by Alex Scarrow
‘Goddammit!’ He barked at the technician. ‘What’s so damned important you needed to scare me out of bed at this time of bloody night?’
‘Candidate six!’ he replied. He beckoned for him and the Councillor to follow him into the lab. ‘I just decided to check in on her…there’s blood!’
‘What?’
He hurried past the other growth tubes towards the last one in the row, waving his hands for them to hasten over. ‘She’s haemorrhaging!’
Deacon and Hayden hurried over. Councillor Hayden leant towards the glass container, peering into the murky, cloudy liquid inside. The protein soup was normally a bright pink colour, but right now it was a dark crimson.
‘What the hell have you done to her?!’
‘Nothing but what we agreed!’ replied the Doctor. ‘I continued with the ageing process!’
‘Well stop it then!’
Dr Take-Jones scowled at Deacon. ‘I’m not an idiot! I have! I already stopped the process!’
Hayden cupped her eyes and leant against the glass. ‘What’s her approximate age now?’ She had trouble seeing through the foggy red liquid. ‘From what I can see she doesn’t look that old to me.’
‘She isn’t…I would say she’s about twenty-five to thirty. It’s not a precise figure but, certainly Six isn’t any older than that.’
‘Is this a mutation? A ruptured tumour?’ asked Deacon.
Dr Takeo-Jones shook his head. ‘Last time I looked, there were no signs of…she was looking perfectly normal last time I checked on her.’
‘Where’s it coming from?’
‘I suspect a blood vessel has ruptured or…’
Councillor Hayden pressed her face up against the side and peered deep into the darkening red liquid. She could see the faint outline of the girl, still tucked into a foetal position. She squinted, trying to make sense of the dark outlines hanging in the liquid, then…she saw it, a fresh curl of blood curling up from the lower half of her body.
She gasped. She immediately understood what she was seeing.
Deacon turned to her. ‘What is it? What can you see?’
Hayden continued peering into the murky liquid. ‘My God…’ she whispered. ‘Good God….no.’
‘Councillor?’ prompted Deacon rubbing his tired eyes impatiently. If it had been anybody else, he would have sworn at them to stop gawping like an idiot and explain themselves. ‘What is it?’
She turned round to look at him. Eyes wide. Quite clearly shaken. ‘Mason…the crazy fool!’ she whispered.
‘We need to get her out of there!’ interrupted Dr Takeo-Jones. ‘We need to try and stop this haemorrhaging before she dies.’
‘She’s not dying, you idiot,’ she replied. ‘She’s menstruating!’
The word was one Deacon hadn’t heard in a long time. It was archaic. A word that belonged to a bygone era. He only vaguely recalled it had something to do with…
‘My God!’ whispered Dr Takeo-Jones. ‘Are you sure?’
‘She’s fertile,’ she explained. She stroked her forehead, massaged a temple and closed her eyes. ‘Mason you stupid, fucking, reckless bastard!’
‘Fertile? You mean, she…?'
'Yes!' snapped Hayden. 'She could make a goddamned baby!' She turned to him, ashen-faced and genuinely horrified. ‘Mason's made a fertility bomb.’
To be continued…
In
ELLIE QUIN Beyond The GATEWAY
(Book 6 in the Ellie Quin series)
