Project Human

had found a place where the alien had been working in secret. They took their time investigating.

  Barton and Adelle listened to it all. A few times they thought they had been found, as guards removed light panels looking for secrets. But that was as close as they had come. Finally after hours, the room below went silent.

  Adelle moved slightly, her body sore and cramping, her face shining with sweat in the dimness. She stared at Barton, waiting to make eye contact, waiting to speak. But when their eyes met, Barton shook his head and remained silent. To her surprise though, he motioned for her to move further down the narrow shaft. She hesitated, but he was consistent with his direction. She took a deep breath and held it, turning over onto her hands and knees, waiting to hear the vent bend and creak. Instead she heard Barton whispering for her to move slowly.

  Adelle did as she was told. The vent gave no sound. Even when she came to the small recesses where narrow grates were open for air flow, it remained silent. It gave her confidence. It offered hope.

  They crawled for several minutes, hovering over other rooms, each one having its own group of guards searching, discussing. But none were wise to their concealment. Instead they gave Barton and Adelle information. Through the guards’ conversations, they learned that Darryl was now in Whitmere’s care, and Barton would be killed on sight.

  It was when the shaft became nearly without any light that Barton stopped them. They each lay flat, stretching, exhausted. Barton spoke quietly, telling Adelle that they were somewhere between rooms with only structure beneath them. They would not be heard.

  Adelle began praying softly. “Dear God, please help us. Please God—”

  Barton overheard. “What are you doing?”

  Adelle stopped, surprised by his sudden anger. “I’m praying for help.”

  “Don’t waste your time.”

  Adelle heard Barton sigh wearily. She felt the bitterness in his voice. She continued anyway, softer.

  “If you want to make it out of here, you have to do what I say.” Barton said after a moment. “Praying is not going to help you.”

  “How can you say that?” She said it before realizing what she was saying to him. Before she heard him growl in response, she wished she had stayed silent.

  “Because I’m still here!” Barton felt his rage shake his body. “All I did for years was pray. Years! And after watching them do whatever they wanted with me, with others, I stopped praying. I stopped believing. The only person that was going to help me was me. How could any God allow this to happen to me?! How?”

  Adelle understood how painful it would be for him. For years she prayed for a solution to her marital problems. Even now it seems that nothing had worked.

  Still, trapped with the conditions she was in, she knew in her heart that now was the time to be praying the most.

  Just the thought of her marriage brought her to tears.

  “Stop crying.” Barton demanded. “Stay focused.”

  “They have him,” Adelle said. She felt alone and helpless, again.

  “They had you once,” he shot back.

  Adelle thought for a few moments. It was dark. It was hot. She was scared and tired. Home seemed like a dream that vanished leaving only traces to be remembered. It seemed so distant, so unreal. Her heart ached. She wept silently, praying in her head.

  Barton was too mechanical for self-pity. He didn’t see his present state nearly as dark as the last ten years. He rolled onto his stomach and stared where he thought Adelle’s face would be. “I need you.”

  Her weeping increased. She turned to him, not seeing his face at all in the darkness. “This is hard. Everything I know to be real isn’t.”

  “Your memories are real. Cling to them. The more you think of them, the less this can claim you.” Barton’s words were filled with defiance.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked quietly. Her crying stopped.

  Barton took a few moments to respond. “Ten years, I think.”

  Adelle felt that it easily could be that long for her. She was beginning to feel as if she was falling, with no ground to land on.

  “What happened?”

  “They took me, same as you.” Barton rolled onto his back, staring into the blackness. “I did what they asked because they promised me I’d go home. That was a lifetime ago.”

  Adelle inched closer to him. “How did you do it? I mean, for so long without going crazy? This is not humane.”

  Humane.

  Barton thought back to the work he had endured. She was right. There was nothing humane about it. How could there be?

  “There’s no humanity here. They’re not human.” Barton stiffened. “It’s something they delete. Strip away your core, your being, in preparation. Wipe away your memories, your emotions, everything that makes you human, and then start over.”

  “Is that what they did to you?” she whispered.

  “Inside, I work like they do, partially. My mind has been closed off to certain things. What and how much, I don’t know. I know they have erased my memories. I know that because I’ve helped them do it to others. I designed pills for them to do exactly that. I’ve seen it happen for so long that it doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel anything from it. Patients to me are just numbers. They are a countdown for me to leave.”

  Adelle’s voice was sympathetic. “If you look at what you do remember, it’s amazing. You lost all your memories, everything that you know of yourself, except your ability to do your work. Why do you think that is? Sounds like it was done for a reason. Sounds like God to me.”

  “Put yourself here for ten years and tell me what you believe in. I’ve seen so many innocent people die in horrible ways. If there is a God, why didn’t he help them? Why didn’t I have the ability to…”

  He paused then, considering something. “I couldn’t save them anyhow. I didn’t understand how things worked. Not until now.”

  “That’s what you were doing, back there, with me and the other patient? You’ve figured out how to change us back?”

  “After years of heartaches, of watching them deny me to leave, I began learning on my own, without them knowing. I studied how their serums work. I began working directly with Whitmere, learning everything I could. I knew I had to change myself; I knew I had to figure it out on my own.

  “I began testing on patients, secretly. I took patients that had failed experiments, ones that were dying, and began to unlock their doings. It took me a long time to figure out what it was that they changed, and even longer to discover how to correct it. And now I have. After all these years of being locked away, I hold the key.”

  Barton went quiet. Adelle thought for a second that he was crying, softly enough that she would not notice, but she wasn’t sure. As she wiped away her own tears, she waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she pressed him.

  “How can you change yourself? They’ve destroyed all your…” Adelle couldn’t finish. The reality now was that he could not change. And there was no hope for Darryl either.

  Barton shifted his position. “All this time, I’ve been overlooking the logic of the practice. Even when I noticed how they shy away from human blood, it didn’t register. But that’s where the secret lies. Human blood.”

  In the darkness, Adelle could feel his penetrating eyes fix on hers. It dawned on her then why she was made whole again; why he had saved her.

  “You need my blood,” she stated. Barton did not reply. “That’s why I’m here. Isn’t it?”

  His silence reaffirmed what she suspected. He didn’t care about her any more than they did. He only wanted to use her to save himself. After all, he wasn’t entirely human. But he once was, she thought.

  “I need your blood,” Barton said faintly.

  “If I die, what would happen to you?”

  “You die, I die. Any chance for saving Darryl dies as well. You have the only untainted human blood.”

  The darkness hid his movements. He crept closer to her. One hand held his
syringe and tube waiting to capture her blood.

  Adelle thought for a few moments. Whether it was selfish or not, his intentions could be justified. She pitied him. But more important, her blood needed to save her husband. Nothing else mattered.

  “I will help you.” Adelle spoke just as the needle stuck into her skin, causing her to flinch unexpectedly. She swallowed hard, realizing that the choice was never hers.

  “Now what?” she whispered.

  “I use what is left of my solution with your blood…and hope for the best.”

  Barton could see fairly well in the darkness. It was the alien part of him—the one good thing they gave him. He moved carefully, gently pouring his solution into the vial with her blood. It would work, he knew. His heart beat with excitement. He calmed his quick breathing. He steadied his nervous fingers.

  It’s been so long.

  Barton took a deep breath and held it. He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm. He laid the needle flat against his skin, moving slowly, waiting to feel the slight bump that would indicate a vein. He exhaled, finding one. He closed his eyes, brining the needle tip straight, preparing himself for the injection. Adelle said to keep some for Darryl, but it didn’t register. It didn’t matter.

  With the pain of the last decade pressing down on him, threatening to suffocate him further, his finger squeezed the trigger.

  Instantly he felt a change. It was warm, tingling from ears to toes. It raced through his system with lightening speed. He began to swelter. The injection gun dropped out of his hand, but he didn’t notice. All at