Living Proof

by Peter J Thompson

  And lately, he had been getting pulled into it deeper and deeper. The night after the poker game, Captain Cain called. They had a special job lined up for him. It was another delivery, another body that had to go down to the fifth level quarantine area. The next day, there were three more. And there were four more the week after that. Green didn’t know where these people were coming from, but in each case, they were sedated at the time of arrival. They all appeared healthy, though some were bloated and reeked of alcohol. The subjects—as they were called—were a mixed group. They ranged in age from young to old and mostly male, though there were two women in the last group. He didn’t know what happened to the subjects after he delivered them. He tried to tell himself he didn’t care. It wasn’t his problem. But it was never far from his thoughts. Whatever was happening to them, he was now part of it. He had been chosen for some reason, and it was too late to have second thoughts. There was no way he could transfer out now.

  Cain had given Green an access card of his own, and he was now granted admittance to many areas previously restricted. When Green wasn’t delivering subjects, he acted as a courier, delivering sealed envelopes and packages from one section of the building to another. By now, he knew most of the complex so well that he could get around it easily. Nevertheless, there were a few areas that were still closed to him. That added to his uneasiness. Half in, half out. It made his imagination spin in overdrive. What were they doing in these closed off areas?

  Green finished his beer and set down the empty. There were still two other games before it was his turn to play pool. Rev Tanner was playing now, and the way he was shooting, it was a sure bet he’d be holding the table for a long time. Green looked around the room again. Rooster Stepman was sitting alone at a table near the bar. Empty glasses littered his table and it looked like he’d been drinking heavy for some time. Green looked away, being careful not to make eye contact. He’d been doing his best to avoid Stepman over the past few weeks, since the dressing down after the poker game.

  “Hey, Tuna,” Rev Tanner called out. He held his empty beer bottle up in the air with one hand, and his pool stick in the other. “How ‘bout a refill, my man? It’s your round.”

  Green nodded his head, moved toward the bar, and waited at the end of the line for the lone bartender to get to him. He felt like calling it a night. One more beer and it was time to go. He was bored and tired. There was really nothing going on worth sticking around for, and if he stayed, he’d end up getting drunk and feeling sick in the morning. The bar was noisy with the chatter of dozens of conversations competing with the sound of a love ballad on the jukebox.

  He glanced around the bar as he waited in line. He was now nearly in line with Stepman’s table. He tried not to make eye contact, but it was too late.

  “Hey!” Stepman stood up and stared straight at Green, his face set in anger. “What’s a matter, asshole? You got a problem with me?”

  “Who me?” Green was caught by surprise. He looked around to see if someone else was behind him. There wasn’t. Stepman was talking to him.

  “Yeah, you, ya asshole! You got some nerve, pal. I’ll bet you been talking about me, saying things behind my back.” Stepman was inches shorter than Green, but with his chin and chest jutting forward and his hands clenching into fists, he was intimidating.

  “No, sir, you’ve got the wrong guy. I haven’t said a word about you, sir.” Green stood his ground.

  “The wrong guy, my ass.” Stepman swayed slightly, You were always a little weasel. I could tell when I first met you. I don’t know why I thought we could bring you in.”

  Green realized Stepman was drunker than he’d first thought. His eyes were red dots, and although he was talking clearly, he could barely stand up straight.

  “ I’m sorry if there’s been a misunderstanding, sir. Maybe we could discuss it tomorrow when we’re both sober.” Green turned away, back toward the bar.

  At that, Stepman exploded. He launched himself at Green, his head down as he charged forward, trying to tackle the taller man. Green saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, and pivoted and stepped back. By pure reaction, he caught Stepman by the shoulder as he was coming by and shoved him downward, sticking his leg out to trip him at the same time. Rooster Stepman fell to the floor with a thud, grunting as he hit the concrete.

  Green reached down to help Stepman to his feet. Stepman slapped Green’s hand away and pushed himself up from the floor. All the conversation in the room stopped and people looked over to see what had happened.

  Stepman pushed himself to his knees. He had one hand in his pocket as if searching for car keys.

  “I’ll tell ya, pal,” he swayed as if he was about to fall back to the ground. “I’ll tell ya, you couldn’t do that again if you had a million years.” Stepman staggered to his feet. More subdued now, his hand fumbled around in his right pocket. Stepman swayed as if to the music. “I’ll tell ya, kid. I’m so sick of this place I could puke.”

  Some of the people standing nearby moved back farther just in case he was true to his word. Stepman took another step toward Green, then lost his footing and started to lurch forward.

  reen caught him before he hit the floor. He put his arm around Stepman’s shoulders and steadied him.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “God, I hate this place,” Stepman mumbled to himself as he shook Green’s arm away. He suddenly yanked his hand out of his pocket, triumphantly holding a single key, but in the process, everything in his pocket seemed to spring out of his pocket and hit the floor. Coins, crumpled bills, and match packs skated across the floor.

  Green and several other people bent down and began to pick the objects up. Green had picked up several coins when he saw the flash of light reflecting off something near the edge of the bar. At first, he thought it was a credit card. As he reached for it, he realized the shiny black plastic card was an access card.

  Green knew Stepman wore the purple slash emblem, a sign he had clearance for entry in the most restricted areas of the base. Green glanced behind him. No one was paying him any attention. Instinctively, he slid the card into his pocket and switched it with his own.

  The door was marked with a large red sign: Restricted entry. Lieutenant Charley Green glanced behind him. The hall was empty. He slipped the stolen access card from his pocket, took in a deep breath and slid the card through the scanner. The door opened with a swoosh and Green walked through.

  Green had never been in this section of the complex before. He was on the fourth level underground at the northeast quadrant of the building. His heart pounded and his knees felt weak. He had no authority to be where he was, in an unauthorized section of the Installation with a stolen access card. If caught, the best he could hope for would to be thrown in the brig. If he wasn’t lucky, there’d be a court martial followed by an execution for espionage. And all for a vague uneasiness he couldn’t shake, a compulsion over which he had no control. He had no idea what he was looking for or what he would do if he found something.

  The sweat welled up under his arms as he walked. When he first woke in the morning, Green had second thoughts about keeping Stepman’s card. His half-baked plan of investigating the unauthorized sections of the complex seemed dangerous and stupid now that he was sober. He went to search out Rooster Stepman to try to give him back his card. He’d explain it away, he picked the card up by mistake. That would have ended everything right there. But, when he’d reached his post, Stepman wasn’t there. He’d left the base that morning for a few days of R and R. The captain manning his booth confided that Stepman was under a lot of pressure recently. Green walked away with mixed feelings. Whether he wanted it or not, he’d have the card for the next few days.

  The hallway walls on this level were painted yellow. Green walked cautiously through the corridor, looking in every direction for any sign of movement. The hallway turned to the right. His heart was beating hard as he poked his head around the corner. The hall was empty. Green
made the turn and continued walking.

  The only sounds were the click of his boots against the tile and the hum of the ventilation system. His stomach churned as he moved forward. At the end of the hallway, he had two choices—the hallway teed off with entrances to the right and to the left. He paused for a moment, trying to decide which route to take and arbitrarily picked the door on the right. He glanced behind him one more time and then turned back to the door.

  “Open sesame.”

  Green passed the card through the scanner. The door slid open and he moved through onto an observation deck. He quickly surveyed the room. It was just a narrow platform that ran down the perimeter of the adjoining room. There was a single row of seats looking down on a large white room below. He was cut off from the room by a thick sheet of glass, a window that extended the length of the room. With a shock, he realized that there were people in the room. He dropped down out of sight, his heart thumping so loudly he was sure they could hear it.

  After a moment, he poked his head back up and stole a glance down. No one had noticed him. He scrunched down in the corner so he could look down without showing himself.

  The room was white and brightly lit. There were three figures there – two men wearing yellow rubber biohazard suits stood over a table on which the third figure lay. The third figure was naked and unmistakably dead. His lifeless body was covered with purple sores and had a long incision down the middle of his torso, exposing the body cavity. The internal organs were open to view. They appeared blackish and swollen. The face was so bloated Green could hardly make out the features.

  One of the men in the rubber suits reached into the cavity with one hand and grabbed on to one of the organs. It shifted in his hand, more liquid than solid. With his other hand, the man went underneath the organ and carefully cut it away, disconnecting it from the body. The man pulled out what looked like the liver. Green turned away at this point. Bile rose in his throat and he had to cover his mouth as he fought back the urge to retch.

  Green stayed a little longer. Long enough to be unmistakably sure he was watching an autopsy—and the corpse below him was one of the men that he had wheeled down to quarantine, or someone like him. The men working on the corpse were wearing the rubber suits for a reason: the man must have died of some kind of contagious disease. Could he have had the disease before they brought him here? Green supposed it was possible, but he didn’t think so. If he had, and they knew it, they would have isolated him when they brought him in. Anyone who came in contact with him would have had to wear the full hazmat suits, and that hadn’t happened.

  It seemed so bizarre, yet it had to be true. Who was the corpse? What kind of man had he been? And where were they getting these… subjects? Most important of all, why were they doing it? He didn’t know any of the answers, but if it was what he thought, he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. By the time he slipped out from the deck and back into the non-restricted area, he’d made his decision. He had to find out more.

  The colors on the TV were wrong. The image came from a video monitor in the corner of a white lab room. On the monitor, Ramon’s flesh appeared to be the color of lime Jell-O with orange slices for contrast. He paced across his room, walking from one wall past his bed to the other side. Then he’d turn around and do it again.

  A short white-coated scientist reached over and tried to adjust the color, but the best he could get was a fluorescent shade of pink with yellow undertones. He gave up and sat back down next to Colonel Pope, who watched with fascination, as if this was grand entertainment.

  “He does this every day?” Pope steepled his fingers to his chin. He was sitting on a plastic and metal frame chair that was dwarfed by his immense bulk.

  “Constantly, he’s moving all the time. Walking, exercising... when he’s not sleeping, he’s always moving,” the scientist replied.

  “And he appears healthy?”

  “Yes, sir, very healthy. We try to check his vital signs several times a day… he doesn’t cooperate, so we have a hard time, but he’s very healthy. I wish I had his energy.”

  “Has he actively resisted you again?” Pope shifted his weight, the small chair creaking in protest.

  “No, not actively. We go in with a full security detail. I think he’s waiting for an opportunity, though. He’s very dangerous.”

  “Yes, yes, he is.” Pope crossed his legs. “It was a shame about Jenkins.”

  They were both silent for a moment as they thought about Jenkins, who had been exposed to the air in the quarantine when Ramon had fought back. Jenkins had been placed in a quarantine unit for observation. Within two days of exposure, he’d begun to exhibit symptoms of the disease. Within a week, he was dead.

  On the television screen, Ramon stopped his pacing, dropped to the floor, and began to do pushups, his body moving up and down with the regularity of a machine. Colonel Pope uncrossed his legs and shifted again. The chair creaked in protest.

  “Is it safe to have him unrestrained?”

  “We take every precaution,” the scientist replied. “From a scientific standpoint, it’s important to allow him normal movement. We want this to be as close to a real situation as possible, considering the limitations of the experiment.”

  Ramon was now doing sit-ups, no visible sign of effort as his body moved quickly up and down.

  “Yes, I can understand that.” Pope said. “Put the straps back on anyway. He makes me nervous.”

  “Yes, sir.” The scientist nodded his assent.

  “How long has it been now?” Pope asked.

  “He was signed into the facility twenty-one days ago and given the vaccine at that time. Three days later, he was inoculated with the virus.”

  “So it’s been eighteen days. And there have been no symptoms?”

  “No, sir. Nothing visible. Before this, the longest a subject has gone has been ten days, but in that case, he was exhibiting symptoms within four days. It just took longer until termination.”

  “I see. What do the blood tests show?” The chair creaked again as Pope leaned in toward the TV.

  “Positive for antibodies.”

  “Is he contagious?”

  “No, sir. He has the antibodies, but he’s not producing any live virus.”

  Pope pushed himself to his feet and stretched out to his full height. “Tell me, Doctor, do you think this is it?”

  The scientist thought for a moment before replying, “With one subject, it’s too early to tell… but I think we may be onto something. I think this may be it.”

  “Good,” Colonel Pope nodded. “We have three more subjects coming in tomorrow. Give them the same batch so we can compare results.” Pope stared at the TV monitor. Ramon was back to pacing the room. “Give this subject another forty-eight hours to see if he develops any symptoms. If not, terminate him and give me the results of the autopsy.”

  Pope reached over and shut the TV off. The picture faded to darkness.

  As he went through his duties over the course of the day, Charley Green felt like a traitor. These men that he worked with were friends; they shared the same hopes and fears he did. Living together day in and day out, experiencing the same hardships, forged a closeness. It was an “us against them” mentality that strengthened their bond.

  As he made his rounds, Green smiled and made small talk with the other soldiers. But inside, he felt cold. If his suspicions were correct, they were all involved in a criminal enterprise. A man would have to be blind not to see the signs.

  Each soldier had to deal with the situation in his own way. Some chose to ignore the irregularities of the base and pretended it was routine to have unconscious bodies entering a military establishment. Others went along with the peculiarities because it was their assignment and they were just following orders. But the “good soldier” defense only went so far. In the end, a man was accountable for the decisions he made. Green knew that he couldn’t go along if they were engaged in murder and corruption.

  Bu
t what if he was wrong? If there was a legitimate reason for the things he’d seen, then he was the one in the wrong. In his gut, Green was sure he was right. But he needed proof. The proof would be found in the computer network.

  Green always had a knack with computers. Computers ran on a pure form of logic, which he appreciated. His first experience with computers was back in high school. It happened when he was in school after hours, serving a detention. Students on detention were normally placed in the school lunchroom. But on this particular day, the lunchroom was being painted, so the students were put into the computer lab. The computer lab was just a large room with two ancient Apple computers, but it was all his school could afford. About fifteen minutes into the detention, the teacher charged with monitoring the group left the room. Some of the students began to act up. Charley Green had other ideas.

  Using a tool set left in the room, he dismantled one of the computers. He wasn’t trying to break it, he just wanted to see what made it work. When the teacher returned, the computer was disemboweled. Wires and circuits were scattered over the desk and Green was hunched over the remains, totally absorbed.

  That stunt got Green suspended for two weeks, but it was a small price to pay. Up until then, he’d thought of technology as magic. A mystery beyond understanding. This experience taught him computers were merely machines. Just electronic boxes that needed explicit instructions to perform the simplest task.