We passed through a sliding glass door and traversed a short, stark-white hallway to another set of sliding glass doors. My father cleared his throat as we entered a small room surrounded by security monitors and a reception desk with six burly guards on duty.
“If I may ask, Dana,” my father started bravely, “why is the Commission running experiments? What are they for?”
“Well, that’s a bit complicated to answer,” Dana said slowly. He nodded to the guards that rapidly stood from their position behind the desk. One of them rushed to lead us through the door, three more guards following. Dana led us further while the guards surrounded him in their practiced formation. “You see, the Commission strives to create the ultimate soldier. A weapon, if you will, out of humans.”
“You’re…altering humans to make weapons?” I hissed, my voice weak.
“Yes,” Dana affirmed without hesitation. “Some of them work, like Mykail, others…well, they’re not as fortunate.” Dana motioned to the wall next to him. My heart stopped in my chest. The wall was a large, glass panel that gave us full view of the creature inside the unadorned white cell. There were no words to describe the hideous, blotchy skin seeping thick, yellow fluid. The large eyes looked reptilian and the mouth had been horribly twisted. The fingers were webbed, and the back arched in a horrible way, distorting the rest of the body.
My mother yelped, and I barely managed to keep myself from screaming.
“That…was once human?” my mother gasped.
“At one point, I think so.” Dana tilted his head to the side, as if contemplating the question. “Not much to look at now, I’m afraid.”
“How…do you even do this?” my father breathed. “This is out of a sci-fi movie.”
“It’s all trial and error, really,” Dana said with a shrug. “We lay them on a table and try to change everything we can until we have something, well, like this.” He motioned to the creature again. “We’ve created all sorts of fascinating things over the years.”
“You…you said you were creating weapons,” I said slowly, tearing my eyes away from the experiment. “W-what kind of weapon were you making with him?”
“See the disgusting yellow ooze? It’s highly acidic and very corrosive. It could melt just about anything, and anyone, it comes in contact with.” He sighed, disappointed. “However, it did also cause problems with his hair follicles and skin pigmentation…then it started eating through his nerve endings. We’re running some final tests on him before we put him down.”
“Wait, you just…test on humans and then kill them when they don’t work out?” I gasped incredulously.
“Oh, it’s all very humane.” Dana assured. “Come, I’ll show you more. We keep all the ugly ones up front. Keeps people on their toes, which is good because the successful ones are generally more dangerous.”
Dana turned, walking, almost bouncing, down the hallway, his four guards surrounding him. I looked at my father and mother, who were too shocked to move. Mrs. Markus chuckled when she saw our expressions.
“There is no need to be frightened,” she assured. “Dana is simply trying to psych you out. All of the experiments are properly contained.”
And who contains Dana? I growled to myself. I forced my legs to move down the bright, sterile hallway, following everyone else. I could not help my curiosity and looked in each large cells we passed. Some experiments were hideous, looking like creatures from movies with no resemblance to a human. Clearly, their mentality had been changed as well as they ambled about their cells, quickly backing away in fear when they saw us.
“Dana,” my father called.
“Yes?” Dana said over his shoulder, not stopping as we passed through two sets of doors, entering a section marked with a large “3” on the double door.
“All of your experiments were human?” he pressed.
“Yes, or some variation, thereof.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I murmured under my breath. Of course, Dana heard me and stopped. His guards halted, too. The head of the Commission of the People chuckled, turning slowly to face me.
“You obviously have not had enough experience in the world to understand that no one is truly human anymore, Little Lily,” he whispered.
“Where do you get your test subjects?” my father asked quickly, taking Dana’s attention away from me.
“Oh, all over the place,” he answered. “They’re people the Commission rounds up. You know, illegal immigrants, homosexuals, ethnic and religious minorities, those people.”
We stared at Dana, shocked at how easily he had told us the information. Dana glanced over our expressions and barked a laugh.
“Why are you so shocked?” he asked coldly. “What did you think happened to the people the Commission collected?”
We still could not speak. I had never given much thought to the Commission cleaning out the population of America. Since I had been born into a time where the population was considered purely American, it was not something I often had reason to ponder. Now that Dana had told me, I felt nauseous at the realization that I had never thought deeper into the Commission before. The entire population ignored the basic question of what the Commission of the People did with its criminals.
“Is there an ultimate goal you are working toward?” my father pressed. “Taking all these people and testing on them…you have something in mind, don’t you?”
“Well, we do have an overlying project,” Dana admitted. “That is our main weapon. So far, the testing has been disastrous.”
“Dana…” Mrs. Markus smiled knowingly. Dana turned to her and a cat-like smile crept over his features.
“Well…not completely disastrous,” he corrected vaguely.
“What has been the overlying project?” my mother asked nervously. Dana sighed, pursing his lips.
“Do the glasses bother you?” he asked, pointing to his face. I blinked at the abrupt subject change.
“I’m sorry?” my father asked, also caught off-guard.
“These glasses. You see,” he started, reaching up, “I would rather not wear them at all. And if I am going to tell you about the main project, I want to speak to you directly.”
I felt my pulse race and my curiosity peak sharply. I was overwhelmed by the horrific things I had already seen that night, but it was all blocked from my mind as I thought about being able to see Dana’s eyes—the eyes that had been staring me down all evening.
Dana took the frame of the glasses in his fingers and began to pull them off.
The guards stepped in front of Dana and turned him around.
“Our apologies, sir.”
“What?” Dana whined. I could barely see his head over the guards as Dana turned to look at them. I tried to crane my neck to see Dana’s face, but the guards were moving too much, attempting to get Dana to face the other way once more.
“Sean has instructed that you are not to remove your glasses in front of new members of the Commission,” one guard said.
“Well, Sean is not here, and he does not create the rules, I do.” Dana’s tone changed, becoming dangerous. “Now, move out of the way.”
“We’re sorry, sir.”
“We’re following Sean’s orders.”
There was a thick silence that hung in the air for three long seconds. Then, one of the guards cried out in pain as his arm was twisted behind his back, Dana stepping close, looming over the cringing and collapsing guard.
“Who do you serve?” he snarled.
“Y-You, sir!” the guard cried out in pain.
“If you want to lose your arm, defy me again.”
“Yes, sir! I’m sorry, sir!”
I stared at the display, watching Dana subdue his own guard in such a harsh manner.
“Good boy,” Dana cooed. “Now, are you going to bow at my feet and kiss my shoes?”
“W-What?” the guard gasped. Dana angrily released the guard, pushing him to the ground. He hardly dared to look up at Dana, his eyes wide
with fear as his body shook.
“You heard me.”
“Sir, this is not fair. He was only—”
Dana swiveled, jamming his fist upward into the speaking man’s diaphragm and causing him to fall to his knees, clutching at his stomach, gasping like a fish out of water.
“Disobedience will not be tolerated!” Dana bellowed. He looked at the two standing guards and then down to the two on the floor. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir…” they chorused.
“Now, you heard me,” he snarled at the two on their knees.
I watched in fascination and horror as the two guards leaned down to Dana’s feet and kissed the top of his shined, black shoes, trembling.
“Knock it off, you pathetic puppies,” Dana groaned, finally lifting his head to look at us.
His eyes were incredible. The intensity of the unnatural golden color caused my legs to go weak and I felt myself falling into their depths willingly. His eyes were the only place I could see some semblance of age. He had some wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but the abnormal color of the irises diminished the otherwise-evident age.
When the colorful orbs rested on me, I felt the pull from every section of my body. I felt my legs weaken and my heart pound. My mouth dropped open and a fire awoke in my belly that I could not ignore. I shivered, lost in the eyes. Heat rose to my cheeks, but it was not from embarrassment…
Dana’s eyes moved off me and shifted to my mother and father. I could tell they were both feeling the same way. Even my father seemed flustered, seduced by the incredible power of Dana’s gaze.
“Sorry you had to see that display,” Dana cooed. I could have sworn he was hypnotizing us with his eyes and his now-calm voice that dripped with honey. “Some pets forget who their master is.”
I barely heard the words. Every part of me was alight with fire and intense curiosity, lined with a powerful dose of fear. He was a beautiful predator and I was the defenseless prey, captured in his authority and splendor, willing to be his victim.
“Are you frightened, Little Lily?” Dana asked, his deep, raspy voice tingling along my spine, magnifying the feelings in my body that his eyes had ignited. I swallowed hard and slowly shook my head. “You’re not afraid of me?”
I nodded, my head attached to a string he was controlling.
“That’s a smart girl…”
The power of Dana’s eyes was broken when a hand pushed Dana’s head sideways, turning him around. I blinked, trying to gain my bearings as I studied the newcomer. The man who had arrived was even taller than Dana—though not by much—with tanned skin, dark brown eyes and hair, and the build of a wrestler. Despite his features, there was nothing about the man that was immediately threatening.
“Dana, please,” the stranger sighed with a tone of patience that I had to marvel. He sounded like a caring older brother who had caught his unwell sibling doing something mildly unacceptable. The man plucked Dana’s glasses from his breast pocket and tenderly placed them on his face. “I asked you to keep these on as often as possible.”
“You’re no fun, Sean.” Dana pouted.
I took note of Clark’s reaction to Sean’s appearance. The teen seemed relieved, as though he had just seen a dangerous dog leashed.
“Sir, I do not interfere with any of your affairs,” Sean said. “This is the only thing I ask of you.”
“You have bizarre rules for these stupid things,” Dana growled, adjusting the glasses. “Well, when can I take them off in front of the Sandovers, then?”
“I would prefer never,” Sean said, his eyebrows high.
“Nope.”
“Then at least not on the first day they are here,” Sean groaned, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure they’re overwhelmed enough.” He turned to the four guards. “Parker, Jake, return to your posts.”
“Yes, sir,” the two at Dana’s feet blurted, hurrying away.
“Now that Sean is here, the fun stuff will have to wait,” Dana sighed, turning and jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the taller man. “This is Sean Jacobsen, my head of security.”
I realized then that it was not Dana’s security Sean was charge with, but rather the security of everyone who came in contact with the leader of the Commission. I wondered why Dana was so willing to let Sean boss him around. For a moment, I entertained the thought that Sean was Dana’s older brother—which would explain the calm patience in his voice—but they did not look at all related.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Sandover family,” Sean greeted. His eyes rested on me and widened. His gaze flicked quickly to Clark, and the two shared a silent conversation before Sean’s eyes came back to me. I tried to ignore the churning of my stomach at the silent exchange, my overstimulated brain unable to even begin to discern what it could mean.
“I was about to take them to Lab Two and show them the recent progress we have made with the Enterprise project,” Dana said to his head of security.
“Have you explained it to them?”
“I was about to.” Dana started walking again, Sean falling into step behind him as he began explaining the experiment over his shoulder.
“The ultimate goal is to create a creature that is human in most respects and has no spontaneous mutations, which has been happening a lot recently.” Dana’s eyebrows furrowed, perplexed by his own statement as he walked us out of section three of the experiment cells and through the door across a narrow hallway marked with a large six. We moved through more lines of glass cells filled with cowering experiments. We moved out of section six to another hallway, where we immediately turned to the right, walking up the short adjoining hallway to a door with a small window in the middle.
“This is Lab Two,” Dana explained, reaching into his lapel pocket and pulling out his key card, sliding it over the electronic lock before opening the door.
We were immediately greeted by an ear-piercing scream that made everyone but Dana jump in surprise. There was such intense agony in the cry that my entire body went cold, horrified.
“Oh,” Dana said, “I guess they have someone on the table.”
Everything inside me screamed not to look around Dana, but I had to. I craned my neck and saw the room filled with chairs like those in a dentist office, but bigger and flatter with metal restraints over the ankles, knees, hips, chest, wrists, upper arms, and neck. There were sheets around the room, hanging from the ceiling to divide the room into smaller sections if necessary.
At the very far side of the lab, I saw a group of people in white coats looming over one table.
“Kyle!” Dana called. One of the men turned and lowered his surgical mask. He was holding a syringe and my fear of needles caused me to panic even from across the room—it did not help that his surgical gown was stained red down the front.
“Oh, good evening, sir,” the man named Kyle greeted easily.
“Who do you have on the table?” Dana asked, stepping forward. Mrs. Markus also entered the room and Clark nodded, telling me to follow. I stepped into the lab after my parents, Sean trailing behind everyone.
“Eyna, sir,” Kyle answered.
“I wasn’t aware he was scheduled for anything today,” Dana said, his pace hastening, his voice interested, as though he had walked in half-way through a movie he had wanted to watch.
“Nothing dramatic, sir.”
“Sandovers, come meet my pride and joy.” Dana smiled, stepping up to the side of the table as the men and women in coats parted. I paid careful attention to the needles and other sharp instruments as I moved to the opposite side of the table with my parents while Clark and Mrs. Markus stood at the foot of the modified chair.
There was a young man secured in the restraints, his eyes rolling around in their sockets as he breathed heavily, sedated. His pale skin was dotted with bandages and bruises, and his messy hair was a sandy brown, matching his bright hazel eyes.
“Meet Eyna,” Dana said tenderly, placing a hand on the young man’s head. “He might be
the first success of the little project I was telling you about. I was just going to show you his file but, as luck would have it, you get to see him in the flesh.”
“…s-success how?” my father asked. It was obvious that shock had seized my mother’s tongue as she could only stare.
Dana chuckled, lifting his hand and, once again, removing his glasses.
“Dana—” Sean started.
“Be quiet, Sean,” Dana snarled, his voice dangerous as he placed the glasses in his pocket. Sean obeyed.
“Eyna is part of the program to create the Machine of Neutralization,” Dana explained. He leaned on his hands on the table, his eyes still hypnotizing, but there was no seduction in the gaze now. There was only power and radiance that had me hanging off of every noise from his mouth. “The Machine of Neutralization is the main goal of D. Enterprises, a sub-branch of the Commission,” Dana continued. “You see, wars are starting to get more complicated. Killing each other in the traditional manner no longer seems to amuse or persuade nations the way it used to. War, as it was, is now unacceptable. We are trying to create a creature that is stronger than any human with the qualities of an animal that can be the ultimate weapon for the new kind of warfare.”
“How can you do that?” I asked slowly.
“The first step was deciding which animal to use the DNA from without turning the subjects rabid or mad, or putting them into shock where their body shut down from the confusion and turned them into living vegetables,” Dana said with a shrug of his shoulders. “So far, we have had the best luck with the DNA for a lion, oddly enough. Even the monkey DNA didn’t take. Very counterintuitive.”
“Just…infusing DNA?” my father asked.
“God, no, it’s far more complicated than that. There’s work to coincide with the immune system, the nerve endings, and then altering the brain function to open up different pathways for command of the new DNA. Believe me, it’s been a nightmare.” Dana rolled his eyes. “We lost at least forty before we got the brain alteration down correctly so they didn’t turn into vegetables after the first week,” the head of the Commission elaborated, his voice distant. “We got some interesting subjects from that…”
Inside Page 14