by Eli Constant
***
Screaming woke me.
My body thrashed and I bolted up, head hitting the bunk above me. I searched for the source of such a guttural, pained cry. It didn’t take long to realize that I was the screamer. A hand clamped over my mouth.
My eyes wide, I looked into the groggy, alarmed faces of my sleeping companions. My daughters looked confused and terrified. The hand that stifled the awful noise was Jason’s. Michael stood behind him.
“Elise, you’re fine. It was just a nightmare.” I nodded, unable to control the hot, slick tears that ran down my cheeks. I mumbled through the feel of fingers.
“I’m okay; I’m okay.”
The hand moved and I sucked in a long, hard breath that moved the lumpy stone of emotion from my throat.
It took quite a while to coax the girls back into slumber, but the rest of us were too awake; we didn’t think sleep was possible. Jason and I had yet to verse Michael and Allison on the turn of events and our possible departure from NORAD.
It was just as well we found ourselves wide-awake and feeling up to conversation.
It’s My Party
The next day I relived my scream-inducing nightmare in my daydreams; even a long blink was enough time to recall the disturbing images. I was miserable. I forced myself to keep going though, walking my way through the day.
In the back of my mind was ‘the wait’ and waiting was immeasurably difficult, even compared to the horrible images in my head.
I literally frothed at the mouth, wanting to know the results of what Jamie and Nick aptly dubbed the H2H, humanoid to human, vaccine. At the seventeen hour mark, approximately 0800, my impatience won out. I strode ever so casually into the science wing. I happened upon Peters in the hallway. Something really had him worked up. I tried to stop him, but he brushed past me. I asked his backside where the proverbial fire was, but all he said was “Ask O’Toole.”
A pause at the double doors to Lab-3, the lab that had been the location of so much confusion, ill pursuits, and deceptions; that brief stop was all I needed to prepare me for the miracle behind door number one.
O’Toole greeted me with an uncustomary smile and a pat on the shoulder. I fought the urge to immediately turn and look at the line of cages.
“Jeez, first I pass Peters practically skipping down the halls; then I come in here and you’re actually happy to see me. What the heck is going on?” Sound innocent. Exude dumbness. I stood casually, my hands in my pocket, rocking back and forth.
O’Toole seemed at a loss for words. He closed the distance between us, put his hand on my shoulder, and gently turned me.
What met my eyes? I could hardly describe it to myself.
Such a change in so short a time; it was unreal, perhaps an act of God. Some of the world’s greatest discoveries were made by accident- imagine what could be accomplished with accident and the divine working in tandem.
At the moment, I did not need to picture the possibilities. Behind ten walls, I could see the birth-children of those imaginings.
My gazing was set against a backdrop of O’Toole’s rambling.
He believed that the sudden changes were a result of the daily cocktail inoculations. It was true that, before today, the cocktail seemed futile, but he felt that the drugs had finally stockpiled in the humanoid systems’.
I listened to him closely now, wondering how he could explain the changes in both placebo and experimental subjects. Jamie, Nick and, I had gambled when we chose the first ten cages. Peters and O’Toole had never told me which beasties were receiving the actual drugs. Looking at the changing undergrounders, I figured it didn’t really matter.
Beastie 1 and Beastie 2 were standing erect; their scalps covered in short, silver hair. The rest of their bodies were a patchwork quilt, like a dog with a skin allergy. The blunt follicular hairs that were so trademark-beastie were all over the place in molted piles. Their eyes were no longer naked, but dressed in distinct, pale eyebrows. Each humanoid hand was now decorated by short, growing nails. On the floor of each cage, I found discarded, curved claws.
The humanoids in the next seven cages were similarly changed by varied degrees. I suspected the less visual changes would be a process of nurture, not genetics. Thanks to Sheila-1, we knew that undergrounders had the capacity for speech in their natural state. How would we teach every genetically altered humanoid to lose the –oid and become truly human? A large scale problem I was not going to tackle.
My brain finally realized that I had only studied cages one through nine. I corrected my eyes, my brain protesting. I instinctively knew that there was something in room ten I did not want to see.
I searched at head level, but found no occupant. I glanced at waist level. No form stretched on a bed, no body sitting. Finally, I allowed myself to look at the concrete surface that was the floor. It was the nightmare turned day-mare that I had staved off all day.
A different form, but the realization of my mind nonetheless. He… or she… she I thought, but wasn’t sure, was curled on the floor- the very portrait of pain.
I could see the beginnings of change in the less pronounced curvature of the spine and in the straightening of the extremities.
Streams of dried and flaky blood glared darkly against the pale skin. The red life force had escaped from all orifices- nose, ears, anus, and from the caved in corners of her eyes. Unclothed, the body was disturbingly shameless. I wished to look away, but as in my dream, I could not. The doctor’s endless string of conjectures halted at the sight of my frozen features.
“Yes, well, subject ten was not so lucky.”
“I’d say that’s the freaking understatement of the century, Doctor.” He moved his arms behind his back and clasped his hands together.
“We must mark our success by the survivors, not the fate of one.”
“Bet you were a real Machiavelli fan, doctor. As long as the larger picture is intact, one must not sorrow for the burnt and ruined corners.” I gestured to the pained body behind me. “It is a life. I never thought I’d see the beasties that way, but I do now.”
I was angry, but O’Toole was not the one that caused the death. My hands were the dirty ones.
“Ah, well. You’ll feel that way until the next time one of the wilds threatens someone you love.” His tone was mild, an understanding adult speaking to an inconsistent child.
“You confuse me, Doctor. You’ve always been an advocate for the undergrounders; now you discourage me a bit of passion for one.”
“Elise, you are the woman who hates, then loves, then hates. When you make up your mind, perhaps you will understand that I am not inconsistent in my beliefs. I am simply choosing to focus on the good in this situation.”
“What about subjects eleven through nineteen?” I changed the subject, not wanting to face what he said. I looked down the line of unaltered beasties, my eye ending on Sheila-1’s room, the twentieth.
“Ah. They were our placebo subjects. Sheila was originally among them, but after she showed the initial signs of natural change, we placed her on the actual inoculations.”
“Are you planning to put the remaining undergrounders on the drug cocktail?”
“Eventually. Dr. Peters and I need to discuss it, but I expect we’ll begin administration sooner rather than later.”
O’Toole didn’t seem to have much more to say to me. His attention was focused on his peculiar progeny. His expression was one of elation.
As I watched him, my brain had one of those ding-ding moments. By pure coincidence, my Sub-Lab 8 companions and I had released the Nano-tech into the cages of only experimental subjects. There was no way to know if our solution was independently successful or if it was only successful because of the long occurring shots. Oops.
I left the lab quietly, not wishing to disturb O’Toole or give him some reason to begin talking again.
I hunted down Benson. By ‘hunted down,’ I mean I assailed every uniform I ran into until I found one that knew where he
was.
“He was headed to a meeting after lunch. He’s probably still there.”
“Where?” The man tried to explain where the room was, but I stopped him after several words. “You know what, how about you take me?” He protested. “Trust me; you don’t have anything more important to do.” Something about the look on my face or the intensity with which I spoke the words, made him decide it would be best if he did, in fact, lead me to Benson.
Smart man. His head might, in fact, remain attached to his body.
I’d chosen to go to Benson first because I needed him to get O’Toole and Peters away from the lab so Jamie, Nick, and I could release H2H into the other undergrounder cages. If those subjects experienced similar changes, then we’d know that the doctor’s inoculation was pure coincidence and not a determining factor.
If the weeks of inoculations were necessary for the success of H2H, then our ‘cure’ was going to be too complicated for wide-spread success; we couldn’t spend weeks treating every undergrounder and then strap a gas-mask over their face. Of course, if the placebo subjects changed overnight too, the good doctors would realize that their little drug cocktails weren’t the saving-grace.
We had to know if the tech was independently successful though. It was imperative.
I don’t know why I cared so much. My little family was already getting an exit strategy together, but still… I felt it was my duty to give H2H the full old-college try.
Benson understood what I was saying, but his concluded course of action wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Instead of distracting the doctors, Benson thought it best to bring everything out in the open.
I’d grown up knowing that honesty was the best policy, but not always the safest choice. No matter what I said, Benson wouldn’t be swayed.
Unfortunately, when Benson conferred with the officials that had been in on the H2H research from the beginning, they all agreed with him and not me. I think my vote for continued deception stemmed from my total body reluctance to show myself as a big, fat liar.
Hey O’Toole! Hey Peters! Guess what? I’m the one who stuck the needle in the eye of the subject in cage 2. Guess what? I’ve been doing my own research, that’s why your research tanked.
I had come to like the doctors and I had a certain respect for them as scientists. And I really thought O’Toole was a good father figure and respected him for that. What I didn’t have, right now, was respect for myself.
I followed a parade of officials, headed by Benson, to the science wing and into Lab-3.
Peters was back and writing notes in a hurried, scratchy hand. Neither doctor appeared surprised by the large scale visit. I’m sure they were both expecting an official review of the seemingly fantastic and recent changes in the test subjects. As the other members of our newly arrived group began to examine the humanized beasties, Benson began to quietly speak to the doctors. I was close enough to hear what he was saying.
I watched the self-satisfied expressions on the doctors’ faces melt away. I forced myself to stare straight ahead and take their disbelieving glances at me head on. Listening to Benson deflating their hope was… painful.
“…can see that these remarkable advances are due, in fact, to the H2H treatment that Swanson and her team have been developing. To rule out the interaction of your drugs, they will be taking over this lab space and her team will be treating the other ten cages to try and reproduce the results of the original trials.” Benson paused, taking a breath. “Please turn over your notes, specifically those that detail the drug ratios of your daily injections. You both will act as consults, if Swanson’s team requests. Otherwise, you are no longer cleared to be in this lab.”
Ugh… torture. Benson’s voice was so matter-of-fact, but when O’Toole responded, the pain he felt was thinly veiled. Complete freaking torture.
I watched Peters and O’Toole walk out; they were dejected, ousted, and miserable. Nick and Jamie passed them at the entrance; they were raring to go, oblivious to the waves of pain emanating from the exiting doctors. I went over and over in my head the many ways to apologize, to say I’d never meant to deceive them or rob them of their hard work.
But I had a feeling no words would be enough and the guilt was something I would have to live with.
Always the overachievers, Nick and Jamie came ready and baring two newly manufactured tanks of H2H on a rolling cart.
It was a quick matter of releasing the H2H into the remaining containments. I was opposed to treating Sheila-1, but I was overruled. She was already so much more than a beastie. I did not want to alter the beauty of her natural progression. Sheila-1 proved to be a perfect patient.
After inoculating the remaining undergrounders, Jamie decided we should run some blood tests on the initial test subjects.
Syringes in my pocket, I punched in the code for the first cage; it didn’t work and I remembered the doctors had changed them shortly after my blood-stealing debacle. Benson sent a man off to retrieve the new codes. Glad I didn’t have to run that little errand.
When we received the codes, I decided that I did not want to be the one to go into the cages. I’d paid the piper in that respect.
It was funny to watch Nick slowly open the door to cage 1 and tip toe in. I don’t know what secret come-hither juice the doctors used to make the humanoids walk over to the wall and place their arms perfectly on the tiny hole for inoculation, but we certainly did not have their powers of persuasion. So instead of having a protective barrier for blood drawing, Nick got to pull an ‘Elise’ and walk into the belly of the beastie. Pun definitely intended.
I could see him struggle to act unafraid.
I felt tired, but not nearly tired enough to leave and miss the show Nick was putting on.
He mimed sitting down to the humanoid- who seemed calm, civilized. He even sat down himself and gestured as if to say ‘See? See, this is sitting down.’ I laughed. Eventually, the humanoid did sit down… on the floor.
I watched Nick pull several vials of blood and then back out of the room, bowing, and saying thank you over and over again. He performed this ritual nine more times before closing the last containment door behind him and breathing a sigh of relief.
“Don’t look so relieved yet, Nick. Tomorrow you get to do that ten more times.” I nodded in the direction of the newly treated subjects. He gave me a sour look.
“Maybe you should finish up tomorrow. You have more experience.”
“No way. Last time I got in a cage with one of them, I ended up barely escaping. I left a syringe embedded in one of their eyes.” I turned to the second cage. “That one’s eye actually.” Nick grimaced and walked over to Jamie’s newly set up work station.
I felt another twinge of guilt seeing her take over O’Toole’s desk like that. Uniforms had already transferred all our Sub-lab 8 equipment. Jason handed her the blood vials and she immediately began to process them.
“Well, seeing as I’m not going to be much help. I’ve got a birthday party to set up.”
Jamie looked up. “Party? How come we didn’t get invited?”
I smiled at her. “We’re just having a little family affair, but there will be cake.”
“Cake! I can’t remember the last time I had cake. We might just have to crash this little bash of yours.”
“After dinner. Be there or be a non-cake-eating loser.” I winked at both Jamie and Nick.
I left the lab then. I was so excited to see the faces of my daughters when they saw an honest-to-goodness birthday cake.
I’d asked Timmons to unfreeze the cake layers last night and he’d said he could even make pink icing, dyed with beet juice to write the girls’ names. I’d asked him to include Meg’s name. After all, her birthday was the most recent of all.
I was a little miffed that he’d kept the design for the cake under wraps, but he’d said the wait would be worth it.
It was about four o’clock- plenty of time to grab an olive-drab poncho for a makeshift tablecloth and g
et the decorations I’d made during my free time. I was very proud of my happy birthday sign and paper crowns.
I hid all of my supplies in the kitchen, exchanging a few jovial words with Timmons.
I’d told Allison not to get the girls for me, it was a special occasion. As I was walking out to go get them for dinner, Timmons called me back.
“Elise, come see the cakes.”
Cakes?, I thought in my head. Timmons had initially said he was only making one cake.
It’s amazing what a true master of the kitchen can bake with sparse supplies. Timmons made a little ta-da motion and moved his body to reveal three cakes on a table.
“Timmons, they are gorgeous!” I couldn’t keep my mouth closed. It hung agape at the beautiful cakes in front of me.
He’d really gone above and beyond. I’d asked for one cake; already he’d hit me with a triple threat, but that’s not what struck at my heart.
Each cake was a beautiful reflection of each of my daughters’ vivid and bright personalities. Megan’s cake was square and white and decorated with stars. Kara’s cake was smaller, heart-shaped, and completely pink with a single sugar rose adorning the top. Meg’s cake was a simple round, iced lavender with ‘Welcome Margaret’ scripted across the top.
Timmons was grinning from ear to ear. “How did you know that Megan loves stars? Her entire room was covered with them in Georgia: glow-in-the-dark stars, stars on her comforter, stars hanging from the ceiling. They were literally everywhere.”
“Well, lucky guess… and she was so excited yesterday when she got a gold star on her math test.” Timmons was still smiling, but I frowned.
“Oh… she didn’t tell me.” I trailed off for a few minutes, internalizing that Megan had not shared such nice news with me. I hoped she hadn’t been feeling neglected lately. “So, I know how you made the pink icing, but the purple is fabulous. How’d you pull that off?”
“Trade secrets, Elise. I can’t tell you everything.” I rolled my eyes. He winked. It was all very chummy.
