Before the Nothingness

by Kevin George

  Do they know I’m no longer in charge? Are they going to run to The Board to let them know I’m here? Samuel glanced toward the micro-cameras lining the hallway ceiling. He couldn’t spot any of them but knew exactly where they were located. Keep your head down or you’ll draw more attention.

  By the time he reached the outer door to Weller’s lab, he had to tell himself not to run. He lowered his face to the retinal scanner, worried The Board may have made another decision to restrict his access. He’d been denied entry to Weller’s outer lab in the past, but he’d fixed that with security. Now, he didn’t know how much The Board might be—

  The lab door clicked open and he hurried inside, breathing a sigh of relief once he was out of the hallway. Still, he found himself peering into the darkened corners of the room, searching for cameras he hoped weren’t there. Either way, the plan formulating in his mind would be impossible to hide from The Board forever and would certainly require him to use his influence. For that matter, The Board’s decision to never open The Mountain’s hangar door might end up stranding him far from safety.

  But they only decided not to open for villagers, which I’m not, Samuel thought, though he wasn’t certain that distinction would be considered.

  Samuel’s plan also hinged on cooperation from Weller, who’d suddenly agreed with the change in leadership, making Samuel wonder if he could trust anyone. He tried accessing the inner lab but wasn’t surprised to be denied. Before he had a chance to try again, the hallway door opened to the sound of laughter. When Weller stepped inside and spotted Samuel, the smile disappeared from his face and he hurried to close the door behind him.

  “Something funny?” Samuel asked.

  Weller shook his head. “Don’t be paranoid.”

  “The Board is getting out of control and now you’re agreeing with their decisions?”

  “You mean the way you did at the end of the meeting?” Weller asked with a sigh. “Look, Sam, The Board’s mind was made up long before any of them asked my opinion. How would they have treated me had I disagreed with every single one of them?”

  “With respect,” Samuel said. “Respect for someone who stays true to what’s right, even when times are difficult.”

  Weller lowered an eyebrow. “Let them think the power is in their hands. Let them gloat in their victory. Sometimes, letting someone think they have power is exactly what causes them to lose it. Regardless of who gives orders around here, we are still in control and the only way we lose that is if we let The Board’s games get to us.”

  “I can’t just give in to them,” Samuel said.

  “Give me enough time to perfect the Aviary,” Dr. Weller said. “Once we’re certain it works—once the future success of humankind is directly tied to my formula and your blood—then we can let The Board know who’s really in charge.”

  Samuel had clenched his teeth so tightly for so long that his jaw ached. Hearing Weller’s plan—which made total sense and ended with them holding all control—should have satisfied Samuel, it should have left him content with what his immediate future held. But when he stared into Weller’s eyes, he saw a spark of something he didn’t like. He had no doubt Weller wanted to prove his superiority to The Board, but Weller never spoke his mind during meetings with them, never expressed a single dissenting opinion, always agreed with whatever Martin LeRoque said.

  Is that the way I want to conduct myself? The way I want to continue the Jonas legacy? The way I want to build my own legacy?

  For his entire life, Samuel Jonas had based his decisions not on what was right or wrong, but on what would guarantee the results he wanted. He’d always had his father and the family name to fall back upon, but that was no longer the case. When he thought of his father—the great Charles Jonas—he no longer felt envy for the fame and power his father possessed. Now that he understood the complexities of being leader of One Corp. and the Jonas family, he realized his father had never sacrificed his integrity, that he’d never made deals with people beneath him.

  Suddenly, the thought of following Nigel’s advice—of allowing The Board to even think they were in charge—made Samuel sick to his stomach. He knew what must be done next. He also knew it would either lead to his ascension of true leadership or his utter destruction. Instinct told him to follow the safer path, but he shook his head at that thought.

  “The time for games is over,” Samuel said. “My father wouldn’t have given them the satisfaction and neither will I, not anymore. It’s time to show The Board who’s in charge, even if it costs me everything.”

  Samuel pointed toward the lab’s inner door. Weller frowned.

  “But I told you, the Aviary won’t be ready until I—”

  Samuel shook his head. “I don’t need the Aviary,” he said with a grin. “I need an answer, the answer we’ve been promising.”

  “We haven’t promised The Board. . .”—Weller stopped, his brow furrowing—“. . . you don’t mean The Board, do you?” Samuel shook his head again. “The villagers?”

  “The Hybrid Blast,” Samuel said. “You still have it in storage. I need it to save ISU-Ville.”

  “But why?” Weller asked. “You’ve always thought of them as outsiders, and not just because that’s what The Board thinks. That’s how you’ve always spoken about the villagers, even when we were in private. Why the change in attitude?”

  “It’s the only way to save them. . . the only way to lead them,” Samuel said. “For all my life, I only worried about myself: what made me happy, what helped me survive, how I could get rid of anyone that didn’t agree with me or wasn’t vital to my plans for the future. For years, I’d been waiting for my father to die so I could send all of those non-essential Mountainers away from here. Now, the thought that I could do that. . .”

  Samuel sighed, his sinuses burning as he turned his attention to the floor, unable to look Nigel Weller in the eye.

  “My father’s death changed my life, but not in the way I expected. I’m either going to succeed or fail in doing what I think is right, starting with the villagers,” Samuel said. “They won’t survive the weather on their own. They might survive with the Hybrid Blast.”

  Weller snorted, but a smile crossed his lips.

  “Makes sense to try giving it to people living outside. Plus, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested to see how my modifications work,” he said. “I saved the Hybrid Blast because I was worried we’d never create something better. Now that we have the Aviary, guess it’s time to rid my storage space of the Blast. Are you certain you’ll be able to get it to the villagers?”

  Samuel shrugged. “The best I can do is try. No matter what happens, The Board will know I’m a force to be reckoned with.”

  Dr. Weller started toward the door to his inner lab but stopped before accessing it. “If you’re caught before leaving The Mountain. . . or if The Board denies you entry back into the facility. . .”

  “I know how important it is for you to finish the Aviary,” Samuel said. “No matter what happens with the Hybrid Blast, nobody will know you stored it in your lab. I’ll take full responsibility.”

  Dr. Weller nodded and opened the door to his inner lab. A cacophony of strange noises erupted from the room: rattling cages, screams, high-pitched squawking, all of the sounds louder than anything Samuel had ever heard from inside. Weller began to enter the lab but stopped, opening the door a bit wider, gesturing for Samuel to follow.

  “Since you might not be making it back to The Mountain. . .”

  “Thanks,” Samuel said with a snort.

  “. . . you might as well see how far I’ve actually gotten on the Aviary,” Dr. Weller said. “My progress might be a bit more. . . advanced. . . than I’ve let on.”

  Before Samuel could ask a single question, Weller entered his inner lab and Samuel followed. He was immediately struck by the general shabbiness of the lab. Lights flickered overhead—at least those still in working condition—and the place was a complete mess, not unlike h
ow the outer lab had once been. But Samuel didn’t have a chance to focus on specifics. The squawking and rattling metal seemed to explode from the darkened corner of the room. Dim light glinted off the bars of a large cage, but the figure within remained in shadows.

  The silhouette was human-like, or at least appeared to be upon first glance. As Samuel stared at the cage and slowly stepped forward, he saw the person—the thing—more clearly. It was the size of a person but appeared to be covered in feathers. The silhouette turned its head, showing a nose that was long and curved with a sharpened point, its eyes recessed farther back on its head. Its back was hunched, but the two wide objects sticking out of its back were the most striking part of—

  More rattling exploded from the other side of the room, where a smaller cage housed a large bird. Or is that a small child? Samuel wondered, his feet suddenly frozen to the floor, his stomach dipping. He didn’t have the chance to study the creature for long when his thoughts were interrupted by moaning, the sound clearly made by a human voice.

  Samuel looked into the far corner of the room, where a privacy partition—battered and torn—appeared ready to tip over at the lightest touch. Samuel glanced to Weller and the doctor nodded, urging him to investigate, a wry smile crossing his lips. With a single glance of Dr. Weller at home in his lab, Samuel realized he’d never really known the man with whom he’d most closely aligned. Part of his mind told him to run far away—to security to have Nigel arrested or to The Board to have Nigel’s experiments stopped—but curiosity reigned over his mind. Instead, he veered to the side of the room to have a better view of who—or what—waited behind the divider. . .

  Samuel expected another winged monster, large or small, but instead saw a woman strapped to a gurney. Her clothing was rumpled, her shirt ripped open at her midsection, her belly swollen but not in the cylindrical shape of a normal pregnant woman. It was oddly misshapen, flat in some areas, sticking out at a point in other spots. Strangest of all was the way it seemed to constantly ripple and change shapes, each change accompanied by a pained scream or a desperate moan.

  Samuel shook his head, suddenly feeling the warmth in the lab, wondering if that were caused by his sudden panic. A wave of revulsion washed over him and he doubted he’d ever be able to sleep soundly again. He took a careful step forward, craning his neck to see farther around the partition, finally spotting the face of the woman strapped down. Her face was twisted in agony, but Samuel thought she looked to still be human.

  He also thought she looked familiar. Her eyes immediately turned to him and her agony and torment faded, replaced by silent pleading. But it didn’t take long until she recognized Samuel, too. When her face twisted again, her brow furrowed and her top lip curled in hatred. She continued to cry in pain, but words now joined her groaning.

  “I. . . hate. . . you. . .”

  Lewiston’s wife, Sam thought, recalling one of the engineers who’d no longer served his purpose and was among those expelled from The Mountain. Samuel had considered kicking out more people until Weller convinced him to keep the women of child-rearing age. Now he understood what the doctor had in mind for them, though he never would’ve imagined this.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Dr. Weller said.

  “You do?” Samuel asked.

  “I’m farther along in the process than I ever told you,” Weller said with a sheepish grin.

  Samuel eyed the Lewiston woman’s swollen belly before taking a few steps back so he could no longer see her.

  “Not the exact thing I was thinking, but yes, you are,” Samuel said. He crossed his arms and tried to summon anger for Weller’s betrayal, but it was hard listening to the woman’s moans, the strange squawking/crying and the constant cage rattling without feeling something between panic and disgust.

  “I may have gotten a slight jump on human testing,” Dr. Weller said. “I knew it’s what you wanted, but you were busy dealing with your father’s illness. I made this decision so you wouldn’t have to.”

  “But that woman. . . her husband wasn’t sent out of The Mountain more than a few weeks ago. . . her belly looks like she’s been pregnant for months. . .”

  Dr. Weller smiled again, this time beaming with pride. He shook his head. “While the families of ejected men were being moved to their upper level cells, I interceded and brought the Lewiston woman here. She was frantic about her husband being taken away; she seemed to think I wanted something else from her when I brought her in here, something that might convince me to bring her husband back, as if I had any control of that.”

  Weller chuckled, but Samuel thought he noticed a small shiver from the doctor, who didn’t hide how much he’d enjoyed wielding power over the poor woman. Instinct told Samuel to stop Weller before he could turn into more of a monster, but killing the doctor would leave the Lewiston woman—as well as the pair of feathered beasts in their cages—without someone who might be able to keep them alive.

  If life is preferable to what they’re going through. . .

  Weller proceeded to explain that he implanted an Aviary-injected embryo into the woman’s womb, which also included an accelerant to grow the spliced child at a faster gestation rate.

  “In hindsight, I may have pushed the process along too quickly,” Weller said with the slightest of frowns. “Even if she manages to survive the pregnancy, I can’t imagine she’ll make it through the delivery. Still, I wanted to test how to best deliver the Aviary Blast, to see whether it works best as a direct injection in an adult. . .”—he pointed to the largest cage—“. . . an injection into a newborn. . .”—he pointed to the smaller cage—“. . . or directly into the womb of a host mother. Early studies of the fetus have shown a high degree of transference of the Aviary genome, but I’ll have to wait for the birth to study the full results.”

  “Are you sure these experiments are. . . ethical?”

  Dr. Weller snorted. “I’m afraid we’ve traded ethics for survival a long time ago.”

  “And you still believe this is humankind’s best chance?” Samuel asked, nodding toward the largest cage and the grotesque form within.

  Weller frowned. “Thought you’d appreciate that I got a cage for my test subject this time. He might make a ruckus in there, but he’s nowhere near as aggressive as my last Blast subject. With a few more modifications to the Aviary’s template, I’ll be able to create a more human-like appearance while combining a few essential Aviary elements for greater survival in the cold weather. Don’t worry, the Aviary will be everything we dreamed.”

  “We dreamed?”

  Weller’s eyes narrowed and he stepped uncomfortably close to Samuel, who backed up until bumping into a table, knocking over a few glass vials that shattered onto the floor. But the doctor didn’t seem to notice, his eyes never leaving Samuel’s, his hands massaging each other to rub away the shakes.

  “You’re right, this was my dream, my idea, my project that you’ve agreed with every step of the way,” Weller said. “Advances in science aren’t always easy or clean; I thought you would’ve figured that out after what happened with the Blast. Yet you still came in here to raid my stores of Hybrid Blast?”

  “Blast that you modified. . . to make it safer. . . right?”

  “Nothing in genetic splicing is completely safe, no matter how much we hope it to be,” Dr. Weller said. “The process is inherently risky, but I’ve never promised you otherwise. You’ve been more than happy to leave me to do the dirty work, but now you’d dare question me and my methods? You’d dare question my choice of test subject when you were the one who sent her husband and so many others to their deaths?”

  As much as Samuel wanted to deny everything—as much as he wanted to place all blame squarely on Weller’s shoulders—he knew he’d enabled the genetic scientist every step of the Blasted way. He wanted to turn and leave the lab, but doing so would lose him not only his most important ally but also the only leverage he held over The Board. You came to the lab for a reason, Samuel told h
imself, though he no longer trusted Weller or his modified version of the Hybrid Blast as much as he did before. Still, the thought of Horace and danger at ISU-Ville told Samuel that doing nothing would prove disastrous for One Corp.’s employees living outside.

  Samuel exhaled slowly, easing the tension in his face. He apologized for questioning Nigel and insisted that he trusted him to do what was best for the Aviary project.

  “Just as I plan to do what’s right for the villagers,” Samuel said. “Please, the Blast?”

  Weller nodded and led him to a refrigeration unit in the corner of the lab. Inside was a large container filled with bright green liquid.

  “That should be enough for everyone in ISU-Ville, but you should know that not every villager who receives a dosage will change the same way,” Weller said. “This is an inexact science, but we both know what’ll happen if you decide not to give it to anyone. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t draw attention to myself or the ire of The Board. But I certainly understand your desire to prove your leadership.”

  Dr. Weller reached into the unit and removed the storage container filled with Blast. Samuel stared at the green liquid, no longer certain this was what he wanted to do.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Horace’s eyes fluttered open to darkness, the only sounds coming from the distant shrill of wind and soft, rhythmic breathing nearby. He sweated profusely, a much different situation than when he’d passed out. He still wore his heavy parka and was covered by a thick blanket, but most of the heat came from the body pressed up against him in bed, the arm draped across his chest. He slowly turned to Carla, making sure to move slowly and softly, not wanting to wake her up, afraid of how she would react now that they were safely back in the Jonas ISU.

  Horace took a deep breath, filling his nostrils with the moldy stench of wetness. Neither of them had dried off or changed clothing upon stumbling back into his ISU. Neither had thought they’d make it back to the village alive, especially once they’d lost the trail of footprints in the snow. It wasn’t until the red blinking light of a low-flying drone hovered above that they’d no longer felt alone.