The Genesis Saga

Adrian sat in front of the nurse, nervously eyeing the needle. She sat patiently, instructing him to lift his sleeve so that she could administer the injection. Unbeknownst to him, the nurse was keeping a critical eye on Adrian’s reactions. After her meeting with Stanley, she wanted to know what it was about Adrian that made him warrant her agent’s wariness.

“Is it supposed to be yellow?” Adrian asked, eyeing the vial with a concerned look. The ripe banana colour was off-putting, not instilling any confidence in him.

“Yes,” she reassured him. He certainly was talkative. None of the other captives had asked as many questions as he had. It had been entertaining at first, but now it was getting bothersome.

“And you’re sure it won’t harm me?” he asked dubiously.

“No. The worst you’ll have is a sore arm for a little bit afterwards,” she said again.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“There’s always a choice. I’m just not sure you’ll like the alternative,” she said in a placating tone.

“Fine, go for it then.”

Getting the permission that she didn’t need, she gave him his shot. She then reached over and grabbed the bracelets. “And before you ask,” she said, pre-emptively answering Adrian’s next question, “these help us monitor your vitals, in case anything goes wrong.”

“Things could go wrong?” Adrian said, worried.

The nurse bit her tongue. She shouldn’t have said anything. Her patience was wearing thin now, the incessant questions beginning to get to her. She shouldn’t have indulged the research subject with any answers to begin with. Now she was paying the price for her folly. “Just let me put the bracelets on. We’ll be done after that.”

Adrian allowed her to put them on, watching curiously as she did so. He frowned when he saw that they were too big for him. The bracelets abruptly changed shape and dug into his skin, eliciting a sharp yelp. Rubbing his wrists, he found that flexing or moving them triggered new waves of pain. What kind of monitoring devices hurt the person being studied? he wondered.

“There, all done. Now you can go on your way,” the nurse said, clearly eager to be rid of him.

Taking his queue, Adrian left the room and found his escort waiting for him outside. They promptly directed him back to the elevators and brought him down one floor to a new part of the compound he had yet to see.

The room was large and circular. Researchers dressed in white lab coats ran to and fro, hastily scribbling notes on clipboards as they did so. Workstations lay in rings running throughout the room. There were breaks in the rings, allowing for people to walk from one end of the room to the next.

In the center of the room was a large table that displayed a slowly rotating, holographic image of a DNA strand that nearly reached the ceiling. Researchers were gathered around the image pointing, discussing amongst each other. Various smaller holographic screens were peppered around the table.

Adrian took in the scene wide-eyed. The sight drove home the fact that he was here to be experimented on, a reality that hadn’t quite sunk in until now. He didn’t have long to look, as he was directed to move along the outer wall. In theme with the rest of the compound, the walls were made of the same white-grey metal with the same blue line running through. He wondered what the significance of it was.

He entered through a pair of sliding doors into a new room. To his surprise, there were other test subjects seated on plastic chairs inside the small room, waiting.

Three other men and women stared at him as he took a seat. He wanted to ask them what they were waiting for, but the others didn’t seem inclined to speak to him when he tried to engage them. It wasn’t long until a researcher came through the side door and collected one of the other test subjects.

They were now only three waiting in the room. It took another half hour before the researcher came and took another person. Adrian waited patiently for his turn, not knowing what to expect. Once there were only two people left in the room, the guards returned with another person, one he hadn’t seen before.

The woman was thin and mousy, with delicate features. Her eyes shifted rapidly from one corner of the room to the next as she sat down in the chair next to Adrian.

Adrian introduced himself in a hushed whisper. “Do you know what we’re here for?” he asked the newcomer.

The woman looked over her shoulder to check for any guards before answering. “I’m Katie,” she said in a low voice. “We’re here for some blood tests. My cellmate was one of the first taken and told me what was going to happen once we got our new cuffs.” She presented her wrists showing the bracelets.

“They’re not cuffs. They’re monitoring devices.”

“Could’ve fooled me. They feel like a high-end version of what we had before, minus the chains.”

The hushed conversation continued and Adrian learned several notable things. The first was that Katie’s room only had four people in it. There were five originally, but one of them had disappeared and never returned. They didn’t know what happened to the person. He also learned that they would give him an additional injection after he had his blood taken.

The researcher returned, cutting their conversation short. Adrian whispered a quiet thanks to the woman and received a small smile in return. It was finally his turn. He followed the man through the doors and into a small room that had one chair in it.

Sitting in the chair, a different researcher entered and began setting up her equipment. She brought a small tray with many vials on it and placed it on the small table next to Adrian. She then tied a strap around Adrian’s arm and inserted a small needle into his vein. He hardly felt a thing as the needle punctured his skin.

He watched in fascination as his blood went down the tube and into the vials. The researcher finally stopped after the tenth vial of blood was filled. She took out the needle and untied the strap around his arm before making her way to the counter on the other side of the room, where she painstakingly marked each vial.

He noticed for the first time that the tray the vials were placed in was marked with his serial number; the same one that was on his arm.

After cleaning up all the equipment, the researcher disappeared behind the pair of sliding doors on the opposite side of the room. She returned not long after and asked him to follow her into the next room over.

Upon entering, Adrian drank in the sight before him. He appeared to have entered a research lab of some kind.

To the left of the doors that he had entered by was a series of fridges. The front of each fridge was made of glass, allowing for Adrian to see the contents inside. Rows upon rows of vials of blood filled the fridges, each tray placed in front of a label with its corresponding serial number. Adrian quickly counted nineteen sets of trays in the fridges.

A long counter ran along the wall where the fridges were. Three screens floated in the air, displaying charts and graphs that made little sense to Adrian. Researchers were studying he screen, making notes on the data.

Along the side wall opposite the fridges were fume hoods, each one equipped with a state-of-the-art microscope. None of the researchers were actively looking into them, however, opting instead to look at the holographic projection along the back walls of the fume hood. Each image showed the contents of the glass slides placed under their respective lens, as well as additional data.

Remarkably, there were no guards in the room. Either they trusted him enough not to cause any trouble or they weren’t worried about what he might do with no surveillance.

Encased in glass shelves marked with biohazard symbols at the other end of the room were rows of glass vials. Adrian watched as one of the researchers took one of his vials of blood and brought it to a fume hood.

Carefully preparing a sample, they placed it under the microscope and logged the data that the projection displayed. Satisfied with what they saw, they called over a colleague and together they discussed the results.

The colleague then walked over to the glass shelves and withdrew two vials of clear liquid. She brought them back to Adrian’s blood sample and carefully added several drops from the first vial to it.

Onscreen, Adrian watched as something systematically began destroying his red blood cells. Muttering to themselves, the researchers prepared another sample and proceeded to add several drops from the second vial to it.

This time, the red blood cells were left intact. As they magnified the display, Adrian saw that his white blood cells appeared to be attacking whatever it was that they had added this time his blood. This appeared to baffle the scientists. They looked pensively towards Adrian, who was still standing in the doorway waiting.

Finally, one of the researchers returned to the cabinet marked with the biohazard symbols and retrieved a small, black box from the upper left corner. Very carefully, she set the box down in the fume hood and withdrew the vial.

Holding it at arm’s length, she prepared another sample and added a single drop of the mysterious substance to Adrian’s blood. She then placed it under the microscope and zoomed in further to see what was happening.

A myriad of small black dots moved about through Adrian’s blood, attaching themselves to every cell they came across. Soon, each red and white blood cell sported a small, black dot.

When nothing else happened, the researchers prepared a syringe full of the strange substance and brought Adrian over towards them. The man fetched a small stool and instructed Adrian to sit down. A third researcher appeared beside the two, joining the discussion.

“Sir,” the woman began excitedly, “it looks like we have a match with substance XN-05. What do we do?”

“Are you sure?” the new researcher that joined them asked. “This hasn’t happened before.”

“But sir,” the researcher continued, “look at the data. It clearly shows no rejection from the host.” She pointed to the cells onscreen, showing the black dots that had attached themselves to Adrian’s blood.

“Fascinating. They’ve fully assimilated themselves with the host’s immune system as well. Which subject is this?”

“Subject 008, from the recent batch,” she replied. “Should we try giving the subject a larger dose of the substance to see what happens?”

“It’s too risky sir,” protested the second researcher. “This is only an isolated incidence in the lab. We don’t know what will happen if we actually inject the host with it!”

Their supervisor seemed to ponder the situation, completely ignoring Adrian. “I say we give it a try,” he said finally, causing the woman to brighten.

“Perfect!” she said cheerfully. “I’ve already prepped a dose.”

The supervisor arched an eyebrow. “Getting ahead of ourselves, are we?”

The woman flushed slightly at that. “But it’s the perfect opportunity! We can’t let this chance slip away. Imagine what would happen if our theory is proven.”

“Imagine what would happen if the host rejects the substance,” spat her colleague. “You saw what happened to the last test subject that we thought was a match. It was horrifying.”

“If anything goes wrong, we still have blood samples from the subject to work with. Why else would we collect so much blood?”

“That’s enough,” said the supervisor. “Ellie’s right. We can’t let this chance go to waste. Give the subject a dose and see what happens. We’ll monitor his condition and react accordingly.”

“But sir!” the male researcher began.

“But nothing, Connor. I’ve made my decision and it’s final.” With that, the supervisor walked back to the workstation he had been at before being called over and continued his work, hoping to remain uninterrupted.

“Ok, let’s do this,” Ellie said. She disinfected Adrian’s arm and carefully held up the syringe. “It’s nothing personal,” she said, looking at Adrian. “I really hope this works, for your sake. I’d hate to see you go the way the last subject did.”

Adrian remained silent and still, glaring at her. He did not appreciate being used for something that sounded like it had a high chance of him dying horribly.

“If you don’t die,” Connor scoffed, “then we’ll continue to administer more doses over time.”

Liquid fire entered Adrian’s veins as Ellie gave Adrian his shot. Screaming out, he clutched his arm but soon realized it was pointless. The pain spread throughout his body with each heartbeat. He began to feel lightheaded and see stars. The next thing he knew he was waking up on the floor to a heated discussion between Connor and Ellie. The heat had abated, leaving only a phantom pain and sore muscles. He was covered in a cold sweat, shivering on the cool tiling.

“– told you so! What would you have done if he expired?” rang Connor’s voice.

“But he didn’t!” Ellie chittered excitedly. “Look, he’s waking up now. Everything turned out ok. We finally have our first positive reaction!”

“Positive? Did those screams sound positive to you?”

“Relax, the whole thing is experimental anyways. Now we’ve made the first real piece of progress with our work.”

Their supervisor made his way over and checked on Adrian, who was still lying on the floor, dazed. “Can you stand?” he asked.

“I think so,” Adrian croaked. Slowly, he sat up on the floor. A new wave of dizziness washed over him, making him pause. Once it passed, he accepted the supervisor’s outstretched hand and sat on the chair he had fallen out of.

“Well,” the supervisor said, “I’d deem this a partial success. The host isn’t dead – yet. Keep him for another twenty minutes then return him to his room. Continue to monitor him overnight to make sure there are no adverse reactions.”

“Yes, sir!” Ellie said in an excited tone.

“Yes, sir,” Connor moaned.

As he sat in the stool, Adrian developed a slight headache. The longer he remained seated, the worse his headache became. Seeing that there were no other adverse reactions, the researchers decided to let him go.

A guard came into the room and collected him, bringing him back to his cell. When he arrived, he was greeted by Stanley. He noted that John was still in bed under the covers and that Lily was now missing. Adam, as per usual, didn’t acknowledge Adrian’s return.

His headache had turned into a full-blown migraine, leaving Adrian in a slightly foul mood. He had no desire to interact with anybody, but forced himself to at least ask after John.

“Not so well,” Stanley replied. “It looks like he has a pretty high fever. He finally fell asleep not too long ago. Hopefully he can get enough rest.”

“And Lily?”

“Gone. They took her not long after I got back. She asked after you, you know. Wanted to know if I saw you after they took me.”

“That’s nice of her.” Adrian groaned, rubbing his temples. “God, I have the worst headache. Whatever they injected me with gave it to me and it’s been slowly getting worse.”

“I know the feeling. Mine gave me a slight headache as well, although nowhere near as bad as yours from the sound of it.”

Adrian noticed for the first time that Stanley was also slightly pale. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the man was shivering slightly. “Are you cold?”

“I’ve been chilled for a little while now,” Stanley confirmed.

“You think you’re getting whatever John has?”

“I don’t think so. Hopefully whatever he has isn’t contagious. If we all feel like crap after our injections, I think it’s safe to say that it’s the injection’s fault and not a cold.”

Adrian agreed. They were probably just suffering from side-effects. He felt a slight chill settle in, giving him goosebumps. He went over and sat down on his bed. “Now it’s my turn to feel a little cold. I think I’ll take a nap for now. Hopefully I’ll feel better once I wake up.”

“Sounds like a good idea. I just might follow. I guess John was onto something by going to bed right away.”

Both Adrian and Stanley settled into their beds, nestled beneath the single cover provided. It was a thin cover and provided little warmth, but it was still better than nothing. As he lay in bed, Adrian felt his arm getting progressively sorer where he got his shot from the nurse. It eventually got to the point that any movement his arm did resulted in excruciating pain. “Slightly sore arm my ass,” he muttered. He was forced to sleep on his back, as sleeping on his side hurt his arm too much. He hoped the pain would abate soon. Coupled with his migraine, he was having a hard time resting.

He woke up to the sound of the door being closed, having dozed off at some point. His migraine had settled to a dull throb, much more bearable than before. Looking towards the source of the noise, Adrian saw that Lily had returned.

Blearily, he sat up and welcomed her back. He quickly noticed that she wasn’t as talkative as usual and asked what was wrong.

“I feel like shit,” she replied. “Whatever was in that shot is making me feel nauseous.” She paused. “Actually, I think I’m going to be sick.” She ran over to the toilet and got on her knees, barely making it in time before retching.

The acrid scent of vomit filled the room, lingering as Lily emptied her stomach over the shiny porcelain bowl. Flushing when she was done, she stood up on shaky feet and slowly walked over to her bed, clutching her stomach.

“Ugh, that was awful. I somehow feel both better and worse than before.”

“Are you going to be able to eat later?”

“God no, I can barely stomach that stuff when I’m feeling well, let alone now.”

“Maybe you should take a nap, like the others. I’m feeling a little better now that I’ve slept for a bit.”

“Good idea,” Lily crawled into bed and said nothing more. Adrian could make out her curled form from under the covers. Deciding that he should follow suit, he once again lay back down and tried to rest.

He was awoken again when the guards came to collect them for dinner. Given how hungry he felt, they must have skipped lunch. That or they just didn’t serve lunch here. Adrian wasn’t sure which.

As he sat at what was becoming their regular spot in the cafeteria, Adrian looked at the others. Lily looked green and didn’t make any effort to touch her food. Stanley visibly forced himself to eat what was in his bowl. John only ate half his bowl before pushing it aside.

He was still pale as a sheet, which worried Adrian. His fever didn’t look like it had broken either, if the sheen of sweat on his forehead was any indication. The meal passed in silence, no one having enough energy to make small talk. Adrian forced himself to finished his meal, finding the task more arduous than usual. The group returned to their room in silence, not having the energy for any meaningful conversation.

***

The next few days passed by much the same. They would be woken up every morning by the lights turning on abruptly, brought to the showers and then brought for a meal. Afterwards, they would be taken one at a time for more injections and then largely left alone for the rest of the day as they acclimated to whatever had been put inside their bodies.

Everyone except for Adrian and Stanley, that is. For some reason, they were taken multiple times a day. Adrian always found himself back in the research room with Ellie and Connor, receiving another dose of the unknown substance. Each time he was injected, he was greeted by a fresh wave of pain. As time went on, however, the pain began to lessen, much to Ellie’s excitement.

“He’s adapting to it,” Ellie declared one day. Displayed in front of her was a large holographic image of multiple charts and graphs, their meanings lost to Adrian.

Connor joined her and studied the data alongside her. “His pain levels go down each time we inject him.”

“Isn’t it fascinating?”

“I could just be developing a tolerance to the pain,” Adrian interjected. He had learned how to handle the intense pain over the past few days. He now no longer woke up on the floor after each injection, something he was quite proud of.

“Well, there is that,” Ellie agreed. “But we’ve also quantified your pain relative to the first time you were injected and found that your pain levels are literally decreasing with each dose.”

“Lucky me,” Adrian deadpanned. “You can quantify pain? How on earth does that work?”

“Honestly, we’re not quite sure,” Connor admitted. “It appears to be a function of those bracelets you’re wearing. We’re not the ones that designed them, we only use them.”

“Top brass told us they were state of the art,” Ellie interjected, “but refused to comment any more on where they came from or what technology was used to develop them. They’re quite new, too. Your batch is the first one to use them.”

Over time, Connor and Ellie had grown more comfortable around Adrian. They were willing to indulge some basic questions he had but refused to go further into detail when he pressed them for answers. Still, they were opening up to him, slowly but surely. Adrian took that as a good sign.

When Adrian finally asked what it was they were injecting him with, Ellie just waved him off and told him that he didn’t need to know. Undeterred, Adrian was determined to pry answers out of them, one question at a time.

Thus far, he’d learned that the bracelets did more than he initially thought. They measured heart rate, as well as constantly analyzed the contents of his bloodstream. This allowed for the researchers to track and log any changes that happened over time in real time.

If the bracelets could monitor his blood, he asked why it was that they needed to take blood samples from him. He was told that it was so that they could experiment on how the substances would interact with his body without actually needing to inject him with them. “If we injected you with every substance we tested, you’d be dead like ten times over,” Ellie said when asked.

Connor and Ellie were the researchers that Adrian had the most contact with. They seemed to be in charge of whatever experiments concerned him specifically. When he described the pair to the others, they claimed not to have met anybody matching their descriptions.

It had become routine for him to watch Ellie and Connor prepare the injections and decipher the readings from his bracelets. If it weren’t for the pain involved, Adrian almost wouldn’t mind the injections.

Almost.

“Are you going to inject me with the same thing every time?” Adrian asked. He’d noticed that they took out the same black box every time he saw them.

“Not always,” Connor said from where he sat hunched over from across the room.

“This time,” Ellie said, brandishing a needle, “let’s try something new.”

***

Back in the room, John lay face down on his cot. It had been several weeks since the experiments began, and his health had yet to show any signs of improvement. His fever abated somewhat but remained ever present. With each passing day, John found himself eating less and less. Every time he started to feel better he would receive a new injection that made his symptoms flare back up. The most recent injection had taken a toll on his body.

“I’m getting worried,” Lily said to Stanley. “He’s not getting any better. He needs medical attention.”

“You would think that a state-of-the-art research center would be able to take care of their test subjects,” Stanley replied.

“It’s like they don’t even care.”

“Maybe him being sick is part of the research they’re doing.”

“That’s just cruel.”

“I don’t think these people are concerned with ethics and morals, Lily.”

“I think Adrian was on to something when he mentioned escaping. We need to get John out of here.”

“So what, you’re expecting us to not only somehow manage to get out of this locked room, but avoid the guards, the researchers, the surveillance equipment and survive the desert?” Stanley said disbelievingly.

“What other choice do we have. Look at him, Stanley. Really look at him.”

Reluctantly, Stanley shifted his gaze over to John. Wheezing between laboured breaths, John shivered under his blanket that was damp with sweat. His clammy hands tried in vain to block the lighting to help him sleep.

“Fine,” Stanley said, tearing his gaze away from John’s weak form. “We should wait for Adrian before planning anything. He’ll surely want to be a part of the discussion.”

“No, we shouldn’t,” Lily shook her head. “We’re hardly ever all here at the same time. If we waited for everyone to be together, we’d be wasting precious time planning. I say we start without him and one of us can fill him in later.”

Together, the two tried to map out the parts of the facility that they had been to. Without anything to write on, the exercise was slow going and futile.

“This is impossible, Lily. How on earth are we going to be able to remember all of this? We can’t even agree on all the details!”

“I don’t know! We have to at least try. For John.” Lily tried to convince herself.

The two continued their work until Stanley was taken away again. Frustrated, Lily looked towards Adam. “I don’t suppose you’d like to help?” she asked.

“I already told you, I want nothing to do with your escape. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“What’s the worst they’re going to do to us? Send us back to our room?”

“They could kill you.”

“I don’t think they’d kill us after all the trouble they went through to bring us here.”

Adam snorted and turned around in his cot, his back facing Lily. Rude, she thought. She mulled over the plans that she and Stanley had discussed. So far, they hadn’t been able to agree on how they would actually escape.

Adrian returned to the room, not looking well. Lily conferred with him her thoughts on their plans for escaping. He agreed that they needed to start planning soon, but that they didn’t know enough information about the guard detail.

Their main problem, he pointed out, would be getting past the armed guards. The next issue they faced would be getting a key to use the elevator so that they could actually make it to the entrance of the building.

“What we need to do is learn their schedule,” Adrian said tiredly, referring to the guards. “Once we know where they’re supposed to be and when, then we can start planning how we’d actually get out of here.”

“Do you have any ideas as to how we’re supposed to physically get past them?”

“No, not yet. That can wait for another day. Right now I feel awful and need to lie down. The whole room is spinning, and I feel lightheaded. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?” Adrian said, teetering in place. “Oh,” he slurred, “I think I’m going to faint.” He dropped down to the floor, barely catching himself with his hands. He lay down on the ground. “Yep, definitely going to faint,” he said in a faraway voice before proceeding to pass out on the spot.

Lily freaked out when he stopped breathing on the floor. “Adrian?” she called, hoping to wake him up. “Adrian, wake up,” she shook him. When he remained unresponsive, she tried tapping his cheeks, hoping that the stimulus would wake him up.

He remained in the comatose state on the floor, not reacting to anything Lily said or did. Out of desperation, she dragged him over to the toilet and scooped out water from the bowl, splashing Adrian in the face with several handfuls.

At this, Adrian’s eyes flew open, and he took in a large breath, coughing as the water went up his nose.

“You’re alive!” Lily said, the relief in her tone evident. Her voice sounded far away to Adrian as he processed what was going on around him.

“What happened?” he asked, still feeling lightheaded. He tried to sit up, but a new wave of dizziness overtook him, and he fell onto his back, unable to move.

“You passed out and stopped breathing. I thought you were going to die. You weren’t responding to anything I did.”

“Good thing you woke me back up,” he tried to jest, failing miserably to ease Lily’s concerns.

Stanley returned as Adrian slowly stood up, a worried look on his face. “Guys, we need to talk.”