Novels2Search
Re-education
Chapter 12: The Virus

Chapter 12: The Virus

The scientists simply didn't stop at one, they continued on with the testing for at least a couple more attempts. They repeated the same exact procedure over and over again. The short scientist leaves and brings back a sample, plug some wires into their heads, they cut open the student's heads until they reach the skull, they drill the bone until the brain is exposed, the tall one smashes the ampule on the table—opening it, sucking out the purple liquid with the syringe, and injecting it into the sample's brain. The sample wakes up and screams in terror, dies in a few minutes while screaming the same exact thing, "Make it stop!" Lastly, they toss the fresh, new, lifeless body onto the pile, and repeat.

Caden could only watch in horror as the bodies began to pile up, it was now heavier than he could take, as dead bodies surprisingly weigh a ton, especially if they are piled up. Caden couldn't take it, he could not allow the scientists to continue their testing any longer. He saw how his schoolmates died in horror, and he couldn't do anything about it. He saw some of his friends shriek in pain as the scientists observantly watched in the background, not even giving a damn for human life. It was the scene of nightmares, and he couldn't simply let it continue.

The scientists just finished with another sample, throwing the lifeless body into the pile. The pool of blood beneath them scattered more and more as more bodies were added. As the short scientist went out to get another sample, Caden knew that it was time to act, he only had a few minutes to do what he must in order to end this situation. What he needed to do was beat the scientist up to a bloody pulp while the other scientist was out of the room. The second the small scientist walked out and closed the door, Caden took a deep breath. He was ready, his fist was ready, he now needed to struggle himself out of the mountain of corpses and beat the living hell out of the scientist. Unfortunately for Caden, before he could even move an inch, the door opened, stopping him from pursuing his motives. The smaller scientist entered the room again, but he wasn't alone, following him was a female scientist of almost the same stature as the short scientist, he knew it was female from the short black pencil skirt that she was wearing—not to mention her voice was clearly female as well, no doubt about it.

"Oh!" The scientist was surprised as the two walked in. "What brings you to this school, ma'am?"

"Well... we have a new formula to try." said the smaller scientist.

"Ehem, This is the new ampule from the main facility, there have been reports of its success, and I simply wanted to see it in action myself."

"Wait, then why here, ma'am? "Couldn't you just test it in the main branch?" The tall scientist said.

"Well.. first of all the main branch ran out of samples, and second, this was the closest facility that hasn't had a successful trial yet."

The female scientist casually approached the tall one while grabbing something out from her pocket. "Here's the new formula." When her hands exited her pocket, she was now holding on to a similar ampule from the table, which she handed to the taller scientist.

"Are you sure this will work?"

"That's why we are scientists, right? Trial and error is ingrained in our roots." she said.

The smaller scientist did the usual thing of going out of the room to grab another sample. While he was out, the taller one prepared the materials again. As the doors opened, the smaller one had returned with a fresh new sample that they could experiment with.

"All right, you better not mess up, I only brought one ampule for testing." said the female.

The male scientists both pulled out a fresh new pair of white gloves and strapped them on to their hands. Caden continued to watch as he didn't know if he could take on the scientists, he was quite confident when there was only one, but now that there were three, he knew he might not stand a chance, especially against two grownups—but he'll gladly beat up the female scientist if she was alone. The scientists proceeded to do the usual, they carried the male student to the surgery table, the smaller one pressed the red button—locking the cuffs and immobilizing the poor unconscious boy, placing the usual wires on him, and cutting his head open until they reached the skull, and drilling until the brain was exposed. It was time to use the new formula. The taller scientist grabbed the new ampule from the table, smashed the tip in order to open it, and took the syringe and loaded the fluid into it. The mysterious liquid was similar to the previous ones, it was still purple but with a deeper shade. They all looked at the syringe as the taller scientist injected it into the boy.

It was now the moment of truth, will the boy die as he scream in agony, or will they achieve success just like in the reports. Caden didn't know what success would mean, but he knew it wasn't good. Everyone in the room, including Caden, was filled with anticipation, the moment of silence was cut short as the boy opened his eyes. This time, the boy didn't scream nor did he struggle to get out of his immobilization, he simply laid there, staring at the ceiling. The two scientists gasped while the female scientist folded her arms with a visible smirk on her face.

"Can you hear me?" said the female scientist. The boy nonchalantly moved his eyes from the ceiling to the female scientist without saying anything.

"What's your name?" He continued to stare at her.

"Ben." he said.

The woman walked across the room, she took out the wires that were placed on the boy's head, and pressed the red button. The other two were surprised and confused at what she did.

"Wait, stop!" said the tall one.

"Its fine, look." she pointed to the boy.

Even though the cuffs were off of him, he didn't even budge. The wound on his head was still bleeding, but even so, he still continued to not move.

"Can you move?" asked the smaller scientist.

"Yes."

"Then stand up for us." The boy calmly stood up on the floor after getting up from the surgery table.

"Can you.. do a push up?" The boy followed through with the request and dropped to the ground. He positioned his hands at chest height while keeping his body straight and lifted himself up in order to prepare. As soon as he was ready, he collapsed his body to the ground and pushed himself back, successfully performing a push-up. After the show of strength, the boy stood back up, awaiting whatever the scientist would request of him next.

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Caden continued to watch as the scientists played around with their successful specimen. They had requested a flurry of things, while the boy simply did what he was told. He was like a robot, a puppet even as he simply did any unusual task that was given to him, he didn't speak a word, and only when asked would he open his mouth to talk, but even then he only answered with the bare minimum.

"It's looking good!" exclaimed the small one with a smile on his face.

"Not just yet, I still need to test three more things." said the woman.

"I want you to act like your normal self."

Upon hearing the order, the boy closed his eyes for a bit, and after opening them, his eyes almost screamed in fear.

"What's going on!? Where am I!? What's happening!?" the boy yelled. Blood started to gush out more and more from his wound. "AHHHH IT HURT! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! SOMEONE HELPPP!"

The woman gave a devious smile while watching the boy's performance, "That's enough." she said. The moment he heard her speak, the boy's eyes quickly returned to their relaxed state—almost frozen as he stood straight up, blood continued to leak from his head.

"Here's the second test, I want you to kill him." She pointed to the tall one. The boy suddenly grabbed the scalpel from the table and dashed towards the taller scientist, he pushed and shoved the scientist to the ground, and with pinpoint accuracy, and no hesitations, he lunged the sharp scalpel towards the scientist's throat.

"AHHHHHH!" the tall scientist screamed in horror as dread enveloped his every being.

"Stop!" The woman said. The boy had almost killed the scientist, the scalpel was less than an inch away from his throat, but with just only one word from the woman, he immediately cancelled the order.

"Very good." she said while clapping her hands slowly. The boy stood up and got off the scientist. He stood back up and waited for the next command while the smaller scientist extended a hand to the fallen colleague and helped him up, still trying to control his breathing from the sudden ocurrance.

"The fuck was that!" said the scientist. He was furious, but a glimmer of shock could still be seen.

"Don't worry it was just a test." She said.

"Don't fucking mess with m—" The smaller scientist covered his mouth with his hand, stopping him from saying anything further.

"Shhh, it's alright, just calm down, it was just a test." said the smaller one, trying to calm the man down.

"Alright, let's move on to the final test." she said. "Kill yourself."

Without a moment of hesitation, the boy quickly swung the scalpel in his hand and struck it against his open wound, where the scientist injected the unknown liquid. A few seconds passed in silence, and after a short pause, the boy's hand dropped down, leaving the scalpel drilled into his brain while blood gushed out, and he dropped to the ground. His eyes were still wide open. The boy had dropped to the floor with his head facing Caden's general direction. Caden began to feel fear and nervousness as the boy's lifeless body stared at him.

"Alright, it's a success!" said the woman. The other scientist didn't say a word. The men carried the poor boy's now lifeless body and tossed it to the pile, adding one final corpse to the mound.

"Let's go and report it to the main facility." said the woman. "We'll need to grab more to finally start the project."

The woman left the room first, as the men were left to clean up a few things. The taller one was plugging in USBs into the computers, presumably to collect the data that they have written, while the smaller scientist packed all the tools in a duffle bag. After the scientist finished up with the computers, he unplugged the USB and placed them in his pockets, and after a few more brushing up, they both left the room.

Caden was finally free to get out of the bloody mound of corpses. He was still a bit in shock at what just happened, but at least he knew that he was safe and he survived. He struggled to get out from under the heavy, lifeless bodies that pinned him down. It took a minute before he could get out, and after a few more attempts to worm his way out, he was finally freed. He swung his torso left and right and stretched his arms above his head, as his body was quite stiff from being pinned by heavy corpses for a long period of time. His vision wandered through the now-empty room. All the tools were now gone, the only things the scientists left were the rotting corpses, the scalpel embedded in the boy's skull, and an open computer. Caden approached the computer, as he was confused as to whether the scientists had forgotten to shut it down. It was on the home screen, and Caden browsed all the applications that he could see. It contained the usual stuff: Chrome, Word, and Excel. There were other applications as well that Caden wasn't familiar with, but judging from their icons, he inferred that they were tools that scientists use in their research. He was ready to take his gaze off of the bright screen, but in the corner of his eye, he saw something. There was an open notes tab in the task bar, and his curiosity got the better of him as he instinctively clicked on it. A window popped up that contained a letter.

"Well, hello there, you might be confused as you read this, so let me introduce myself. I am the scientist who performed the trials—the one who approached you when my colleague was out. From the start, I knew you were hiding beneath the corpses, but I just left you alone because I simply pitied you. I hope that the horrible sights don't cause you any nightmares, as they certainly did when I first joined the project. I know that what we're doing is extremely evil and inhumane, but we were simply forced to do it, if we showed signs of discomfort or disobeyed our superiors, then we would be killed on the spot. It's not easy being a scientist in this project. Now let me get to the point before my colleague comes back. The experiment that we are doing is called the 'Re-education project', I don't know who named it that. It involved creating a virus that could control and influence a person's mind, turning them into mindless slaves. The superiors didn't disclose what they were going to use these for or what the endgame is, but I assure you that everything is fucked if this continues. We need this project to stop, this madness needs to stop, so I'll entrust this with you. If you look beneath the computer table, you will see a USB taped there, It contains bits of information that were disclosed to us scientists, it has data on the molecular ingredients that were needed for the base of the virus and speculations on what the finished product could contain. I need you to take this to a scientist that you can trust, someone who could engineer an antivirus that could reverse the virus's effects. I really hope that you succeed. Good luck, you'll need it."

As Caden finished reading the note, he immediately looked at the bottom of the table, and there he saw the USB, taped to the far corner of the table. Without hesitation, he grabbed it and shoved it inside his slacks' right pocket. With hope in his pants, he was now ready to challenge this fucked-up situation. He braced himself as he walked toward the door. He didn't know what would happen to him, nor did he know what was going on outside the door, but he knew he had to go out there and save the world from this virus. He held the doorknob and twisted it, pulling the door open as his destiny awaited him on the other side.