He told him everything. Whitmere’s expression never changed. His eyes still held a penetrating gaze.
“She was hallucinating, Darryl.” Whitmere stated firmly.
“I don’t know. She was genuinely terrified.”
“A mere side affect, possibly triggered by a bad dream, or a fragmented memory. It’s very common.”
Darryl looked away. He let Whitmere’s explanation sink in, thinking it through. It would be scary to believe in something that was never real, or had never happened, he thought.
“Should I be taking the same medication?” Darryl asked. “I don’t want to end up like that.”
“Even if the symptoms are the same, everyone is different, and handle, and react differently. Individuals are unique and are treated accordingly.
“Patients here are tested for various sorts of disorders. None of them are pleasant. Most of them require a lot of attention and dedication from our behalf. What you witnessed was an outburst caused by a reaction to her meds. This girl suffers from amnesia, as you do. She, unlike yourself, however, is not recovering very well. As you are able to stabilize yourself, she is falling apart. For her, the present is a very scary place. When she lost her memory, she was stripped of everything and now has nothing holding her together. Dementia and paranoia are setting in already.
“I would consider her a risk to herself, and anyone coming in contact with her. It would be best if you forgot all about it.”
Darryl frowned. “She seemed so sure of herself.”
“Whatever state of mind she has slipped into is very real to her. And that is what’s so frightening. Some patients cannot tell the difference between being awake and asleep. Without the proper treatment, they slip further out of reach. Then they become dangerous.”
Darryl was quiet for a moment. Whitmere painted her in a light that was hard for him to see. “What about the pills?”
“Darryl, you must understand how delicate your situation is right now. The mind is something unlike anything else the human body has that needs repair. There’s no simple solution. If your skin is cut and bleeds, it can be sewn shut. But if your mind is losing its lifeblood, it needs to be nurtured; it needs to be caressed, slowly and carefully. The pills help to do that. They help to soften the blow, if you will. A direct approach could be fatal. The pills are a vital part of the recovery. Trust me. You need to take them.”
Darryl sat in silence. Whitmere was right. “I hope she gets the help she needs.”
“She will.”
Whitmere turned, walking for the door again. Before he could exit, Darryl called out to him.
“Tell her I said I will never forget her. It might help her somehow.”
Darryl saw a change in Whitmere’s eyes, his whole expressionless face flushed in a second. It was quick and changed back before the doctor replied.
“Why would you say that?”
Darryl shrugged. “Last night in the hall, she asked me to. Told me to, I guess. But I don’t think I could ever forget a face like hers. I wouldn’t want to, anyway.”
Whitmere stared at him for a second, and then walked out. He turned to the male nurse in the hall standing beside the door. His words were stern and hushed. “Find Barton.”
The nurse nodded and walked away. Whitmere’s grimace deepened. He turned down the hall, deciding where to wait and what to do. It had been early in the morning when the news came to him that Adelle was missing. Nurses had searched everywhere. As her doctor, Barton was to be in question. But he too could not be found. Whitmere had grown suspicious instantly. Knowing Barton’s state of mind and what he was capable of doing, Barton became a person of interest right away.
Whitmere walked into Barton’s lab. He noticed certain items were missing. It looked as if the doctor had left in a hurry.
Fury was boiling in Whitmere as he realized what was taking place.
Whitmere stepped out into the hall. He stopped two nurses that were walking by. “We have a breech. I want everyone to know that Doctor Barton has broken protocol and is considered extremely dangerous. Search every room. I want him found immediately.”
Fear crept into the nurses’ eyes and they fled down the hall. Whitmere wheeled sharp and stalked back to his lab knowing he had been betrayed.
It was later in the day when his nurse came into his room and escorted Darryl down the hall to the exercise room. Whitmere was waiting when they arrived, depicting a sense of displeasure that could not be overlooked. His movements and gestures were coated in annoyance and impatience.
Darryl ran on the treadmill. He found almost no increase to his stamina, almost no progress whatsoever. Abnormal, was the best way he could describe how his body felt. He wondered what the doctors were doing to him.
Whitmere was puzzled as well. His eyes stayed gleaming as he checked out the hologram intensively, paying close attention to Darryl’s blood cells. By touching the image, he could manipulate the hologram to check deep into Darryl’s blood stream, to separate a single cell, and to break that down. He did a thorough check on all of Darryl’s vitals, coming to the conclusion that all of his work, his serums and injections, were not working as they should. Every other patient at this stage had been more advanced. It made no sense that Darryl was somehow immune. He took his time, rechecking his findings, making certain that his conclusions were right before deciding on stronger dosages, more frequently.
After a few minutes, Whitmere left the lab. He spoke only to the nurse, and then walked back into his glass-walled lab. The nurse motioned for Darryl to follow him. Darryl was taken back to his room. He showered, was fed, took two more pills, and then went to bed. Soon his eyelids became too heavy to remain open. The last thing he remembered was the nurse’s face in the window.
It was in the middle of the night when Darryl felt something sting his arm. Disoriented, he struggled to open his eyes in time to see what was happening.
“See you soon,” whispered from within the dark.
N I N E
Barton held the vial of blood up close to his face. He kept the room dark. Too much light would be a risk, and the darkness was too comforting to be rid of.
He capped the vial and set it in his hand-held machine. After setting it to read what he wanted, a vision flared from the device in a red image. It was the blood sample brought to life. He saw the nanomachines at work within the cells, structuring and reconfiguring—changing.
Then something else changed. His work, his creations, were being destroyed. It was rapid, almost a blur, as the cells then erupted. His cruel eyes blinked, remaining shut for a few seconds. When he opened them again, he began thinking.
He opened up his case of vials and placed the one he stole from Whitmere in a holder. He carefully poured a droplet into a separate vial then placed that into his machine to read its contents. He saw Whitmere’s creations, more advanced than what he had figured. He studied them for a great while before adding a few drops of blood from the tube titled Darryl.
He saw then that his serum wouldn’t last against what his mentor had created. The silver solution was far too dominant, far too aggressive. After only seconds in Darryl’s blood, Whitmere’s nanomachines were attacking his own, then reconfiguring the cells. They didn’t dissolve the way the rest were made to do, either. Instead, they lingered.
Why?
Barton watched them for nearly an hour. Nothing changed. So he added more blood. Once he did so, they attacked. When they were finished, they laid dormant. Barton then added some of his own solution without the blood. The results were the same.
Barton stood back from the hologram then.
They are like watchdogs, destroying foreign material, anything that would hinder the original intent, perhaps.
“It doesn’t change anything.” Barton growled.
I will find a way to destroy them. Whitmere’s little watchdogs will have a flaw, a weakness that I will apply pressure to. After all these years of working with him, I know his habits. Better than he, probably. I’ll discover wh
at I need to. Like I always have.
Barton smiled in spite of it all. He was empty. He was cold and cunning. His former self, what he was when he had arrived before had been removed. It was necessary for them, he knew. Wash away everything that he was made of in hopes that he would serve them without question. Give them what they wished without ever really knowing it.
But he had known. The same techniques applied to others were given to him. But somewhere down the line they stopped watching, stopped being so careful, thinking that he was theirs alone. He understood what was happening, how he was supposed to act, and did so accordingly. He let them see what they wanted. He let them be blind to what was happening. That’s when his treatments stopped and with them died his changing. It was their mistake and they would make certain that it proved fatal.
With a cold smile, he turned, sitting at his table of vials, and began working. He was lost in thought when the voice spoke behind him.
“Put it down and move away from the table.”
Barton flinched, almost panicking. The anger in his eyes could not be replaced, nor did he bother doing so.
“Surprised? You have a stink that can be traced anywhere.” Doctor Mellson spoke coldly. He stood at the door, flashlight held in a striking position. His old hands were shaky, his head shaved like every other male. His dark eyes were a mix of mistrust and fear as he stepped forward.
Barton stood. “Well?”
“Care to explain what