Stories Brief & Unconnected

The Problems With Genetic Experimentation - Part 1

Ok, here's another one! It's sci-fi and horror (again, you know how I am with light and happy :P ) Hope you like it!

- Lana ;)

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I didn't want to approach the wounded dog. It was curled in the corner, back to the wall, watching me warily. Blood leaked from the gouge on its side, along with another, more sinister looking fluid. I could tell that it was resisting the urge to lick at the wound, to make some futile attempt at mending itself, but it was too focused on monitoring my every move to attend to its own survival. To it, I was yet another source of danger.

I made a tentative movement in its general direction - note that I say 'movement' and not 'step'. I knew that if I dared to so much as lift my foot, if I made the slightest forward gesture, the thing that had torn the hole in the animal's side would become aware of my presence. It would sense another, stronger life source; it would target me next.

The dog's eyes followed my movement, and its snout glided forward threateningly in accordance with the gentle motion of my arm.

"Shhh...easy girl." I had no idea if the dog was male or female; the lower half of its body was slick with quickly-congealing blood and intestinal juice, and no defining features were definable amidst the mess.

I steeled myself to move closer; I took two infinitesimal steps across the slick, once-white tile, ignoring the squeaky, squelching sounds my shoes made on the linoleum. The dog whined uneasily, watching my extended arm, hackles raised and teeth bared ever so slightly. Its yellowed canines gleamed with saliva in the harsh artificial lighting of the lab.

I stepped again, and the dog's unease turned to panic. It jerked its head away from me and made a noise that was halfway between a growl and a whimper; a primal, nasal sound that evoked more soothing noises from me. I cooed meaningless nonsense, hoping that the dog would make not make more drastic movements. For now, the parasite using it as a host would be drowsy, bloated and sleeping after feeding on the dog, but any movement could awaken it.

The dog spasmed suddenly, emitting a high-pitched bark of pain from some internal injury. It twisted its head to one side, and I could see the blue plastic tag in its ear, identifying it as lab specimen 04. I remembered the day, just a few weeks ago, when Sara and I had tagged all of our animals. That was before the end began, back when the experimental malaria strains were the most dangerous thing we had to handle; before our test tubes mixed and the accidental thing was created. Before it tripled in size and escaped its confines. Before it killed Sara (and all of my other fellow researchers), and attacked our lab animals. And now it was leeching the life from one of the two remaining living organisms in the entire facility.

Sara and I had been interning at the Atlanta branch of the CDC, working with renowned scientists to search for treatments and cures for deadly diseases. Dr. Norman Shultz, my mentor, was looking into the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to halt the spread of the malaria virus. The idea was that several breeds of mosquito would have their DNA slightly altered, so that when malaria particles entered their bodies their immune systems would destroy the virus. The altered mosquitoes would breed with normal bugs, and in a few decades the entire mosquito population would be immune to malaria, and stop infecting humans with the virus.

It was a promising study, and people from National Geographic had been interviewing Dr. Shultz when things started to go wrong. So horribly, dreadfully wrong. Nobody had known how, exactly, it had begun - most of the researchers blamed overly-eager reporters - but an injection of growth serum from another study (an attempt to make flu viruses more susceptible to antibodies by enlarging them and causing them to radiate a sort of 'warning signal' of mini viruses to the antibodies) was swapped with one of our anti-malaria injections. When we unknowingly introduced the growth serum to the mosquitoes, most species died within a couple of days. However, one mosquito variation from somewhere in Eastern Venezuela adapted to the chemicals. It's genetic makeup gradually twisted, warping it into something unrecognizable.

The thing (I had no other name for it) quadrupled in size in two days. It continued growing at an increasing rate, reaching the size of a small dog by the end of that week. God only knew how big it was now; the mishap had occurred three weeks ago, and after nine days the thing began infecting hosts.

Mosquitoes, by nature, are parasitic creatures. They live off the blood of other organisms, plunging into their veins and replacing their blood with saliva. The thing developed those instincts, taking not only blood, but flesh and bone, tendons and ligaments, cartilage and bone. It gorged itself on its own companions, and then its creators. I - and the pitiful dog, so close to death that soon it would only be me - was the only one it had not yet devoured.

Ok, I had to think. I had to make a decision; what was I going to do now? Indecisiveness had always been a weakness of mine, which was part of the reason why I loved science so much. When you perform scientific experiments, there is a specific procedure that must be followed to obtain credible results. But now there was so procedure. I couldn't rely on SOP, and I needed to find a way to solve this problem all by myself.

The fact of the matter was that I needed to kill the parasitic aberration. It had already proved itself to be capable of destroying one small community of people; I didn't even want to think about what it might do if it managed to escape the facility. Because of the unnatural nature of the thing, it was simply impossible for me to know how long the thing might survive. Due to its unstable genetic composition, it was possible that the thing's DNA would just start to fall apart; maybe it was even beginning now. Then again, there was a chance that its DNA was fine, and it would gradually become stronger, break out of the lab compound, and attack the remainder of the world's populaion; both human and animal. Both were extreme possibilites, but neither could be regarded as unlikely; there was simply no way to know.

I looked around the room for something I could use as a weapon. The dog - lab specimen 04 - had been a smart animal. The room we were currently in was one of the four emergency exits in the research compound. 04 was lying in front of the door that led to the outside; just a flight of stairs and one security clearance check - now rendered pointless, as all the guards were dead - between me and escape.

There wasn't much in the way of scientific equipment in this lab. The main areas where Dr. Shultz's work had been conducted were on the first sub-basement level, a floor below me. On the singular, lonely lab table rested a few sad, dusty beakers and a rack of test tubes that looked like they hadn't been used since this facility was being used to find a polio vaccine. I considered smashing one of the glass instruments, but then I remembered that all of our equipment was plexiglass, and there was nothing that I could do to transform it into something sufficiently sharp to slit a throat.

The dog whined suddenly, jerking me back to the reality of my situation. It looked at me, looked directly in my eyes, and emitted a crooning, and then a screaming, pleading me with eyes so flooded with pain that they seemed human; specimen 04 wasn't a dog anymore. Its pain transformed it, and it transcended it wild nature, abandoned all scraps of the animal it had previously been. My heart wrenched with empathy, and I felt tears begin to stream, hot and slick, through the crease where my nose met my cheek.

I watched, helpless to aid the poor creature, as 04's shrieks intensified. The parasite seemed to be causing it unimaginable pain. A terrible thought occurred to me, and I knew in an instant that it was true. I had no evidence on which to base the knowledge; it was pure intuition, but knowing it caused the horror of the situation to roll over me again, filling me with an irrepressible revulsion, a sudden lightheadedness. I knew that the thing was eating specimen 04's heart.

TO BE CONTINUED



Okay, sorry if I permanently scarred you or whatever. I was grossing myself out writing that.... I've been reading Stephen King. Forgive me. Well, I'll finish up this story in the next update. Again, if you see any grammar/spelling mistakes, please comment them - I really appreciate edits! Hope you liked it!
- Lana ;)