“Life, then death. That has always been the natural order. But what if that could be changed? What if we could utilize the process of death to create more life? Death, then life. That is what we are building here.”
–Dr Ava Sherman. Manchester, New Hampshire. 11 Years Before.
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Just a little scratch. It was just a little scratch.
Private Jack Wilkinson stumbled through the brush as distant alarms faded. Another few miles through the forest, and he’d be in the clear.
God damn though, how he had never had a headache half as severe. Every step felt like a hammer to his ears. Every heartbeat sent another throb to his scalp. The sun might as well have been shooting needles straight into his eyes. It was too fucking bright.
Had he been this tired when he’d woken up, or his legs this tense? It had been a long night, and he’d spent most of it in the bottle. Figured that he would have a day like this after a night like that.
Keep your mask on, they’d told him. Yeah, well, he’d kept the damn mask on. The whole hazmat getup too. From the full-visor, air-supplied respirator that always smelled like ass, to the steel-toed boots and attached shanks that made his feet numb after a couple minutes of use, to the hefty SCBA that had to be strapped to his back, to the plastic fabric that draped over the whole mess, and chafed against his skin like an expired condom. Jack had worn all the right gear, and done everything by the book. It wasn’t on him that things went south the moment they got down there. What else could he have done when management hadn’t told them shit?
Jack checked his arm again. A thin, red line ran an inch down his arm where he’d been grabbed. Just a scratch, and not much else. It had barely even broken the skin. And yet, Dr Sherman’s words played over and over in his mind. Any contact had to be reported.
Could he have gotten the same thing as those people downstairs?
Jack shook his head. Stress was getting to him. He’d just been through the ringer today, and would no doubt be feeling the weight of Aeon’s legal team down his throat the moment they figured out he’d made a run for it. That was fine. He could worry about lawsuits and NDAs and all that other bullshit coming his way afterwards, so long as he got out now.
And so Jack kept moving. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, his sole companion the terror that had brought him here.
* * *
Was this what Ava wanted?
Ever since that first moment where humans evolved enough cognizance to identify their own mortality, they had done everything in their power to stave off death. Society became developed in order to maximize the odds of survival through safety of numbers. Structures were raised that were capable of surpassing natural disasters. Damage that the body sustained could be repaired with the advent of medicine. Under a more pronounced lens, one might argue that humanity had always premised its existence against the inevitability of death. An endless battle waged by just about every member of the species, each successive iteration better equipped than the last.
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Their struggles had borne success as well. The groundwork was laid by generations of her scientific predecessors, and victory had finally been achieved. With this latest breakthrough, death was irrefutably defeated.
And yet, Dr Ava Sherman could not help but wonder. Was this what she wanted?
She stared into the eyes of her patient. They were white, empty, and without purpose, just like every other successful subject in the HBRS trials. His animation had been restored, but it lacked the context of a healthy-minded adult, as if the patient’s very soul had been sucked out, leaving only a gaping, hollow husk. A vegetable that could still move.
One of her attendees leaned in. “Private Turner, can you understand us?”
The patient thrashed against his restraints. Her attendee withdrew a step, his head bobbing about from within the hazmat suit that Ava had made them all wear. This was not the first time they had witnessed such aggression from inside the walls of Aeon Dynamic’s Manchester facility, but this was perhaps the only time it had ever been observed outside their control.
Ava studied her environment anew. The temporary hospice room on the second floor of R&D was far from ideal, even with the plastic dividers that had been affixed to the windows, and armed security patrolling the corridors outside, but it was all they had to work with after the breach had first been reported. Until she knew exactly what had happened in the sub-basement lab, she could not risk letting anything get off site. Too much was at stake.
“Billy Turner,” her attendee said again, “please respond.”
“It’s no use,” Ava explained, her eyes fixed on the medical equipment behind. “He’s already gone.”
Her attendee noticed the same anomaly with a gasp. Even though their patient still flailed about like a rabid dog, the heart monitor showed nothing but a dead, flat line.
* * *
Jack pushed a branch out of the way, and nearly fell flat the moment the weight shifted. This forest was too dense.
“Fucking hell!” he cursed, his lungs heavy. He hadn’t felt this weak for ages. Maybe since basic.
Again he looked into the New Hampshire sky, and again he swore he could feel the literal weight of the sun pressing against his face. The roof of his mouth could have been filled with cotton, yet his hair was drenched in sweat. Hot and cold reversed, light more painful than dark. His scalp was rebelling against his brain, and all his other senses were taking part. What the hell was happening to him?
The scratch had gone inflamed too. What had started as a normal scarlet line had blackened with all the grime, and it almost looked like some of the nearby veins were darkening too.
Jack paused, the images of what he’d seen downstairs still trapped in his mind. That blankness in their eyes… The noise they’d made when they attacked… If anything like that ever happened to him…
Jack blinked through the growing headache. There was still a chance to get out of this. If he made a beeline away from Aeon’s base, he could work his way to safety before they found him. His only hope was to go straight for the re… Res… R–?
Wait. What’s that word? Recipe? Restoration? Receiver? The one with water. He had to have driven by that place a thousand times before. Him and Willy. That was wrong. Him and Billy. They’d gone by that water place a bunch. They’d driven by it on the way to work. Why couldn’t he remember the fucking word!?
Reservoir. That’s it. He needed to get to the reservoir. It’d be safe there.
Jack let out a deep breath to clear his mind. No more time to think. Whatever was happening to his head could wait. He had to keep moving. Keep breathing. Had to get to the reservoir now. Consequences later.