Time Traveling Vampire Assassin (TTVA)

Chapter 5: The Experiment

That night, on the car ride back home, I told asked my father about getting Mark—or should I say Maddox—some animal blood. He said that it might be interesting to see how it affects him, and that he'd look into getting some pig blood. I didn't tell him about the rest of our conversation, of course, and I didn't tell him Mark's real name. I felt like that was something I was supposed to keep between us.

The next evening at the lab, the lab assistants and scientists were arguing about giving Maddox the blood. Some of them thought that it would be a mistake to give him blood in case it strengthened him, making him more difficult to manage. Others thought that it would be good to see if he could survive off of animal blood, allowing them to continue studying him for longer.

For whatever reason, this led to someone suggesting that if creatures like him could live off of animal blood, then it could be a way to let others become immortal, or close to it, by replicating what had happened to him on others.

    "Let's do it. Someone go and bring the pig blood in the cell," ordered my father.

"But sir," asked one of the assistants, "won't it be dangerous to go in there right now, since he's awake and everything?"

    "Oh, right, uhhh, do we have anyone expendable? How about you?" he said as he pointed to one of the interns who had just brought everyone coffee.

    "No, we need him, this lab would fall apart without our Starbucks guy to bring us drinks," said Dr. Kingsley.

    "Yeah, true, ok, how about..."

"I'll do it," I interjected. "I'll go bring him the blood, he might not attack me."

    "And why do you think you're so special that he wouldn't attack you like he attacked everyone else?" inquired my father.

    "Well, unlike the rest of you idiots, I actually tried being nice to him; did you ever think of that? Did you ever think that maybe he would cooperate better if we didn't treat him like a lab rat—no, worse that a lab rat? Did you?"

    "How dare you speak to your father like that! Might I remind you, the only reason you have this job is because of me, and I can take it away just as quickly as you got it."

    "I'm sorry, sir, it won't happen again, I just... really want this whole experiment to go as smoothly as possible, and I got a bit emotional and, uh..."

    "We can't afford to let our emotions get in the way of science, Clariece, you know that."

"Hey, you know, she does kind of have a point," said Dr. Kingsley as he pulled Dr. Summers aside. "It would be a lot easier if he would participate in the experiments willingly, and if what she said is true, and he does like her, then we can use this to our advantage."

    "Hm, I guess you're right," he said before turning to me and saying "Clariece, you go in there and bring him the blood, I hope your little hypothesis is correct—after all, accidents can happen," he said grimly.

    I nodded, picked up the plastic container full of pig's blood, and walked hesitantly towards the door. I punched in the password, pressed my finger to the fingerprint scanner, and opened the first door. Once the first door closed and locked behind me, I went through the same process with the second door (we had very tight security measure to keep the smarter test subjects from escaping). As I slowly opened up the inner door, I called out:

"Don't attack, it's just me, and I brought you something."

He looked up quickly when I came in, and stood up from the bed where he had been sitting. For a moment I was terrified that he would attack me, his eyes showed an intense animal ferocity and hunger, and I could tell it was only his weakness and intense self-restraint keeping him back.

    "You—you actually brought some. I didn't think you would be so stupid," he said shakily, while eyeing the bucket, and added, "I guess it was too much to hope that it would be warm."

    "Oh, yeah, sorry, I guess we didn't think of that. It was hard enough to convince them to give you anything that might make you stronger."

    I placed the container on the ground, and started backing away slowly, lest he changed his mind and decided a warmer meal would be better. He walked forward, picked up the container, opened it, stuck his finger in the blood, and licked it, grimacing.

    "The only reason you're not dead right now is in case you're my way out," he muttered under his breath.

    "Well, I'll just go now. If there's anything else you need, let me know." And I closed the door behind me, breathing a sigh of relief that I didn't die. Back in the main room, some of the other interns and assistants congratulated me. I looked over to my father, but he only nodded coldly and wrote something in his notebook.

    The next day, Maddox looked a bit better after drinking the pig's blood, even though he almost threw up while trying to drink it. I suggested to my father that maybe we could heat up the blood next time, but he only said, "Let's see how this goes first."

However, he quickly went back to looking sick and weak, and by the third day after giving him the blood, he seemed just as bad off as before.

    "It doesn't seem to be working sir, should we give him more?" asked one of the other scientists.

    "Hm, I guess so. Try cow's blood this time," he ordered, adding "You, Clariece, go bring it to him again."

     "But wouldn't it be safer to just wait until he falls asleep in the morning?" I asked hesitantly, not wanting to upset him again.

     "Safety isn't the point, why did you think we made you bring it to him the first time while he was awake? We need to test your supposed influence over him. How about this time, try to ask him something about his past so we can better understand the nature of his condition, since he wasn't very cooperative in past interrogations," he replied.

     "Yes sir," I said before taking one of the assistants aside and asking them to go warm up the blood for me.

To be Continued...?