“I’d guess third-world countries, executed Chinese prisoners, any number of civil-war zones,” said JC. “Trafficking in human organs is the second biggest illegal trade, right after human slavery. Sometimes I think we’re going after the wrong monsters. What were they doing with all those organs? And the stem cells?”
“Strip-mining them for something specific they needed,” said Melody, frowning. “To make ReSet.”
“Who exactly was it that supplied the extra funding?” said JC.
“No names,” Melody said immediately. “Whoever it was went to a lot of trouble to remain strictly anonymous.”
“Could it be Crowley Project?” said Happy. “I mean, this is the kind of nasty shit they’d get off on.”
“None of the usual signifiers,” said Melody. “But everything was kept carefully compartmentalised, so most of the scientists didn’t know what the guy on the next bench was working on. It was all on a strictly need-to-know basis. Perhaps so no-one would know enough to feel properly guilty. This goes far beyond proprietary information, JC. We have to contact the Boss, get them to pry open the company records.” She stopped and looked up from the monitor. “You know, I have to wonder, even if we succeed, if we’ll be allowed to walk away from this case, knowing what we know.”
“Welcome to my paranoid world,” said Happy. “Cold, isn’t it?”
“We don’t know nearly enough yet,” said JC. “And anyway, I’d like to see MSI come up with anything that could stop us.”
“Don’t say things like that!” said Happy. “You’ll be saying What could possibly go wrong next!”
“Face front, brave little soldier,” said JC. “If we can survive what’s going on here, we can survive anything.”
“Did you have to say if?” said Happy.
“What else have you got, Melody?” said JC.
“The extra funding did the trick,” said Melody, scrolling quickly through the files. “They came up with a real miracle drug. They called it ReSet. According to this, it was a completely new wonder drug that could actually repair all damage to the human body by forcing it to reset itself to factory conditions. The miracle cure that all Humanity’s been waiting for-a single drug that would fix whatever was wrong by putting everything back the way it should be. From broken bones to tumours, from viruses to organ failure. No more medicines, no more surgeries, no more transplants. Hell, ReSet could even cure the common cold! But then they tried it on actual test subjects… and it looks like ReSet did far more than was expected.”
“I really don’t like where this is going,” said Happy.
“You’re not alone,” said Melody. “Listen… what’s happened here is the result of the first actual drug trial on human test subjects. Everything else had been strictly computer models and simulations or experiments with the organs and cells they’d acquired. They didn’t do any animal testing-apparently whoever was supplying the funding was in a hurry. The order was to go straight to human testing, and no-one here had the authority to say no. And the researchers were given very strict instructions on how the drug was to be administered. The test subjects, the volunteers, had no idea what they were getting. Poor bastards were told it was an allergy test. They were all given injections of ReSet, right here in the laboratory, and then watched closely for twenty-four hours. Nothing happened.
“I’m looking at the clinical notes. Round-the-clock observation, all life signs carefully monitored, regular blood tests… Nothing. Since there were no obvious reactions, and no biological changes, the test subjects were allowed to return to their living quarters, on the floor below. So the scientists could get into a real screaming match over whose fault it was that nothing had happened. They thought the drug trial was a failure because there should have been immediate signs. After twenty-four hours of sod all, they were tearing each other’s hair out.”
“LD50,” said JC. “They expected half the test subjects to die, or nearly die, then recover, thanks to ReSet.”
“Exactly,” said Melody. “But the test subjects had barely been gone an hour when the first emergency call came through, from Room Seven. Things really went horribly wrong. Jesus, JC, some of this makes seriously scary reading. A lot of it is notes, made on the run by scientists half out of their minds, meant to be fleshed out later. Anyway, the scientists went down to Room Seven, accompanied by building security staff. That’s probably what we heard, in the corridor. And then… a lot of people were killed, in and around Room Seven. There was a struggle. First the researchers attempted to restrain the occupant of Room Seven, who was freaking out big-time, then the security people waded in. They couldn’t control him. Says here they used Tasers, and that was when the killing started. The man in Room Seven just… tore them apart, and kept on killing until the survivors turned and ran. And then… he killed himself. Maybe because he couldn’t stand what he was turning into. What he was becoming.” She paused, clearly shaken by what she was reading.
“By then, the same sort of thing was happening in all the rooms, all hell was breaking loose. The test subjects were all changing. The scientists had given up trying to control the situation, they were trying to get out alive. Two of the test subjects killed one another. Eight of the subjects went mad, apparently from simple proximity to what was happening. They didn’t, or wouldn’t, change. So the others killed them.
“It was a massacre, JC, a slaughterhouse. When they weren’t attacking each other, the test subjects turned on the security men and the scientists. Only a handful got out alive. They just weren’t equipped to deal with what ReSet had made out of the test subjects.”
“Hold it,” said JC. “Not that I’m doubting you, Melody, but… a slaughterhouse? There were no blood stains in the corridor, no signs of violence. Only what we saw in Room Seven.”
“I know!” said Melody. “But according to these reports, there was blood and guts and bodies all over the place!”
“We weren’t allowed to see what Room Seven was really like, until our mysterious hidden enemy was ready for us to see it,” said Happy. “Maybe… we only saw what we were supposed to see, down there.”
“Okay,” said JC. “That is seriously spooky. Could someone be messing with our minds so thoroughly without you being able to detect it?”
“I don’t know,” said Happy. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but I’ve never encountered anything like the conditions in this place. I keep telling you-we are way out of our depths!”
“That’s practically our job description,” said JC. “Don’t panic yet, Happy, or you’ll have nothing left when things get really bad. Anything else of note in the computer files, Melody?”
“The last few are short on detail,” said Melody. “But the people who made them were quite clearly traumatised by what they’d seen. It was chaos down there. A lot of people died, in brutal and unpleasant ways. One researcher managed to make a distress call. We know how that worked out. Eventually, the entire building was sealed off.” She half turned. “That’s where we came in. Literally.”
JC nodded. It was clear to all of them that they had been sent into Chimera House without proper briefing. “Anything else, Melody?” he said.
She turned back to the monitor. “Ah yes, this is interesting… Let me… Yes. It seems one of the surviving test subjects made his way up here and made a short vid recording. Look at this.”
They all leaned in close around Melody as she called it up and put it on the screen. At first, it just showed a series of shifting views of the laboratory. There was no-one in front of the camera, only shouts and disturbances in the background, smashing sounds and strained human voices. Something flashed past, right at the edge of the screen, leaving a thick trail of blood behind it. It was moving too quickly to be identified, and though it was big enough to be human, it didn’t move like anything human. Someone was crying, somewhere off camera, sobbing like all hope was gone. Not far away, someone else was laughing breathlessly. It wasn’t a good sound. The background shouting grew louder, thick with rage and pain and horror. And then someone screamed, a vile, triumphant sound that went on and on, far past the point that a human throat should have been able to sustain it.