by Max Lockwood
“Good girl,” the professor said, returning to his newspaper.
Elaina walked down the hallway and passed over her tiny office-bedroom. Following the signs to what was once the basketball court, she marched into the new testing area with the confidence of someone who was supposed to be in there.
“Dr. Morgan,” a confused assistant greeted her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m going to be observing the tests,” she said. “It will help me understand the results if I can see the reactions for myself.”
She was surprised by her defiance of the rules and her confidence in herself. Just a year ago, she would have stared at the ground while talking to superiors. She would have hated the idea of having to work with a large group of strangers. Now, she wasn’t even slightly concerned about looking someone in the eye and telling them exactly what she needed to do.
But her confidence in herself took a hit once she saw what she was working with in the new testing zone. While enraged, infected men and women rattled the bars and pounded at the walls in nearly every cell, there were more black bags on the ground than there were live people.
“What happened?” Elaina asked, the taste of bile rising to the back of her throat. The second she realized that there were more dead subjects than living subjects, the smell of decaying flesh touched her nostrils.
“As it turns out,” the assistant said, looping a surgical mask over his ears, “it’s harder to transport them than previously believed. They fight the restraints, and sometimes, they have to be killed because they’re too dangerous. Sometimes, they’re just too far gone and they don’t survive the ride back to base. I heard that a particularly strong one fought the metal handcuffs so hard, he completely removed both hands. He bled out on the scene, but they loaded him in a bag anyway.”
Elaina’s legs began to tingle. The thought of such brutal injuries made her feel faint. When they asked for approval to collect test subjects, she didn’t think it would be so gory.
“I wouldn’t worry,” the assistant said. “We still have plenty of subjects, and there are more where they came from. Shall we get started?”
Elaina watched as scientists carefully took blood and injected the subjects with various quantities of the serum. She helped put labels on vials and refilled syringes—anything the workers needed help with. She didn’t want them to think she was too good to do the dirty work.
Hours passed, but there was no sign that the serum was having any lasting effect on the subjects. Sometimes, it looked like a few were returning to health, only for them to immediately revert to rage or simply die from illness. After having to battle so many Infected on the street to survive, Elaina was shocked to see how many died from injuries they caused themselves. She had to plug her ears with her fingers at one point because the sickening smack of one’s skull banging against the concrete wall was making her queasy. She felt terrible for the poor soldiers who had to scoop up the man’s brains and deposit the muck into biohazard bags.
When she was handed a packet of spreadsheets and reports from one of the researches, Elaina nearly cried. It appeared that her serum had no effect whatsoever on the Infected that had been collected in the area. It was all for nothing.
She started to make her way back to the lab to break the bad news to Dr. Himmler when the Colonel called her into his office. She reluctantly sat down in his uncomfortable chair and stared at her shoes. She was too ashamed to say anything.
“I’ve just looked over the reports from the study,” he said. “Unfortunately, I think you know that the results aren’t the ones we were hoping for. I don’t want to get in your way, but I have to ask—is there anything we need to know about this project?”
She shook her head. “The creator of this virus has made something that’s seemingly impossible to crack. We’re doing everything we can right now. I’m not going to rest until we have a working fix for this thing.”
“Good. Return to the testing center in one hour. We’re not going to give up.”
“But our current serum isn’t showing any promise on our subjects,” she argued. “It would be cruel to continue worthless testing.”
“That’s not up to you anymore. You’re lucky you’re allowed in Top Secret functions. Return to the testing center in one hour.”
She shuffled her feet back to the lab where Dr. Himmler was snoozing in the corner. He had requested a couch be brought in for him to take little catnaps on while he had downtime. Not wanting to share the embarrassingly bad news, she decided to draw some of her own blood.
While she had seen little change in her own cells in the past few days, there was something therapeutic about filling vials with her genetic material. She knew the secret code that would crack the whole case wide open was located in her veins. She was just having a hard time figuring out how. She tied the tourniquet above her elbow and inserted the needle, filling the vials with dark red liquid.
When one was full, she grabbed another. Typically, just a few drops were required for examination under a microscope, but something possessed her to keep going. She was on her third vial when Dr. Himmler stirred, spooking her. She tossed the vials into the incubator before he could see what she was doing.
“You look worried,” he said in his gravelly voice, blinking his puffy eyes open.
“The trial didn’t go well,” she replied. “We have nothing to go on.”
“Well, we know that what we currently have doesn’t work.”
She sighed. “I guess.”
“Do you have the reports?” he asked, sitting up from his prone position.
“I left them in the Colonel’s office,” she said, realizing that she had run off before she could give them a careful look. But as she remembered, it didn’t tell her anything useful.
“Well, it’s best to have a fresh set of eyes on these things,” he said. “Keep your chin up. We’ll try again.”
Elaina sat still as she watched her old colleague shuffle down the hall. It had been just over a half hour since she had spoken to the Colonel, but she couldn’t wait any longer. She returned to the former basketball court, looking for a way to be useful.
This time, more soldiers and lab assistants hurried around, setting up the space for the next round of experiments. The body bags were being hauled out, but more surprisingly, the cells that had formerly held live Infected were being disinfected.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Where are the subjects from earlier?”
“They’re being moved to the empty swimming pool,” a woman said as she scrubbed the bars with harsh chemicals. Elaina’s eyes stung from the smell.
“Why?”
“To make room for the new test subjects.”
Moments later, a new group of Infected was ushered in. Immediately, Elaina noticed that they were calmer, more docile than the others. In fact, while they struggled, they weren’t capable of overpowering the strong soldiers who locked them in the cells. In total, there were seven subjects locked into the cages.
“They look different,” Elaina said, getting an uneasy feeling in her gut.
“They are different,” a researcher said, grimacing. “They’re not infected.”
“What?” Elaina shouted. Her voice was drowned out by all the commotion happening in the echoing room. “No, you’re not doing this.”
“We have orders from the Colonel. I really don’t like it, but that’s what we have to do.”
“Who are they?” Elaina asked.
“They came from Rikers. Death row inmates. So they’re probably going to die sometime. The Colonel seemed to think this was a little more humane.”
“More humane than what?” Elaina squawked.
“Than pulling people out of their homes.” The assistant sighed. “It’s not great, but it will have to do. We needed to see how the serum works as a vaccine, too. We can’t do that unless we’re able to control how we infect people.”
“This is sick.”
“Get used to it. There
will be more of them before too long.”
Elaina steeled herself. The Colonel had made a decision and there was no point appealing it. She watched as some inmates struggled to get free while others sat in their cells, completely dejected.
An assistant handed her a syringe and a bottle of the serum. “Do you want to go first?” she asked.
“No.” Elaina gulped. “I can’t do it. I’ll watch, but I don’t want to do it.”
“Thought I’d ask,” she said before injecting the first subject with the serum. He seemed completely unaffected by it. At the very least, it didn’t appear like the serum was causing harm in healthy people.
Next, another subject was injected with the serum, then immediately given a dose of the virus. At first nothing happened, but then he started complaining of a pounding headache. Ten minutes later, he was coughing up blood. He was quickly ushered out of the cell, strapped to a gurney, and wheeled away to an undisclosed location.
“At least they’re trying to keep their deaths as humane as possible,” Elaina heard one scientist whisper to another. “At least he won’t be in pain.”
Elaina turned away from the empty cell, unable to look at the first uninfected casualty of their experiment. When she looked at the next cell, she saw an assistant plunge red liquid into the criminal’s vein.
“Stop,” she yelled, rushing over to the station. “That’s not the serum. Where did you get that?”
“It was on the cart. It came from your lab,” the confused assistant answered.
“That’s my blood. It’s for observation. Now this subject is contaminated.”
“I’m sorry. I was misinformed. I’ll report this to the head of research.”
Elaina collected the remaining vials of her blood and tucked them into her coat jacket. Curious, she approached the subject, a big, burly man who was missing his left eye.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“I don’t feel,” he said. “I haven’t felt a thing in over thirty years.”
“No physical symptoms?”
“Not yet. What did you inject me with?”
Elaina thought before answering. “I’m not sure.”
She ran back to the supply cart and slipped on a pair of rubber gloves. “I’m going to need to take some blood.”
With great care, she took two vials of the man’s blood, labeled them, and went straight back to her laboratory.
“What do you have there?” Dr. Himmler asked, looking up from the microscope.
“A man was accidentally injected with my blood,” she said, carefully dropping the blood onto the glass slide and slipping it under the lens. “I’m going to see if it tells me anything.”
She focused the lens and was immediately shocked to discover that his blood looked more like the blood from an Infected than it looked like her antibody-filled cells. It wasn’t a particularly bad infection, but it was an infection nonetheless.
“He’s—he’s infected from my blood,” she gasped. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Himmler mused. “That’s fantastic news. Now, we know that your DNA is the missing link,” he said, getting excited. “We’re finally narrowing things down.”
Elaina looked up from the microscope, but she could not celebrate with the doctor. She couldn’t think about anything other than the few special moments she spent with Alec. She had kissed him, exchanged saliva with him, on more than one occasion. If the inmate was infected, then that meant that Alec was infected too.
18
When they returned to base, Bethany and Will were taken to the holding cells generally reserved for newly infected soldiers. But because of the explosions, there was only one small, unoccupied room available for both of the traitors.
Bethany couldn’t even look at Will. She was so angry that they blew their once chance of escape. Prior to Will’s assassination attempt, Bethany had been working on a way to leave the base without anyone coming after her. She knew how important it was to cover her tracks as she left so no one would think to bring her back in. That was the mistake she’d made when she crashed the truck into Will and Thomas and their friends. This time, she wanted to disappear without a trace.
Instead, they took off with a bang. She could hardly fault herself, though. She didn’t ask to be part of the murder of Dr. Vincent. As much as she hated the bastard and was indifferent about his survival, she wished it could have happened while she was on the patio. That way, there would be enough of a commotion to take the heat off her escape.
Alas, she couldn’t continue to think about how things could have been different. She would drive herself mad in the tiny room if she constantly thought about living out different scenarios.
“We were so close,” Will moaned, slamming his fists against the floor. “If those bastards didn’t have million-dollar vehicles chasing after us, we would have been free.”
Bethany glared at him.
“What?” he asked innocently.
“I don’t know if you realize this, but up until a few hours ago, you were one of those bastards. You were pretty horrible to me.”
“I was?”
She nodded, her lips pursed. “I tried to escape once. I was so close to getting out, but you stopped me at the last second. Who knows what I could have accomplished if you hadn’t stopped me? It’s possible that I could have done something to save you and all the others who have been meddled with. You even threatened to hurt me if I tried to get out again.”
Will screwed up his face, thinking hard about what she was telling him. It didn’t sound like something he would do, but the memories just weren’t there to prove otherwise. He wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t real anymore.
“Really?”
“You truly don’t remember, or are you trying to protect yourself?”
Will pressed the palms of his hands into his forehead. “I really don’t remember. I’m sorry.”
The tiny window cover on the door slid open, revealing a distraught Mark. His face was pink and sweaty, a huge departure from his calm, happy demeanor.
“You two have no idea what kind of trouble you’re in,” he said, pressing his face up to the window. “I mean, you murdered the head of the militia in cold blood. Do you have any idea how serious this is? My own sister, a murderer.”
“Spare me the theatrics, Mark,” Bethany said coolly. “If it makes any difference, I didn’t kill anyone. I was merely a captive witness. There is no blood on my hands.”
“Is this true?” Mark asked Will.
“Yeah,” he said meekly.
“So you take responsibility for the murder of Dr. Bretton Vincent?”
Will was silent.
“What did he ever do to you, Will?” Mark asked. “I thought you liked it here. You seemed to be doing a good job. Dr. Vincent took you in when you were just wandering around by yourself in the woods. What did he do to you to deserve death?”
Will chewed on his lip. He was trying so hard to stay silent, but it was impossible to keep the truth inside.
“He killed his daughter. I loved her. She meant the world to me, and he injected her with the virus just because she stood up to him.”
“He didn’t kill his daughter,” Mark scoffed. “We’ve all had the injection and it’s done nothing but make us stronger and more resilient.”
“This was different,” Will argued. “This was way before this base even came to be. I remember what happened now. We were kidnapped and taken to the first place he did experiments on people. He must have gained some sympathizers and made this whole operation. I guess it isn’t hard to do when you can inject anyone with all sorts of viruses and wipe their memory.”
“You seem paranoid,” Mark said. “We had the same shot and I don’t feel like a victim.”
“Did you come here willingly?” Bethany asked Will.
He shrugged. “I remember being in a bad state of mind when I abandoned the others. I was really angry, but I don’t think I would h
ave teamed up with Dr. Vincent on my own. I mean, I hated the man. He had abandoned his daughter on more than one occasion and then infected her. Plus, I had already been captured once and it was awful. If they pulled me out of the woods, I’m sure I tried to fight back. That’s when they must have injected me.”
“I think that makes all the difference,” Bethany said. “Maybe Will’s subconscious was trying to break free. When he heard Dr. Vincent talk about Natalia, he snapped. I saw it with my own eyes. It was like he turned into a monster and then turned into a totally different person. You, on the other hand, accepted the invitation to be part of an organization based on safety and protection. You’re not fighting the infection because it coincides with what you truly want.”
“This is a bunch of nonsense,” Mark said. “I don’t know what to do for you now, Bethany. I’ve got to go.”
“No, wait!” she yelled as her brother took a step away from the door. “Help us. Help your sister, Mark.”
He returned, a deep frown on his face. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you, Bethany. I really tried to get you to see reason. I had a feeling that if we just hung in there, we would figure out how to survive this thing. I came here because it was my best bet for survival. You were hesitant. I understand your fears, but I was just trying to do what was best for the both of us.”
This frustrated Bethany. As good as her brother’s intentions were, they were still flawed. He had still put her in danger by forcing her to join him in the militia.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked, her vulnerability slipping through the cracks of her tough exterior.
Mark shook his head. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it will be good. People are freaking out over here. The militia is in complete upheaval. Dr. Vincent was really the only one with a sense of direction for this organization. There are upper-level officers who can carry out the plans, but there’s no longer a leader. People liked Dr. Vincent. They’re not happy that he’s dead.”
“But I didn’t kill him,” Bethany cried.
“I think that point is moot. You tried to run and made things hard on the security team. You have been defiant since the moment they brought you in for decontamination. They’re not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You will likely be punished.”
