The butt of a rifle connected with Michael’s face. Lights out!

Ow.

Fuck.

Ow.

I felt like I had the worst hangover ever. My head throbbed, my body hurt, and my throat was dry. I tried to open my eyes and found I could only open one. Well, mostly. My left eye would open slightly, so I knew it wasn’t gone. It was just swollen shut.

I tried to move my head and I couldn’t. My arms, hands, legs, feet, pelvis, and neck were all stuck in place. I didn’t think it was rope, it felt more like metal. This caused me to realize I was naked as well, as I felt the metal around my pelvis. I didn’t yet know why I was contained, but I had to imagine they didn’t have to strip me.

Maybe they were watching me, because soon after waking up I heard a door open and footsteps approach. They were heels, and they clacked obnoxiously loud as they walked.

“Michael Chase. No middle name. From a no-name city, only recently moved to Lovus within the last two months. Worked for Vocx for half that time, but made little-to-know impression. Poor physical shape. Family gone. No friends. Homeless. You are ideal, you know that?”

I identified the voice as a female, which meant the heels belonged to a woman, not a drag queen. Maybe that’s rude of me, but I did feel a bit of reassurance at that. I don’t know why.

I, stupidly, attempted to move my head again to look at the mystery woman. It didn’t work, obviously. What’s worse is she was on my left, and that eye couldn’t even use the periphery. I opened my mouth to respond, but was unable. My mouth was too dry, and only a cough sputtered out.

“Open.” she commanded. I saw a Vocx bottle of water above me held by a manicured hand. I obeyed. Water poured down my throat, and I only drank about half of it. The rest was coughed or spilled around me. The water settled on some of my skin, and it made me realize the room was cold.

Hydrated, I could speak. “I feel like the ‘poor physical shape’ wasn’t necessary.”

She didn’t laugh. “I wouldn’t make jokes at a time like this, Mr. Chase. I understand you may be confused, so let me explain: you saw something you shouldn’t have. You know what we do here, so you understand our progress is world-changing in every sense. Did you hear we’re getting the cure to cancer out soon? How long has the world been plagued by that disease? How many lives have been ruined? How many have died? We are making cancer into something comparable to a migraine. You just take an Advil. A pill at any store, and you’re cured. Isn’t that incredible?”

“Yeah, it’s-“

“That was rhetorical, you oaf. Why would that be an actual question? Christ. No wonder you’re here. Only someone dense would ignore a flashing light and sound from their employee pass.”

“Hey, that’s not my fault! You guys don’t give interns employee passes.”

Even without seeing her, I could tell she paused at this. “You don’t?”

“No, and it sucks ass too. You can’t do the elevators without them.”

“Well, that’s an oversight from upper management. Now I’m going to thank you for bringing this to my attention. Hm.”

That noise at the end was followed by her exiting the room, heel-clacks fading and the door closing. She was gone for a while. I couldn’t tell you how long, but it felt like forever. I am impatient though, so it could have been, like, five minutes.

Eventually I heard the door open, and the sound of heels returned.

“Okay, Mr. Chase. I’m going to be honest with you. You have put me in a bad spot. You are meant to die here. You saw something you shouldn't have. Vocx can do what it does because it doesn’t have press breathing down our necks. We are known for being effective and ethical. However, we are not ethical. You have to make sacrifices in order to do what we do. Would you rather have the cure to cancer now, but have a few dozen cancer-ridden people stripped apart, molecule-by-molecule in order for that to happen; or would you rather waste precious time, twiddling our thumbs for years and years and years until we get lucky. Personally? I’m choosing the first one.”

There was a lull. I took this as room for me to speak. “I’m all for ethical debates usually, but I want to circle back to that first part. Something about me dying?”

She sighed. I could almost hear that she was pushing her fingers to her temples, as though my existence gave her a headache. Maybe she needed an Advil.

“Yes, protocol is to kill you. You saw the result of an unethical practice. We attempted to remove the DNA from test rats, and were somewhat successful. Unfortunately, it seems the rats lacking DNA somehow replaced the missing DNA by sharing with surrounding rats. One thing leads to another, and in less than a second they all fused into one… creature. You saw. The scientists responsible have been dealt with. Shoddy work, nothing more to say on the matter. You, however, are a problem. You saw our mistake. Now, I know what you’ll do here. ‘Oh, I won’t say anything! I swear!’” She did a dumb impression of me for that last part. It sounded nothing like me.

She continued, “However, I’m sure you know that that’s not good enough. The smart thing here is to kill you and burn the body. You have no one who would come looking for you. You are the ideal candidate for our removal protocol. Sadly, I have a conscience. I don’t like punishing people for something they couldn’t help. So, we are here.”

“Where is ‘here’, exactly?”

“‘Here’ is a choice. I can kill you painlessly. I prefer this option. Realistically, you have nothing to live for, yes? No family, no friends, no lover, no prospects; you don’t even have a house. Or…” she sighed, “we can take a different route. I don’t like this one, but it benefits us both. We have a **** we need to test, and it requires someone to take it for a while before any effects are to be observable… we think. As I said, it needs testing. That being said, this is the choice; painless ****, or we can give you a mystery **** and have a bomb injected in your spine. We will observe you, and if you make any attempt to speak about what you saw, you will be killed very, very painfully. The bomb will be placed perfectly where you will die slowly and feel immense amounts of pain while it happens. So, what will it be? And, please, hurry; I am late for a dinner party.”

Maybe you’ll look down on me for this, but I heavily considered the first option. I did not like the idea of being a guinea pig for an untested ****, and hated the idea of a bomb built for cruelty being imbedded into my spine even more-so. I opened my mouth to say “Option one, doc!”

“Option two, please.” Shit. I guess the human spirit **** me to choose life.

She huffed, annoyed at my choice. “Of course you choose that.”

I heard a few clicks of her heels approaching me before a sharp prick in my neck made me quickly pass out.

-

Hey! I mentioned in chapter(?) one that I’m new to this, so I’m not sure how often I’m meant to speak to you guys directly. I’m also not sure how successful I’m meant to be, but I already have over a dozen likes and bookmarks and such! I had, like, 700 views when I started writing this chapter as well. So cool! The comments are great to read as well, and have me checking the site frequently to see if I’ve gotten any more (there hasn’t been many, but they make me happy!). I just wanted to say thanks for reading and giving me kind words! I hope you enjoy so far, and will enjoy what’s to come!