The sudden sound of the door opening made Jack and me jerk apart and hurriedly scoot to opposite sides of the couch. Elizabeth sauntered in, a broad grin on her face. If she was confused to see me there or had any idea as to what had just happened, she gave no indication.
“Good news!” she announced joyfully. “The ETA for Project Lemon has been pushed up quite a bit.”
“That's great,” I responded, feigning excitement. “So, when will we start?”
“We can begin running tests on Monday,” Elizabeth replied, her face flushed with happiness.
Monday. Four days away. Four days until I would essentially be a guinea pig for a government test. I could not help but feel anxious and worried that the worst would happen. I could have never, in my wildest dreams, imagined what would happen that day.
_______________________________________________
Angela's Journal
How much longer can I do this? I don't feel like “me” anymore. More and more, I feel like I'm just an observer, trapped inside my body, as I go about my day. I'm starting to lose hope. What's the point? What I do just won't matter either way.
Every day, I wake up and have to force myself to continue on. I don't know what kind of miracle I'm expected to create. At this point, it would take more than a miracle for everything to work out. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this.
There's only so much I'm capable of.
I just want to live my life.
I just need a real sense of purpose. Right now, I just feel like I'm trying to solve a puzzle that's missing pieces. All I need are the right pieces, the right clues... and everything will fall into place. Maybe.
______________________________________________________
Ms. Gibson's Journal
I can't do it. I'm terrified. I don't want to go in. I just know something bad is going to happen. If not to me, then to someone else. I keep getting a feeling in the pit of my stomach, almost like a punch, but from the inside.
I know I should be excited about this. My participation in this kind of stuff will help to reduce my sentence, reduce the punishment owed. But I just get a bad feeling about this.
I re-read some of the material Elizabeth gave me to look over. It felt like the answer I was looking for in it was just out of my grasp, like I almost understood it for a few seconds... and then it was gone. I feel like if I can figure out what that writing was all about, everything will make so much more sense...
______________________________________________________
Angela's Journal
Last night, I had another dream. I was standing in the wasteland again. This time, there was a man with strange eyes... part blue, part green. He was very pale and had scars on his face and body. He stared silently at me for several seconds, as though verifying who I was, then stepped closer.
“Who are you? What's going on?” I asked.
“Just a random weirdo,” he replied.
“Seriously. Who are you?”
“Seriously, just a random weirdo. A concerned citizen, if you will. I know you were told to do something by a friend of mine.”
“I've been trying, but--”
“--But you haven't had any luck, have you?”
I was surprised that he knew this. “Y-yeah...”
The man smirked a bit and chuckled to himself. “I think it's because you've been barking up the wrong tree.”
“Huh?”
“Wrong guy.”
“Wrong guy?”
“Definitely the wrong guy.”
“I don't believe you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Believe me or don't, that's up to you. But if you mess this up... well, things aren't going to go well either way, but it'll go exceptionally poorly.”
“Liar. You're just some random figment of my imagination. Another weird dream.”
The man slapped his forehead and again rolled his eyes. “Holy Sol, it's a miracle I was ever born,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
He took a deep breath. “Look,” he finally said. “I hate to resort to this...”
“To what?” I asked.
He suddenly reached forward and grabbed my hands tightly. A rapid stream of images overlaid over each other ran through my mind, almost too fast for me to process. Almost. What little I did catch...
I ripped my hands away, and the images disappeared.
“You. You're... you're... you're...” I stammered, eyes wide.
“Yes. And you understand now why you have to do this. And why you must kill me.”
___________________________________________________________
Ms. Gibson's Journal
The dreaded day finally came. I was almost petrified with fear. I considered calling out sick, then reconsidered; it would look suspicious. When I arrived at the lab, Elizabeth was cheerfully whistling as she set up the machine.
“Hello there,” she greeted me, grinning broadly.
“Hi,” I mumbled back.
“This is going to be incredible,” Elizabeth said excitedly, going back to connecting wires. “If this is successful, we could change so many things. The military, for instance...”
I let her ramble on, blocking out most of what she was saying. I stared anxiously at the machine, the dreaded machine. It looked, to my terrified eyes, like some wicked torture device.
“Gabby? Gabby? Hello?”
I realized that Elizabeth had been trying to get my attention for the past few minutes.
“Yes? I'm sorry, I was a bit out of it.”
“I'll say. You must get more sleep; you're no good sleep-deprived. Affects the test results and whatnot.”
“Yeah...”
“Tell you what,” Elizabeth said cheerily. “Since you're not feeling so well, I'll take the first go on the machine, eh? I think you can be trusted to operate it correctly; you're bright enough not to make any serious errors.”
Grateful, but hiding it as well as I could, I replied, “Sure, that will work.”
“Great!” Elizabeth chirped, clapping her hands together. She cleared her throat and pressed the button to the nearby recording device. Speaking in the upper-class diction that she always used for dictating research notes and so forth, she began.
“Elizabeth DeSidiro, identification code Delta-Zero-R-Q-Eight-Four-Omega-Zenith, researcher, lab code thirty-two, research study seven-zero-nine-C, extension of study three-four-eight-X. The date is...”
I let my mind wander a bit, sitting at the control panel, looking over the keys and buttons.
“...time is zero-nine-fifteen. Assisting is Gabrielle Gibson, identification code Alpha-Seven-M-Z-Nine-Zero-Eta-Destiny, researcher, lab code thirty-two...”
More rambling.
“...noted that the original study, designated study three-four-eight-X, found significant findings in the subject used, designated as D. The intention of this study is to replicate and improve upon said findings by stimulating the sympathetic and parasympathetic system, as well as...”
Still more rambling that I only half-listened to, not fully understanding. After several more minutes, Elizabeth finally said, “Test one, beginning now.” To me, she added, “We will begin on my word.”
I watched as Elizabeth carefully seated herself into the machine, and I helped her strap herself into place.
“Are you sure about this?” I whispered.
Elizabeth nodded, then whispered, too low for the recording device to pick up, “Volunteering for this study reduces my sentence significantly.” Then, more loudly, for the device to pick up, she said, “Subject one, who shall be designated as E, more commonly addressed as Elizabeth DeSidiro, has been placed into the machine.” She nodded to me, and I stepped over to the control console. “On the count of three, the machine will be turned on. It has been preset to strength-level two. The programming was done twenty-four hours prior.”
She and I both took deep breaths and looked at each other. I should note now that she looked almost as anxious as I felt, but her voice remained steady.
“Are you ready, Gabrielle?”
“Yes.”
She took another deep breath, then began counting aloud. My instructions were simple. All I had to do was press the button to turn the machine on.
“One...”
My hand hovered over the button, ready to press it.
“Two...”
My fingers grazed it, preparing to push down.
“Three.”
I pressed the button down. For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Then, Elizabeth's body gave a horrible twitch. She began shaking and screaming, either in horror or terrible pain. I anxiously looked from her to the console, not certain of what to do. I had only done what she had told me. And then I saw it.
Someone-- perhaps the cleaning crew-- had turned the lever adjusting the strength of the machine to five. Five. Not two, like she'd intended.
I pressed at the button to turn the machine off, looking up fearfully every few seconds to see whether or not I had been successful. By the time I finally turned the machine off, and other researchers had been alerted to the area, due to Elizabeth's screams, Elizabeth appeared to be unconscious.
But the screaming continued.
It wasn't until someone injected me with a sedative before I realized that I had started screaming after she had stopped moving.Click Next: Chapter 53, Part 6 to continue...
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