The Genesis Saga

20 minutes prior

The nurse tapped her pen rhythmically against her desk, her sharp eyes scrutinizing her visitor. Opposite her sat Stanley, who had just finished giving his report. She thought about what she had heard for a moment and was decidedly not happy with the news. “So you mean to tell me,” she started slowly, “that nothing has changed since your last report?”

“It’s a delicate process,” Stanley stammered. “It takes time for these kind of things to come together. They’re not just blindly going to try to escape without being certain that it won’t get them killed.”

The pen continued to drum against the desk, distracting Stanley ever so slightly.

“What I’m hearing,” the nurse said, a dangerous edge in her voice, “is that you’ve produced no results. After all the effort we went through to put you here, you’ve turned out to be a waste of resources.”

“Just give me a bit more time,” Stanley pleaded.

“Need I remind you that you’re to be our eyes and ears inside the operation. Your job,” she stressed, “is to stop problems before they arise by giving us information. Information you have yet to produce.”

“And you’ll get your information as soon as there’s information to be had,” Stanley snapped. Inside, he fumed. They were asking for results too soon. There was no feasible way for him to give them what they wanted in such a short time span when he was so isolated from the other candidates.

“Don’t take that tone with me, boy.”

“Then stop taking me away from the others so that I can actually do my job. You’ve turned me into a human pincushion under the pretense of keeping up appearances. This wasn’t in the job description.”

“Circumstances have changed. We need you to participate more in the experiments to prevent suspicion. It’s for your own good.”

“I shouldn’t be participating in them at all!”

“Are you questioning our methods?” Her pen stilled.

Stanley stopped short at that. He was one wrong move away from being in serious trouble with his boss. “No, ma’am. What I’m questioning is why I’m participating to begin with. There are no other candidates around during the experiments. Why not just have me placed in a side room for an hour or two instead?”

“I believe I’ve already answered that,” the nurse replied, shutting down any room for further protest. This line of questioning was getting dangerous. She could tell that Stanley was starting to get suspicious of their motives. It wouldn’t do for their own agent to turn on them. “We’ve been giving you false shots, you know that.”

“It sure doesn’t feel false the next day when I’m feeling like crap.”

“Then you must be having an allergic reaction,” she reassured him.

Stanley hesitated. “Are you sure that’s all that is?”

“Of course,” she said quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly. “Why on earth would we jeopardize you with actual harmful substances?”

Stanley’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t. It doesn’t make any sense to.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Stanley sighed, knowing that he wouldn’t get any other answers out of her. “Fine, but I’m still going to need a few weeks to properly do my job.”

“You don’t have weeks,” the nurse said impatiently. “If all the candidates expire before you give us anything useful then what good are you?”

“I can only promise that you’ll get the information as soon as I learn it.”

“If that’s the best you can offer, then why are we keeping you around?”

“As a contingency. Ideally, nothing would happen at all.”

“If nothing happens then we’ll find another use for you here, I’m sure of it. That being said, do try to stay undercover. We won’t be able to help you if your cover is blown.”

“Understood.” Stanley got up from his chair and left, not waiting to be dismissed.

---

Present

“Guys, we need to talk.”

Adrian stood on wobbly feet as he went to go sit down on his cot before turning his attention to Stanley.

“Why so serious, Stanley?” John called

Stanley looked over towards Adrian and Lily, noticing something was amiss. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Never been better,” Adrian replied unconvincingly, giving him a thumbs up.

“Right, anyways. We need to get out of here.”

“Yes, yes, we’ve been over this already. It would be nice to get out of here,” John said.

“No, I mean we actually need to get out of here. For real. They’re killing us.” Stanley described to them the body bags he saw in the hall on his way back to the room. As he passed by, he noticed that there was only one person left waiting in the room. The only other one he could see was zipped up in a black body bag being carried away by some guards.

“Poor guy,” John said. “What do you think happened to them?”

“Does it matter?” Stanley pressed. “What matters is that we’re all slowly dying. We don’t know what they’ve been injecting us with, but so far we’ve been lucky not to end up like that guy. Or girl. What happens when they inject us with something lethal ‘in the name of science’?”

“So what do you suggest we do?”

“We need to figure out how we can leave, preferably without getting killed.”

The group discussed what they had learned so far. Every morning they were woken up, brought for a shower and then brought for a meal. They were given, by their best estimates, roughly twenty minutes to eat the disgusting slop they called food. Then they were brought back to their rooms, where they waited until they were needed for an experiment.

“The problem,” Lily pointed out, “is that we’re almost never all here at the same time. They take us one at a time, sometimes for hours, sometimes for less. It’s not predictable.”

“It’s going to be hard to coordinate an escape for all of us if people are missing,” John coughed. He looked over towards Adam and frowned. “At least it will only be the four of us escaping. Adam’s made it pretty clear he won’t be joining.”

“We also can’t escape during meal time when they’re guarding us with two, sometimes three guards. We might be able to overpower one of them, but I doubt the four of us will be able to take on three armed guards,” Stanley said.

“So we need to find a time when we’re not being guarded,” Adrian said.

“Yeah, but that never happens. The only time we’re not being supervised is when we’re in our room, which is locked.”

“What if we try to escape at night?”

“I don’t know about that. How would we get out of our room?”

“Guys,” Lily said with a pensive expression. “We can’t get away from three guards, but what about one?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“The only time we’re guarded by a single guard is when one of us is taken from the room. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never noticed anybody else in the halls when we get taken. So, what if we all rush the one guard before they have a chance to react?”

“Hmm,” Stanley hummed thoughtfully. “That just might work.”

“So we rush guard and then what? Run for the elevator?” asked Adrian. “In case you haven’t noticed, they all require a key to use.”

“The key is usually in one of the guards’ pockets. Problem solved.”

“We still haven’t figured out the most important part.”

“Which is?”

“How we actually intend to leave the facility and survive in the desert.”

The discussion paused for a moment, everyone trying to work out the answer to the new problem.

“Screw it, I say we chance it,” John said.

“That’s just asking for us to die of dehydration,” Lily berated. “They must have cars or trucks here somewhere. We should search for those.”

“And how are we going to find them before they catch us? We won’t have much time,” Stanley pointed out.

“We could take one of the researchers hostage if we see one and get our answers from them,” Lily proposed.

“Or,” Adrian said, “we could try getting the answers out of them before we try to escape. The researchers in charge of me can be quite chatty.”

“But that requires time,” Stanley said hurriedly. “Time we don’t have.”

“It’s better than going in blind,” Adrian countered. “I’m sure we can take a few more days to try and get some extra information out of them.”

“Adrian’s right,” Lily said.

Stanley bit his lip. “Fine,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “What do you think John?”

“I think I’m going to go back to bed,” he said, sneezing. “I’ll go along with whatever you guys decide is best.” He lay back down in his cot and closed his eyes.

Lily looked over at him worriedly. “He’s not doing too well guys,” she whispered, trying not to wake John. “His clothes hide it well, but he’s started to lose weight. His cheeks have sunken in, and his face looks gaunt.”

“I’ve noticed,” Adrian said grimly. “We’ll give it a week or two while we try to learn more about the facility and hopefully he’ll start feeling better.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s been sick practically the whole time he’s been here.”

“What other choice do we have?” Adrian asked. “We just have to hope he hangs in there long enough to make it.” Their conversation stopped when the door opened, the guard on the other side asking for him. “I’ll see you guys later,” he said as he made his way over.

---

The room was new. Adrian didn’t like new. He gazed upon the treadmills, lined up in a row against the wall. It was pretty obvious what he was going to have to do, but he couldn’t figure out why.

All the other experiments involved him receiving an injection of some kind. Thus far, there had been no physical aspect to them. He watched as another test subject ran at a slow jog on one of the treadmills.

Sweat poured down her face, the rivulets leaving streak marks as they dripped. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear she’d just run a marathon. She wobbled on unsteady legs as she ran, close to reaching her limit.

“Alright,” rang Ellie’s voice from beside him. Adrian tore his gaze away from the scene before him and looked over towards the researcher. “I’m going to need you to get up on one of the treadmills now so that we can begin the test. We need to get a baseline measurement before we begin for real.”

“You’re measuring heart rate, I presume?” Adrian asked as he walked towards an empty treadmill.

“Among other things, but yes, we’re measuring heart rate. Those cuffs of yours sure are handy. No need for extra equipment for the EKG. Lucky us,” she said happily.

“Lucky us,” Adrian said, not quite mirroring her sentiment.

Ellie set herself up at her computer terminal, the screen flaring to life as she sat down. There were several such stations in the room, mostly occupied by other researchers. Entering several commands on her keyboard, the screen changed to show a blank graph.

“We’ll start you off slowly and increase the pace as time passes before bringing the speed back down to a walk while you cool down.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

Ellie typed on her keyboard again, surprising Adrian when the treadmill started moving of it’s own volition. “Could warn a guy first,” he said after stumbling due to the abrupt start.

“I thought you were ready. My bad.” Ellie shrugged.

Five minutes into the test, Adrian heard a crash. He was only moving at a brisk walk, so he turned his head to see what was happening. The woman running had tripped and fallen from her treadmill. She lay sprawled on the ground clutching her chest, twitching.

Her eyes rolled back into her head, leaving just the whites showing. The twitching quickly became more intense and turned into a full-blown seizure. Saliva drooled from the corner of her mouth, frothing and becoming foam-like.

Throughout the ordeal, not a single researcher moved to assist the woman. Three of them crowded around her and began taking notes. He watched in horror as one of them took out a stopwatch and started recording the duration of her seizure.

After several minutes, the woman’s seizure abruptly stopped. She was still clutching her chest, her shirt bunched in her fists. Her still form unnerved Adrian as it lay on the floor.

“Subject 001, suffered from seizure eighteen minutes into trial four. Intensity: high. Duration: two minutes, seventeen seconds,” the researcher said, looking over at the stopwatch.

Another researcher knelt down and checked the woman’s pulse. He shook his head and stood back up.

“Correction,” said the same researcher. “Subject 001 expired due to seizure.” She checked her watch. “Time of death: 4:02 pm.”

All the while, Adrian’s own treadmill began speeding up, forcing him to pay more attention to his footing, lest he fall as well. He was now running at a slow jog.

“Such a shame,” Ellie remarked casually, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “I told them this was going to happen, but they didn’t listen.”

Adrian’s head whipped around to face her. “Is that what’s going to happen to me?”

“Hopefully not,” she said. “We’re not injecting you with the same substance.”

“You’re still going to inject me with something? After that?” he practically shouted.

“Of course. There would be no point to this experiment otherwise.”

Connor came into the room holding a small briefcase by its handle. “I can’t believe I needed to go through all of that just to get a small sample of this,” he grumbled, placing the briefcase next to Ellie on her desk. He looked as if he was going to say something else but stopped short as he saw the scene in front of him. “Another one expired?” he asked, looking at the body on the floor.

“Yep,” Ellie chirped.

“We told them this was going to happen. Why does nobody ever believe us?”

“I don’t know, but Jory is going to be pissed that another test subject expired so soon after the last one,” she said, preparing an injection from the sample that Connor brought. “This one only lasted two days for this experiment. Not exactly an efficient use of resources,” she sighed.

“Is that all I am to you? A resource?” Adrian couldn’t help but ask. He didn’t want to end up like the person on the floor behind him.

“Pretty much, yes,” Ellie replied.

“How can you do this to us?” Adrian asked in disgust, referring to the cooling body whose heart no longer beat.

“We’re working on ground-breaking theories! A little sacrifice is required for us to make a breakthrough. What we’re doing here could alter the course of history,” Connor said vehemently. “We’re working for the betterment of mankind.”

“At what cost? We’re people, not lab rats,” Adrian spat.

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re both.”

“Human trials are inevitable,” Ellie added. “You should be proud to be part of something this big. We’ll go down in history.”

“You’ll go down in history. I’ll go down six feet into the ground, forgotten by all.”

The rest of Adrian’s physical passed in silence. Once his time was up, the treadmill slowed to a halt and Adrian stepped off. Connor passed him a bottle of water, which he generously drank from. After ten minutes, Ellie injected him with the substance that Connor brought and instructed him to start the experiment over again.

“Now that we have a baseline, we can begin the actual experiment,” Ellie said, logging the data from Adrian’s previous run. She once again started the treadmill remotely. Adrian was ready this time and didn’t stumble.

Adrian immediately noticed a difference. Not two minutes in and he had trouble breathing, despite the relatively slow pace at which he walked. His heart beat uncomfortably fast in his chest. Pain slowly began to blossom, increasing the more he exerted himself.

“Something’s wrong,” he wheezed.

“Wrong how?” Ellie asked sharply.

“I can’t breathe properly and my chest hurts.”

Ellie shared a glance with Connor.

“Keep going until you can’t anymore. Then we’ll stop the test.”

Adrian continued to jog for several more minutes, but the pain didn’t abate. “It’s getting worse,” he said between breaths. He was now severely winded, making speaking difficult. Adrian’s arm unconsciously began clutching at his heart, the pain becoming unbearable.

“Keep going,” he was told.

His chest suddenly seized, his heart skipping a beat. He cried out mutely and stumbled on the treadmill. His feet got tangled and he tripped, falling hard onto the moving carpet below.

Ellie rushed to turn off the treadmill but wasn’t fast enough. Adrian was quickly thrown from the treadmill, landing on the floor.

He couldn’t breathe. It hurt. Adrian tried to curl into a ball, but his limbs wouldn’t respond properly. They began to twitch and soon he lost control over them. The twitching continued and his vision began to cloud over. Soon he was suffering from a full-blown seizure like the other test subject earlier. For several minutes he lay there, desperately gasping for air as his heart beat wildly in his chest.

Ellie and Connor made no move to help him, watching him with cold eyes. Their clinical gazes observed every detail.

Tears came to his eyes unbidden as Adrian thought about the unfairness of it all. He thought back to the previous person that had collapsed earlier. Adrian didn’t expect to wake back up. It didn’t take long for him to get swallowed by darkness, fading into oblivion as it consumed him. His last thought was that he was thankful that he would be released from the pain. A small mercy.