Origin Z

by Tony Hartzell

  Tin watched Anderson pace back and forth inside the habitat for a few seconds and then turned and looked up at the closed-circuit camera; he knew the others were watching.

  Abraham was standing at the console, where the camera monitor showed him the three men standing and staring back at him. He leaned forward to press the intercom button down and said one word: “Alive.”

  Teeny looked at Anderson and then back at the monitor. “At any cost, Eli?”

  It was a grave statement given in a defiant tone. Abraham and Reed traded looks. Reed looked at Marty and nodded his head toward the exit. Marty had a sad look on his face as he moved to the exit, saying, “I have to go to the restroom. This might make me pee on myself if I watch it!”

  Teeny smiled at him as he turned and left.

  Michael moved up as if to get a closer look at the monitor and brought his arm up behind her and stabbed her in the neck with a syringe. She gave the slightest yelp and fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He didn’t even bother to try to catch her. Marty came back into the room with tears in his eyes and walked straight over to where Teeny lay on the floor. He reached down to put two fingers to her neck. Looking up at Michael, he shook his head and let it sag back down as he sobbed a couple of times.

  Michael met him when he stood up and patted his back comfortingly. “It had to be done, Marty. She was a risk to us all.”

  He pushed Michael away and walked over to the monitors. Reed was staring hard at him now.

  He glanced back at the spook. “Oh, give over! I’m onboard. Do you think I would risk all that money for water under the bridge?”

  Reed looked at Abraham and then back at the monitors. The soldiers were ready to go in.

  Reed walked over to step one foot outside and wave a man into the room. The man slipped in to unceremoniously toss Teeny over his shoulder and carry her out.

  Michael turned to Marty. “OK, Marty, time to get your vampire supplies and move down to the habitat where they will take him. We’ll want to draw blood as soon as possible.”

  Marty looked at him suspiciously as he walked toward the exit. Michael looked back reassuringly.

  The three soldiers had agreed on a plan that would use Anderson’s obvious focus on Laudner to draw him in. Tin and O’Reilly would attack from the sides to take him down. Positioning themselves, they waited for Anderson to reach the farthest point on his pacing path inside the habitat. Tin went left and O’Reilly went right. Anderson crouched and growled at them, but when Laudner stepped in, he charged straight at him. Laudner’s tranq gun went off twice, both missing the huge man bearing down on him and ricocheting off the wall.

  “Shit!”

  Tin fired his tranq gun at the flashing target and hit him in the rib cage. O’Reilly did the same, hitting the charging man’s arm, and a second dart glanced off his head above the ear. Laudner fired his last dart and missed everything except the ceiling this time.

  Anderson hit him and drove him out the door. The monster landed on his chest with his hands around his throat, driving the breath from his lungs. He immediately saw stars and wasn’t able to draw breath. He pushed futilely at the huge man’s weight and strength. O’Reilly jumped on the back of the behemoth. It felt like jumping onto an oak log. He grabbed the Taser from his side holster and started shocking him repeatedly in the neck. The fifty thousand volts had no effect at all. Laudner clawed weakly at Anderson’s arms and face. Anderson turned sideways and bit Laudner’s arm, tearing a chunk of flesh and chewing it.

  Laudner gave a strangled scream.

  “Aaagggghhhhh!”

  He had to pull his arms back.

  Anderson let go of Laudner’s neck and reached over his back to grab O’Reilly and flip him over to land flat on his back. Tin approached to get a point-blank shot. O’Reilly hit the floor and immediately rolled over into a crouch like a sprinter at the starting block. He saw Tin moving up and hesitated just a second as Tin shot two darts directly into Anderson’s neck. The monster’s reaction was a blind swat that knocked Tin’s helmet off and raked his face with long, sharp fingernails. O’Reilly launched himself and hit him in the side of the head with a bone-crunching knee. Anderson’s head rocked back, and he rolled off Laudner to lie twitching on the floor.

  Laudner jumped up and kicked him in the ribs. Anderson groaned, and his mouth popped open. Laudner spotted the missing piece of arm meat sticking out of his mouth, reached down to pull it out, and kicked him again.

  “All right, Laudner. Let’s get him on that table before he wakes up.”

  With that, Anderson started groaning. Tin and O’Reilly grabbed an arm each and dragged him into the habitat they had prepared. Laudner grabbed his ankles, and they swung him up on the table and pulled the straps across his arms and legs. Anderson was rolling his head back and forth now. Marty was a frozen statue in the corner with the blood cart between him and everyone else.

  Tin pointed at him. “Hey! Get your ass over here and draw blood!”

  Marty woke up then, rushed over, and started pulling tubes and needles out of their sterile packages. Anderson tried to move his hands up to his head and met the resistance of the straps. His eyes popped open, and he really started trying to get free.

  Tin anxiously ordered O’Reilly and Laudner, “Grab his arms and hold them down!”

  They grabbed his arms, and Marty stabbed his arm with the needle three times before he hit a vein. It wasn’t that they were hard to find; his hands were shaking so badly that he could barely hold on to the rig to stick it in.

  He got two tubes of blood before Anderson screamed, “Hockey fucker, I’m going to butt fuck you!”

  “Jesus God almighty. No, you’re not, big guy. I have standards.”

  Anderson jerked, causing Marty to jump back with the tube in his hand, spraying himself in the face with Anderson’s blood.

  With the frenzied jerking motion, Anderson was able to break free of O’Reilly and Laudner. They fell backward and sprawled onto the floor. The straps popped, and he jumped off the table and ran toward the door. Tin stepped in front of him, but the behemoth just pushed him aside with little effort. He ran through the door and down the hallway toward the exit of the building, with O’Reilly, Laudner, and Tin following. He had to be doing better than twenty miles per hour when he hit the outside door with a loud boom. The door flew off its hinges and barely slowed him.

  When they came out through the door that Anderson had just knocked off its hinges, the on-duty guard was sitting on the ground, having been knocked down by Anderson’s exit. The raging soldier ran toward the lake and screeched to a halt, looking confused by the water. He turned and ran toward the woods then and soon disappeared into the trees. O’Reilly started to run after him, but Tin stopped him.

  “Wait, Tom. We need help. Call battalion and get some helicopters and more men to search. Tell them to bring net guns and elephant tranquilizers.”

  DEATH, NO DEATH

  Abraham and the others watched the unfolding scene in the habitats with disbelief. No one moved as the freight train called Anderson bowled over the other Spartan team members as if they were children trying to tackle their father in a family football game. When the crash from Anderson leaving the building sounded, it woke them all up.

  Abraham turned to Michael. “When was the last time he had a booster?”

  Michael took a couple of seconds to think. “It was more than ten days ago, Eli.”

  “He must have been taking some other type of steroid, then.”

  Michael shook his head. “No. I don’t think it’s that. He’s lost control of his ability to hold back his rage. I’ve seen it with athletes who are in a steroid rage. They have a momentary loss of conscience that normally holds them back from acting on their impulses. They get a boxer’s focus, and it sometimes causes them to lose other abilities, such as actually putting together a clear sentence. Tha
t could explain the nonsense he was screaming. Steroid rage goes in peaks and valleys, though. Anderson seems to be at a peak and is not coming down.”

  Marty walked into the control room then, with drying blood sprayed across his face and clothes. Tears in his eyes, he ran to Michael to wrap his arms around him with a sob. Michael put up his hands as if he was uncomfortable with this show of affection, and he was. He had never shown this side of himself other than when Reed had caught them hugging in his office.

  Michael put his hands on Marty’s back and patted him a couple times, then pushed away. Marty had a shocked look at first and then gave a sideways glance at the others in the room as if he had just noticed them.

  He spoke calmly, just above a whisper. “I…I thought I was going to die in there.”

  Reed spoke up then. “Dr. Whyte, we need you to look at the blood gathered to see if there is anything there that would explain Corporal Anderson’s behavior.”

  Abraham pointed at Michael. “You work with him.”

  There was a momentary hesitation in Michael’s agreement that gave the impression that it was beneath him to do such a thing. Marty looked at him with his face turning red with embarrassment.

  Michael gave him a quick look and turned to Abraham. “Of course, Dr. Abraham. I’ll be happy to work with Marty on this.”

  He turned to Marty and gave a plastic smile. Marty gave him a half smile back, with an eye roll that told everyone in the room, “OK, I’ll play along with the farce.”

  Reed looked back and forth between Michael and Marty a couple times before growling, “Now!”

  Marty’s face turned redder than before, and Michael’s turned white. They both rushed out of the room toward the lab.

  After watching the two men leave the room, Reed turned to Abraham. “They might be a liability after we get things wrapped up.”

  Abraham slowly nodded. “We need to figure out how Anderson is still enhanced. The fact that he hasn’t had a booster in so long is very important. Being able to promise extended enhancement could give us a way to charge more for the product.”

  Reed shook his head. “If we can’t find out anything from the blood, we’ll move forward without it.”

  Reed walked over to look at the monitor where they had watched what happened in the habitats.

  “Yes, it would be most helpful. But we’ll sell what we have as planned. The meeting has been set. If we happen to find a way to get this extended enhancement to work, we’ll just ask a much higher price from the other side.”

  Reed turned and smiled at Abraham.

  Abraham’s face brightened. “Of course. That’s brilliant! I guess I should have paid closer attention in my economics class. Isn’t capitalism wonderful?”

  _______

  Teeny slowly awoke from a dream about being underwater. Sluggishly she tried to lift her hand to rub her eyes. Eyes that she thought she had opened, but she still saw nothing but black. Panic set in as she found it hard to move and realized her dream was about drowning because she was finding it hard to draw a breath. After several minutes of flexing her fingers and toes, she tried to move her arms and legs, but there was something heavy restricting her movement. She was finally able to push her knee up and heard the crackle of plastic. Pushing her hand up now, she rubbed against what felt like a zipper.

  After another minute of recovery, she followed the zipper up to its end above her head. She picked at the inside of the zipper tab with her fingernail until it moved down far enough for her to poke her finger out and move it down far enough to stick her face out. She was getting air inside the bag, but she felt as if she were sucking it through a straw. So when she opened it far enough to get a breath of fresh air, she breathed in and out a few times to enjoy it. Though the air was easier to take into her lungs, it wasn’t pleasant at all. Rotting flesh and formaldehyde filled her nose and lungs. She coughed and retched several times before she vomited everything in her stomach. It was still very dark, but there were cracks of yellow light several feet above her. In the minimal light, she was able to tell that she was in a pile of dead animal carcasses. She retched again, but there wasn’t anything left to vomit.

  She wiggled and pushed on the carcasses to get herself free to crawl around, and she figured out that she was inside a Dumpster. She stood in a crouched manner to push up the lid and peeked out. She heard the sound of several helicopters approaching. Feeling her pocket, she found that her cell phone was still there. When she woke it up from its sleep mode, the low-battery indicator was blinking. Her first thought was to call Marty, but she didn’t know if he had anything to do with her current predicament. She hit speed dial for Tin and listened as it started ringing.

  Tin picked up. “Holy shit, where have you been? We’ve been wondering where you were since yesterday afternoon.”

  “I don’t have much battery left. I’m in the Dumpster behind Building 51. Don’t ask why right now. I think they tried to kill me, Tin.”

  He responded in a more relaxed tone. “OK, Sergeant. You need to check in more often. Hold your position for now, and I’ll get a squad over there to relieve you.”

  She sat back against the side then. “I understand; just please hurry. This is awful! I’m going to smell for a year.”

  Tin just hung up then.

  She looked at her phone, and the low-battery light was still blinking. There were many missed calls and several missed texts. Marty had sent her three messages. She opened up the conversation and saw:

  “Teeny, they wanted me to kill you.”

  “I put an opiate in the syringe that caused your heartbeat to slow.”

  “YOU MUST RUN!”

  Just as she read the last one, her phone died. She leaned back against the wall of the Dumpster and retched a couple more times.

  _______

  Raines watched as the lab worker brought in the daily bag of blood he was getting to sustain him. He was still having problems thinking straight, and his movement was limited. The young woman pushed the bag of blood up to his mouth, and he eagerly drank. It felt really good going down, but it barely satisfied his thirst. As he drained the bag, he watched the woman who had been doing this for the last few days as she nervously watched him. He looked into her worried eyes and then down her face and to her neck. Her rapid heartbeat was making her jugular vein throb steadily. Adrenaline pumping through her blood made it beat harder and harder. The blood was almost gone from the bag when he stopped and spit it at the young woman.

  She screamed and backed away into the corner away from the door. Raines slid off the table and ambled toward her with both of his hands in claws opening and closing in anticipation of the fresh blood pumping through her jugular. She had waited too long. He grabbed her flailing arms in his clawed hands and was pulling her closer to his gnashing yellow teeth. She screamed and then gurgled as he bit into her neck to start sucking out the fresh blood and chewed her flesh. She lost consciousness, and Raines let her fall to the floor. Blood was running down his chin as he backed away from her seemingly lifeless body.

  He turned and moved as quickly as he could out the door and down the hallway toward the rear exit of the building. He could barely think, but instinct told him that he couldn’t let anyone see him. Banging out of the dock access door, he moved across the grass toward the trees with a choppy jog.

  _______

  Teeny was sitting quietly in the Dumpster waiting for Tin to come when she heard the door bang open and someone move by. After about ten seconds, she dared to peek out and saw the back of Raines as he disappeared into the forest. She looked back toward the door where he had to have come out and saw a blood trail on the ground. Sitting back down, she wondered what had happened to him and worried that the Bio-Sure assholes had tried to kill him too.

  _______

  Lisa looked into the mirror in the bathroom and adjusted her hair as she wondered if she ha
d wasted enough time to get out of feeding the creeper. She had done it more times than Sharon had anyway. She heard a barely audible scream and turned toward the door to listen more carefully. After a few seconds, she shook her head and looked back to the mirror to finish primping.

  She walked back into the control room and noticed that Sharon hadn’t returned yet, so she walked over to check the monitor for the creeper’s room. She didn’t see him, and the door was open. She waited for the arc of the camera to cover the rest of the room and thought she saw something all the way to the right. She waited the five long seconds for it to go all the way left and back to the right. She saw a foot sticking out into the doorway, moving from side to side as if someone was impatiently waiting for something. Then she saw Sharon stand up with blood all over her lab coat.

  “Oh, shit!”

  She gathered her wits and looked back and forth. Then she grabbed a first-aid kit and ran toward the habitat. When she arrived, Sharon was moving slowly down the hallway, moaning as if she was in pain.

  Lisa ran up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Oh my god. I am so sorry! Let me see what happened.”

  When Sharon’s head came up, there was a feral look on her face. She grabbed Lisa and embraced her to start chewing on the side of her head and neck. Blood spurted on the wall and glass as they both fell over, Lisa struggling to get away from her friend.

  PART III

  Pandemic

  The summer following the events at Bio-Sure changed the human race in many ways. Mothers purposefully exposed their young children to the boon flu. Soon it was to become known as the axola flu as CDC scientists started releasing information about the origin of the genes that helped the virus to cause the immune-system enhancement.

  It was a breakthrough in the medical field that stunned and amazed doctors and scientists. It started out with people not getting minor ailments such as colds and flu. Soon it was discovered that as the new genes combined with human organs, the organs became much more resilient too. Cuts healed in hours, and broken bones mended in days. Catastrophic damage to the brain or heart were the only things that would cause a life to end. Many who were terminally ill before catching the flu healed and were cured of their maladies. Heart disease, diabetes, and even cancers and serious infections were eliminated as a result of the new human experience.