That Nietzsche Thing

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  ...growing increasing concerned with the General’s overall attitude to the Cain Project. When the results from the last batch of test subjects arrived and were even less encouraging that the early lots, I was seriously starting to question the scientific merit of what we were attempting to achieve.

  We seemed to be inextricably escaping the orbit of nation defense and straying into the murkier water of eugenic curiosity.

  Far be it for me to question Grove’s motives, but his reaction to the daily results coming in from the laboratories was beginning to disturb me. That our retrovirus was showing no signs of replicating Cain’s unique abilities but was instead showing pronounced narcotic effects, indicated to me that the line of experimentation was reaching a dead-end.

  But the General, somehow, saw the result as encouraging.

  What exactly was the Army’s definition of success here? My concern grew with each new round of experiments.

  It was batch three hundred that finally put me over the edge.

  I stormed into the General’s office with every intention of getting some answers. He was on a call when I pushed past his secretary, steam billowing from my ears.

  “I’ll need to call you back,” Groves said to the handset as I paced before his large, oak desk. “Yes. Yes. Fifteen minutes.” He hung up the phone. “This better be important, Dark,” he said to me.

  “It is.” I slammed the folder containing the results of batch test 300 down onto his ink blotter.

  The General, with his casual, military air, did not react. “Are these the latest test results?” he asked, without touching the manila envelope.

  “Yes. I assume you’ve seen them?”

  “I have,” the General confirmed.

  “Then, do you want to explain them to me?”

  “Dark,” he said, in a condescending tone. “It is not my job to explain test results to you...”

  “That’s not what I meant!” I hollered, throwing up my arms. “You and I both signed off on an experimentation regiment, last week. We agreed that we were excluding any more modifications to the alpha twenty-three nucleotide chain. That the results we were seeing there were not encouraging. Do you remember?”

  “I do,” the General said calmly.

  “Then, what is this?” I poked the folder before Groves. “Thirty percent divination in the alpha twenty-three chain? Are you going to tell me this was an accident?”

  “No,” Grove said without emotion, reaching for the tobacco pouch that sat next to the 300 test results.

  “Well then?” I said, exasperated.

  “Dark,” the General began, filling his cheek with a slug of chew. “I think, in all the minutia, you might have forgotten our mission here.”

  “I most certainly have not,” I replied, offended. “The alpha twenty-three nucleotide chain has produced nothing but narcotic symptoms in the animal test subjects. Symptoms we’ve been unable to counteract. We’ve had to extirpate two-hundred chimpanzees to date.”

  “No, Dark,” the General shook his head. “See? This is exactly what I mean. Have you forgotten that we embarked on this scientific exercise with the express goal of weaponizing the Cain subject?”

  “Yes, of course, but...but you can’t mean...” I said in horror.

  “It’s the first fruitful line of experimentation we’ve discovered so far.”

  “But...weaponize 300? That’s unfathomable. That’s no tool of the battlefield. But a...but a...”

  “Biological weapon. The MJ-12 boys are calling it that.”

  I baulked in disgust. “You can’t be serious?”

  “1728 is under pressure to show results, Dark. Lot three-hundred is the first tangible evidence we have that we’re actually accomplished something here.”

  “But Cain possesses such remarkable abilities,” I said, shifting from disgust to despair. “To say 300 is a result...it’s nothing but a horrific side effect.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “Nevertheless? I just can’t, in good conscience—”

  “Your conscience has nothing to do with it, Dark,” the General interrupted. “This is not your decision.”

  “But what if it got loose? What if they got their hands on it?” I leaned forward across Grove’s desk, almost pleading.

  “It won’t,” he replied, handing my folder back to me.

  “It won’t? It won’t?” I wagged a finger out of the window. “Like that would always be under our control?” I was point off toward the Trinity bomb test site.

  “That’s different,” Groves muttered.

  “How is that different? You know the rumors. That the Russians already have a program underway. Even if they can’t develop the technology themselves, once they examine what we’ve achieved. They’re not fools.”

  “Our understanding of genetic science is in its infancy, Dark. You know that better than anyone. It might take years to fully understand and utilize what Cain is capable of. Batch 300 is showing results now. All of this requires funding, Dark. Funding that must be justified. That might not be of any concern to yours, but it is mine. Do you want to see 1728 shut down? Before we’ve had a chance to complete our work?”

  “No,” I had to admit. “But neither do I want to be remembered by history as one of its great monsters. We started this project, General, to protect this country. How can you, in good conscience, say that Lot 300 is anything but a plague?”

  “The decision has been made, Albert. MJ-12 has spoken.” The General let the finality of his statement hang in the air between us.

  “I don’t accept that. I can’t accept that,” I said.

  “You will have to,” the General said and climbed from his seat.