Project Human

by Sean McKenzie

where he had left off with the transfusion in Darryl and Adelle. He would tend to them after his torturing of his enemies expired. Which would take a long time, he figured. Nonetheless, when he was done here, the other two would be in progression and he would deal with them then.

  He finished tying the straps onto Barton’s hands to the bed. Jean was strapped to a tall machine by long chain-like fiber strands. Her arms were stretched wide at her sides with a series of small tubes running into her veins. She stood facing Barton.

  “Why don’t you let her go? Do it, and I’ll give you what you want.” Barton spit. He tugged at his restraints, trying to find a weakness, but there was none.

  “You’re going to do that anyway.” Whitmere poured some colored liquid from vase-like containers into the machine near Jean. He was careful not to let any spill.

  “My father served on the Council for longer than I care to remember,” Whitmere began, working as he spoke. “I was pushed into being where I am by my relentless efforts not to fail him. He was, hard to please.”

  “Let her go,” Barton interrupted.

  “But I never could please him. When we realized that your planet was suitable for habitation, the job was given to me to find a way to make it work. And it wouldn’t.”

  Whitmere’s eyes were cold, bitter. He put a solution into an injection gun and stood by Barton.

  “You see, when we landed here, our first attempts to blend in were in vain. Our race’s respiratory system cannot handle your air. This was not known right away, of course. Scouts died only after a few weeks on walking on the surface.

  “The Council demanded actions. They demanded that a plan involving a change of our bodies to match that of yours. We could do it. We can mimic nearly anything. But first there had to be studies, there had to be changes. So we began using your people. We had to study you. We had to work to find a common thread; one that we could use to enable duplicity.”

  “So you used us as guinea pigs fist, to see how we would survive if we were more like you?” Barton guessed.

  “More or less.”

  “If humans could survive with our DNA structure, then we would adapt ourselves to—” Jean began. Whitmere turned on the machine she was attached to, filling her with pain, immobilizing her.

  “Thank you, Jean. But I’ll take over from here.” Whitmere smiled. He raised the power to the machine, watching the levels of his solution drain into her system. He delighted in her screams.

  “Leave her alone!” Barton yelled.

  “She deserves no less!” Whitmere screamed back. His eyes were alive with hate. “It all began with you! When we took you and she discovered that you were a doctor with intelligence for what we were doing, she went to the Council and made sure that you were not made another patient. You were made to work with us.”

  “He was smarter than you!” Jean screamed through the pain. Her eyes were faint, her veins protruding everywhere. “You hated him because without him you would never, ever have had any success! You needed him to make your ideas work! You were better suited checking the ship for leaks!”

  “Enough!”

  Whitmere turned the power on higher, sending volts surging throughout her body. She screamed, long and terrible.

  “Stop it! I’ll tell you what you want to know!” screamed Barton.

  “How did you change back?!” Whitmere screamed. “Show me!”

  “Let her go!”

  “Tell me!”

  Jean’s screaming rose anew. Barton couldn’t look at her. “My blood! It’s in my blood!”

  “No!” Jean cried.

  “A traitor’s death!” Whitmere responded with vengeance.

  Whitmere threw the lever, pushing the machine into maximum drive, sending the killing solution into her more rapidly than Jean’s body could sustain. Her screams drown out everything in the room as sections of her internal organs burst.

  “No! Jean!” Barton yelled pointlessly.

  He screamed helplessly, watching her body twist and churn in agonizing pain as blood began to seep out everywhere it could. Within seconds, her body fell limp, her eyes rolled back into bleeding sockets, and her voice whimpered dyingly silent.

  “I’ll kill you for this,” cursed Barton.

  Whitmere turned towards him. His smile was cold and vicious. “Not this time, my friend. When the Council hears that I killed you, only seconds after you killed Jean, they’ll be sad, but relieved. I’ll be granted what I need, what I wish. And just like the family you left behind, you’ll be gone from our memories quickly.”

  Barton screamed, thrashing violently against his straps, rocking the bed across the floor. He wasn’t going to die there. Memories of his kids and wife flashed within his mind. It hurt, they hurt, and it drove him beyond his physical limitations. He wasn’t even aware of his actions as his mind went into a place of its own, a place of self-preservation, acting on adrenaline alone, giving him more strength than he could ordinarily muster.

  He never felt the deep tremor rumble through the floor and walls, nor the sound of explosion somewhere close. He never heard the door open, nor saw the two nurses rush in; their screams went unnoticed. He barely heard the bands snap at his forearms and chest. He was only slightly aware of the panicked scream Whitmere unleashed.

  He held an image of his wife crying sadly, dressed black, hair unkempt, mascara smeared and running with tears, as he sat upright ripping free the last of his restraints.

  “Get him!” Whitmere yelled to the nurses, backing away. He looked desperately for a weapon.

  He saw a weapon then. It was pointed at him.

  “You killed Jean. Get in the bed!” the nurse with the weapon said.

  “What? We have to get out of here! The whole section is collapsing!”

  Barton threw himself out of the bed and cornered Whitmere. There was a fire burning inside him. He would rip the doctor to shreds.

  “Shoot him!” Whitmere yelled to the nurses.

  “Get in the bed!” the nurse demanded.

  “You’re taking his side, over mine! Over your own!”

  “Do what she said!” Barton shouted. His hands were trembling. He would grab the other by his scrawny neck and choke him down onto the bed. It would feel good.

  Whitmere held the injection gun tight. “You’ll pay for this.”

  The nurses motioned towards the bed again. This time Whitmere calmed, nodding slowly, giving in. He took a step forward. Barton kept himself between the door and Whitmere.

  The entire room shook again, bringing the group off balance. Voices yelled through the hall to evacuate, that the protective layer had failed and parts of the ship were collapsing.

  “You took my life. Now I’m going to take yours.” Barton said. “In the bed.”

  Whitmere thought otherwise. He turned quickly, jabbing the nurse in the neck with his injection device, sending the poison fluid into her blood. She screamed and fell instantly. Whitmere dove for her weapon.

  Barton was quicker.

  Barton slammed his body down on top of Whitmere as he slithered his arms around, searching for the weapon. The other nurse rushed in to tend to her friend as the men struggled.

  Barton slammed his fists into Whitmere’s head. “You took my dreams! My memories! My family! You killed me!”

  Whitmere squirmed beneath him. Then the nurse screamed, and the weapon fired. Barton jumped in response, looking to his side to see Whitmere’s hand on the weapon and the nurse struggling to gain control of it. Barton continued his assault.

  Then he felt a sting of a needle against his side. Instantly he slumped backwards, sliding off of Whitmere. The doctor smiled, holding the injection gun.

  “You’re one of us, again!”

  The nurse ripped her weapon from his hand and shot at Whitmere, burning a hole into his left shoulder. She stood quickly, standing over him, weapon drawn.

  “You’re one of us!” Whitmere laughed deliriously.

  “No!” Barton cried.

  Barto
n looked at the injection gun in fear. His breathing stopped. He couldn’t go through it again. He couldn’t be one of them. His mind filled with panic.

  And then he saw it. The gun was empty of a serum tube. Nothing had entered his system. Whitmere had failed.

  “Look again, friend.”

  Whitmere saw then what Barton noticed. He squirmed and struggled to escape as Barton grabbed him and slammed him onto the bed, tying him down hard.

  Whitmere bled black through his shirt and lab coat, smearing it everywhere. He pleaded for his life, watching Barton take something out of his pocket and set it into the injection gun.

  “Let me go, and I’ll get you out of here! I’ll make certain that you get home!”

  “Somehow I don’t believe you,” Barton laughed. His idea in motion.

  “Don’t!” Whitmere cried as Barton placed the gun against his neck.

  “You want to know what it’s like to be human? Now you can find out. Now you’re one of us.”

  Barton fired his blood into Whitmere. The other screamed and cried, thrashing his body as a fish out of water, as the nanomachines went to work in him.

  “We have to go!” the nurse cried in panic. She tugged on Barton’s arm. “We don’t have time! Let’s go!”

  Barton smiled, watching his mentor, his captor for so long, squirm in pain. The room rumbled again, the roar followed. Barton fell to his knees.

  “Take my hand!” the nurse yelled to him.

  Barton gave in to her and she helped him up. They moved for the door, looking back once to make certain that Whitmere was not able to escape. She opened the door, walking him out, locking it shut behind. He could hear Whitmere screaming, but