Aberrant: 2011 - The Coming Equinox

[Autumn Solstice]

“Director.” Autumn said dryly, acknowledging the man beside her. She lowered her head slightly. A few strands of blood red hair slipped over her neck and past her shoulders. Her hand, icy blue with perfectly manicured fingernails whose color matched her hair, brushed the dangling strands behind her. “Can we make this quick? I wish to retire early.”

“We’ll try our best,” Director Cunningham smiled, changing the subject from how long the procedure could take. “Feeling better? I heard you had quite a spell the other day.”

“I’m better. Your concern is noted.” She replied, monotone as always. “I’m quite the rapid healer.”

The two walked down a corridor deep within the bowels of Project Utopia’s New York headquarters. Labs thirty-one through forty-one were a place Autumn didn’t care for. It was a quiet place that very few were permitted to enter without the Director’s personal permission. She was never permitted here with out his personal accompaniment, and today was no different.

Her treatments were almost daily now. She was undergoing special gene therapy to help stabilize her node. She and her twin sister, Summer, were ‘unique’ as the Utopian scientists had told her. They erupted simultaneously, causing their nodes to develop irregularly. The therapy, they told her, would help her and Summer reach their full potential and not suffer from any further side effects of quantum backlash.

Lies were Utopian tradition. They never told her that there was nothing wrong with her node. Nor did they tell her that her ‘sister’ didn’t exist. Autumn/Summer suffered from multiple personality disorder, commonly adopting the traits of her murdered sister. Which sister had survived forensic specialists couldn’t be one hundred percent sure. The mystery of the remaining sister carried on to this day and Director Cunningham reveled in toying with the unsuspecting teenage nova. She was an innocent puppet in a scheme that would make him a scientific genius.

“Where is Summer, Director Cunningham?” Her chilling voice broke the monotonous sound of her heeled boots clacking upon the waxed, tiled floor.

“Waiting for us up ahead Autumn.” He lied, grinning slightly as he played with her head. She would believe anything that her mind could logically account for, creating the delusions, as she needed to help justify her own sickness. “I brought her down here just moments before I met you in the hallway. She’s already begun her therapy. I did say I wanted to make this as quick as possible, didn’t I?”

“So you did.” Autumn walked on to the lab as Director Cunningham stopped at the door to the observation room.

The seal on the door hissed as it gave way to her entry. The room was close to bare and smelled sanitized. Two capsules were in the room set at a forty-five degree angle back to back. One was closed and the other open, waiting for Autumn to step in and begin her ‘therapy’. She gave pause after a few steps, looked back to the observation glass that made a half circle around the room.

“Something the matter Autumn?” A mechanically altered voice asked.

The frigid nova took a few steps towards the closed capsule before answering. “I’m checking on Summer, I’ll be a only a moment.”

“By all means. Just let us know when you are ready to begin.”

The gambit was simple enough; even though the capsule was empty the deranged Autumn would see exactly what she wanted to. Autumn looked into the capsule and her sister, Summer was lying there. Her crimson complexion and icy blue hair, a color scheme directly opposite to Autumn’s, lie still, blissfully unaware that she only existed in her own mind.

Satisfied, Autumn strode over to her capsule, minding the scattered cables lying about the floor. With a hiss and a mechanical echo through the lab Autumn drifted off to sleep.

*****

Cloaked in shadow, lit only by the readings of various devices and colored displays, the observation chamber held only three lab techs, the Director, and a nova. The lab techs carefully monitored the information displayed on the screens.

“Continuous delta wave pattern reached. Solstice has entered slow-wave-sleep, sir.”

“Keep the methoxypropane at eighty percent,” Interrupted in his silent conversation with the nova, Director Cunningham let a threat linger in the air. “We’ll not have her dropping to stage two like last time. Am I clear?”

The technician lowered his head like a whipped dog. “Yes, sir.”

“And she’s the only one who can make this stuff huh?” The nova, a tall black man with dreadlocks and a thick urban accent, asked the Director. “These omni-potent cells?”

“Not necessarily, E-pac.” Director Cunningham turned to the dark nova and began explaining. “All self-regenerating novas possess these cells, capable reproducing any other form of cell, including the regeneration of unipotent cells.”

“Da hell’s that mean?”

“Unipotent cells are designed to create a cell used for one, hence ‘uni’, particular kind of tissue. Unipotent heart cells create only heart tissue, liver cells make liver tissue, etcetera… you get the idea, I’m sure.” The Director explained, rolling his finger over and over to emphasize his point. “If need be the novas body will harness unipotent cells, convert them into a different type of tissue and begin rapid regeneration based off this new blueprint. A complete revision of their genetic code, all from one simple little cut.”

E-pac folded his arms as he stared at the nova in the capsule. “So she could use heart tissue to replicate kidney tissue, gotcha. So what makes er’ so special?”

Cunningham joined the nova in looking upon his prize pet. “So far she, and only two other novas on the planet possess cells that react in a positive manner when those cells are cultured and exposed to high levels of quantum saturated tissue.”

“SOMA.” E-pac let out with a bit of a huff. “So, who are the other two?”

“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that information,” Cunningham grinned devilishly. “You understand, of course.”

“Whatevah man,” E-pac gave him a very well known gesture with his finger. “Keep yo’ secrets. Long as the checks keep coming.”

Cunningham only chuckled. E-pac, for all his ‘social graces,’ was an integral piece of the Director’s grand scheme.

“Beginning extraction sir.” Said the lab tech on the left as he pressed an orange button and began manipulating a small joystick. The man moved it gently with his thumb, and a small display shown Solstice’s lower abdomen on it, a red pinpoint of light marked a target on her flesh. The press of another button slowly pressed a thick needle into her, digging deep.

“Heart rate normal. Methoxypropane at eighty percent. Extraction almost complete, keep it steady.” The center lab tech kept the extracting technician well informed while stole Solstice’s unique DNA.

The time ticked by slowly as the process moved forward, silently they all waited while the needle siphoned, filling a small I.V. bag slowly with phosphorescent blue plasma.

Pure SOMA saturated cultured stem cells. Director Cunningham grinned the devil’s grin and it only grew wider with every droplet that filled the bag.

[Autumn Solstice]

The world was blurred as Solstice looked upon it. She could see bubbles, but they didn’t tickle her skin. Everything was covered in a bluish haze and people at all hours constantly walked past her. She would have screamed, but every time she tried there was nothing. She hadn’t blinked in weeks, or slept for that matter.

Director Cunningham stood in front of her now, entering from her peripheral vision. He hunched over, like a great aunt bending over to pinch her cheeks. From side to side he moved his, trying to get a better vantage point of her.

Director! Please, tell me what’s going on! she cried out, but there was nothing. She could hear nothing; feel nothing, although she knew she was in a liquid of some kind. Some one… any one… please…

He tapped on the glass. “Can she hear me,” he asked. “Complete awareness?”

“Yes, Director.” A woman approached him from behind; her heeled shoes on the tiled floor gave away her presence long before she spoke. Although she looked remarkably young, she carried her self with the poise of a woman much older. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her lab coat as she came to a halt a bit behind Director Cunningham. “She is fully cognitive of her surroundings. The enzyme sees to it that she is nurtured, and kept stable. She will endure for as long as we need her to.”

“Excellent work Genesis.” The Director continued to stare. “Memories? Life experiences?”

“A bit more difficult, but the transfer was successful,” Genesis took the Director by the arm, to lead him away from Solstice. “This way, I have something show you.”

Scientists scurried about the circular lab’s Hub. In truth it looked more like the Trading Floor of the New York Stock Market. Each moved with purpose, from station to station comparing and analyzing data from every other scientific team that was gathered.

From The Hub the lab connected to seven observation chambers, the eighth corridor led to the exit. It was an octagonal chamber surrounded by observation chambers that created another octagonal layer. A spire of computer wires and electrical cables rose up from the central core of The Hub, another, and much smaller, octagon comprised each individual workstation for the scientists assigned to their particular observation chamber. Absolute anarchy was in the air as Genesis led the Director through it all.

“We lost quite a bit of information, synaptic seepage almost caused a complete erasure of her memories. We salvaged what we could.” She stopped at the large window that separated The Hub from one of the chambers. “Headbanger did what she could,” The Director’s cold stare at her reminded her of his dislike of that name. “Sorry, Sibyl, did what she could, but creating memories from memory is still a sketchy process, but she is getting better. If only we had her here for a complete transfer.”

“No. I can’t risk bringing here.” Director Cunningham looked at the room’s occupant. “Not yet anyway.” He tilted his head a bit, nodding in the direction of the occupant. “Is this what you wanted to show me? When was this done?”

“This morning,” She adjusted her glasses, giving pause at her own marvelously beautiful reflection in the glass. “We had it all the way until the last few moments.”

“What happened?”

“She completely went to,” bothered by her apparent failure, Genesis crossed her arms tightly in disgust. “Well, that.

Shambling about the room was something that resembled a person. Flesh blistered and melted away from it’s body only to be regenerated suddenly with a sound that was nothing but vile. Decaying bits of flesh and discarded body parts lay about the chamber, still spewing fluids from cancerous sores and blisters. The creature was female, her face contorted in agony and her lips dribbling down and hanging loosely far past her chin, the tongue was elongated and simply drug on the floor as she shambled about. Thin clumps of still remained on her head, what hadn’t fell away as her scalp tried it’s best to regenerate faster than it could melt away from the bone.

“She’s marvelous.” Director Cunningham said with his eyes locked on the creature.

A bit stunned, Genesis cocked her eyebrow. “Pardon? She’s a failure. Look at her, completely unstable. We can’t get anything from her. I’m only grateful she didn’t implode like the last three. I have her scheduled for termination.”

“No. Genesis, do you realize what we’ve done?” His face was practically pressed to the glass; it fogged slightly as he exhaled.

“Ensured we’ll get the death penalty if anyone finds out?” She mused.

“Yes, and look closer.” He pointed to get her to pay attention with him. “Complete cellular regeneration, up to and including keeping separated body parts alive and active while new ones are grown on the host. Pray tell me my dear, what could permit such an act possible?”

A twisted grin spread across Genesis’s glossy red lips. “An MR-node.” She whispered.

“Precisely.”

“I’ll gather the files on this one immediately, we have much to do.” With a renewed vigor in her stride Genesis began ordering the scientists to gather all the necessary data.

To opposite side of The Hub the Director walked, slowly and with joyful strides that only a truly mad man could have mustered amongst such creatures and chaos. Over to where Solstice was, looking upon the lab. With a push from behind the Director had her on the move, like leading a pal by placing you hand on their back.

Back to the room that the melting creature shambled through in endless circles Director Cunningham permitted Solstice her first look at anything more than her spot in the corner for as long as she could remember. “Do you see that my dear? Soon, very soon, all your secrets will be mine… and then when everyone is special, no one will be.”

Fear gripped her. She cried out, but as always there was nothing. The creature didn’t frighten her; it was the glass that gave her cause to tremble, if she could. Her reflection came back to her and suddenly she prayed to wake up from her nightmare quickly.

In a capsule of bluish liquid Solstice floated there as nothing more than a brain a spinal column, and a pair of eyes.