EwtronJoin Date: 2008-10-22
Post Count: 3132 |
I sat in a black swivel chair in Dr. Rackham's office, reading a science magazine, lit only by the soft glow of a tall lamp behind my back. The city nightscape shone through the large window to my right, like a tapestry of white dots. Dr. Rackham himself sat across from me. The light reflected off his glasses mysteriously.
"When's Rachael coming, Don?" I asked under my breath.
"Oh you know her." He said back nonchalantly. "She's always fashionable la- Oh! Speak of the devil!"
Rachael MacIntyre cracked open the office door and poked her head in with an awkward smile. She waved a little and said she was sorry with a cute innocence. Then she stepped in and walked to the chair with a slight happy swing in her step.
"What a time to plan an "important" meeting!" She blurted out a little too loud for comfort. "11:00 PM. In winter, too!"
Dr. Rackham gave her a look as to say "SHUT UP, DANGIT", and then he set down his coffee mug on the endtable and put his hands together on his lap.
"Right then." He said softly. "Both of you have been asked to get with your science teams and develop medical technologies that could benefit the human race." He picked up his coffee, and sipped. He turned to Rachael.
"How did you do, now?"
"Oh it's just that simple a question, is it?" She asked, seemingly irritated. "You arent going to ask, like 'what did you do', or 'how does your creation help' and stuff like that?"
"Thats like a high-school evaluation quiz."
"Yes, sorry."
She cleared her throat, and then dug a pill bottle out of her coat pocket.
"Hyper-vitamins." She proclaimed. "Every vitamin you need, all of it. The equivalent of one day's worth. Packed with antioxidants. It will stave off cancer."
Don Rackham nodded, eyebrows raised and mouth turned down with intrigued satisfaction.
"Very neat. But Patrick...." He said, turning to me, "I have heard much about YOUR project. Very much. Do let on."
A smile broke out on my face. The secretness of this whole idea was funny. It was like a bunch of kids gathering in the attic, plotting revenge on that cranky old neighbor next door.
"Dr., have you heard much about Stem Cell research?"
"Yes. Much. Why?"
I dug into MY coat pocket this time, and held out a glass vial with thick edges, filled to the brim with a liquid that looked exactly like liquid ink.
"This, Doctor, is my half-decade work. Project Requiem. My team has cracked the code of stem cells and how they work. Not only that, they have enhanced it. Perfected it."
Rachael and Don stared silently.
"These are HAST cells. Hyper Active STem cells. They are able to replace organs and cancerous tissue, replicate skin and bone, instantly."
Dr. Rackham smiled widely.
"This is amazing...!" He sort of shout-whispered. "But.. why's it black?"
"I.. don't know."
"We have to implement this into medical science immediately!" Rackham announced. Rachael scowled at me. She was always the sore loser. Left everytime I got one kill on her in Call of Duty.
"But sir... There are still a few bugs." I explained. "The cells could be seceptible to reverting back to stem form after they have been specialized. A brain cell could morph into a muscle cell without notice."
"But don't you understand?! This could make humanity live extremely long, if not forever! We need this now!"
For the first time in my career, I actually had a seed of doubt and parinoia in my mind. Humans? Living forever? They are already a virus at this point...
I shuddered.
"You alright?"
"Yeah. Fine."
Dr. Rackham made me hand over the vial, and had a chat with my team the next day. I was nervous. He took the cells in their beta stage. What would they do when he used them? They could take over someones entire body and leave them there as a shapeless mass of black goo.
Or it could be a hit. Who knows?
A few years passed, and the occassion came about to use the HAST cells. This poor boy, not even two, was the first human guinea pig. The cells have been tested on rats, with positive results. I had butterflies. This boy had an incurable heart disorder, and it was destined to kill him in months if we didn't intervene. We planned to 'program' the cells to only become healthy heart cells. The mother had to sign a waiver in tears. I had no choice. I held my breath as I plunged the needle into his chest, and injected the black liquid into his heart.
He squirmed a little, his heart rate soared, then stopped. I was still holding my breath.
It came back. His pluse came back, and perfectly healthy. I finally breathed, and everyone cheered. But then I noticed something. A little black scar where I had injected the matter into him. Then his breathing stopped, and came back. The HAST wasn't stopping.
"Donald..."
"What?"
"The cells aren't stopping."
"Well... Uh.. Why?"
"I told you about the bug, you idiot! We programmed the genes to stop at the end of a specialized cell area, but I told you that this was a beta! You didn't fix it in that month-long time hanging out with my team!!!"
"Well, it could cost."
"DARN RIGHT!!! It'l cost. A life."
I turned to the boy. I could see a faint little line where the cells were spreading, like a little wall. the edges were at his wrists, ankles and neck.
"If it gets to his brain, he could die. Lose all memory at best."
The latter happened. The boy awoke, perfectly healthy, but he did not recognize his mother. This was upsetting. The boy was dismissed a week later, and had to re-learn how to talk. We had our eyes on him, but I was furious at Donald Rackham. I wanted him fired, but hes the CEO. The only person that can fire him is himself. He sat back in his office as if nothing ever happened. I wanted my hands around his neck. The idiot just sat in his office, and took phone calls.
I couldn't take my mind off that boy. Jeremy MacIntyre. The effect of those cells on his body was unknown. Will this hell continue?
-------------------------------------15 years later...----------------------------------
September 5th, 2023.
I don't want to go to school. It may be the very last year, the very last year of it all, but not again. I don't know what I am. I have killed. My body changes. My fingers form sharp points in fits of anger. My left eye is blue and my right eye yellow. My wounds don't bleed, but instead open up to show blackness, and heal in hours. I am stronger than anyone else. I am smarter than many people. I tackle physical bullying with violence. I don't want to, but I have that primal urge.
This summer, I was confronted when I was taking a shortcut through a soccer field in central Toronto. I recognized the man; he always hated me for no apparent reason. He came at me with an unusual knife, the kind you find in curio shops. He sliced my neck, but no blood came. Instead, odd tendrils of black matter crawled up and played with my fingers as they were placed across my neck in reflex. I stared up into his freaked out face, and five seconds later, in a flurry of action, he was dead. I left no fingerprints, because my fingers had become knives.
What am I? Why am I like this, and who is responsible? Am I just some act of chance, or something bigger? Something more sinister? I morph, I change, I become these horrible things. I watch news stories of murders daily, knowing that many of them could be me. I have horrible nightmares, each one depicting my reflection contorting into some demonic figure. I see realistic visions of thousands of people dead, and blood on my hands.
I feel like I have so much power, like I can take on the world, but every time I think about my... powers, I always ask myself.
WHAT THE HELL AM I?!
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You can be a scientist, requiem test subject, or normal person (I always give that option. Just in case.). Requiem people can morph themselves at will, but it all depends on how skilled they are with their own abilities. THEY ARE NOT EMO, FYI (I hate that. They made that mistake with Prototype.). Scientists, you are either after the Requiem people, or working on more. You can be slightly rebellious, or be downright insubordinate. Fighting is allowed, just no ubering or god-modding. Morphing has it's limits.
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Enjoy. I spent an hour and a half multitasking to write this. |