The Genetic Experiment

by E S Richards

  All my love, your father, Emerson.

  Asher stared at the words on the page in front of him. He didn’t know how to feel. He didn’t know how to react. Nothing that Emerson had said in his letter made up for what had happened in the past. It read more like it was Emerson trying to justify his actions, trying to make himself feel better.

  Asher wondered what Emerson’s connection to the safe haven really was. He knew he was the head scientist there and from his letter it sounded like he was trying to rid the world of people with genetic mutations in some way, but how? Asher also puzzled over how Zahyra needed to be involved in the solution too. Emerson had referred to them both as key players, another thing that Asher didn’t really understand.

  Anger rose inside of him like a fire as he re-read some of Emerson’s words. He didn’t believe them; he couldn’t believe them. If he truly cared about Asher and Zahyra then he wouldn’t be putting them through this. The horrible feeling of not knowing what was going on was drowning Asher. Every day he searched for answers and was only rewarded with more questions.

  Four days ago he’d been completely alone. Now he had Zahyra back, which he was exceedingly thankful for, but he also had a father. So much was changing and there was no constant to keep him grounded. Asher screwed up the paper in anger and threw it against the rocky wall in front of him. Nothing in the safe haven made sense. Nothing in the safe haven felt safe.

  Chapter 11

  Zahyra paced her room angrily. No one had come to see her since Heather had left her in her room with the books she’d taken from the study area and that had been yesterday afternoon. She’d had her supper and breakfast both brought to her room and by the time on her timekeep her lunch was shortly about to follow.

  Heather hadn’t seemed angry with her when they’d parted ways. Sure, she knew what she’d done yesterday had been wrong, sneaking around the lab and using Professor Welbeck’s personal screen, but she hadn’t expected to be completely abandoned because of it. Whatever was going on within the safe haven she wasn’t comfortable with and being kept isolated just heightened her suspicions about the place.

  Footsteps outside her door told Zahyra her next meal was about to be delivered and this time she wasn’t going to let anyone go without getting some answers.

  “What’s going on?” She demanded at the grey clad woman who entered carrying her meal. The woman stopped, frozen in her tracks. She wore a grey armband, which told Zahyra she was ‘non-essential personnel’ – as Zac had put it yesterday. Even if she didn’t know anything though, that wasn’t going to stop Zahyra trying.

  “Where’s Heather?” She continued as the woman began walking towards the table in the room, exchanging Zahyra’s empty plate for a full one. Zahyra blocked her path as she tried to make it back to the door.

  “Talk to me!”

  The woman looked at Zahyra, her gaze not quite meeting hers. “I don’t know anything,” she mumbled, “I just bring the food where I’m told. Sorry.”

  Zahyra let out a long sigh and let the woman move past her.

  “Tell Heather I want to speak to her,” she finished angrily as the woman began closing the door. “Tell her I want answers!”

  The exchange left Zahyra feeling more frustrated than she had done beforehand. She believed the woman didn’t know anything like she’d said, but she hoped she could at least get her message sent to Heather. The safe haven was bad enough already, Zahyra didn’t know how long she could cope if she was left alone for much longer.

  Another hour passed. Zahyra ate her meal, most of it anyway. Not doing anything had resulted in a slight loss of appetite and she merely pushed most of the soup around the bowl with her bread. She lay back down on her bed, picking up another of the books she had acquired the day before and began to read when there was a knock on her bedroom door.

  No one had ever knocked before. She put down the book and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  “Come in?” She replied in an almost questioning tone and poised herself for whoever was about to enter.

  A man she hadn’t seen before let himself into the room, crossed in front of her and sat down in the chair. His face was angled towards the ground so she couldn’t see it, but she saw he had a head of grey hair. He also wore a grey uniform with a black armband like Professor Welbeck’s, which told her he was a scientist. Upon closer inspection she saw it had small silver dots on it and she then remembered seeing this man with his head in his hands in the glass-walled room on the way to her scanning.

  “Hello?” She asked him inquisitively, “Who are you?”

  The man’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, then slowly raised his head to look at Zahyra. She stared back at him, wide eyed. He was older and his face was more wrinkled than she remembered it. He also had a grey beard that was growing in patches across his cheeks and chin. As her eyes met his her mouth dropped open. He was older yes, but it was definitely him. Her father.

  “I take it you remember me?” He said with a slight smile, his posture becoming more upright as he spoke.

  Zahyra felt glued to the edge of the bed where she sat. She hadn’t seen her father for ten years, not since he left shortly after Asher was born. But now he was there. Sitting right in front of her, only a few feet away. If she wanted to she could probably reach out and touch him, feel his skin, discover how he now smelt. But she couldn’t move. None of it felt real.

  She had imagined this day a thousand times growing up. Being reunited with her father, introducing him to Asher. She still had no idea why he had left but something about their reunion told her she was about to find out. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Nothing could have prepared her for this; he was undoubtedly the last person she had expected to see walking through her bedroom door. Yet there he was. Alive. Healthy. And sitting in her chair.

  “How…” She started, then stopped, unable to formulate a sentence. “Where… When… How?”

  “Zahyra, I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you,” he said as he rose from the chair and moved towards her. He stood in front of her and then bent down, wrapping his arms around her awkwardly. She didn’t return the hug. She couldn’t. She just remained frozen in place, baffled by the scene that was unfolding in front of her. When her arms didn’t move for him Emerson edged backwards towards the chair and sat back down. He looked uncomfortable, but no way near as much as Zahyra did.

  “I suppose I’ve got some explaining to do,” he spoke. Zahyra could only nod her head in response, her mouth still hanging open slightly. Emerson cleared his throat, leaned back in the chair and slowly began to tell Zahyra his story.

  “I have worked for the safe haven for as long as I can remember,” he began. “When I was a child, just a few years after I received my branding I was separated from my family. I don’t really remember how, I just remember finding myself lost and alone. After a few days someone from the safe haven found me and brought me to live here. This is where I grew up, matured, learned about the world and everything going on around us.

  “I’d always had an eye for science. Loved learning how things worked and what made people tick. The genetic mutations fascinated me and along with my team we began working to figure out what caused them, what affected them and whether we could create any of our own.

  “You’ll have realised already that we don’t categorise people based on their generation number here. We think people are more than just the number burnt into their arm and that is what truly made our science thrive. We had begun working on a new genetic mutation, knowing that if we could figure out how to make one, we could figure out how to cure one. It was a little less than twenty years ago now that I set out on a scouting mission, in order to help further this research into a new mutation.”

  Zahyra watched her father tell his tale, enthralled by each word leaving his mouth. She tried to picture her father before she had known him, but couldn’t. It was hard enough seeing him as he was now and trying to assign that face to the one she had grown up wi
th, anything else was just too much to process.

  “Somehow, whilst on my scouting mission,” her father continued. “I was separated from my group. Again I know,” he smiled, “clearly I’m not very good in the outside world am I? Anyway, I was separated from my group and I couldn’t find my way back here. I knew the safe haven had people posted in the outside world at various camps so I began travelling around, searching for one of those people.

  “That is when I met your mother. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I knew from the moment I saw her that I had to be with her.” He paused, “It devastated me when I discovered she didn’t manage to make it here too.

  “Shortly after meeting her we had you. Another beautiful thing I knew I couldn’t live without. Yet still I was determined to make contact with someone from the safe haven, even just to tell them that I was okay. That I was alive. That’s why we moved around so much when you were younger; I was searching for someone, who I did eventually find in the camp we settled down in. You might remember him, he used to be able to blow water bubbles out of his mouth?”

  Zahyra’s eyes grew wider at that moment. Of course she remembered the old bubble man from her camp. So many of her childhood memories had involved him, chasing around the bubbles that he blew, trying to avoid getting wet when they popped.

  A smile crept across her lips at the memory, though only for a moment as she processed what her father was saying. The old bubble man must have worked for the safe haven too and that made her see him in an instantly different light.

  “So we settled down in that camp and for me, I’d thought that would be it. I’d made contact with the safe haven and I had my beautiful family by my side. Occasionally I would travel back here, directed by that old bubble man, and check in on how the work was progressing.

  “You have to understand how much I loved my work – how much I still love it now, but I loved you and your mother so much as well. Then I found out your mother was pregnant again and I couldn’t have been happier. Do you remember when we’d sit by the fire at night, thinking up names for your younger brother or sister? Those memories have stayed with me my whole life and I cherish them everyday. But still, I loved my work and there was a part of me that just couldn’t stay away.

  “You’ve lived here now. You’ve seen the incredible feats of technology that are at our fingertips. How could someone who had experienced this almost his entire life be happy with living in one of those camps? Don’t get me wrong, I was happy of course, with you, with my family. But the technology… it had always been my first love.

  “One day, whilst your mother was pregnant I travelled back here for a few days. Whilst I was here I discovered my team had had a breakthrough. They’d discovered a way to create the next generation of mutants. The New-Wave they were calling it. There was only one catch, in that it could only be administered in the form of an injection. An injection given to newborn baby boys.”

  Zahyra’s whole body stiffened as she realised what her father was saying.

  “You –” she started, anger beginning to burn inside of her.

  “I’m not proud of what I did,” her father cut her off. “But when I saw the opportunity I just couldn’t stop myself. When Asher was born I gave him the injection, knowing full well what it would do. Afterwards I couldn’t believe what I had done. I had forced a Gen 6 mutation onto my own son, no consent from him or his mother or anyone. I regretted it immediately afterwards and ultimately, that is why I left. I just couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t stand by and watch him grow up knowing that when he turned ten the mutation would begin to take hold of him. I had only been in the lab for a day before they’d given it to me, to be honest, I didn’t know the full scope of what would happen.

  “So I ran. I ran away and I came back here. Like I said I’m not proud of it, but when I returned here I continued the research. I understand the mutation now and I can help Asher control it. With him, and you as a pure human we can work together to control the genetic mutations. We can cure them. Turn people back into people rather than leaving them as mutants. Now that you’re both here we can make a change. I know my actions were foolish at the time but they had good intentions. Without Asher, and without you this world is going to collapse and burn. We are the only people that can save it.”

  Zahyra glared at her father as he finished his story, the pure hatred she felt for him seeping out of her pores. He was the whole reason that Asher had become a Gen 6 mutant. He had forced his own son to become something the whole world would be afraid of. Who knew what would happen to Asher as a result. She hadn’t seen him; she didn’t know what effects were already taking place due to the mutation.

  Her father’s story told her one thing though: Asher was definitely still inside the facility. If his mutation had been created by the safe haven there was no way they would just let him walk out of it. Heather had lied to her. But no way near to the point that her father had. Looking at him now all the happy childhood memories she’d once seen when she thought of him had vanished. Replaced with a raw anger at what he had done to Asher.

  “How could you?” She spat under her breath. “How could you do that to him?”

  “Zahyra if you try to see it from my perspective…”

  “You don’t get a perspective!” Zahyra yelled angrily, “You didn’t get to watch him grow up. You didn’t know him. You still don’t know him. To you he’s just a mutation. Your New-Wave of mutant to experiment on. Just like you’ve been doing to me! Where is he? I want to see him. Now!”

  Her chest heaved as she spoke. The words flying out of her mouth like bullets, each one intent on tearing a hole in her father. He watched her with a calm face, absorbing what she said and considering each and every word.

  “I know you’re angry,” he started once she had calmed down slightly, “and you have every right to be. But even if you hate me you have to believe me when I say that the safe haven is doing everything it can to fix this. To fix the world. You’ve been working on a cure with Professor Welbeck, and I’ve been working with Asher to–”

  “You’ve seen him?” Zahyra suddenly interrupted. “Did you tell him? Did you tell him you were his father?”

  Emerson sagged notably in front of her. “Earlier today I did, yes,” he paused to inhale, “he err, he didn’t take it well.”

  Zahyra smiled smugly as her father continued to speak.

  “As you can expect he doesn’t really count me as his father, having grown up entirely without me. He’s doing well though, he’s strong, he’s healthy. I promise you can see him soon. We just need to complete the trials first before –”

  “Did you tell him I was here?” Zahyra interrupted again, unwilling to let her father fill her head with nonsense about the medical trials when she finally had confirmation her brother was being held in the safe haven with her. He could be in the room next door for all she knew and it killed her she hadn’t been allowed to comfort him yet.

  Discovering your father was alive and was the one who had given you a mutation… Zahyra couldn’t begin to imagine what he was going through. “Oh God,” she continued, “did you tell him you did it? Did you tell him it’s your fault he’s a mutant now?”

  “No,” Emerson muttered, “to both questions. Well, he knows you’re here somewhere, in the facility. He knew that you’d be housed given your Zero status, but he doesn’t know where exactly you are. And no… I didn’t tell him it was me who made him what he is. You’re welcome to when you see him; I can’t stop you. I just thought… I thought it might be easier for him if he didn’t blame me for that as well. As well as me leaving him I mean.”

  “Easier for you you mean,” Zahyra spat, “easier for you to deal with if he doesn’t hate you for that as well. You’re no father to him; no father would ever do that to his son. No father would ever…”

  Zahyra trailed off, her throat becoming constricted with sobs. She turned her face away from Emerson, fighting back the tears, refusing to let him s
ee her cry. Her father watched her for a moment in silence, processing what to do next.

  “I’m truly sorry for what has happened Zahyra,” he spoke softly, only just loud enough for her to hear. “I can only hope that now the three of us are back together, we can try to be a family again. We can try to rebuild.”

  Zahyra sniffed twice, forcing the last of her tears to dissipate and then turned back to look at her father. Even calling him that in her head didn’t seem right anymore. Not after what he had done…

  “I had a family,” she spoke clearly and confidently. “I had a family and now, thanks to you, I’ve lost them.”

  Emerson opened his mouth to speak but Zahyra’s glare silenced him, indicating she wasn’t yet finished.

  “Mother is already gone as a result of what you’ve done. You banished Cain back into the outside world just because of his generation number, yet you say they don’t matter to people here. Clearly they do, or else he would be sitting here with me now. He wasn’t a mutant; he was just unlucky. And now he’s alone because of you.