Its done. With all of the troubles it has brought, it is done. And I'm walking out alive. Of the six of us that went into this thing only I made it out alive. Only I survived. I would have never thought that we could have managed to get it done. None of us even dreamed it would do as much damage as it had done. It was not supposed to do any damage, any damage at all.
I really don't think there was any way we could have known before, and besides, if we would have had any clue, any clue at all. I lost my friends. All of them. All six of us, with all six of us it was supposed to have worked, with out any damage. They all died.
And yet I am still alive. Walking through this alley, distant thunder soon brings rain. Not a hard rain, but a soft gentle rain. Constant pouring of cool water, like the drops that fall from a watering can. It comes down in sort of a peaceful way. This is good, the peacefulness. After all of that, this cool rain pouring over my tired body. Washing me clean. Washing me from my immediate past. I lost my friends.
And yet I am still alive. The darkness of the night in this alley has closed around that past. Swallowed up the destruction, absorbing it into the night. Bodies of machines and people, and friends. Having gone out of control, and now, thankfully, stopped. Stopped forever from the beginning that we created. A beginning that was not supposed to contain this. A beginning that was supposed to free from us from fear forever. For me and my friends, my now dead friends.
And yet I am still alive. I want to cry out into the darkness of this rain drenched alley, "Why me!? Why I am still living!?" I want to, but fear keeps my voice inside. I do not want to disturb the past. Let the dead sleep in peace. The peace that they deserve.
Thoughts of reasons of why I still live begin to fill my mind. There is no reason that I should still be alive. I was there with the others. I was with them where they died. Why do I live? I know no answer to my question, but the question bothers me still. I fear it will bother me to my own death. My own separated death. The death I will not share with my friends.
I try to hold my mind from slipping into the wells of insanity. The sides are slick, but I hold my self up, barely hold myself up. I continually tell myself that the death of my friends is not my fault. There was, there is nothing I can do, or could do. Once it was started there was no clean way to stop it. We all knew this. It still should not have taken what it did to stop it. It should not have caused that much damage in the process. If only we had known.
I got into this by the advise of my college friend Chris. Chris had sent me some email telling me about this scientist he had met, saying she was looking for a computer type to add to her current project. Taking a stab, I called the number he sent me. A woman answered, and I asked for a Dr. Sara. Chris hadn't given me a last name.
"This is", answered the voice.
"Hi, I'm Eddie, Chris said you were interested in hiring a computer
scientist."
"Ah yes, Chris has said great things about you. Says you're the
best there is in on the planet."
"Heh, umm, I don't think I'm that good, but if he insists."
"Hacker humble are we? Well, that's good. So are you interested?"
"Well, where will I be working, and what is the pay."
"All I can say on the phone is, somewhere nice, and more money than
you can use."
"Umm, ok. I guess I'll need to meet you somewhere then."
"So you're willing to do it then?"
"Umm. I would really like to have some more concrete details first."
"Ok then, Meet me at the Coffee shop by the University's bookstore
Saturday noon."
"Ok."
Now, that was weird. I wonder what in the hell, Chris told her that she would be ready to hire me on the spot. I'm not sure I like that she sounded like I was already working for her. But more money than I can use? I'm not sure about that, I can think of lots of expensive things.
Its been a while since I was on campus. Well, two years, but it seems longer. Standing here it occurs to me that I have no idea what Dr. Sara looks like. I wonder if Chris gave her a picture of me or something. Not seeing anyone that seemed to recognize me, and no one here seemed to look like her, or atleast no one that looked like what I though she should. I settled myself into a chair with my back to the wall, where I could see everyone that came or went past this little shop. I sipped at some coffee, keeping my eyes open for whatever should catch them.
Some silent thought about what the doctor looked like was interrupted by loud giggles. A pair of sorority girls, they had matching shirts with the three Greek letters on them, were trying to flirt with the coffee standıs attendant. Who, in turn, was trying hard to act uninterested, for what ever reason. I let my eyes rest on the pretty pair, not caring how empty stereo types determined their heads to be. They caught glances from other guys as well.
After watching the pair walk out of sight, I caught sight of a average height woman in a white jacket. With my mind being distracted from my original reason, I study her figure as well. Her shirt is tucked in a bit tight, advertising the curves of her chest. As my glances dodge between the open ends of her jacket, I set her size to be a bit larger than my fists. As she walks closer, I see that her jeans snuggly show off her legs. With the shape she has them at she must run daily, or maybe just walk alot. Either way, this girl was well shaped. My eyes, finding something they liked are not easily taken away. She walks right up to me.
"Hello Eddie." She says it like she has known me for years.
"Dr. Sara?" Great way to start out I think, stare at her like
a horny bastard.
"Please, just Sara is fine."
"Ok. So what then are the details of this work you have?", I
stammer out, hoping to direct the conversation away from my gawking.
"Here, let me grab some coffee, and we can go to my office and
talk."
Ok, I think. Fair enough. She grabs her coffee, and to my prompt to discuss things while we walk back, makes it clear that she won't talk about it in public.
At her office, after closing the door, I notice that she turns on a static generator. No eaves droppers will listen here. I begin to notice that she seems a bit paranoid, at least more than I am.
"Well, Eddie, as I'm sure you've noticed, I keep things quite
secure here, and I'm looking for a good computer type, to secure that
down with some custom stuff. Are you good at keeping secrets?"
"I don't volunteer information, and will avoid questions if needs
be."
"Sounds good. I've some of the best labs in this University. And
the jealousy from that alone is enough reason to keep things quiet. But
I'm looking into a new research project, and I need to keep everything
safe."
"Not a problem. Now how about pay..."
"I hoped to hear that. How about I hook you up with a good six
figure number, $200,000 sound ok?"
I stopped, there was no way to hide my shock. I was hoping for about $80,000, and she was offering more than twice that.
"I'll take that as a yes then?"
"Yeah. I'll defiantly work for that."
"Ok, then, can you start Monday?"
"Yeah. Monday works."
"So, what kind of stuff am I protecting?" I ask.
"Investigations of possible genetic mutations that will improve the
human creature."
Wow, she must be completely faithful on that white noise box to just blurt it out.
"Umm, heh, I'm not sure I can believe that."
"Well then, let me show you some things that will help you believe."
Taking me to one of the nearer labs, I see the greatest freak show I've ever seen. There are cages of lab rats, with wings. Not like faked birds wings that look taped on, but bat like ones. Wings that, had you not know that rats didn't have wings, you would have believed that was where they were supposed to be.
"This is a simple example of what a virus, bacteria pair can do for
active mutations. These rats were wingless last month."
"Last month?" I stammer, this is getting to be more than my
mind can handle.
She does an amazing job of explaining the details down to my level. How by creating a special virus, it will infect an animal and inject a piece of DNA into nearly every cell. The bacteria then comes through and cleans out the viruses so the body doesn't kill itself trying to fight it. The DNA now in the cells, forces grand scale changes. I had never felt dumber than another person before in my life. Meeting her has been the most humbling experience.
"Ok, I've seen a bunch of messed up rats. And a lot of good
theories about doing simple things to humans, but that seems to be well
known in your field. Why are you after so much security?"
"Most of the security is for keeping the brainless media creeps out. We
can't afford to deal with any public scare they may create just for a
damn story. The public can not handle the possibilities of what we could
do to the human body."
"Can you do anything on humans? And doesn't putting wings on those
rats mess up their minds?"
"The rats seems to handle having wings just fine. We've not seen
any try flying yet, but most seem to take advantage of them like another
set of hands to some sort."
It was then that she leaned towards me, and touched me lightly on my
shoulder. She was holding herself in just that way. Touching me just
right. Doing the few little things that any half way good looking girl
can do to a guy to turn him on like a switch. She was sending my body
into a mess of chemical emotions.
"You don't think I was born with this body do you?"
Again my jaw dropped. I barley managed to say that I'd see her Monday, and bolted. Half running home, I was in a state of panic. There was no way she had altered her body, but I had seen little rats with wings. My mind was so confused. I had, absolutely had, to know if she had altered the shape of her body. If she could do that, then... I don't know. I'm not sure I can believe it. I have to find out.
Doing the best I could do to dig up her past, I found nothing from the University, or her departments pages that could help. After about nine hours of scouring the networks, going where I should not be, I found two pictures of her when she was younger out in public view. One was a composite shot from a relative that had scanned a Christmas photo and placed it in the public eye. Looking at it, you could see which one was her. The face was right. The body wasn't. She was round and flat, but she couldn't be more than 12 in that picture. Puberty does strange things to people.
The second picture I found came from a newspaper. There was a picture of her, and an article about how this brain child prodigy was going to study genetics at college. She was 16 when that picture was taken. And from the looks she had in that photo, her body had quite definitely changed. But did she mutate it? I'm not sure. Even after rats with wings, I find that just a bit hard to swallow. She didn't look that different now. She could have put her self on a hard core diet-workout plan of some kind, perhaps even a little plastic surgery. She must have been just messing with my mind. Right now I am more concerned why its so hard to find any info on her. I don't even have my histories hidden this well.