by Ellen Curtis
“We need to get Lil breathing again,” he muttered, then speaking up. “Aisli, I need you to help me. Lil’s not breathing because of the smoke. I’m going to need you to find me an oxygen canister. There should be one in the emergency stash; you know where it is, in the kitchen.”
She nodded and dashed off, darting between bodies as if she were simply walking through a crowded room and not a graveyard.
When she returned Lillian was barely alive. She dragged several canisters of oxygen and masks behind her. Wordlessly, she attached a mask to a canister and placed it over Lillian’s nose and mouth. Ever so slowly, Lillian’s eyes fluttered open as she began to fill her weakened lungs.
Robert watched her until he was sure she would be ok, then turned to Aisli and attached a mask to her face as well, and then one to his. Within minutes, the trio was set to continue.
Getting up carefully, Lillian picked up Aisli and following Robert to the door, she threw him a wary glance. “Where’s the closest exit?” She whispered, her voice hoarse as if she had been screaming. Condensation formed around the plastic lip of her mask with every word she spoke, then faded again before the next. “We have to make it out of here alive, even if it’s just for everyone else’s sake. No one deserves what’s happened here.”
Robert’s brow furrowed, but Lillian couldn’t tell if it was in disapproval or thought.
Slowly turning out the words as if they were covered in glue, Robert answered her. “There’s an exit by the elevator that takes you straight into sector H. It’s the least likely to be closed off or guarded.” His bloodshot eyes couldn’t meet hers as he placed a hand on the door handle and yanked it open. She couldn’t know, he wouldn’t tell her. Only hours before they had been laughing together as they came out of this same room. Only hours before, the station had been intact, and no one had been killed. Nobody had been hunting them down and he couldn’t bear to tell her that the one person outside of the station that they had trusted was the one in that had murdered the life they had led here.
They ran back out into the smoke, continuing up the stairwell. The further up the stairs they got, the less smoke they encountered, until finally they reached a door labeled Sector H: Exploration Unit. A thin beam of light peaked out through the din of the hall, and Lillian recognized the small beacon to be the light coming from a control panel.
“Robbie, do we have clearance to get in here?” Came the soft lilt of Aisli’s voice from the dead silence.
He pivoted to see the girl, clutching on to Lillian’s shoulder and looking back at him, pale face covered in a layer of dirt.
Before he could speak, a loud crash echoed through the facility, the sound of metal grating metal piercing their ears. Quickly, Lillian slid Aisli off her shoulder and with her uninjured hand she punched a twelve number access code into the lockbox just above the knob.
The door began to open shakily, sticking as the power flickered. The gap was just wide enough that they could squeeze through single file to the other side.
The glass hallway that had once been the window to the hundreds of government researchers housed within the facility was shattered. Test tubes and vials were overturned, workbenches were smashed, and blood was splattered across every visible surface. There was not a single body was in sight, but the air smelled of acids and the decomposition of flesh.
Lillian wretched and fell to her knees. As Robert bent to help her, he noticed Aisli seemed rather unaffected by the whole ordeal. She didn’t even exhibit any signs of being in shock, as if the tears she had shed earlier were simply for show. It puzzled him that such a young child, previously unexposed to violence, would not cower in fear at their present situation, however he hardly had the chance to ponder this observation further, as the sound of gunfire rang clear, amplified by the sheer volume of shattered glass. Lillian’s head shot up, eyes wide, and in a split second she had managed to place herself in front of Aisli, shielding the girl from any bullets. Cursing to himself, Robert raced toward them, lifting them up and carting them toward the exit.
Before they were even halfway to safety, he felt a bullet splice through his upper thigh. Warm blood flooded down in a torrent as he raced with the girls toward their freedom. He stumbled then, tumbling behind an overturned table that only barely provided them any cover.
Silent tears marred Lillian’s face as she attempted to stifle the blood that was flowing from Robert and leaving him without life. Glasses askew across his nose, he attempted to push them up, but only left a streak of blood on their surface. Managing a weak smile, he caught her eye and spoke his last words. “Get Aisli out, love. I don’t want to see you for a while yet on the other side.” Eyelids fluttering, his head drooped and his body went limp, leaving Aisli and Lillian alone against an undetermined number of pursuers.
“Lil, we have to go now. Leave Robbie here, it’s what he wanted,” Aisli whispered, voice level, as if she were reciting the alphabet.
Lillian looked up into Aisli’s eyes and nodded, picking the girl up and peeking around the corner of the table. Bullets still flew in their direction, but as Lillian darted out of the protection of the table, they seemed to dance around the pair.
They were just feet from the exit when the door swung open. “Cease fire, troops!” Was the order issued by a stern masculine voice.
Lillian froze, clutching Aisli to her chest, mesmerized by the familiar voice that had once played to happier dialogue. It couldn’t be him; he would never harm anyone this way, especially not her or Aisli. Stepping into view, however, Lillian’s worst fear was realized.
He was tall and greying, with short wavy hair falling into his sharp blue eyes. They had once smiled at her, wrinkling in a welcoming way that lent the knowledge he had earned in his years. There was no smile present now though, simply a thin line painted across a stubbly face. The long blue-grey coat he had worn every other time she had seen him was replaced with dark green fatigues. Lillian only felt despair as she looked upon the face of her mentor, realizing that he too had been swallowed up by the bureaucracy that they had fought against.
“Lillian, sweetheart,” he said, his voice as easy and as soothing as it had ever been. It made her want to throw up. “I really would hate to have to kill you for the experiment, but if you can’t hand it over, I’m going to have to. The old man has a taste for traitors being served to him on a silver platter, and I’d rather be able to tell him you cooperated to the fullest. What do you say to that? A life for yours?” He smiled, and it was so like the way he used to smile that she realized it must have been an act all along. He reached his hand toward her, keeping constant and hypnotic contact between their eyes.
“A life for a life, Colonel? Is that what you call killing thousands of people, just so you can terminate an experiment that evolved into more than we could ever dream?” Lillian spat, wrapping her arms around Aisli more snuggly. “There is no way in hell that makes sense.”
He laughed at her and took another step forward. “Sweetheart, you’re holding onto that abomination as if it actually has some place in this world. Hand it over, and you won’t have to die. You can start again, with a new position in an new center. There’s no reason for you to lose your life over a failed project.” His words felt cold as they lodged themselves into Lillian’s ears, hardening her to his cause.
“You were like a father to me,” Lillian whispered shakily. “I thought I knew you, but I see now what you really are. You have no right to call me sweetheart, and Aisli deserves better than for you to call her an abomination. She is living, breathing, thinking, and just as human as I am, and certainly more human than you are!” She was shaking in rage, but Aisli seemed quite content to remain in her arms, and gave no signs that she was upset by the Colonel’s words.
“Lil, could you please put me down for a moment? There’s something I’d like to show your friend,” Aisli asked calmly, her fist cradling some hidden object.
Lillian and the Colonel stood for a moment, shocked that Aisli had sp
oken. He glanced at his firing squad, and then at the two girls.
“Troops don’t shoot. Lillian, put it down and we won’t harm it. You have my word,” he barked.
“Like that means anything.”
“Please.”
Lillian couldn’t tell if it was a ploy to get Aisli, or a moment of sheer stupidity on the his part, but she could tell that Aisli had something up her sleeve.
Literally.
Hesitating for a moment, she gently placed Aisli on the ground and let the girl waddle over to the Colonel. His curiosity getting the better of him, he bent down as Aisli approached so as that he could be eye-level with the child.
Slowly, she extended her closed fist toward him and then opened it, palm up.
Lillian strained her neck to see, but only caught a glimpse of the Colonel’s puzzled reaction before Aisli blew on her palm. The room, and seemingly the whole world, exploded in a blinding light.
She had been intended as a simple experiment. Nothing more, nothing less. But in the instant that it had taken to create her, something of magic was born.
For every one project we have, there are a dozen side projects. Most never accomplish anything and were never meant to, but every so often something amazing comes out of one of those accidents of science. Like penicillin.
There was a particular genome that kept going astray in the main project. Something that kept appearing in each and every test subject and making life horrible... so we removed it. But for scientists, that’s rarely enough. It’s not enough to fix something, they have to know why it was broken in the first place. So, a new sub-group was formed to study it.
Some had joked that the genome had been God himself trying to tamper in our affairs. That he’d reached down and put a wrench in our gears to try and stop us. That was how it got the nickname ‘The God Gene’.
Aisli was born by chance, after many failed experiments, when there was no hope left for the project. With an upsweep of interest, government funding had been acquired easily and the project had taken off. Two brilliant students were selected to care for the experiment, Lillian Harper (2329347) and Robert Strong (9704986).
Both students excelled in their studies, and their understanding of the mind. Aisli started out as a one year assignment for the duo, on the recommendation of their professor. As Aisli grew, so did the mutual love between the child and her guardians. But as love grew, so did interest in the young creation, and when the interest began to wane, there was hell to pay.
When the project was terminated, Aisli was permitted to live as Lillian and Robert’s foster child; however her abilities began to multiply. Some, for the better, but some were too strange and foreign, and therefore dangerous. The Colonel advised Robert and Lillian to lessen their attachment to the girl, whom they began to refer to as their daughter and he also began to advise others. I began to see the danger in keeping Aisli alive, now that funding was abolished, so they began to construct a plan to silence the unfortunate experiment once and for all. Little did they know, it could put up a fight.
With every experiment there are risks, and rewards. Though Aisli did not prove a viable source of research or revenue, the things we learned from her continue to aid us today. This project is therefore being filed as a success, though it is being closed until further notice.
The old man reached for his glass again and brought it to his lips, finding it empty. He frowned and then placed it aside. He closed the folder in front of him and tossed his pen back into the mug on the edge of his desk before turning and opening the drawer beside him.
He rummaged around it for a moment before finding what he was looking for, withdrawing a large rubber stamp and pressing it down against the top of the folder. When he lifted it, the bright red letters and proclaimed their message proudly:
Engen filename - Compendium - CLOSED.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ellen Curtis is a writer and web tv personality born and raised in St. Johns, Newfoundland; whose aptitude for the written word began at a young age, when she began writing short stories, poetry, lyrics and novellas.
Since 2009 she has risen to become one of Engen’s lead authors, working of high-profile projects such as the Infinity series of adventure novels, as well as continuing her own endeavors.
In her spare time she enjoys reading, art, music and spending time near the ocean.
