by Gayle Katz
“March 3rd: Scott came to see me today. He brought one of the cancer survivors who we cured. He showed me what Mason looked like before the cancer. He was strong and strapping. The cancer turned him into a little runt of a man. Now he’s getting back to his physical peak, but the progress is too slow. Scott says he wants to see how else we can improve the human body. Mason says he’s willing to do whatever it takes to be bigger, stronger, and faster again, but he wasn’t very passionate about his request. I wonder if Scott was coaching him on what to do? I told them I’d have to think about it. Scott seems frustrated with me.
“March 4th: Scott is pleading with me. I refused his request at first, but then his persistence won me over. The first few genetic tweaks I made cured his cancer, but going further, to make him stronger, is proving difficult. I told them that mucking around with a person’s genes isn’t the ethical thing to do and we should proceed with caution. He wants me to continue.
“March 5th: Following instructions to push the boundaries of our knowledge, I tried a few experimental procedures. Mason was fine at first, becoming stronger, but now he’s also becoming violent. His body temperature has dropped to dangerous levels and his skin is turning gray and ashy. His eyes are hazy. I’m trying to reverse what I did, turn off the genes I turned on, but I don’t think I can. I’ll keep trying, but I just don’t know.”
The Professor is starting to sound desperate. The cool and collected man I knew seems to be disintegrating. His speech and language are becoming frantic.
“March 8th: Despite my setbacks with this young man, they want me to continue my experiments in genetics. I may, but for now they’re on hold. I have to find a cure for whatever is happening to Mason. That has to be my priority. He’s turning into some sort of wild creature as I speak. I have to try to help him before it’s too late.
“March 11th: Crap! I’ve fallen behind in my reports. Scrycor is pulling my funding and I have to shut down the lab. No money means no research, but I have to keep going. This guy’s life is depending on it. I can’t let him down. Jane! Why are you hiding your DNA secrets from me?”
This isn’t good. He sounds like the assertive professor I know, but he’s obsessed. He seems like he’s getting more confident again, despite everything falling apart.
“March 12th: Dammit! The lab’s been ransacked. Luckily I hid all my notes and research. If they fall into the wrong hands… I don’t even want to think about that. I’ll continue the duplicates in audio here. I know that those jerks at Scrycor did this, or at least hired goons to ravage my lab. I don’t understand why they can’t let me try to cure my patient.
“March 13th: I was able to concoct a potential cure. I’m going to inject it into our patient and see if it helps. Please, God. Make this work.
“Another entry from March 13th: Things aren’t going well. As I was injecting the serum, the patient bit me. I didn’t think it was a big deal at first, but then I started to feel cold and sick to my stomach. What’s happening to this guy might be happening to me now, too, so I injected myself with the serum. I don’t know what’s going to happen to either of us.”
I can hear the crazy desperation in his voice. He’s breathing heavily into the recorder.
“March 14th: I’ll inject both of us again. Maybe a daily dose of the serum will help us remain stable and coherent?
“A second log from March 14th: The color started to return to the patient’s skin, which is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t seem to be long-lasting. I don’t know why the serum only staves off the infection temporarily. So many thoughts are swirling through my brain. I-I can’t focus. I’m not able to think clearly right now. Maybe some sleep will help. I can do this! I just have to focus on one task at a time.”
I let the recorder run, but there aren’t any more logs from the Professor. I push STOP on the tape recorder.
Chapter 12
________________________________________
“Damar?”
“Yeah.”
“My professor mentions Scrycor. They were the ones behind his research and possibly the initial outbreak. The Scrycor name and logo were also in a zombie vaccine commercial I saw on TV and on the zombie tissue sample I stole. Remember? It was printed on the outside of the canister in the picture that the Rat gave me.”
“Wait. Are you telling me that’s what was in the cylinder? Zombie material?”
“Yeah. I didn’t find out until it was too late.”
“Crap. That’s soooo not good.”
“I know, I know. Don’t remind me.”
“How do they have all of this information here? I wonder if Scrycor runs this lab. Like I said, our intel told us that this was a Brotherhood site.”
“Maybe it’s both.”
“Both? Well, we have to find out,” he says as he pulls out even more folders with the Professor’s name on them. “There’s a whole file here just with his notes. Maybe this is the research they stole from him. Might prove to be some interesting reading.”
“Yeah, it might be. Listen, I’m getting tired,” I say as I lose my balance.
“OK. You’ve had enough excitement for one day,” he says as he and my clone both catch me before I hit the floor. “We’ll take these with us. We’re leaving now. We have to get you out of here.”
Damar grabs all of the folders and wraps them together with a rubber band. He takes my hand and we exit the office, but something is wrong. The hallways are now dark, with red lights flashing.
“They must know we’re missing.”
“Or, my guys are creating a stir. Either way, we need to get out of here, and fast.”
He pulls us close and we barrel down the shadowy hallway. We see some guys dressed up like military or paramilitary who look armed to the teeth following one of Brie’s lab coat lackeys. To avoid them, we take shelter and hide in the darkness of a doorframe.
After they pass, we continue our journey until we come to a bend in the corridor. We peek around the corner and see nothing, except an exit sign.
“There we go. Hello, exit sign,” Damar whispers. Bolting down the hallway, we’re halfway down when we see Brie appear almost out of nowhere. There she is, blocking the exit with guns and thugs behind her.
“Jane!” Brie shouts. “And now twice the nuisance since you’ve found one of my experiments, but who’s your friend?”
“None of your business,” I shout back as best as I can. “Get out of here,” I whisper to Damar.
“No way. I’m not leaving without you.”
“I hate you, Damar. Just go! I won’t be able to live with myself if I get you killed, too.”
“Damar?” Brie chimes in. “The same one who leads these damned rebels? The ones who have been a stiff pain in my neck?”
“Just go!” I say. “They just want me. I can hold them off, distract them so you can get out of here!”
“Come with me,” Damar says, ignoring Brie and her group of thugs.
“Jane… Jane… Jane…” Brie says in a condescending singsongy manner. “You can’t leave. We won’t let you. We’re not done with our research. Your job isn’t finished.”
I look down at my feet and then up at Damar.
“Tell you what - we’re not unreasonable. If you come with us without a fight, we’ll let your boyfriend go, even though we should kill him. Your decision.”
“I-I-” I mumble.
Suddenly, Damar grabs me and the clone, turns us around, and we head back down the way we came. We hear shots fired, but ignore them and scoot out of there as quickly as our feet can carry us.
“There has to be another way out of this place. Move it!” Damar yells.
As we hightail it out of there, I feel a throbbing pain in my arm and torso. The pain is too much to bear and I fall to the ground.
“Jane? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I say as I touch the pain point on my body and see red on my fingertips. “Is that my blood?”
“You’re shot. Ha
ng on. I’ve got you.”
“No, Damar. Go. I’m only going to slow you down. Get out of here.” I push him away.
“Uh-uh. I’m not going to leave you.”
“You have to, or else they’ll kill you. I don’t want you to die. Listen, I’m already compromised. I need to stay and find out what’s going on. I need to get to the bottom of this mess.”
“It’s not worth your life!”
“What life? I-I can’t live like this.”
“Don’t say that. If I leave, you have to promise that you’ll do everything you can to stay alive.”
“They won’t let their prized test subject die. That would slow down their research.”
“I’ll figure out how to get you out of here,” he says as he kisses my cheek, grabs as much of the paperwork as he can, and speeds down the rest of the corridor with my clone.
I watch them run for their lives. A smile creeps onto my face for the first time in a long while. I’m happy knowing that he’s going to get away. Then the pain surges again and I can’t move. On my back, still naked with only Damar’s coat covering me, I’m bleeding. I see Brie standing above me. Her blonde hair is now dark. Is she wearing a wig? Did she dye her hair? She’s starting to look a little… like me… and it’s freaking me out.
“What are you doing, Jane? Did you think you could outsmart me? In your condition, you’re lucky if you even survive.”
“Then let me die or kill me if you want. It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t care what happens to me. You’ve taken away everything I care about, anyway.”
“Not true. We let your boyfriend go with one of my creations no less. And don’t be so melodramatic. Kill you? No. I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Then why did you shoot me?”
“We needed to slow you down. Like I said, we couldn’t let you leave, but we also didn’t shoot to kill.”
“But my whole body hurt before you shot me.”
“That’s understandable. You’re just in the process of changing.”
“What are you talking about? I’m changing? Into what?”
“Into a stronger, better human, but I’m not exactly sure, to be honest. We haven’t had any subjects survive this long.”
“How many other people have you done this to? More than the people I saw loaded into the vehicle?”
“Good question. I’ll have to get back to you. Let me just repeat what I said before. Experimentation is the best way to move science forward. Testing to see what works and what doesn’t, that’s the scientific method at its best. And there’s no better way than live subjects to see if your hypothesis is valid. What’s the cliché again? Sometimes you have to break a few eggs…” she muses, ignoring my question.
“We’re not rats.”
“Of course not. Humans are better test subjects than rats.”
“W-Who are you anyway? Why do you have my professor’s paperwork and a Scrycor badge with your picture on it?” I ask as I try to stand up and face her on her level. I’m holding my side because the gunshot wound is so painful.
“So you got into my office? My, my. You’re quite the resourceful one.”
“Just answer my question.”
“Nah, I don’t feel like it. Unfortunately for you, I’m not taking any more questions. And it really doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“Did you work for them? Are you working for them now? Or, did they fire you and now you’re all pissed off, disgruntled, and trying to get your revenge?”
“Shut up!”
“No!”
“You want to know what happened? The zombie virus spread quickly and that’s not what the Professor wanted. It’s not what anyone wanted. He just wanted to cure cancer. He is brilliant, but he didn’t have enough time to research properly or fix the genetic mutations that got out of hand so quickly. It consumed him. After he was infected, Benjamin was compromised and, frankly, crazy. You can’t listen to anything he said or did after that.”
“You listened to his logs?”
“I was there when he made them! I’m trying to continue his work. He’s a gifted man who discovered how to trigger the next step in human evolution. Altering the right genes—”
“You mean my genes?”
“As I was saying, altering the right genes allows the body to cure itself of virtually any illness. He is so forward-thinking. It’s brilliant! But in the wrong hands, things can go horribly wrong.”
“You talk about him like he’s a god.”
“A god? Maybe. I can see that, but I never thought of him that way before. What would you call someone who has the power to heal you or kill you with one little splice of a gene?”
“I don’t know. And he’s been long gone. Why do you keep referring to him in the present tense?”
“Oh. It’s a habit. We were working to further his research, so he’s still very much alive to me. I guess in my mind, he’ll never really be dead. He lives in here forever,” she says as she taps her heart.
“You’re just as nuts as he was, aren’t you? You think you can play God with peoples’ lives. I’m not going to let you do this to anyone else ever again!” I cry out as I forget about my injury and lunge at her. Before I can lay a hand on her, her thugs grab me and hold me down on the floor on my knees.
“Jane! I’m trying to save peoples’ lives, just like the Professor tried to do. That’s why we need you for testing purposes. If our serum works, we may be able to save people who are already infected. In some cases, we may even be able to bring people back from their zombie state.”
“If your intentions are so honorable, why trick me into coming here?” I ask, looking up at her. Her thugs are still pressing me against the floor.
“Because we know you wouldn’t come voluntarily. And the process isn’t an easy one. Unfortunately, very few people are strong enough to make the change. The change you’re going through right now. I know you can feel it. The change is the pain you feel surging through your veins and throughout your body.”
She waves her lab coat thugs over. “Pick her up, boys. Get her back to the infirmary. Treat her wounds and inject her with a dose of our newest compound.”
“No. Please don’t. I can’t take anymore. Just let me go. Please.”
“Who knows what would happen to you if we let you go now? You wouldn’t survive. I promise that we’ll let you go once we find the cure, your treatment is complete, and you’re stable enough to re-enter the world. It shouldn’t be much longer now. We’re starting the second experiment soon.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “You’re never going to let me go.”
“You’re wrong, but we don’t want to risk losing you when we’re so close to a cure. You have no idea how many people we’ve lost in our quest to find a cure that works for everybody. Most are unable to tolerate being bitten, let alone survive the treatment, and heal themselves. No one has made it this far. You’re unique. You’ve built up a tolerance. We’re going to do anything and everything we can to keep you alive and find a real cure. Then your job will be over.”
“Please stop this madness. I don’t think I can take anymore.”
“The human body is resilient. Look at me. I started making some updates to my own genetic code. See? I changed my hair color from blonde to dark brown, just like yours.”
“W-Why would you do that?”
“Because I can, and because it puts us one step closer to evolving into the next level of human being. Think about it! If I can change my hair color with one simple splice, just think about what else we could do. Eradicate disease, fix birth defects, bring people back from the brink and make them stronger, faster, smarter. After this technology is perfected, you could truly be whatever you want to be. You’d only be limited by your imagination!”
“Changing your hair color is one thing, but messing around in someone’s genetic code is fundamentally wrong. You’re not being honest with people. You say that you want to find a cure for the mutated zombie plague, but you really w
ant to create the perfect human being. And you’re killing people to fuel your research. How can you live with yourself, knowing that you’re causing all this additional pain and suffering?”
“I’m not going to take morality lessons from you,” she says.
“Everything you’re doing here is immoral. You’re cloning other people, too. I saw them. I also saw the clone you replaced me with. She’s not doing too well. She’s damaged. When she falls apart because your cloning process is faulty, Jack is going to realize what’s going on. And when he does, he’s gonna find you and he’s gonna make you pay.”
“This conversation is over. Get her to the infirmary and fix her up. Despite the disruption, we still have to keep to our schedule. Accelerate it, if possible.”
Her lab coat thugs pick me up and drag me back to the infirmary. I try to dig my heels into the floor, but it’s no use trying to resist. They’re stronger than I am. And my strength is all but gone.
Strapping me to the table, I see Malik, the head researcher I smashed in the face, who now has a black eye and a bloody nose. He smiles as he pulls out a few very large needles. They prepare to inject me with a couple of syringes filled with colorful serums and solutions.
“What’s in those?”
“Something to help your transition.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It’s not important for you to understand. Just be aware it may hurt. A lot.” Another smile creeps onto his face.
As they pierce my skin with the first needle, I begin to feel a burning sensation so intense that I can barely keep conscious. I’m sweating profusely and I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“Is. This. A. Normal. Reaction?” I ask, labored breathing interrupting each word.
“Everyone has different side effects from the medication,” he informs me as he takes the second injection and preps it. “But what did you expect? We’re altering your genetic code.”
“Side effects?”
“Yes.”
“What kinds of side effects?”
“Well, we’re still in the testing phase and the results haven’t been stellar. So far we’ve seen people burn up. Others vomit up their innards. Most people have such weak bodies, they just can’t take the stress to their systems.”