Project Human

by Sean McKenzie

He could feel it. Like air slowly escaping knowing that none would return. He needed to be more efficient, more successful.

  It’ll take them some time to find me down here. By then I should have what I need. A few more patients. Just a few. All at once though, because they will be looking now. Suspecting. Act quickly, before they realize. Before they have a chance.

  The familiar snapping sound broke his concentration. He stood then, rising to the bedside to begin covering the patient with a bed sheet, watching the patient’s skin begin to darken, almost a purple color, as the blood vessels beneath the skin began to burst. It was a strange affect; one that he’d grown used to now.

  With the body covered and the snapping fading, Barton pushed the bed out of the room, down the dark corridor, passing several closed and barred doors, until the end of the hall. A set of double doors stood and he entered without hesitation, pushing the patient quickly inside. The dark interior was lit with the flickering of a yellow glow cast upon the walls and ceiling, shedding from the fire burning within a large pit walled by a chute and a single iron-cast door. Barton pushed the bed to the furnace, opened the door, then grabbed the sheets into a bundle and tossed the body in, closing the door behind. Without looking back, Barton pushed the bed back out of the room, through the hall to his own secret chamber, already deciding when to fill the bed again.

  No better time than the present.

  Doctor Barton stalked through the patients’ ward unchallenged. It was early in the morning, too early for many of the doctors and nurses to be there. A few stationed here and there were all that was present. Enough to fill the need.

  Barton entered his lab cautiously, half-expecting someone to be hiding in the shadows, waiting to question him, or worse. He stood motionless at the door for a few moments until the suspicion passed. Nothing moved. Nothing was out of place. He was alone.

  He turned on a single light and began to gather his formulas, syringes and needles, vials filled with liquids and empty ones for further use, a few handwritten notes and some files containing patient information, then shut the light off and turned for the door. Before leaving, he took a last look around, making certain he had all that was necessary. Another trip into the lab would not be wise, he knew. This was farewell.

  Barton shook his head, grimacing as unwelcome memories came. It had been his working space for the last ten years; his confinement as he saw it. This is where shady deals were made and broken. Whitmere had trained him here, had worked closely with him discovering new ways of healing the human body, of creating new ways of changing how the body responded to various stimulants, new ways of developing change altogether. Here he was introduced to a whole new world of thinking; unlimited possibilities were achievable. Goals were conquered. Dreams were never far from reality; everything was plausible. Everything. God was removed from the equation and they were the creators. Here is where it all began.

  He forced his thoughts to the present. The past was filled with emotions he did not care to relive. Nodding to himself that it was time, he pushed away his memories like swallowing a bitter orange pill, opened the door and walked away.

  The few people he saw in passing left him alone.

  Doctor Barton wiped the sweat beads from his brow as he placed the last patient in the cage-like cell and locked the door. He would come for them when the need arose, when the serum needed to be tested anew. And it would, repeatedly. He walked away then, back to his new chamber deep in the dungeon-like cellar, listening to the handful of patients left behind moaning in anguish. Their bodies could not function properly. They were rejects, failures to initial testing. Their bodies had responded irregularly. Now they were left to die.

  Opening the door to his chamber, he saw the terror set in the pair of eyes staring back at him. She was scared, the worry not leaving as he walked over to her. She was strapped in the bed tight, able only to move her eyes and fingers. Which she did frantically.

  Barton stood over her. She was young. Her skin was pale, save for green and black splotches around her neck and chest. He reached down and pulled the collar of her shirt down further, just far enough to see the bruises clearly, seeing no end to them; her body shuddering at his touch.

  She began to cry then, her mouth gagged so that no real sound was permitted escape, but it still belled from deep within her. Her cheeks were wet, her eyes begging for him to let her go unharmed.

  “Sh. No need for all that.” Barton said flatly. “Not yet, anyway.”

  He turned to his table, full of medical instruments, his vials and serums, the long needles and injection guns, and began to work. Mixing strange liquids in tube shaped vials, he waited to find their reaction. They were stronger doses than he was previously working with, adding more nanomachines, programming them slightly different, not yet finding what he was looking for, what would work, what would counter Whitmere’s intentions. But he would stay the course. He was determined.

  He had been a part of creating the nanomachines Whitmere was using, so he was not completely lost in direction. It was simply a matter of finding how far the patient was in transforming and modifying the methods to react accordingly. New nanomachines would have to be injected to first eliminate the ones already at work, then to begin their tasks of altering cells.

  They were a marvelous creation, able to do unthinkable tasks. Internal bleeding was no longer a problem. Cancerous cells were devoured with no risk to the patient. Barton kept working on them, evolving what they had created. Altering DNA strands were no longer out of reach. And mixed with regenerative discoveries, they had pushed the envelope on creating new cells; they were able to grow human flesh. Nothing was beyond their reach.

  After mixing solutions for an hour, Barton carefully filled his injection gun with a small dose. His patient had slipped into a slumber, exhausted. He pressed the nozzle up tight against her forearm and fired. The sound was barely audible; a sharp puff of air shot a blast of serum into her blood stream. The pain was minimum; just enough to wake her.

  Groggy and sleep filled still, her eyes wandered slowly, before realizing where she was. Then they opened wide and the screaming began anew.

  “Relax.” he urged. There would be some pain, he knew. It was inevitable.

  Then her screaming faded.

  Barton paid attention then to her vitals. One hand felt her pulse at her wrist, the other placed firmly over her heart. Everything was normal. He waited a few seconds, watching her eyes. She looked around curiously, almost puzzled.

  Barton smiled. He removed the gag from her mouth. “How do you feel?”

  “What did you do?” Fear coated her words. “I feel…different.”

  “You are different,” he whispered.

  Barton turned back to his table, taking notes on what percentage he used, happy with the breakthrough. Anxious to make Whitmere pay, he worked faster. He would change everything now. All of their work was his to undo; everything would be destroyed. Now they would see exactly what he was capable of doing, of how heartless and ruthlessly cunning they had made him.

  They were wrong to bring me here.

  As he began to write, he heard a snap. His breathing stopped. He looked quickly to his patient in disbelief. Snap. Another followed. Then all at once it sounded like sheets of rain hitting a metal roof.

  Quickly he jumped from his chair, anger replacing the disbelief in his eyes. Her skin was purple in splotches, spreading rapidly.

  Barton pounded his fists into the table.

  He stood over her for a few seconds, watching her eyes fall lifeless; his breathing invaded the deep silence. His face was an empty shell.

  He began the ritual of disposing the body. His emotions made him eager to press on. Upon his return, he walked in with a new patient and began the process over. Within an hour he was replacing the patient again.

  The morning hours whittled away like the number of patients. With the last one strapped in, the modified injection spreading through his bloodstream, Barton’s weary face watch
ed closely.

  “Tell me your name,” Barton said.

  The man was elderly, his face a yellowish brown. “I don’t…” he trailed off, gasping for air.

  Snap.

  Barton was already pushing the bed out of the room. He didn’t look down to the patient. He didn’t need to. He didn’t hear the continuous sounds of blood cells bursting, or the faint escape of the patient’s last breath. The stress of being able to accomplish what was escaping him was bearing down heavily.

  Back in his chamber, sitting at his desk staring at his vials, he began to wonder the possibility that they had made the nanomachines too efficient. Or the patients he was testing were so far advanced that maybe they could not be changed. Certainly not as fast as he was attempting. It would take time. Time to grow. Time to nurture. But there was no time.

  He used his small machine to review his blood, to inspect his DNA again. The code was different from his patients. He had thought for hours upon hours over what it was that could change the codes, making the strands normal again. He went over his formulas hoping to discover what Whitmere was keeping secret. And for hours more he was unsuccessful. He mulled at his failings.

  Then he saw what he was overlooking. The answer came to him suddenly and he felt foolish that it was so obvious. But what was needed, he knew, did not exist now.

  “It’s too