Jake flopped down on his large desk chair, knocked the back of his head against the cushioned headrest twice, pulled the cash from his pocket, and tossed it onto his desktop. He opened the bottom drawer on the left, pulled out a glass decanter and a rocks glass, poured a small amount of the golden liquid, and knocked it back. When Jake looked back down, he noticed the corner of the keycard his father had given him, peeking out from behind the bills.
Jake pulled the card from the stack and studied it. It was a small, gray, rectangular plastic card, similar to the one that granted him access throughout the facility. The only variation was, in place of the "All Access, Double AA" in the upper right-hand corner, there were numbers separated by dashes: 0-4-7.
Jake spun the card around in his hands. “Okay, Dad. What are you trying to tell me?”
He typed his password into the keyboard, logged into the lab’s electronic database, keyed in “Project Rebirth,” and hit enter.
A buzz and an "Access Denied" flashed back at him.
Jake tried again, with no luck. “What in the hell?”
He stood, exited his office, and made his way to the nearest elevator. He stepped in, but when he studied the buttons, there was none marked with a zero. Jake stepped back out and walked in the other direction. Three more elevators, still none marked with zero. He pressed the button marked with a star, and when it stopped moving, he exited the double doors and headed straight for the security desk at the main entrance of the facility.
Jake smiled at the gray haired man behind the desk and gave him a slight wave. “Hello, John.”
“Hello, sir.” John straightened up in his seat. “Long day?”
Jake chuckled. “You have no idea.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping you could help me out with something.”
“Sure.” John sat up. “What’s up?”
“Do we have an elevator that goes down to floor zero?”
“Floor zero?” John scratched his chin. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one marked zero. I didn’t even know we had a floor zero until your dad stopped by here a few days ago mumbling something about the floor worse than Hell.”
Jake rubbed his chin.“Hell huh?”
“Sounds way too hot to me.” John shrugged.
“Me too.” Jake patted the man’s brittle shoulders. “You’ve always been one of my dad’s favorites.”
“Can you blame him?”
“I cannot. Well, thanks for your help, John. I appreciate it.” Jake tapped the desk. “Welp, I better get back to the grind.”
“Good luck.” John winked at Jake. “I do know one thing, if there was one that went to a floor zero, it would probably be the one outside Dr. Stanton’s office.”
Of course.
Jake turned back towards John. “Is the good doctor in today?”
“He actually just stepped out.”
Jake gave him a two-finger salute and headed towards Stanton’s office. As he approached the wooden-framed elevator outside of Stanton’s office door, he noticed a woman wearing a lab coat waiting for the doors to open.
Jake stood next to the woman and smoothed his tie. “Hello.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Hello.”
“Having a nice day?”
“Oh, yes.” The woman’s eyes lit up. “We’re right on the verge of a breakthrough.”
“That’s fantastic.” Jake smiled. “What floor do you work on?”
“The third.”
“Oh right. Surveillance drones.”
She nodded as the elevator door opened with a ding. The two stepped in, and she pressed the button marked three.
“Why don’t you type an update for me and bring it to my office later? I’ll make sure Dr. Stanton knows the progress you’re making.”
“That would be great. Thank you.” The woman clenched her fist to her chest and turned slightly away from Jake for a mini-celebration. “Where are you heading?”
“Excuse me?”
“What floor?”
“Oh, right.” Jake looked at the buttons. There, next to a keycard reader, was one marked with the number zero. “Four, please.”
The pair stood in silence until the door opened, and the woman stepped out. “Have a nice day.”
“You too.” The woman smiled. “I’ll bring you a write-up first thing tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it.”
Jake waited until the doors closed, hit the zero button, swiped the keycard, and held his breath as he went down. When the door opened, a large, sterile, half-circular room greeted Jake. Branching off from the room were five different hallways. The room reminded Jake of the sunrise pictures he used to draw as a child based on the magazines his father brought him from the before times. Attached to the wall, beside each passageway, was a number, one through five. On the wall next to the elevator doors, hung lab coats. Jake threw a coat over his suit, buttoned it closed, and looked at the keycard once more.
If the first digit was the floor, he guessed that the second digit, four, indicated which hallway to proceed down. Jake slipped the key back into his pocket and headed towards hallway number four. A few steps into the hallway were a set of double doors to his right. Jake pushed his way into the room. There, in front of him, sat a large, person-sized pod, with a porthole-style window on the lid.
It was the clone room.
Jake had heard about the cloning process but never got to see it in action. And if he was honest with himself he wished he never had.
Thick tubes attached to the top and bottom of the first pod ran across the room to ten more pods. Jake walked over and peered into the window. A familiar young man lay in the pod. He was asleep, oblivious to the world around him. In the other pods were other people. They looked identical – same close-cropped hair, same lean build, same pale skin – all wearing identical grey gowns. A numbered grid system was visible on the side of each pod. The only variation was a serial number imprinted on the side of their faces.
The next room was empty except for a table and a single chair, straps lashed on the armrests and each leg. On the table next to the chair was a case filled with metal damper neck rings. A memory of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and the man with lightning bolts shooting from his eyes flashed in Jake’s mind, followed by the screams. The ghost screams of tortured souls from his past. His father was right. They all deserved to die.
Jake exited the room and continued down the hallway, skipping the next few doors until he reached the one marked number seven. He pushed the door, but it wouldn’t open. Jake tried the second door, but it wouldn’t budge. Taking a step back, Jake noticed another card reader. He slipped the key into the slot, and the door opened with a beep.
In the center of the room was an oversized cylindrical tank of bubbling water. Floating inside the tank was a shirtless man. A blinking metal ring was lashed around his neck, and a mask with tubes that ran to the top of the tank covered his nose and mouth. His brown hair had been buzzed into a crop top. Black neoprene shorts were the only article of clothing he wore. Etched into his skin, a grotesque tapestry of pain, was a repeating pattern of scars: ring, wave, fire, lightning bolt.
A chill ran down Jake’s spine. He walked over to the touchscreen monitor mounted next to the tank and swiped until he saw a file marked "Project Rebirth." Jake double-tapped the file and stopped on the name R. Stanton II. He highlighted the name, and the screen winked out, quickly replaced by a video. The man in the tank was front and center, strapped to a chair, a damper collar around his neck. The narrator of the video appeared on screen. He removed the metal ring from the man, pushed a syringe of green swirling liquid into his temple, and pressed down on the plunger. It made Jake’s head swim. The conductor of the orchestra of pain was his father, Chris.
“This is Project Rebirth. We have successfully isolated the Caladrius gene, and we are now ready for the next step. Test one – fire. Subject: Robert Stanton II. Subject has made great strides over the last few weeks and is ready for the next phase of testing. He has been injected with the neuro neutralizer. This will make the subject’s mind pliable and give us the added bonus of short-term memory loss. Let’s begin.”
Jake’s father turned to another man offscreen and nodded as a loud whir sound flooded the speakers. His eyes widened in horror as the man screamed out in anguish, like he was being electrocuted, until his eyes changed into a mixture of bright whites and blues. A moment later, Chris appeared once again, a long metal pole in hand. When it touched the man’s skin, it instantly melted into a puddle of molten metal that singed the floor as it dripped.
Jake clicked on the next video. This time, it was a human being forced to touch the man. In a moment, the person fell to ash and bone.
The next video began.
