Way Out of Control

by Caldwell, Tatiana

  “Much easier for us to do without you scowling in our faces. Shall I escort you back to your old cell?”

  “I’m not going back in there.”

  “You must. We’re busy here, we need all hands here. Celise can’t –”

  “I don’t need a chaperone.”

  “Like hell you don’t.”

  “Dr. Morhamer, please,” Celise sighed. “It’s not as if he can leave the building while we’re on lockdown.”

  “True, but he –”

  “Where will you go, Wentworth?”

  “The gym. Or the pool, perhaps. I could use some cooling off.” He glared coolly at Victor.

  Victor dragged his eyes from Jaxon, to the others in the room, then back to Jaxon again. The scientist attempted to meet the cop’s stare head on, but he removed his hand and backed away, trembling, when Jaxon’s upper lip curled upwards into a menacing growl. She watched as Jaxon marched out of the room, his fists clenched with the stress of keeping his temper within his grip.

  “I don’t like that man roaming the building.”

  Sri clacked his tongue against his lips. “Then let’s hurry and get to work, so we can quickly determine what went wrong when we gave him the formula.”

  “I’m still not so sure it was the formula,” Victor grumbled.

  Celise peeked into the microscope, examined the genetic material swirling underneath the lense there, and sighed. The original formula had worked successfully. The chimp they called Bebo was transformed a few weeks before they tried it on Jaxon. With her arms folded, she studied the chimp as he sat in the large cage he shared with two other chimps. The female chimp, Mimi, whom he’d mated with before, appeared to be in heat and was taunting Bebo with glimpses of her flushed sex organs, and enticing shimmies of her pheromone-laded butt and tail near his nose. But she was completely ignored. Bebo chowed through a bundle of apples, but barely paid attention to the lady chimp attempting to seduce him. Celise narrowed her eyes in thought as she watched Bebo yawn and stretch lethargically after finishing his snack, and curled up in a casual ball, covered his ears and went to sleep. He didn’t even seem to notice when the other male chimp in the cage began to pay a lot of special attention to the parts of Mimi that were exposed.

  “Dr. Ashni, does Bebo have the exact same strain of the formula as Mr. Wentworth?”

  “Well, of course not exactly the exact same. Human and chimpanzee DNA are very similar, but not identical. It’s been tweaked slightly to work for humans by using Wentworth as the control. But the modifications made wouldn’t account for such wild differences in behavior.”

  “Is the chimp on anything else?”

  “No, nothing. Why do you ask?”

  Celise looked at the chimp. Like Jaxon, it was taller, bigger and stronger than it was before the trial. She hadn’t tested it for enhanced senses, but she suspected that it was affected in that way as well. What disturbed her, however, was its behavior. “This chimp isn’t acting like a super soldier. There’s no added aggression or any emotion at all, like with our patient. In fact, this chimp seems sedated, almost.” She picked up the folder that contained the chimp’s medical and experimental records and began thumbing through the files.

  “Completely unlike our Wentworth,” Sri noted.

  “See,” Victor said. “The chimp’s behavior is as expected, and his transformation wasn’t instantaneous. The formula is fine. There must be something off about the human subject, not our formula.”

  “Could be…” Sri said, then trailed off in thought.

  “This was all I needed to see,” Victor went over to his silver laptop and began clicking and typing. “I’m backing up the data and our findings and sending it to the boss.”

  “Perhaps we should also ask Carrington for more funding to obtain new human subjects? We should verify that this instance is indeed an anomaly, and not a potentially recurring unintended side effect.”

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t tell him anything that could risk our getting paid.”

  “Morhamer-”

  “I know, I know, the ethical dilemma,” Victor scoffed. “I’m not suggesting we ignore it. I just think the formula works well enough to tell Garrett that Cyclone Industries can produce and sell it. If these issues come up again, we can act as if it were the first time we’d experienced such results, and then look into it after the fact. Perhaps even get paid an additional fee to diagnose and contain the situation.”

  Celise folded her arms tightly and shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Celise paused at one of the chimp’s charts. “I think we could be getting misleading results from this chimp. It mentions that he was used in anti-depressant clinical trials. Did either of you bother to take note of the fact that this animal had large doses of serotonin reuptake inhibitors?”

  “Yes, I saw that,” Sri nodded. “But that was over eighteen months ago.”

  “Too far back to have an effect on our efforts now,” Victor added. “It’s fine.”

  Celise shook her head. “It doesn’t seem fine. Bebo was one of the liveliest chimps in here. Look at him now, he doesn’t seem like himself at all. It’s like he doesn’t care about anything. If there isn’t any remaining SRI in his system, then –”

  “No, it’s fine. Titan Formula is supposed to make him calm,” Sri explained. “Bebo isn’t suffering some lasting effect from the antidepressant trial. He’s exactly the way he is supposed to be due to the SRI in the Titan Formula.”

  “Subdued.” Victor added absently as he typed. “Open to being commanded.”

  Celise arched a brow. “Commanded?” She cut a look at Victor, then Sri, then back to Victor. “Commanded by whom?”

  Victor sighed. “Whoever’s got the rank to, of course.”

  “I thought the purpose of Titan Formula was to create a human with superior, regenerative physical health and strength?”

  “It is.”

  “Then why tamper with their temperament at all?”

  Victor looked up at Celise then and snorted. “How else would you propose one would regulate a military or police force with regenerative superior senses, physical health and strength?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know … I suppose maybe mutual trust wouldn’t work?”

  Victor looked at her blankly. “No. It wouldn’t.”

  “I’ve been assisting you guys with this experiment for over half a year. Why am I just learning about this?”

  “There’s many details we purposely refrained from sharing with you, Celise. The only reason we’re telling you now is because we’re in a bind and need all the brain power we can get to figure this out.”

  She blinked in disbelief and tried to keep her mouth from gaping open. “ Are you even interested in really trying to correct anything? To fix Jaxon at all?”

  “Of course, yes,” Sri said, throwing Victor a cutting look when their eyes briefly met. “Morhamer’s ego may be preventing him from admitting something has gone wrong here, but it has. We acknowledge what Jaxon is emotionally suffering is the exact opposite effect intended, and we do not know why.”

  Celise snorted. “And so what you mean is Jaxon’s experiencing hypersensitivity to his emotions when, in reality, you expected him to feel –”

  “Almost none at all.”

  Celise felt her teeth grinding together as she glared at both men, snatched off her plastic gloves and tossed them upon the table. “I believe I am done here for today. If you’ll excuse me.” She headed for the door, paused, and turned back to look at the scientists. “And I suggest you both put your over-inflated egos to the side for a bit and consider the possibility that your formula is not working as planned, and that the only reason this chimp is not a one seriously angry monkey is because he still has some remnants of SRIs in his system from a previous experiment that actually did work,” she said. Then she exited, slamming the door behind her.

  * * * *

  After working late into the evening in another lab in the hospital on her own, Celis
e finally decided that depriving herself of both food and sleep was unproductive. At a minimum, she needed to allow herself one or the other. She thought about the cafeteria food and decided that sleep would be far more satisfying.

  She couldn’t wait to get to her room and take off those heels and her uncomfortable clothes. Why did she bother to continue to dress so nicely for work anyways, when no one was there to see her but three people? Was she really such a silly female as to want to dress up for Jaxon? The man’s wardrobe these days consisted of mostly sweats pants and t-shirts anyway.

  When she got to the room she’d claimed, she found Jaxon already inside. He was on the floor doing pushups at about two reps a second, his face like chiseled stone in concentration. She stood there in the doorway and watched him until his eyes seemed to refocus, and he finally stopped and stood up.

  “You don’t look very cheerful,” she said. “I take it your swim didn’t help much?”

  “That was hours ago.”

  “Understood. What are you feeling right now?”

  “Anger.”

  “Ah. Listen, what Victor said earlier –”

  “Fuck what Victor said.” A vein on the side of Jaxon’s neck pulsated. “More than what either of those sorry assed doctors have to say, more than Victor’s slimly assed hands on your ass, I’m pissed at me. Me.”

  Celise blinked. “Yourself?”

  “Yeah, myself. I’ve ruined my life by being too impatient to wait for my body to heal on its own, by not accepting my limitations and just getting on with my life. I had to go and volunteer for this bullshit, not fully understanding the potential to screw myself in the process.”

  “Screw yourself, how exactly?”

  “You know how!” He bellowed. “I can’t go to work looking like this! Everyone will think I’m on steroids or something. And I can barely keep myself from strangling the throat of a wimpy scientist. How will I ever restrain myself from killing a cold criminal? Then there are relationships.” He laughed, but it was more in frustration than amusement. “I can forget ever having a normal relationship with anybody again. No job, no girl, no life. I fucked myself.”

  “Well. If I’m not mistaken, haven’t you been paid quite healthily for your participation? I don’t think you even still need to work, if you invest it properly.”

  “I’m a cop, Celise. Do you know what we do and what we get paid? I don’t work this job for the money. I do it to keep asshats off the streets. To protect people who need protection, to save lives. Now I’ve ruined mine.”

  Celise swallowed the small lump of pride that had swelled in her throat. “There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a better man, Jaxon. To be your old self again so you can do a job that means so much to you.”

  “But my method of improvement was wrong.”

  “Part of science is getting it wrong so you can learn how to get it right.”

  “Then I should have left it to nature instead of science.”

  Celise put her hands on her hips and twisted her mouth. “Right. Because nature always gets it right.”

  He snorted, but didn’t reply.

  “I have an idea about helping you.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Just you?”

  She cleared her throat. “Yeah, about an hour after you walked out, I left them to continue with their thing while I began working on a little hypothesis of my own.”

  “Which is?”

  “I think I can numb you.”

  “Like with the tranquilizer?”

  “Not physically, emotionally. With an emotion suppressor I made using a mixture of serotonin inhibitors.”

  He stared at her blankly. “You mean like Paxil?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You want to counter the drugs that affected my emotions with more drugs that will affect them.”

  “More like try to tone them down a bit.”

  Jaxon shoved his hands through his hair. “I don’t have a problem with what I feel. They are mine, I can accept that now. It’s how I react to it that’s the problem.”

  “I understand that. I’ve already concluded as much. Your emotions are real; they are your genuine feelings. The problem is their intensity. That’s why you’re having a hard time handling them—they’re yours, but they’re out of control.”

  “Way out of control.”

  “So I was thinking taking something to suppress them a bit might help you.”

  “Might?”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly have anyone to test it on. But I believe the odds are high that it will work.”

  Jaxon exhaled deeply and looked away for a moment, silent. When he spoke again, he sounded sad, tired. “I’m not sure I want to be another test subject for yet another drug. Not even a drug created and administered by you, Celise. I just want a cure, an antidote to the Titan Formula. Don’t they need an antidote? Why would they create something like this without one?”

  “It’s not a disease, Jaxon. It was meant to act as an enhancement.”

  “It’s not an enhancement, it’s a mutation. Like a virus. Like a cancer.”

  “Not at all like a cancer. If this worked right it’d be a scientific achievement.”

  “The science is faulty and dangerous, and it should have a way to be ejected in the event of an emergency. Some way to take it all back if things go wrong.”

  “No. Science should never be abandoned, only studied and improved.”

  “Sometimes getting rid of it is an improvement,” Jaxon insisted.

  Celise rolled her eyes and shook her head, feeling her face grow hot. “It’s never the science that’s bad. It’s the people behind it that can ruin it all, with their hidden agendas and secret objectives. With their dishonesty and secrecy.”

  “What are you mumbling on about?”

  “And you,” she continued, finding it uneasy to stop ranting once she started. “You’re a grown man. Have any of you men stopped to think—during your hunt for the ultimate form of masculinity—that it would be a good idea to thoroughly analyze what the consequences might be of trying to be a physical model of macho intimidation before you got involved with it?”

  Jaxon raised an eyebrow and blinked at her. “Okay, you’re obviously ticked. I’m not sure if it’s directed solely at me or not, but you seem to be looking for a fight. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to pick one with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because –”

  “Because you’re so big and scary?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Well you don’t scare me, Jaxon.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He laughed. “I wonder if this is what arguing with you would have been like if I’d been able to convince you to date me.”

  With her frustration fading a bit, Celise smirked and looked around the room. “You’re in my bedroom, and you’re the first man to do so in almost a year. We might as well be dating.”

  He shook his head. “No. If we were dating and arguing in your bedroom, we’d be having makeup sex.”

  “Or making out, at least,” she found herself saying. She approached him, put her hands on his chest and looked all the way up into his golden eyes. “Too bad we aren’t dating, huh?”

  “It’s a good thing we’re not dating, right now at least, while I’m like this.”

  “Why not? What difference does it make?”

  “Look at me.”

  “I am.” She slid her hands further down his bare chest, touching the big, rippling muscles there, finding herself moving them down his waist. “You’re still the same man I first met three and a half months ago. Just bigger and a little more in-tune with his emotions.”

  “And now I’m a monster.”

  “You’re still a man. I can prove it.” She kicked off the uncomfortable shoes she’d been wearing all day, pushed off her lab coat, then stripped off her blouse and pants. With her purple satin underwear on and nothing else, she wa
lked over to where he stood, watching her with a dark and dangerous look in his eyes. She turned around and pressed her back against him, rubbing her bottom against his crotch.

  He let out a soft growl in warning. “Please, don’t do that.”

  Celise knew full well what she was starting, knew full well the potential consequences, but she had a theory to prove, a point to make.

  “It's good practice for your self-control. Or whatever semblance of self-control a man would have, anyways.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You keep calling yourself a monster, saying you’re not a normal man. But I don’t know many guys that deny themselves sexual pleasure when it’s freely offered by someone they want. You’ve exhibited more self-control than most men, yet you claim the very opposite.”

  She heard him sigh deeply, felt him grow stiff and thick against her bottom. “You have no idea how hard it is to keep myself in check.”

  “Then don’t,” she said. “I’m here in your arms, nearly naked, tempting you. A normal, available man wouldn’t try to resist. He’d let himself give in to his desires.”

  At that point Jaxon seized her from behind, his big hands clutching her breasts, and Celise held her breath, anxiously awaiting his next move. He continued to cup her breasts and held them firmly, but didn’t fondle her. The hairs on the nape of her neck stood as she felt him lean forward and lower his face to her, his breath hot and expanding upon her skin. She felt him shudder against her, but he mostly stayed still.

  “It’s not unnatural to want this,” she said softly. “Just let yourself go.”

  A short, deep sound came from him, but then he pushed down the fabric of her bra and pulled out her double Ds, baring them to the air. First he just caressed them, filled his hands with them and squeezed gently. Then the intensity of his groping and the roughness of his hands increased until he was manipulating her breasts, squishing them, pulling them, his fingers tweaking her nipples until they were so stiff and large that they stung.