Rebirth (The Praegressus Project Book 1)

by Aaron Hodges

  Sensing its plight, the Chead thrashed against her. Its legs kicked out, catching Liz in the shins. Pain lanced from her leg as something went crack, but no force on earth would make her let go now.

  Not even death.

  Long seconds passed, and the creature’s struggles weakened. Its legs no longer beat against the floor, and its relentless strength no longer pressed against her as hard.

  Movement came from beyond the Chead. Chris staggered to his feet, his face already turning purple, one eye so swollen she could barely see his hazel eye. Even so, he stumbled forward and fell to his knees beside her. He raised a fist and drove it into the Chead’s face.

  Liz felt the power of Chris’s blow through the Chead. Its body went limp in her arms, but still she held on, wanting to be sure.

  Finally satisfied, she loosened her grip, and with Chris’s help, heaved the dead weight from her chest.

  Then she was embracing Chris, pulling him to her, clinging desperately at his back. An awful sob built in her chest and escaped in a rush. Chris’s arms tightened around her, and then he was sobbing too, his hot wet tears falling on her shoulder.

  They clung to each other in silence, and let the horror wash over them.

  23

  Chris looked up as a door clicked open. Halt stood in the doorway, a triumphant grin stretching across his thin lips. His eyes feasted on the two of them, shining with a wild exaltation.

  “It worked,” his voice was raw with emotion. He stepped into the room, two guards following behind him before the door swung shut. “The genomes are expressing – a few at least. Muscle density factor, reaction time, agility, it’s all there…”

  As the man rambled, Chris struggled to pull his mind back to the present. He wrapped his arm around Liz, pulling her tight against him. A shiver went through her and he glanced down, his gaze catching in her crystal eyes.

  Then she turned, facing Halt. “What have you done to us?” She croaked.

  Halt drew to a stop across from them. He blinked, looking almost surprised, as though he had not expected them to speak. His smile faded as he crossed his arms. “We have enhanced you, my dear. Made you better… made you useful,” he almost spat the last word.

  Chris met the man’s iron gaze. “Why?” He gestured to the Chead. “Why would you do this? Send us in here to die?”

  Shaking his head, Halt moved around the room towards the unconscious Chead. “To see if you would survive,” he answered, looking back at them. “To see if we had succeeded.”

  His words whispered around the room. Chris’s chest contracted and he struggled to breathe. Rage boiled through his veins. He clenched his fist, but pain seared from his knuckles where the Chead had held him. Glancing down at his hand, he saw it was already beginning to swell.

  A shiver went through him.

  It would have killed me.

  “You changed us,” Liz was speaking again, her voice barely audible. “Did something to us… while we slept. How?” Her voice cracked at her final question. She trembled in his arms, though whether from rage or some other emotion, he could not tell.

  Chuckling softly, Halt moved back towards them. “It was a simple matter, in the end. A little retrovirus, some genetic mapping of various species – chimpanzees, wolves, felines, eagles, and so on. Isolating the desirable genes took time, as did altering their repetition sequences to be accepted by human cells,” he shrugged. “But, well, the results were worth the effort. And the best is yet to come.” An awful grin spread across the doctor’s face.

  With Halt’s words, Chris mind finally caught up with events. Revulsion twisted in his stomach as he realised the truth – that the Chead had not been weaker than those on the television. No, it was he and Liz who had changed.

  And it was Halt who had changed them.

  A scream built in Chris’s chest as he looked at the doctor. An awful sense of violation wrapped around his throat. He clenched his fist again, felt the pain, but the injury was nothing to the desecration of his body. He felt defiled, like something had been taken from him, stolen by the doctor.

  As the pain built in his hand, he drew back his lips in a snarl.

  Halt watched them, his expression unchanged, but his hand drifted towards his watch. An awful tension hung in the air as Chris’s rage gathered strength.

  Then a groan came from across the room, and Halt’s eyes flickered towards the Chead. Chris followed his gaze and saw the boy had rolled onto his side. He moaned again, then started to cough. His eyes fluttered but did not open.

  “It’s still alive,” Halt sounded surprised. He turned back to Chris. “Kill it.”

  “What?” Chris blinked, staring at the doctor in disbelief.

  “Kill it,” Halt repeated. “That monstrosity is not worthy of this earth. Kill it, Christopher. Prove you are superior.”

  “No.” Chris blinked, surprised by his own resolve. Releasing Liz, he faced Halt, determined to defy him. “I won’t.”

  Halt slowly shook his head. He held up his arm. The watch flashed on his wrist, an unspoken threat. “Do not waste my time, Christopher. Kill the Chead, and we can move on from this unpleasant business.”

  A peal of laughter came from beside Chris. Turning, he saw Liz’s eyes flash as she took a step towards Halt. “No, Halt. We won’t. We’re not your creatures, your slaves to do with as you please. Whatever you’ve done to us, we’re still human.”

  Halt did not move. His eyes flickered for a second to Liz, then back to Chris. “I will give you one last chance. Kill the Chead. Now!”

  “You’re the monstrosity, Halt,” Chris replied.

  “Very well, Christopher.” Halt looked at Liz again. “If that is your decision…”

  Reaching down, he pressed his finger to the watch.

  Chris closed his eyes and braced himself for the pain. Sucking in a breath, he waited for the familiar fire to encircle his throat, to sap the strength from his legs, to lock his muscles in knots of agony.

  But it never came.

  From his right came a high-pitched scream. Chris spun, his eyes snapping open as the breath caught in his throat. Beside him, Liz crumpled to the ground. The colour fled her face as she clutched desperately at her throat. Her feet drummed against the soft floor and a strangled scream escaped her gaping mouth.

  Then she fell silent, her last gasps of air stolen away.

  Chris threw himself forward, desperate to reach her, but strong arms grasped him around the waist and hauled him back. Without thinking he lashed out with his elbow, catching the guard in the face, and the hands released him. He glimpsed the man falling backwards, the other stepping towards him, but he was already at Liz’s side, reaching out a hand, grabbing at her wrist.

  A jolt of electricity flashed between them, and Chris was hurled backwards across the floor.

  Coming to rest a few feet away, Chris groaned and struggled to sit up. Across from him, Liz writhed against the soft floor, her back arching, her mouth wide and gasping for air. Her fingers clawed at the skin of her throat, tearing at the collar’s metal chain. But there would be no dislodging the steel links.

  Halt stepped between them, a grim smile on his serpent lips. “Seventy-five milliamps,” he shook his head. “Enough to cause severe muscle contractions, respiratory failure, death.”

  Behind him, Liz was as pale as a ghost, her throws of agony already growing weaker. Her mouth opened, gasping like a fish out of water. Yet somehow her crystal eyes found his. Shining with tears, they pierced him, conveying her silent command.

  Don’t give in!

  A sob rattled up from Chris’s chest as he closed his eyes, unable to watch any longer. Bowing his head, he cradled his shattered fist. Despair rose within him, threatening to overwhelm him.

  “Please!” His sob rang from the one-way mirror.

  A sudden stillness came over the room. Lying on the ground, Chris did not move, unable to look, to witness the consequence of his defiance. So long as he did not look, he could deny the tr
uth.

  Liz couldn’t be gone, couldn’t be dead.

  But in his heart, Chris knew he had to face the truth. Blinking back tears, he sucked in a breath and lifted his head.

  Liz lay where she had fallen, her limbs splayed out at random angles, the tangles of her hair caught on her face. The collar shone from her neck, the blinking red light unlit.

  Staring at her broken body, a pit opened within Chris, a gulf of despair that threatened to swallow him whole. A desperate sob tore from his throat, a cry of anguish, a plea for life. Lifting himself, he began to crawl towards her. He could feel his strength failing, the last drops of energy falling from him, but with a final lung he reached out and grasped her wrist.

  With barely a whisper, Liz’s chest moved. A soft cough came from the fallen girl as her eyelids shifted, blinked.

  “What?” Halt snarled.

  Behind him, the door clicked again, as Doctor Fallow pushed her way into the room.

  24

  “Enough, Halt,” Angela almost tripped over the words as she spoke.

  Halt stared back at her, his eyes wide, his surprise already turning to a wild rage. She knew she had crossed a line, defying him now. This time there were no other doctors to back her up – the others were all tending to the surviving candidates from the PERV-A strain of the virus. She shivered, thinking of the room full of candidates, their bodies ravaged by the virus. It had proven far more deadly than the B strain retrovirus the others had been subjected too.

  “Excuse me?” Halt sounded almost bemused.

  “I said, that’s enough,” Angela repeated, mustering her courage.

  A few moments ago, she had been driven to act. Watching Halt’s cruelty, his determination to bend the candidates to his will, had pushed her over the edge. Whatever good she hoped might come from her work, it was not worth this. It was brutal and pointless and wasteful, a display that did nothing more than serve Halt’s ego.

  And she could not bear to watch the girl die. Angela could not shake that feeling of kinship, could not help but see her own youthful self in the girl’s eyes.

  So she had acted. She had superseded Halt’s controller from within the observation room, disabling the collars inside the room. As supervisor of the Praegressus Project, her watch had precedence over every other controller in the building – even Halt’s.

  This isn’t right, the words whispered in Angela’s mind as she glanced at the boy and girl. They’re just kids.

  Biting her lip, she straightened, preparing herself to face Halt’s rage. “There was no point to it, Halt. They passed the test. The project is a success. But this,” she waved a hand to indicate the girl, “this display is pointless. I won’t allow it.”

  Halt shifted on his feet. A strange calm seemed to have come over him. “You won’t allow it?”

  Angela found herself retreating a step, though the doctor had not moved. “No,” she shook her head. “I’ve disabled their collars.”

  “You forget yourself, doctor,” Halt still spoke in a soft voice. “These displays of insolence… are becoming problematic.”

  “They are my candidates, Halt.”

  For a moment, Halt did not reply. His grey eyes studied her, sweeping across her body, cold and calculating. Angela lifted her chin, facing him down.

  At last Halt nodded. He waved to the guards. “Get them up. Return them to their cell.”

  As the guards moved across to Christopher and Elizabeth, Halt turned back to Fallow. He stood deathly still, poised in the centre of the room as the guards shepherded the two experiments from the cells. His eyes did not blink, never left Angela’s face. Finally, as the door clicked shut behind the guard, he stepped towards her.

  Now Fallow found herself retreating from the rage in the man’s eyes. But after two steps she found herself pressed up against the mirror, the cold glass at her back, with nowhere to look but the eyes of the doctor.

  Before she could move, Halt’s hand flashed out and caught her by the throat. His fingers clenched tight as she opened her mouth to scream, stealing away her voice. His lips drew back in a scowl as he leaned in.

  “How dare you?” Halt hissed.

  With a sudden, violent push, Halt slammed her head back into the glass. Stars spun across Angela’s vision and her knees went weak. Pain lanced from her skull as Halt pulled her back towards him, until their faces were less than an inch apart.

  “If you ever defy me again, I will see you in a cage with your precious candidates,” Halt grated.

  Red exploded across Angela’s vision as he slammed her into the mirror again. Then the fingers released her, and with a muffled sob she slumped to the ground.

  Halt looked down at her, open contempt in his eyes. “The experiment will continue,” he said. “You will see that the final doses are administered to the candidates. Those still unconscious will remain in their comas until our research has been completed.”

  Darkness swept across Angela’s vision, rising up to claim her. But through the creeping shadows, she heard Halt’s final proclamation.

  “Succeed, and I might just let you live.”

  25

  Clang.

  Chris slumped to the ground as the cell door slid closed behind them. Liz staggered past him and toppled onto Ashley’s bed. The guards had practically carried her this far. Despite coming out better than Chris in the fight, the collar had left its mark. The damage ran deep, and each inhalation brought about an awful cough and rattling to her chest.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t much better.

  Whatever Halt had said about success, Chris had still lacked the relentless strength of the Chead. When it had caught him, no amount of skill, training or mutated muscle had been enough to save him from its grasp.

  Thank God for Liz, he thought, looking across at her.

  She lay sprawled across the bed, her face half buried in the pillow, her back rising with each laboured breath. Every few seconds she would groan, but otherwise she lay still.

  Getting to his hands and knees, Chris crawled across to Sam’s bed and pulled himself up. Under the circumstances, he didn’t think the others would mind if they borrowed them. Both beds were neatly made up, the covers pulled tight, the presence of their two friends wiped clean.

  Minutes slipped by as he lay there, his face throbbing where the Chead had struck him. After a time, the clang of the outer door carried down the corridor. Idly, Chris wondered if someone had come to finish the job the Chead had started. There was no one else inside the prison block now. The other cells were empty, the faces that had once lined the corridor either dead or gone.

  No, whoever it was had come for them.

  Unable to summon the energy to move, Chris lifted an eyelid and looked out into the corridor. A woman stood outside the bars, her hands fiddling nervously with the hem of her lab coat. For a second he thought it was Fallow, before he realised she was too young, her hair blonde instead of brown. A guard stood beside the woman, looking bored.

  “I’m… I’m to give you a round of antibiotics,” she squeaked.

  On the opposite bed, Liz did not so much as stir. Stifling a groan, Chris rolled onto his side. “Really?” he coughed. “You people are all of a sudden concerned for our wellbeing?”

  The woman gave a nervous nod. “Could you, could you get to the back of the cell, please?”

  Chris blinked. If he hadn’t been in so much pain, he would have laughed. Instead he looked at Liz, then back at the doctor. “Sorry, lady. But I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”

  “But… but you’re meant to…”

  Closing his eyes, Chris lay back on the bed. “Just get it over with. Have the guard ready to press his little button, if it makes you feel better.”

  The woman hesitated another second, and then nodded. A buzzer sounded and the cell door slid open. The little doctor hopped into the cell, a packet of syringes held in one hand, a vial of clear liquid in the other.

  Briefly, Chris contemplated the thought of resis
ting. After everything they’d been through, he distrusted even this harmless-looking woman. Who knew what new horror might wait in the vial. But a hollow feeling sat in his stomach, an awful, helpless weakness that sapped him of the will to resist.

  After all, what was the point in fighting now? It was too late – they’d already lost, already been damaged beyond repair.

  Chris slumped into his pillow and watched as the woman moved across to Liz.

  “She’s unconscious,” she sounded surprised. “I thought… I thought the experiment was a success.”

  On the bed, Chris shrugged. “You’ll have to ask your boss about that,” he paused, his thoughts drifting. “Where are our friends? What’s happening to them?”

  The woman was busy preparing her syringe, and it was a moment before she answered. It wasn’t until she leaned over Liz that he heard her whisper. “The others are being kept in their comas,” she breathed. “To make the change easier.”

  Chris watched as the woman inserted the needle into Liz’s back and pressed down the plunger. Then she was moving towards him, the needle disappearing into a bag marked biological waste. Another appeared as she raised the vial.

  Turning away, Chris winced as the needle pinched his back. The cold tingle of the injection spread between his shoulder blades as the woman stepped back. To his relief, there was no pain, and the cold sensation quickly faded away.

  Chris looked up as footsteps retreated through the cell. He watched the woman reach the door and turn back, her eyes catching in his. “I’m sorry.”

  Then she was gone.

  Frowning, Chris shook his head, resigning himself to whatever fresh torment had been in the injection. He was certain now it had not been antibiotics. Something in her face as she looked back, in those final words, warned him.

  At least this time there was no pain.

  A gurgled breath came from Liz’s bed, drawing his attention back to the girl. She had rolled onto her back now, her mouth wide and gasping. Her eyes were closed, her brow creased as though she were struggling to wake. Fingers clenched at the sheets and the veins stood up against her neck.