The Praegressus Project: Part One

by Aaron Hodges

  It’s your fault, the thought ate at him.

  William had never stood a chance. The minute they’d entered the room, the boy’s life had been forfeit. These people had known it, had wanted it to happen.

  Doors slammed as they moved deeper into the facility. He knew where they were heading now, that he would soon find himself back in the tiny cell. The others would be waiting for him. And they would know, would see the truth in his eyes.

  That he was a killer.

  CHAPTER 16

  The steel door to the prison block appeared ahead, the guards already moving to open it. In a blink, they were through, marching down the long corridor of the prison block. The cells were almost empty now, only a few faces remaining to press against the bars and watch Chris’s return.

  When he first saw their cell, he thought it was empty. But as the guards drew the door open, he glimpsed movement from Liz’s bed, saw her haggard face poke into view. She watched in grim silence as the guards propelled Chris inside.

  Steel screeched behind him, followed by the clang of the locking mechanism. Footsteps retreated down the corridor, fading until another clang announced their departure.

  Reaching out, Chris gripped the metal bar of his bunk. His legs shook, threating to give way. He closed his eyes, waiting for Liz to speak, to hurl her accusations.

  You killed him.

  The words whispered in his mind, but Liz remained silent. Only the distant tread of the guard in the corridor could be heard. He took a deep breath, tasting the bleach in the air, the blood from a cut on his lip.

  “Are you okay?” He jumped as Liz finally spoke.

  He looked up then, finding Liz’s big eyes watching him, and saw his own pain reflected in their sapphire depths. She sat in her bunk, knuckles wide as she gripped the metal sidebar. Her eyes watered and a single tear streaked down her cheek.

  “No.” Chris’s shoulders slumped. “You?”

  She shook her head, looked away, but he had seen the flash of guilt in her eyes. The truth hung over the room like a blanket, smothering them.

  They were alive.

  Taking a better grip of his bunk, Chris hauled himself up. Dragging himself across the sagging mattress, he collapsed into his pillow. Then he turned and saw Liz still watching him. Her lips trembled. There was no sign of the proud, defiant girl he’d first seen in the cages. The last few days, last few hours, had broken her.

  Broken us both, a voice reminded him.

  Pushing himself up, Chris twisted to face Liz. “Did they…” his voice trailed off. He couldn’t finish the question.

  Her crystal blue eyes found his, shining in the glow of the overhead lights. “No,” she whispered. “I did.”

  A chill went through Chris at her words. He stared at her, noticing now the purple bruise on her cheek, the dried blood on her lip. His eyes travelled lower and found the swollen black skin beneath her collar. He shuddered. Her struggle had been far more real than his. He remembered the boy Joshua, guessed he was the one…

  “What happened?” he murmured.

  Liz closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean…” She sucked in a breath, and her eyes flashed open. “I didn’t want to,” she finished with a growl.

  Chris nodded, leaning back against the concrete wall. “You did what you had to, Liz,” he offered.

  “He would have killed me,” she continued as though he had not spoken. “I had to do it. He left me no choice…”

  Chris felt a sudden urge to wrap his arms around the girl, to hold her until the pain left her. This was a side of her he had not seen, the vulnerability beneath the armour she’d worn from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. Gone was the hardness, the distant air of superiority. The foulness of this place had eaten the rest, had reduced them both to shadows of their former selves.

  He could almost feel his humanity fading away, slipping through his fingers like grains of rice. With each fresh atrocity he witnessed, with every awful thing they forced him to do, he could feel his soul slipping away, feel himself becoming the animal they thought him to be. One way or another, soon he would cease to exist, and nothing would remain of the boy his mother had raised.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Liz looked up at that. He continued, his voice breaking. “Whether you killed him or not, only one of you was ever walking out of that room. After my… after William fell, the doctors came. He couldn’t stand, couldn’t defend himself. They executed him.”

  A sharp hiss of breath came from Liz, but it was a long time before she replied. “Who are these people?”

  Monsters. Chris thought, but did not speak the word.

  Across from him, Liz started to cough. A long, drawn out series of wheezes and gasps rattled from her chest, going on and on, until her face was flushed red and her brow creased with pain.

  Finally, she leaned back against the wall, panting for breath.

  “Are you okay?” Chris whispered

  Liz opened her eyes and stared at him. “Of course, city boy. I can take a beating.”

  Chris winced. His own anger rose but he bit back a curt reply. There was no point taking offence. He could see her pain, knew where the anger came from. He had not missed the coldness with which she addressed them at times, her hesitation to join their conversations.

  Another rattle came from her chest as she laid her head back against the wall.

  “We’re not all bad, you know,” he said at last. “Not all rich, either. There are a lot of people who disagree with the government now, even in the cities. There have been protests…”

  “Protests?” Liz coughed, her voice wry. “Well, nice to hear you’re getting out.”

  Chris sighed. “I understand–”

  “I don’t think you do,” Liz cut him off. “You think you do, but you don’t. While you lived in your cosy home in the city, I was forced onto the streets. Not because I wanted to, not because I had a choice, but because everyone I knew was dead. Slaughtered.”

  Shivering, Chris opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, unable to find the words.

  Liz eyed him for a moment and then continued. “I had nowhere to go, no one left to turn to. I thought the government would help when they arrived, that they would protect me. But when they came, they looked at me like I was nothing, like I was an inconvenience to them. They would have arrested me, thrown me in some place like this if I hadn’t run.”

  Chris looked away from the pain in Liz’s eyes. He stared at his hands, the bruises on his knuckles, his stomach clenched with guilt.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered at last, looking up. “You shouldn’t have been treated that way. It’s not right,” he paused. “Was it a Chead?”

  Liz flinched at the word. When she did not reply, Chris went on. “Mum always said something needed to be done, that her father would have been ashamed by how things have changed since the war. We should never have let the inequality between the cities and the countryside grow so bad,” he paused for breath, “But that does not change what I said. We’re not all evil, Liz. Some of us want to fix things, want the government to be held to account.”

  “So I should just give you all the benefit of the doubt?” Liz snapped.

  “No,” Chris replied in a soft tone. “You should judge us by our own actions, not those of others,” he breathed out. “A long time ago, I might have hated you too, Liz. Feared you for being different, for speaking with a rural accent.”

  “But not now?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he trailed off, remembering a time long ago. “When I was younger, I was running late getting home from class. It was getting dark, and we don’t live in a good neighbourhood. When I was nearly home, a man stepped from the shadows. He had a knife.”

  “Let me guess, he was from the country too?”

  Chris laughed softly. “No, he spoke like a normal person.” He couldn’t help but tease her for the assumption. Shaking his head, he continued, “But I think he was an addict of some sort – his eyes were wild and his han
ds shook. Before I had a chance to reach for my bag, he swung the knife at me, and caught me in the shoulder. I still have the scar…”

  Liz nodded. “I saw.”

  Chris glanced across at her, his cheeks warming. He remembered his embarrassment when they had been forced to remove their clothes. Apparently, Liz had allowed her eyes to roam more than his own.

  “What does this have to do with anything, Chris?”

  With a shrug, Chris continued. “I think he would have killed me if someone else hadn’t come along.” He paused, looking across at Liz. “I don’t know where he came from, but suddenly there was a man standing between us. He spoke with a rural accent, told the mugger to leave. When the man didn’t listen, my rescuer took his knife away and sent him running.”

  “And this suddenly changed your mind about us?”

  Chris shrugged. “Not overnight, no. But the man walked me home, right to my front door. He even told mum what to do with my cut. He didn’t have to help me, could have left me to die, dismissed me as some spoiled city boy who deserved it. But he chose to help me instead. Since then, I’ve tried to do the same. To give people a chance, whoever they are.”

  Liz let out a long sigh. “And you want the same from me now?” she asked. “Because some man from the country saved you from a mugger?”

  Chuckling, Chris nodded his head. “It would be nice to have a clean slate.”

  Liz shook her head. “After today, I’m not sure a clean slate exists for us, Chris. Joshua’s blood is on my hands…”

  “No,” Chris replied firmly. “It’s on theirs.”

  Liz nodded, but they both knew the words meant little. They might not have had a choice, but that did not lessen the burden.

  “We’re all in this together now, aren’t we?” Liz repeated Ashley’s words from all those days ago, on the day they had arrived.

  Chris’s gut clenched as he realised the two still had not returned.

  On the other bed, Liz continued, her voice hesitant. “Okay, Chris,” she whispered. “I’ll give you a chance.”

  “Thank you,” he said after a while.

  Silence settled around them again then. Chris stared up at the ceiling, struggling to resolve the conflict of emotion battling within him. William’s face drifted through his thoughts, eyes wide and staring, but the guilt felt a little less now. Liz had faced the same question, given the same answer.

  Somehow, that made things just a little easier to bear.

  Long hours ticked past. Still the others did not return. Chris and Liz waited in the hushed stillness of the cell, listening to the thump of the guard’s boots outside, the whisper of voices from other cells. Liz’s breath grew more ragged.

  Finally, the bang of the outer door announced someone’s approach. The soft tread of footsteps followed, moving down the corridor. Metal screeched as cell doors opened, while other footsteps continued on towards them.

  Chris sat up as shadows fell across the bars of their cell. Relief touched his chest as he looked out, and saw Ashley and Sam standing outside. Hinges squeaked as the door opened and they stumbled inside. Sad smiles touched their faces as they looked up at Chris and Liz.

  “So,” Sam breathed. “You’re alive.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Without pausing to knock, Angela shoved the door to Halt’s office open and strode inside. She glimpsed surprise on the harsh lines of his face as he looked up, though it had vanished by the time the door slammed shut behind her. Anger replaced it as he half-rose from his chair, fists clenched hard on his desk.

  “What–”

  “You have no right!” Angela cut him off.

  Halt straightened. “I have every right,” his voice was low, dangerous.

  Hands trembling, Angela approached his desk. “It’s not ready, Halt,” she hissed. “You can’t start those trials tomorrow. I need more time.”

  Rising, Halt walked around his desk, until he stood towering over her. Angela stared back, defiant, anger feeding her strength. She had just learned Halt planned to initiate the next phase of the Praegressus project tomorrow. The same project she had dedicated the last ten years of her life too.

  “The directors want results, Doctor Fallow,” Halt bit out the words, “and you’ve been stalling.”

  Angela refused to back down. “I’ve been doing my job,” she snapped. “And I’m telling you, the virus is not ready!”

  Halt smiled. “I’ve looked over your work, Fallow,” Angela shivered at his tone. “And I say it’s ready. After all, fortune favours the bold.”

  The words of the old Latin proverb curled around Angela’s mind as she stepped back. They reminded her of Halt in those first days. The government had sent him after her discovery with the Chead, bringing her their new directive.

  The Praegressus Project.

  Praegressus – Latin for evolution, the adaptation of species down the countless millennia.

  Shivering, Angela drew in a breath to steady herself. “There are still problems with the uptake,” she ground out. “You could kill them all with your recklessness.”

  “The alternations will work–”

  “Of course they will,” Angela interrupted. “Animal trials have shown us as much. It’s their immune response that concerns me. Their bodies will tear themselves apart fighting the virus.”

  Halt waved a hand as he moved back behind his desk. “Should that eventuate, we will administer immunosuppressants until the chromosomal changes have set,” he sat back at his desk, eyebrow raised. “Is that all?”

  “Immunosuppressants?” Angela pressed her palms against the desk and leaned in. “We’ll have to move them to the clean room, watch them around the clock. They wouldn’t last a day in the cells.”

  “Whatever it takes, Fallow.” Halt stared her down. “We can’t wait any longer. The government wants answers. We’ll be shut down if we don’t provide a solution soon. The attacks are growing worse. The authorities are desperate.”

  “What?” Angela questioned.

  Halt leaned back in his chair. “The fools underestimated the Chead for too long. They should have given us the funding we needed for this years ago. There was an attack in San Francisco yesterday. They’ve reached the capital, Fallow. The President himself is demanding answers.”

  Angela shook her head, doubt gnawing at her chest. “You really think this is the answer?”

  “Of course.” Halt’s cold eyes regarded her with a detached curiosity. “Do not lose focus now, Doctor Fallow. Not when we’re so close. The Praegressus project will change everything. When it succeeds, the Western Allied States will herald in a new era of human evolution. The Chead will be hunted down and eradicated, our enemies at home and abroad consigned to the pages of history.”

  Looking into her superior’s eyes, Angela shuddered. Naked greed lurked in their grey depths. For the first time, she allowed herself to look around, to take in the grisly display lining the walls of Halt’s office. The sight she had been doing her best to ignore.

  All around, animal eyes stared back at her. Halt’s office was lined with shelves, each holding a collection of jars filled with clear fluids. Suspended within hung a silent host of animals of every shape and size. Birds and lizards, cats and snakes and what looked like a platypus stared down at her, their eyes blank and dead. An opossum curled around its ringed tail on the shelf behind Halt’s head, while beside it a baby chimpanzee hugged its chest. With its eyes closed, it could have been sleeping.

  Angela looked away, struggling to hide her disgust from Halt.

  “Soon they will all be obsolete,” Halt commented, noticing her discomfort.

  “Yes,” she almost choked on the word.

  But at what cost? She added silently.

  Halt eyed her closely and raised one eyebrow. “Was there anything else, Doctor Fallow?”

  Angela shook her head. She knew when she was defeated. Turning, she all but ran from the room. She closed the door carefully behind her, her anger spent. Once outside, she pl
aced a hand against the wall, shivering with sudden fear. Events were accelerating now, slipping beyond her control, and it was all she could do to keep up.

  In her mind, she saw images of San Francisco, the steep roads teaming with life. She imagined the devastation a Chead would cause in such a place, the mindless slaughter. Bodies would line the streets as police struggled to reach the scene through the traffic-clogged streets. How long might the Chead have run rampant?

  Straightening, Angela turned from Halt’s door and moved away. Tomorrow, if they succeeded, the world would change. Humanity’s evolution would take one giant leap forward, and one way or another, there would be no going back.

  A sudden doubt rose within her, a fear for what was to come. What if they were wrong? What if they failed, and it was all for nought?

  And what if they succeeded? What then?

  Her skin tingled as she remembered Halt’s words, heard again his triumphant declaration.

  Our enemies, at home and abroad, will be consigned to the pages of history.

  CHAPTER 18

  A cold breeze blew across Liz’s neck, rustling the branches above her head. Sucking in a breath, she picked up the pace, eying the lengthening shadows beneath the trees. She was close to home now, the path familiar beneath her feet, but it was a steep climb and she had no wish to make it in the dark.

  Around her, the forest was eerily silent, the usual evening chorus of birds and insects mute. It put her on edge, eyes flicking over the scraggly trees neighbouring the path. Their dense branches shifted with the wind, but otherwise there was no sign of movement.

  She moved on.

  Behind her the path wound down through the forest. The mountain on which their homestead perched stood alone amidst the Californian floodplains, looking out across their broad expanse. All around the rock were the lands of the Flores family – or at least the lands they managed. Once they had been theirs, but no longer.