RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) (10 page)

I settle into my most earnest scowl and say nothing in reply. These people don’t deserve my cooperation. I’ve been abducted. I have no reason to be friendly about it. My sullen compliance is all they’ll have, as far as I’m concerned.

Dr. Albert smiles
, regardless. “I’m sure this is quite traumatic for you, being such a young man and torn away from your life like this. However, we are very excited to have you with us. I hope you will quickly come to realize what an opportunity you have to explore your particular gifts with us. There are several others here, also, with peculiar talents, and we’ve had the privilege to help them.”

“And then you let them go?” I ask, interrupting.

“Excuse me?”

“You helped them and then let them go?” I ask again, adding a bit more sarcasm this time around. “I mean, if this is such a privilege
, and you mean us no harm, then we’re going to be released aren’t we?”

Dr. Albert pauses. “Eventually, I’m sure,” he says finally. “But you must also understand, Jonathan, our society is not ready for people with your talents. You might face persecution. Part of what we hope to accomplish here is teach
ing you to cope with your gifts—how and when to use them, as well as dealing with the public. We want to help.”

I nod
as though I don’t believe a word of it, looking around the room. “I’ve not had any problem before today,” I reply. “Before I was kidnapped.”

Dr. Albert’s expression turns dark now. “Jonathan, I’m not going to mince words. This program operates under the auspice of
Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. It is in your best interest to cooperate fully. This can become a comfortable and friendly working relationship, or something quite a bit more unpleasant. That all depends upon you. In a way, we are all prisoners to the best interests of society. So, let’s make the most of what we have, shall we?”

Dr. Albert’s candor shocks me a little, but he’s not telling me anything I d
on’t already know. Actually, I appreciate the honesty, but I’m not going to tell him that. Still, I’d rather not have them blowing smoke at me.

“One of our nurses will be in soon to draw blood and take a sample,” Dr. Albert says. “If you want to do this on your own, you may go into the bathroom there,” he indicates the little door behind me, “and take one of the plastic containers. Fill it up to the line. You will find disposable cups also, if you need to get a drink of water from the sink.”

“How about some food?” I ask. “They didn’t feed me at the hospital. I’m starving.”

“We’ll see about that after the nurse is through.”

“Pizza would be good, if you have it,” I reply. If I’m going to be held against my will, I might as well make the most of it.

He grins a little. “Since I’m sure we’ll have your full cooperation from now on, I’ll see what I can do. All right?”

I nod, less antagonistic now. I do understand my situation. Fighting them isn’t going to hurt anyone but me, at this point. If I’m going to be stuck here either way then it makes sense to play nice for the time being—at least until they give me a reason not to.

Dr. Albert leaves the room by the same door he came through.
It closes behind him. There’s no need to lock these doors because there are no handles to open them with.

I glance at the bathroom door and decide to investigate it. I haven’t had anything to drink in a while, but I would rather give the urine specimen a try before the nurse arrives. Who knows if they’ll be looking over my shoulder
, at that point.

There’s only a pull on the door, not an actual lock. When I enter, I quickly realize I can’t close the door. It just pulls up snug to the frame and sits there. If anyone wants to barge in
, they’ll have no problem.

I feel like I might be able to work up a specimen, so I break out a cup from its plastic wrap and do my best. I manage to give them a little more than the indented line on the cup before I’m through. Careful with the lid, I close it and carry it with me to the counter outside.

Now, I’m waiting again in my orange jumpsuit.

Before too long, a nurse does appear in the room. The door opens, and in comes someone who reminds me of the stereotypical female Russian athlete—all bulging arms and thick
of neck, with more hair on her upper lip than I have. She strides up to me, glancing over at the urine specimen. A zip-lock baggie, bearing a medical waste emblem, appears in hand from her pocket.

“Bag that please,” she says.

Her accent is definitely deep and British despite her appearance. I guess I’m just profiling on the Russian thing. I take the bag from her and pop the specimen inside, zipping it up. I offer it back to her, but she produces a tackle box instead that she’s carried in with her.

“Leave it on the counter,” she says.

I’m eyeing the tackle box now. “What’s in there?”

“My name is Uma,” she says.

I see this indicated on her badge also. “Like Uma Thurman?” I reply, trying to be lighthearted.

She replies in perfect deadpan. “No.”

I watch as she sets the tackle box on the counter and opens it. Inside are packaged syringes and needles of various sizes, as well as a number of stoppered glass vials.

“I’m going to draw your blood for some tests,” she explains. “This is necessary before we can allow you into the main facility. We must
be sure you are free from contamination.”

“Contamination by what?” I ask.

“Anything at all that might put our experiments or personnel at risk,” is Uma’s reply.

I notice she is not wearing the mask that is strapped around her neck, even though Dr. Albert had been. I don’t say anything about it though. I don’t want to make this woman angry. She’s about to stick me with at least one needle, and she looks like she could body slam me if provoked.

“I’ll need your arm,” she says, donning a pair of plastic gloves and pulling up her mask.

I extend my right arm
, and she wraps a plastic tourniquet around my bicep. The needle comes out. I turn my head slightly and feel the stick. Looking back, the tube fills with my blood.

A moment later
, she has the needle out of my arm. She has collected two separate tubes of my blood. She places them back into the tackle box, gathering the urine specimen as she stands.

“What happens now?” I ask
, as the tourniquet is replaced with a band-aid over the needle stick site.

Almost as if in answer to my question, the door opens behind Uma. She turns and I peer out from behind her bulky torso. Three men in blue Hazmat suits rush into the room.

“Priority One Emergency!” one of them shouts.

Uma practically leaps away from me as two of the suited men come
toward me with their hands outstretched. The other backs Uma away, creating a barrier between us. She speaks frantically.

I stand up automatically. “What’s going on?”

The men talk to one another through headsets. I’m not even sure they can hear what I’m asking them. They grab me in their rush. I react, twisting away and backing up. They come after me aggressively. I hear one of them calling for a sedative.

The closest grabs my upper arms, attempting to bring me under control. In my mind, I’m not out of control. Theses guys are rushing me unnecessarily. Instinctively, I throw my hands up and out to break his hold. Then I catch the man under his face shield, cupping his chin through the suit material
, and shove his head back. His body follows.

I see the second man coming, as the first twists away out of control. He rushes me with an angry look. My left foot shoots out, smashing the inside of his right leg. He stumbles and crashes onto the floor as I maneuver away with my hands up, trying to let them know I’m not a threat. It’s probably to
o late for that sentiment.

“There’s no need for this,” I say, but no one is listening.

The three men come at me together this time, crowding me against the wall. I keep my hands up. This is already getting out of hand. I don’t want trouble. They were threatening me.

“Sedative!” one of them yells
, as they get hold of me together.

“I’m not touching him,” Uma yells back.

“That’s not necessary!” I say.

In response
, they man handle me to the floor, pressing a knee into my back and my face to the tiles. I’m not sure who does it, but I feel the needle stick through my jumper right in my left flank.

The effect is not immediate, despite what you see in the movies. The Hazmat guys stay on top of me for what seems like forever. I can hardly breathe for their oppressive combined weight. It’s a good thing I’m strong.

I begin to relax. My head swims. I open and shut my eyes several times before giving up. The men talk with Uma above me. I hear something about St. Mary’s, as she inquires what the problem is.

“The other boy, who was brought in with this one, has attacked several people at the hospital,” one of the men says. “Killed a security guard. He was sick for hours and then woke up rabid. This one might be infected also.”

I barely register this information. I have no ability to contemplate the news or react to it. The sedative overwhelms me and my lights go out.

Waking to Terror

Only an idiot lives in a box. The real world won’t fit inside—Jonathan Parks

13 Days Earlier

I’m awake, but my eyes are still closed. I’m not sure I really want to open them. I’m more concerned with what these noises are, where they are coming from, and what is making them.

Another hissing, broken glass howl. My eyes finally pop open. I see
a bloody face directly in front of me. The mouth is open, the teeth red, dripping mucus. The eyes are completely bloodshot and wide with rage.

I practically leap out of my skin, trying to hop away from the sight. It’s then I realize I’m on a vinyl mattress on a bed slab coming out of the wall. I’m inside a boxy room—a cell. Every wall but the front is plain and white. A partition jutting out near the rear left wall hides a toilet and little sink.

The front wall of the cell is not made up of iron bars like a normal prison. Instead, a thick Plexiglas wall stretches from the floor to the ceiling. A line of finger size holes are visible near the top, presumably to allow oxygen in from the outside.

The setup reminds me of the cell where Hannibal Lector is kept in the “Silence of the Lambs
.” Across the corridor from my cell, an identical cell holds this gruesome person. He howls with a voice so hoarse it sounds like he’s gargling broken glass.

I’m apparently safe inside
my prison, and I’m glad for that, but I have no idea what’s going on. How did I get in here, and what is this thing clawing at its own cell wall before me? The last thing I can remember is the Hazmat men tackling and sedating me.

My back is against the wall. I’m crouched on the bed
, as though I’m going to spring away if this thing across the hall comes after me. However, there’s nowhere to go.

I sit back and attempt to get my bearings
, as the crazed person before me begins to bang his head against the Plexiglas barrier, leaving bloody prints and smears. Clearly, from the mess already on his walls, this has been going on for some time. His entire cell is covered in bloody smears and streaks.

The pounding continues with face and fists, even as a puddle of urine trickles down the orange jumpsuit pants leg to collect on the floor around
his bare feet. A faint smell of defecation reaches me. A closer look at this creature’s cell floor shows me the source.

A feeling of sudden nausea threatens to overwhelm me. However, I’ve had nothing to eat
in a while. I push back the feeling. The last thing I want is to vomit on the floor of my own cell and have to keep smelling it.

I huddle up with my arms around my ankles, watching the creature. The fury appears to subside a little, it’s attention turning this way and that
, as though it no longer sees me. I wonder about that for a moment before raising one hand into the air.

The beastly thing notices the movement at once, flying into a new fury immediately. It throws itself into the clear barrier full force. I’m uncertain, but I think I hear bone breaking in that moment. The creature pays any pain or injury suffered no attention at all. However, a fresh cut appears on the side of its head, and blood pours from it, smearing the Plexiglas further.

A few minutes later, the latest fit subsides. It seems to calm, but I suspect this is only because it doesn’t see anything moving at the moment. I might try experimenting with that hypothesis later, but for now I simply watch. There is something vaguely familiar about this person, despite his wretched condition.

Recalling the events with the Hazmat team in the infirmary room with Nurse Uma, I remember pieces of the conversation she was having just before
I became unconscious. An attack took place at St. Mary’s Hospital.

“The other boy brought in with this one,” one of them said. That other boy could only mean Tom Kennedy.

“He killed a security guard,” the man also said.

Then it clicks. I scrutinize the person before me again. The hair is matted, stained with blood. The face is bruised and the skin tone ruddy. The eyes are thoroughly bloodshot. The clothes have been replaced by the same orange jumper I’ve been made to wear, but it is him.

This terrifying, murderous creature beating his skull against the clear cell wall and defecating upon the floor is none other than Tom Kennedy. My shock is undeniable. My eyes grow wide with horror. How can this be?

I can
only watch him, horrified. With no movement to stimulate him, Tom becomes listless, wandering aimlessly around his cell. He finds the toilet more than once behind the partition. He bends to it, coming up with his face wet and glistening red as dried blood washes partly away.

My mind shuts down. I cannot think. None of this makes any sense at all. My emotions are numb. I’m unable to muster tears
, or anger, or anything.

I sit there on the bed they’ve given me. I’m not sure how long. I blink after a while. I’m not sure if I do
zed off or not. However, I notice two things immediately that are different.

First,
Tom’s clear front wall is no longer transparent. It looks tinted now. I’m reminded of the viewing side of a two-way mirror. I can still see Tom standing against a wall inside, but I’m not sure he can see out. The second thing I notice is two people standing in the corridor wearing Hazmat suits.

I jump to my feet from the bed. I see the graying beard and bald head on the man. Dr. Albert has come to see me. The woman next to him is someone I don’t recognize. I’ve never seen her before in this place.

“You see, Dr. Albert?” the woman says. “He hasn’t changed at all.”

Dr. Albert nods, considering me.

I find my anger now. “What’s going on here?” I demand.

Tom becomes agitated behind the darkened cell wall when I raise my voice. However, he’s disoriented, since he can’t see us.
Dr. Albert raises his hands, attempting to quiet me.

“We don’t want them agitated,” Dr. Albert says.

I give him a puzzled look. “Them?”

I step forward to the clear Plexiglas wall, looking up and down the corridor. For the first time, I notice the other cells like this one. There must be at least half a dozen. Every one of them is occupied by a similar creature like Tom Kennedy.

I barely manage a whisper. “What’s happening?”

Dr. Albert taps a control on the wall outside my cell. The clear partition sinks into the floor, allowing me to come into the corridor. Dr. Albert motions for me to follow. As we walk down the corridor, I’m able to see into the other cells where more creatures wander around in the confines of their prisons.

The woman with Dr. Albert follows behind me. We round another corner and enter into an infirmary room. When the door closes, I ask my question again.

“What’s going on?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Dr. Albert says. “You saw your friend from the hospital?”

“Tom Kennedy
isn’t my friend,” I reply. “He’s the one who attacked me and broke my arm. I was in the hospital because of him.”

“We have the report,” the woman says.

“Jonathan, this is one of my assistants,” Dr. Albert says. “Holly Tavers, this is Jonathan Parks.”

We don’t shake hands.

“There was fluid transfer between you and Tom Kennedy during your altercation,” Dr. Albert explains.

I look at his assistant, Holly.

“Your blood and his,” she says. “We’ve isolated a viral pathogen already in the blood of these individuals.”

“We’re fairly sure this
pathogen is the reason for the rabid state they’re currently experiencing,” Dr. Albert says. “From what we can tell, you’re not infected, but you may be a carrier.”

“These other infected individuals are people Tom Kennedy attacked at the hospital after you were brought to us here in the Tombs,” Holly explains. “They received bit
es, scratches and other wounds that allowed this pathogen into their bloodstreams.”

I attempt to digest this information. “I’m not infected,” I say, repeating Dr. Albert. “But you think I might be a carrier?”

“We know you’re at least a carrier,” Holly says. “The virus is present in your blood.”

I tense at this information, but I’m not sure I believe what Holly is saying. After all, I feel perfectly fine. I’m not anything like Tom and the others.

“So, you think Tom infected me?” I ask.

“No,” Dr. Albert says. “We believe you infected him.”

I have no words to respond to this. How could I have infected Tom with something but not be infected myself? Sure, I’ve heard of people who carry diseases and don’t get sick, but nothing like this. Whatever this pathogen is they’re talking about, it turned these people into monsters in a matter of hours. Why would I not be like them?

“Am I immune?” I manage to ask.

“We don’t know that,” Dr. Albert says. “It may be you carry this virus in a manner that simply hasn’t infected you. Something about your makeup versus theirs. We’re not sure. However, you could still become infected, for instance if you were attacked as they were. It’s possible.”

I stare at the man blankly for a moment. “You really don’t have any idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

The grave look on their faces tells me the truth.

“We isolated the strain easily enough,” Dr. Albert says. “But that’s only the beginning of our research. We’ll need your cooperation
to continue.”

“I’ve seen movies about stuff like this,” I say. “They look like a bunch of zombies! You’re just going to keep me locked up down here with them?”

“Strictly speaking, these people are alive,” Holly says. “This isn’t a movie. These people aren’t dead. For a virus to live and spread it requires a living host.”

“My assistant is quite right,” Dr. Albert says. “We’re not dealing with fantasy monsters here, Jonathan. This is something more terrifying because it is happening for real. Had the SIS not jumped on this to contain it quickly at the hospital, we could’ve seen an outbreak unlike anything else we’ve faced before. The stuff of nightmares.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I remind them. “Am I remaining here with them?”

“No,” Holly says. “Dr. Albert feels
, while you are a carrier, it would be more harmful to leave you in here with them. We’re moving you to another part of the facility where you can be protected.”

I’m comforted a little by this. I have no idea what I would do if I had to look at those things all of the time. Seeing Tom in this condition has already scarred me for life.

I sigh. “Can you beat this thing?” I ask. “Can you cure them? Can you cure me?”

“With your help, it’s possible,” Dr. Albert says.

“Then I’ll help,” I reply.

“Excellent,” he says. “Then we’ll get right to work
, after we settle you into a new living space.”

They turn, setting off for the door. A thought occurs to me.

“Dr. Albert?”

“Yes, Jonathan?”

“They did contain this thing at the hospital, right?”

Dr. Albert smiles. “Absolutely,” he replies. “Our people
upstairs descended on St. Mary’s like a swarm when the attack occurred. We can rest easy on that part.”