The Genetic Experiment

by E S Richards

  “What’s going on?” Zahyra asked, turning around to face Cain and her brother.

  “This has never happened before,” Asher shrugged, his knowledge of the technology within the safe haven still on a very remedial level.

  “Maybe it’s because it’s after hours? Some of the doors are only locked after lights go out.” Cain offered a suggestion, although he suspected the card he had stolen might not have clearance for all the levels. “Just try one more time.”

  Zahyra turned back to the door and held the plastic card against the pad for the third time. She held her breath as she waited for the white light to change colour, praying for green. When it flashed red her heart sank and she turned back to look at Cain.

  “I guess we should keep –”

  A blaring alarm cut her off, causing the three of them to slam their hands over their ears.

  “What’s going on?” Asher yelled out in surprise, his voice barely making a sound over the alarm.

  Zahyra shook her head and looked at Cain.

  “It must be something to do with the card and the door,” he shouted at her. “We need to move, now!”

  Zahyra didn’t need to hear anything else. She shoved the useless plastic card into one of her pockets and grabbed Asher’s hand, hurtling for the door to the stairway they’d just come through – praying it hadn’t been locked as well when the alarm sounded.

  Chapter 24

  The door swung open and smashed into the wall behind it. The noise would have been deafening if it wasn’t for the alarm; with that going off Zahyra barely noticed the sound of the door as she pushed Asher through it, herself and Cain following behind.

  The three of them charged down the staircase at breakneck speed. They didn’t know how much of the safe haven was being woken up by the alarm but they were certain someone would be coming for them soon.

  Zahyra scolded herself as she overtook Asher to lead the way down the stairs. Why had she so desperately wanted to get into that lab – just to cause her father a little amount of pain. She had to realise he wasn’t worth it. If that selfish act ultimately stopped them from breaking out of the safe haven she would never forgive herself. The promise of the outside world slowly slipping through her fingertips.

  As they reached the bottom of the stairwell Zahyra pushed through the door and found herself in a very familiar looking lab. It was set up exactly like Professor Welbeck’s but from the instruments laid out on the tables and various other objects Zahyra knew instantly it wasn’t hers. They must have entered from the other end of the floor, meaning Professor Welbeck’s was further down the corridor, through the large metal door she could see at the other end of the room.

  As Asher and Cain tumbled into the room beside her Zahyra remembered that the lab they were standing in was on the other side of her father’s. She’d been through both of them before, as she was rushed to the medical area after her failed bone marrow procedure. Knowing the next lab belonged to her father Zahyra rushed forward, slamming the button next to the door which led to his lab. When the door failed to slide open she remembered what Cain had said about some doors locking after hours and reached for the card in her pocket. Holding it against the panel on the wall she waited for the light to flash green then to her utter relief stumbled forward into another familiar room.

  “This is our father’s lab,” she said urgently once Cain and Asher had caught their breath. “Asher have you ever been down here?”

  The young boy shook his head, confused by Zahyra’s words.

  “We need to see if there’s anything here to do with the cure, or with either of our trials.”

  “Zahyra we don’t have time!” Cain shouted over the still present alarm. “People could be down here any second looking for us, we have no idea what that alarm has done!”

  “Cain it could cure you.” Zahyra spun around, locking eyes with Cain as she spoke. She was ashamed to admit she hadn’t told Cain everything she believed about the cure Professor Welbeck and her father had been working on. She hadn’t told him what she’d discovered the small pill could do. Or at least what she hoped it would do.

  “Listen it’s still a prototype,” Zahyra continued. “But there are a bunch of pills either in this lab or Professor Welbeck’s next door that could help you control your mutation. I only found out about them today. Please, if there’s any chance that we could find something to help you then we need to look for it. We have to try. You said yesterday it was worth a try!”

  Cain looked nervously around the lab. “Do you have any idea what it looks like?”

  Zahyra shook her head. “I just know it’s a pill. It’ll probably be locked away somewhere, so we’ll have to break into the cabinets. My trial is called T128 – maybe it’ll say that on it?”

  Cain grimaced as he looked around the lab again, his ears already ringing from the sound of the alarm. “Alright,” he levelled with Zahyra, “ten minutes. Then we need to get out of here.”

  Zahyra sprung into action, racing over to the part of the room she’d seen her father working in and ripping open all the drawers that weren’t locked. Like she’d suspected they were filled with equipment and random scraps of paper. It wasn’t very likely they’d just leave some miracle cure lying out in the open.

  As she faced the first locked cabinet she came across she took a deep breath in then grabbed hold of the handle. She yanked at it with all her might but the hard casing wouldn’t budge. Refusing to give up Zahyra pulled again, her face turning red with effort and sweat starting to form on her brow. She was glad for the uniform she was wearing. She may not have needed it to blend in for very long but the breathable fabric was much more comfortable to move around in.

  A bang sounded from the other end of the room and Zahyra spun around, seeing Cain holding one of the cabinet doors in his hand. He’d ripped it straight off the hinges, his muscles looking taught underneath the fabric of his own uniform.

  “You look through them,” he shouted over to Zahyra, “I’ll get the doors open!”

  Zahyra grinned and raced over to the cabinet Cain had managed to open. Asher was already there rifling through the items which had fallen to the floor, moving things aside so he could look for the pills Zahyra had very briefly described.

  The first cabinet was mostly full of equipment. Fancier stuff that Zahyra hadn’t seen left out on the tables. She broke quite a lot of it as she moved through it, carelessly throwing things to the side. Not that she cared; if this was one of the last acts she performed in the safe haven she was going to leave her mark.

  Another bang sounded as Cain released the second cabinet door. Zahyra moved over to it, leaving her brother to sort through the final things in the first one. To her dismay the second cabinet revealed much of the same, and by the time Cain opened the third the sight inside had grown familiar to Zahyra.

  “Try some on the other side of the room,” she shouted over to Cain, checking her timekeep to make sure they still had time. She had no idea how soon the lab would be overcome with people. The hard reminder of her gun in the secret pocket of her uniform pressed against her abdomen as she reached into the back of the third cabinet. At least that was there if she needed it, the chance of which becoming increasingly likely.

  “What’s this?” Asher had to repeat his question twice before Zahyra heard him and looked down from her search. Asher was holding a sheet of paper, a long list of things with extremely long names Zahyra had never heard of typed onto it.

  “I don’t know bud, why?”

  “This symbol,” Asher pointed to a red cross in the top right corner of the page. “Doesn’t it mean medical supplies? This could be a list of them?”

  Zahyra noticed the red cross and something in her mind clicked.

  “You’re a genius, Ash!” She cried, taking the paper and ruffling her brother’s hair as a grin broke out onto his face.

  None of the words on the page made sense to her, half of them didn’t even look like real words but something was telling
her Asher was right. She looked frantically around her father’s lab for another image of the red cross then remembered there was one plastered onto a cabinet in Professor Welbeck’s lab next door. Damon had removed certain things from it before her bone marrow procedure. If the cure was going to be anywhere it was next door.

  “Cain!” Zahyra’s voice surprised the man as the cabinet door he was pulling off snapped in his hands, causing him to stumble backwards a few steps before looking round.

  “We need to get next door,” Zahyra shouted over the alarm. “Into Professor Welbeck’s lab!”

  Cain dropped the cabinet door he was still holding and followed Zahyra and Asher over to the large metal door at the opposite end of the lab. Zahyra prayed as she held the plastic card over the pad and waited for the light to turn green. Once again to her relief it did, the tiny click of the door unlocking music to her ears over the sound of the alarm. She stepped back and waited for it to slide open but froze when it only moved a couple of inches then stopped. She held the card up again but nothing happened, panic slipping into her psyche.

  “We need to find something to leverage the door,” Cain said behind her and moved back into the lab.

  A second later he was back, holding a long L-shaped device. Zahyra moved as he slid one end of it around the door and pushed on the other, the door shaking under the added pressure. In an instant she was behind him, reaching around and placing a hand on the device he was using for leverage, pressing down with all her might to force the door open.

  Minutes passed as the gap slowly opened wider, almost big enough for them to get through. Zahyra peeked through and saw the lab was empty, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “I can get through!” Asher cried and ducked down, moving underneath Cain and Zahyra’s arms and into Professor Welbeck’s lab on the other side.

  “Asher be careful!” Zahyra shouted after him, taking a breath before pushing at the door again.

  After another minute the gap was big enough for her to fit through but she stayed behind, pushing until Cain had enough room as well. Once they were all through Zahyra found Asher, standing below a cabinet with a big red cross displayed on the front of it.

  Cain reached it before Zahyra, stopping beside Asher and shaking his arms out, the strain of pulling off cabinet doors making his arms feel weaker by the second.

  “Stand back,” he said to Asher, who moved to the side and took Zahyra’s hand.

  The cabinet door creaked under Cain’s strength; it’s fastening stronger than the ones in the other lab. Sweat started to drip from Cain’s face and he closed his eyes, the salty liquid obscuring his vision. After two more long pulls the door gave way and buckled in the centre, meaning it only took another tug for the fastening to break and come away from the rest of the cabinet.

  Cain moved aside so Zahyra could look inside. The shelves covered with various packets and bottles. Zahyra pulled handfuls of them out and laid them on the counter below, frantically searching through them for anything she recognised.

  “T128, T128,” she muttered under her breath, “please, please, please.”

  She already knew too much time had passed and they were going to be discovered at any moment. The thought of making it outside of the safe haven was more of a fantasy than a reality to her now but she refused to give up. So long as there was air in her lungs she was going to keep fighting.

  “I don’t understand what anything is,” she sighed desperately after a moment, moving to one side slightly so Cain and Asher could inspect the contents of the cabinet.

  “This one doesn’t have a label,” Cain said after a moment, picking up a small packet and checking the insides. “And there are only about eight pills inside – could this be it?”

  Zahyra looked at the pills Cain was holding. They looked just the same as most of the other packets, the only discerning thing being that they didn’t have a label.

  “I don’t know,” she breathed in a defeated voice. “This is hopeless.”

  Cain tucked the pills into his pocket anyway and placed his hands on Zahyra’s shoulders, turning her body to face his.

  “It’s okay,” he said calmly to her. “It’ll be okay.”

  Zahyra stared into his eyes and felt some of the panic and desperation she was feeling fade away. She looked down at Asher standing beside Cain and saw the determination in his eyes, borrowing some of it to boost her moral. With or without the pills she realised what really mattered was the three of them being together, something that wasn’t going to happen if they remained inside the safe haven. She’d wasted too much time, now they had to get out.

  “You’re right,” she nodded. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  Cain smiled, a look of true devotion present in his eyes. Zahyra returned it, a new pang of hope hitting her as she glanced around the lab.

  “You lead the way,” she said to Cain, taking Asher’s hand and walking hurriedly behind him to the next door in the lab. She was just handing the plastic card over to Cain when the alarm stopped and Professor Welbeck’s lab descended into an eerie silence.

  “Zahyra. Asher.” A voice sounded from the other side of the room and Zahyra froze. She didn’t need to turn around to know who was speaking.

  “Let’s not leave things like this.” The voice continued and Zahyra slowly turned around, keeping Asher half hidden behind her back. She stared across the length of the lab to look at her father, a gun in his outstretched hand.

  Chapter 25

  Zahyra’s hand twitched for her own gun, it was only Cain shaking his head slightly in her peripheral vision that stopped her. Instead she took a step towards her father, keeping Asher’s small body behind her.

  “You’re not going to shoot us,” Zahyra sneered at her father. “You’re a terrible father, but even you wouldn’t shoot your own children.” As she spoke Zahyra tried to make the words sound forceful but even she couldn’t truly believe what she was saying. Her father had already done something she believed could potentially be worse than death to Asher, who was she to trust that he wouldn’t pull the trigger as well.

  “Maybe not,” her father replied slowly. “But then, not all of you are my children are you?”

  Zahyra watched in horror as her father angled his gun towards Cain, making it very clear what his intentions were. Her heart was pounding in her chest, making a ringing noise in her ears. It was uncomfortable without the constant sound of the alarm and the silence only added to Zahyra’s uneasiness.

  “Come back upstairs Zahyra,” her father continued. “Bring your brother back upstairs and I’ll let your friend here go free. Even despite how he’s broken into my home and destroyed my lab.”

  There was an edge to her father’s voice as he spoke. It was an edge Zahyra hadn’t heard before and she did not like it. In fact his whole persona seemed to have changed dramatically since she had last spoken with him. All the desperation he had used to plead with her for forgiveness when he had told her the truth about his life was gone. Replaced by a coldness, a complete lack of emotion.

  “If you think I’m letting Asher anywhere near you after what you did to him you’re severely mistaken.” Zahyra bit back at her father, trying to fill her own voice with a malice to match his own.

  “You know what I did for Asher was for his own good.”

  “Shut up! You don’t get to speak about him, you don’t care –” Zahyra cut herself off, fully aware that her brother was standing just behind her. She didn’t want him to know the truth about how it was their father who had injected him with the Gen 6 mutation. She didn’t want him to be caused any more pain in the hands of that man.

  She looked behind her. Her brother’s face was a mask of confusion. He was looking at the floor, avoiding both her own and her father’s eyes.

  “Ash,” she whispered, turning her back to her father. She felt uncomfortable doing so but as she looked at Cain and saw him staring forcefully at her father, despite the gun pointing at him, she felt safe. “Ash, I’m rea
lly sorry.” Zahyra didn’t know why she was apologising, but she felt like she had to.

  Throughout her brother’s life Zahyra had always felt responsible for him and she knew now he was about to get hurt. Not physically, not if she had anything to do with it, but she knew her father would find a way to hurt him. With his words, with his history. Zahyra desperately didn’t want Asher to know the truth but she didn’t see a way of avoiding it.

  Asher eventually raised his eyes from the floor and looked at his sister. “What for?”

  Zahyra heart ached. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you better. I’m sorry that I ever let him near you. He may be your father Ash, but he’s not your family. You know that don’t you?”

  The confusion on Asher’s face grew as Zahyra spoke. He had never really thought of Emerson as his father, even after he’d revealed the truth to him. Although there were times when he wished he had a father, wished he could just have a normal family he knew that wasn’t a life destined for him. But Zahyra seemed to hate Emerson for some other reason – something more than him just leaving them when he had been born. Asher didn’t understand it. He didn’t like to see his sister like that; it was like something had possessed her, like she was radiating anger.

  “What’s going on?” Asher whispered quietly. “I know you’re my family, Zar. He’s… he’s just Emerson. He’s my father but then he’s also not… What’s the matter? Is this because he left?”

  Zahyra bit her lip as she looked at her little brother and shook her head slightly. “No, there’s more than that Ash, I’d hoped you wouldn’t find out yet but…”

  “Don’t let Zahyra put stories into your head Asher!” Emerson’s voice grated on Zahyra like a knife and she spun around, her eyes like daggers.

  “You know they’re not stories!”