The Genome Project

by Aaron Hodges

  Forcing open his eyes, he peered out from the shadow of his bunk bed, searching for Liz.

  The first thing he realized was that they hadn’t been alone in their fever dreams. Someone had entered the cell while they slept, and cleaned the vomit and blood from the room. Liz lay in the opposite bed, covered by a strange-looking blanket of black feathers. She shifted beneath it, then blinked across at him, raising a hand to shield her face. Her lips parted as she licked her cracked lips.

  “Chris?” she croaked.

  “I’m here,” he replied, his throat raw. A desperate thirst clutched him, and he looked to the sink, wondering if he had the strength to reach it.

  In the other bed, Liz slowly sat up, the blanket still clinging to her. Dimly, Chris made to do the same, but a weight on his back pressed him down. Reaching back, he felt soft feathers brush his hand. He shrugged, trying to dislodge the blanket as he lifted himself to his hands and knees.

  Chris paused, a distant thought tugging at his memories, but it faded again before he could catch it. He cast a questioning look at Liz, but she said nothing. He clenched his fists, feeling a wrongness about himself, but unable to trace the source.

  Shaking his head, Chris pushed the last of the fever dreams away and rolled out of the bed onto his feet. To his surprise, the weight came with him, pushing him forward. Off-balance, he crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and feathers.

  “Chris?” Liz’s voice shook.

  Confused, Chris frowned at her from the floor. He pulled himself up, but the weight still clung to his back. Only sheer determination kept him from toppling over backwards. He froze when he saw the look on Liz’s face.

  Eyes wide, she sat half-crouched on the bed. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Her arm shook as she raised it and pointed. Shivering, Chris looked behind him, fear of the unknown rippling down his spine. But his bed was empty, the feather blanket trailing out behind him.

  Chris started to turn back to Liz, then paused. He blinked, staring at the tawny brown feathers of his blanket. There was something wrong about the way they hung between himself and the bed, something not quite right.

  Stretching out a hand, Chris tried to dislodge the blanket from his shoulders. He flinched as his hand brushed against something unexpected, something hard beneath the blanket. Withdrawing his hand, he looked at Liz, but she still sat in silence, her mouth agape.

  With a rush of courage, Chris reached behind his neck and ran a hand down his spine.

  He found the growths where they had been before, midway down his back. They had changed—becoming long shafts that stretched far beyond his reach. A soft down of feathers covered their length, sprouting from his flesh as though they had every right to be there.

  Wings.

  His mind spun. He shook his head, refusing to face the truth, though they lay stretched out before his eyes. He trembled, and watched the shiver run down the wings, the tawny brown feathers quivering in the cool air.

  A muffled sob came from the other bed. Liz had struggled to her feet, revealing the long black wings hanging from her own back. They stretched out to either side of her, each at least ten feet long, the large black feathers tangling with the sheets on the bed. Where the feathers bent, Chris glimpsed soft white down beneath, small feathers curled in upon themselves, clinging close to her flesh. They shone in the overhead lights, seeming almost aflame, as though Liz was some avenging angel descended from heaven.

  Wings.

  Warmth spread through Chris’s chest, mingling with the horror. A profound confusion gripped him: a disgust at this fresh violation, the further loss of his humanity—but also wonder, an awe for the trembling new limbs on his back.

  Wings.

  He looked at Liz. Her eyes were wide, glistening with tears. Her lips trembled, a shudder running through her body. Through her wings.

  For the first time, Chris realized they were both naked. Strangely, it no longer seemed to matter. After all they had suffered, all that had been done to them, Chris’s body hardly felt like his own. He felt apart from it now, separated from his nakedness.

  A tear spilled down Liz’s cheek, and he knew the same thought had occurred to her. He stepped across the room, struggling for balance, and pulled her to him. He shivered as her arms went around his waist and her head lifted, drawing him in.

  A fire ignited in Chris’s chest as their lips met. His hands slid up into her hair as her tongue darted out, sliding between his lips. The taste of her filled him, the intoxicating scent of her hair toying with his nostrils.

  After a long minute, Liz pulled back. Raising a hand to her face, she wiped away her tears. She looked at her wings then, her lips twisting as though in thought. They hung limply from her back, feathers quivering, and he knew what she was thinking.

  Liz closed her eyes, her face tightening, the lines of her jaw deepening. Her brow creased, and behind her the black-feathered wings twitched. They began to shake, then lifted slightly and half-opened. There they paused, as though lacking the strength to go any further.

  Eyes still closed, Liz bit her lip, and persisted.

  Bit by bit, her wings spread, until they seemed to fill the cell. They stretched more than twenty feet, twice the length of their beds, so that their tips poked out through the bars into the corridor.

  Twenty feet of jet-black feathers, of curly white down, of a majestic, undefinable magic.

  When Liz opened her eyes again, Chris saw the wonder there, the fear falling away before it.

  At a nod from her, he shut his own eyes and sought to do the same. Reaching down into the depths of his consciousness, he followed the tingle that came from his back, the newfound sensations originating from the limbs. As he concentrated, the tingle spread along his spine. The hairs stood up on his neck as new connections formed within his mind. His neurons flared into life, recognizing the presence of new muscles and bone and flesh.

  A tremor shook the weight on his back. There was a wrongness to that weight, an awkward presence to it, like clothes that did not quite fit. But opening his mind, he tried to accept it, to embrace it.

  At last, Chris opened his eyes. A sharp crack sounded as his wings snapped open, unfurling to fill the room. Feathers as long as his forearm brushed against the far wall, touched the bars of the cell, and he felt it, sensed the pressure against his feathers.

  He grinned at Liz, unable to keep the wonder from his face. She grinned, laughed, opened her arms to embrace him.

  With a deafening shriek, an alarm began to sound.

  32

  Angela strode around the corner and started towards the wide iron door at the end of the corridor. Heavy locking bars stretched across the dull metal, and a guard stood to either side, watching her approach. Each held a heavy rifle and wore the familiar trigger watch on his wrist. With a flick of a finger, the watches could activate all collars in their immediate vicinity, incapacitating any threat the prisoners within might pose.

  Or at least, that was the idea.

  Today, the watches had been reduced to worthless pieces of steel and glass. Just minutes before, Angela had entered her code to deactivate all the collars inside the facility. Halt, in his arrogance, had thought her cowed by his violence, that her fear would prevent her fighting back after his proclamation.

  Instead, his revolution had given Angela the resolve to act.

  Left alone in the padded room, fading in and out of consciousness, Angela had finally seen the true futility of her research. It had never been about a cure, or a weapon to fight the Chead. It had always been about this, this need for power, for a weapon to use against their enemies.

  Whatever the cost.

  And Angela knew, threats or no, she could not allow the project to continue.

  Climbing to her feet, the weight of regret heavy on her shoulders, Angela had settled on a new path.

  Now the time to act had come, and she could not hesitate.

  Ahead, the guards pulled back the bolts, and the iron d
oor swung open with a screech. Angela walked past the guards without breaking stride, nodding as she went.

  A hushed silence hung over the narrow corridor within, as faces turned towards her. Another screech and the door swung shut, sealing her inside. Sucking in a shuddering breath, Angela started forward, careful to keep to the center of the hall, beyond the reach of grasping arms.

  Stone-grey eyes followed her down the passage.

  Tension hung like a blanket on the air as she made her way past the cells. Hate radiated from the dark creatures pressing up against the prison bars. There were ten in all: five boys, five girls.

  Ten vicious killing machines, hungry for blood, for freedom.

  The Chead watched her as she reached the corridor’s end and turned back. There she paused, a frown crossing her face as she looked into one of the cells. It was empty, one of the girls was missing.

  It made no sense, but there was no time to adjust her plan. She had to act. Each of the creatures had been captured in the wilderness, or suffered the change in other experiments. Each was destined to die here, never again to feel the heat of the sun on their skin. Their eyes would never see the beauty of the mountains beyond the walls, their ears would never hear the roar of ocean waves.

  Or at least, that had been Halt’s intention.

  The Chead wore the familiar steel collars on their neck, but because of Angela’s interference, those collars were now little more than decorative necklaces.

  Standing at the end of the corridor, Angela faced the exit. Cells stretched out on either side of her, the males to her left, females to her right. Something about the change accelerated the development and reproductive drive of the Chead. Left to their own devices, they bred like rabbits. And while most of the occupants appeared almost fully mature, the oldest was just thirteen years old.

  Angela steeled herself and started back towards the exit. The grey eyes followed her, alive with intelligence, searching for an opportunity. One second, one slip; that was all they needed. Several men had already lost their lives by wandering too close to the bars. Angela would not make that mistake.

  But she needed them to see her, to be awake.

  To be ready.

  As she approached the entrance to the prison block, the guard by the door reached out to open it. She glanced at his face as she passed, a flicker of guilt touching her. But it was too late for regrets now. It was time.

  As the door reached its apex, Angela looked at her watch. It was more advanced than the others, controlling more than just the candidate’s collars. As head geneticist and supervisor of the project, she had control over many of the security protocols in the facility. Halt had not thought it necessary to override them.

  Angela pressed her finger to the touchscreen.

  Behind her, a buzzer screeched, followed by the rattling of cell doors opening. Angela leapt forward as the guards looked up, confusion turning quickly to open terror as the Chead emerged from their cages. The men stood frozen as Angela darted past them and began to run.

  The screams of the dying chased her down the corridor.

  Angela’s breath came in ragged gasps as she took a corner. From behind her came the roar of gunfire and the howls of the Chead. Overhead, lights flashed, and somewhere in the building a siren screeched. Muffled voices erupted from speakers along the corridors, a robotic voice asking her not to panic.

  The thump of approaching boots came from ahead. She tensed as two guards raced into view, then relaxed as they sprinted past her, guns held at the ready. Their eyes barely registered her, but she saw their fear. Just as well. With a nine Chead loose in the building, they would be hard-pressed to survive.

  A minute later she drew up outside the other prison block. She had hesitated before detouring here—only two of the seven survivors from the PERV-A strain were locked within. But Elizabeth was here, with her haunting blue eyes, and Angela could not bring herself to abandon the girl.

  Fortunately, the guards had already abandoned their posts—though whether to face the Chead or run, she wasn’t sure. The door to the cell block had been left open, and she stepped inside, shivering as her eyes swept over the rows of empty cells.

  So much loss.

  Angela closed her eyes, regret welling within her. How had she been so blind? She had allowed her ambition to surpass caution, to blind her to the atrocities within the facility. Her morals, her integrity, all had been lost because of her drive to succeed.

  And these children had paid the price.

  Moving down the corridor, Angela searched for the two she had come for. She froze when she found them, her breath catching in her throat.

  She had seen them in their fever-induced sleep, had seen the others in their comas. She already knew the experiment had succeeded; that the homeotic genes had taken. Stimulated by the final injection, they acted like a master switch, triggering the cluster of genes embedded in the candidates’ genomes. The genes corresponding to wing growth.

  Angela had watched the wings grow, watched the feathers sprout like seedlings from their skin. Even so, she was not prepared for the sight that greeted her.

  Elizabeth and Christopher stood in all their glory, wings spread wide, stretching out to fill the cell. They had found the ragged clothes she’d left by their beds, with the clumsy holes she’d torn in the backs. The girl’s black feathers pressed against the brown of the boy’s, their wings entwining in the tiny space.

  Angela’s heart ached with the wonder of it.

  “What’s happening?” Christopher demanded.

  Blinking, Angela tore herself from her stupor. She shook her head, then looked down at her watch and pressed a button. The cell door slid open with a dull rattle.

  The two of them stood within, looks of wary surprise appearing on their faces.

  “Come on,” Angela said. “We’re getting out of here. Hurry, the others should be awake by now.”

  Christopher’s hand drifted to his collar. Angela shook her head and reached into her pocket. “They’re deactivated.” Finding the little key, she tossed it to the girl. “Here, that’ll unlock them. But hurry.”

  Within seconds, their collars lay discarded on the ground. Angela watched them embrace, saw the tears shining in their eyes, but she could not pause to celebrate their freedom. Apprehension nibbled at her stomach, an awful fear that they would be caught.

  “Come on,” she urged again, waving them towards the door. “We need to find the others.”

  Their eyes widened then, their mouths opening in question, but she was already moving away. Sirens still sounded and red lights flashed in the ceiling, but there was no sign of movement as they re-entered the corridors. The guards remained preoccupied at the other end of the facility, and she hoped the other civilians would have already retreated to the safe room by now.

  Silently, she led them through the maze of the facility, to the isolation room where the other survivors of the PERV-A strain had remained in their drug induced comas. She had swapped out their medication that morning, replacing them with saline. They would be awake by now, and she prayed they had not wandered from the room while she detoured.

  Unfortunately, the surviving PERV-B candidates were lost to her. They still lay in their comas, their bodies wracked with fever, struggling to accept the chromosomal alterations of the virus. There was nothing she could do for them now.

  Ahead, the door to the isolation room lay unguarded. She smiled, glad her distraction had proven so effective. With luck, they’d be long gone before anyone noticed their absence. If the guards even managed to regain control of the facility. She had seen a single Chead tear a man to pieces. With nine…she didn’t like to think what nine Chead might be capable of.

  But there was no more time to think of that. Angela pushed open the door and led the way inside.

  Part 4

  Escape

  33

  Liz stumbled through the door after Chris. Every step was a struggle to keep upright. The new weight on her back thre
w her whole coordination out of sync, leaving her feeling strangely out of proportion. Even the simple act of closing her wings had taken several attempts, but she and Chris had finally managed to pull them tight against their backs. Even so, they niggled at her consciousness, an alien presence that would not go away.

  The thought of freedom drove her on, and the knowledge that each step carried her closer to a possible reunion with Ashley and Sam. She sucked in a breath, savoring the feel of her naked neck. The collar was gone, her throat free of its steel encasing. It felt like a lifetime ago since she’d put on the awful contraption. Perhaps it was.

  Blinking, Liz returned her mind to the present. Looking around, she recognized the room they had awoken in after their first injection. Beds still lined its length, but they were empty now. The whir of machines filled the air, their tubes and wires dangling free. Her chest contracted as her eyes swept the room, searching for her friends.

  A thud came from their right, and she spun, raising her fists to defend herself.

  Then she lowered them. Beside her, Chris chuckled. Together they watched the figure sprawled on the ground struggling to sit up.

  It took a few seconds for Sam to get his tangle of arms, legs and copper wings under control, and several more before he managed to stand. A string of curses echoed from the walls as he finally pulled himself up, red in the face, puffing like he’d run a marathon. Then Liz’s eyes drifted past Sam, and she gave a wild yelp.

  Ashley strode forward, her lips twitching with suppressed humor. She moved with the same casual grace as before, her long legs easily finding their balance as she weaved between the empty beds. Trailing out behind her, a pair of snow-white wings shone in the overhead lights. They quivered as she moved, slowly lifting from the ground, expanding across the room.

  Liz laughed again as the two of them came together in a hug. She clung to her friend for a moment, Ashley’s grip just as tight. When they finally broke apart, Ashley looked past Liz and raised an eyebrow at the doctor.