sight of his swollen, blackened face confused Will. It looked like he'd been punched repeatedly in the face, something that just wasn't done to doctors. He wondered when that had happened. Maybe while the other doctor had been torturing him. Though why someone would have hit him Will didn't know. The man was already suffering. And despite everything that he'd done, Will didn't like to see him hurt like that. Maybe he was just soft in the head. But at the same time Will suspected that this entire ordeal might be good for the doctor in a strange way. Therapeutic. It was returning him to his calling, the thing which somewhere along the way he'd forgotten. He was a doctor. Maybe that too was part of the plan.

  Doctor Adams on the other hand was not a doctor. It was hard for Will to think about him. Every time he did the rest of the memories came flooding back. The memory of the man almost on top of him, his face impossibly calm as he methodically drilled into him again and again. The pain of that was still vivid, so fresh in his mind and his flesh that it hurt as if it was still happening. Yet for all that he had screamed and begged he could have been screaming at a lump of iron.

  Why had the man done it? Will didn't know. But then he'd been drifting in and out at the time, and the first he'd known of it was when the drill had started biting in to his flesh. That had woken him up in a hurry, but he hadn't been able to do anything about it. The chains had prevented him from running or resisting in any way. And no amount of begging would per
suade the doctor to deviate from what he was doing. The doctor had a job to do and it had nothing to do with medicine.

  The doctor was a lie. Even while Will had been lying there writhing and screaming in agony, begging, he had seen him as he truly was. And the man was a lie from start to end. A man who no longer had a name. A man who lived in secret and who in the end had somehow become the secret. Will didn't know how he knew, but he knew he that he was right about him.

  Adams wasn't a doctor. He wasn't any of the people he'd claimed to be over the years, and Will somehow knew that there were many. So many false identities that he'd forgotten who he had once been. Adams was a man who didn't have a name. Only numbers. His face wasn't his own; there had been too many surgeries for that. He had no home and no one who called him friend or family. Even those who had hired him didn't know who he was. The man also didn't have any regard for others. How could he when he didn't really know any others? Not friends, not lovers and not family. He was simply a man with a job to do and he had set about doing it. He was logical and cold, and above all else purpose driven. He had to be. Because that purpose, that mission, was all that he was.

  Existentialists often said that people became who they wanted to be. That identity was a fluid thing and it could be changed. Adams was the perfect example of their claims. He had made himself the perfect agent. He would do what he was asked to do because the perfect agent would. He would have no qualms because they weren't part of a perfect agent's nature. And he would have no name and no true identity because that was what the perfect agent was. A man with neither of those things. As he'd drilled into him again and again Will had seen all of that within him.

  It was a strange thing to understand that a man could be like that. Nothing more than a set of bank accounts and a new mission every so often. It was stranger still to have seen a glimpse of the man's soul. But in a way it seemed right that he should have seen it. What he didn't understand was why he had suddenly been able to do it then and never before. Why, when it was the most natural way of seeing. It was as though up until then he'd been blind.

  And now he was blind again. People were just people. As he looked around the room he could see them as they were physically. And maybe something of their feelings. But he couldn't see any of them as clearly as he had seen the man called Adams.

  Perhaps that was a good thing. Seeing people like that wasn't something human. It was something of whatever he was becoming.

  “You're awake.”

  Will looked up to see nurse Etta standing over him, a moist sponge in her hand which she proceeded to wash his face with. It felt good having her do that for him. Cooling him down when he was hot. But more than that it felt good for a fellow human being to be actually concerned for him. It didn't take the pain away – only time would do that – but it helped.

  “We didn't know if you would wake up.”

  She was a good woman he realised. Strong in her faith and in her compassion. But she talked too much. He didn't want to talk just then – not that he could with his throat full of tubes. He didn't want to listen either. He just wanted to drift away. To sleep and hopefully let his body heal. Though he knew that even healing would not be without consequences. Because when he healed old cells were thrown away and new cells replaced them. But his new cells would not be human. They would be comprised of whatever he was becoming. That was the way this thing worked. And the more damage he had to heal the faster that transformation would be.

  Still as she worked, wiping away the sweat and dirt and blood covering him, cooling him down and chatting away, he found he didn't care. Not any more. He just wanted the pain and the fear to go away. He wanted this thing to end. The sooner it did the sooner he would be free. It didn't matter if he was still William Simons when that happened. It didn't matter if he lived or died.

  It only mattered that it ended.

  Chapter Twenty Seven.

  It was late and everyone was exhausted. Then again maybe it was early. Elijah had lost track of time. All he really knew was that it was dark outside.

  Doctor Millen was asleep, slumped over one of the work stations. He'd got as far as he could studying the latest scans until somewhere along the way he’d collapsed. Elijah hadn't wanted to wake him. The doctor needed his sleep. Especially after the beating he'd taken. Even several days later the bruising was just starting to come out. The new man, Doctor Foulkes seemed to be doing a good job of watching the patient's vitals and administering food and drugs as he needed to. He seemed to be a good man and a surprisingly unflappable one. A Catholic priest as well as a trauma surgeon, it seemed he had seen it all before. So when he'd walked in and seen his patient for the first time it hadn't appeared to phase him. Not even a little. Anyone else would be gasping in shock at seeing William for the first time. He'd just taken it all in his stride, read the notes, and started work without so much as a comment.

  Nurse Etta was asleep as well, though at least she'd found a cot to collapse into. It was the civilised thing to do. On the other hand she did snore a little, a surprising thing in such a small, proper woman, and sometimes she kept the others awake. Meanwhile Nurse Jones was watching the patient, doing all the routine things nurses were supposed to do with their patients, even if this patient was anything but routine.

  The technician James was still wide awake as well. He seemed to be able to sustain himself on strong black coffee which he drank by the bucket load. He was busy typing away at the computer in the next room, doing whatever it was that he did. Elijah was unclear on what exactly that was except that the others seemed to think it was important. He was aware though that the man had an unusual past. He had come to the faith from a place of guilt. A former hacker he had unwittingly caused the deaths of several people through his skills. It seemed that when he had considered that the people had a right to know he had failed to realise that not everyone would be so happy to have their private medical details released. Three people had committed suicide as a result of his hack of the national health database. The fact that he was only fifteen at the time and had never intended to cause any harm, had kept him from serving a lengthy prison sentence. But the sentence he served in his soul was another matter.

  Meanwhile Elijah was sitting and thinking, and occasionally muttering a silent prayer as he wondered what to do.

  Everything was going wrong. And it hadn't been right to begin with.

  Adams had made a clean getaway, something Elijah was certain could only have happened because he had been paid by the government. They had been betrayed. The bishop he suspected had the same thought.

  Because of that they'd taken the unusual step of clearing their medical suite of anyone they couldn't trust. The soldiers were happy with that. So were their bosses, probably because the samples had been taken and so they had nothing more they needed from Mr. Simons. Now for them at least it was only about containment. Keeping the original subject in captivity, and hoping he would recover just in case they needed some more of his DNA, while making sure no one else ever found out. They weren't worried about the ongoing crisis because they'd never believed that William had had anything to do with it. The whole thing for them was about research.

  Nearly three days had passed since the assault and their bedside vigil continued. William Simons was improving. He shouldn't be, but he was. Nurse Etta had said he'd woken several times and looked around before falling back to sleep. An MRI had revealed that the holes in his bones were healing far more quickly than they should, and his vital signs were improving. His heart beats were steady and strong. His temperature was down. And his weight loss seemed to have stopped. Though a hundred and ten pounds for a six feet two tall man was shockingly light. In fact a BMI of less than fifteen was considered emaciated. And that was before you considered that some of that weight, probably ten to twenty pounds, was wings.

  Of course they were still only stumps, but they were growing. Growing faster than before. Now they were a good six inches long and the underlying bony structure co
uld clearly be seen in the scans. It could be felt with your fingers. Curious, Elijah had done just that when they'd prepared him for the scan, lifting him on to the platform. And he'd felt the huge bone running from the top of his shoulder blade. It was like a girder slowly growing longer.

  They moved too. The muscles and nerves were starting to work, and so when he'd touched it he'd felt the stump flinch a little. Just like an arm or a leg. That had been profoundly shocking. Until then they had seemed like growths. Just odd almost plastic add ons that could have come from a special effects workshop. But when they'd moved under his hand that had changed somehow. They had become real.

  All of that of course meant that the time left before he reached his final form – whatever form that might be – was shrinking fast. Angel, nephilim or something else – they would know what he was becoming in perhaps only a couple more weeks. And as his physical transformation continued, so did his mental one. Elijah was starting to wonder if he was actually going to wake up when this finally ended. Or if he did whether he'd still be William Simons. The EEG was showing highly irregular brain activity. Patterns never before seen. In fact James had said that the patterns didn't correspond to anything they knew. He might already have slipped beyond normal consciousness. And then what did they do? After all it was beginning to look as though his body would continue even if his mind was gone. His flesh simply refused to die.