Chapter Forty

Delaney

Leary reacted in the last way I expected: he laughed.

"Idiots," he wheezed, "all of them. Those wretched anarchists think that they can overtake our forces with a mere one hundred people? How naïve."

Abby shrugged, her composure regained. "They probably thought they'd have the element of surprise."

"Well, they won't," Leary sneered, his features twisting into a self-satisfied smirk. "And we have less of a problem than I expected. I'll simply notify a few guards, and they'll be able to take care of it all, no problem." He dug a cellphone out of his pocket and keyed in a message, presumably telling his guards to watch the East and West Wings. I glanced at Abby, wondering what Leary would do if he knew that she was lying.

"I must say, I'm surprised that you revealed so much to me," Leary continued happily. "I was anticipating that I'd have to use much more force."

"So what, do we get a prize?" Abby asked in a snarky tone, wiping the smile from the doctor's face in a heartbeat.

"Watch your tongue, Abigail," he warned. "I'm not finished with the three of you yet, and I can make your punishment as unbearable as I so choose. Speaking of which, since it appears I'm on a bit of a time limit, we should proceed."

During Leary's interrogation, I had all but forgotten that we were going to be punished. Now that he brought it up, and so casually, too, I found myself drowning in sudden fear. I'd thought the gun was bad, but who knew what else the man had up his sleeve? Images of Medieval torture methods flooded through my brain: the Judas cradle, the brazen bull, the crocodile tube... Maybe we'd even be hung like heretics were, hundreds of years in the past.

So preoccupied was I by my increasingly dark thoughts that I didn't realize I'd been unchained until a rough hand gripped my shoulder and pulled me away from the wall. I stumbled forward, only to be caught by the collar of my shirt and hauled into a standing position. I looked up into the face of an unfamiliar male guard, who was scowling down at me.

"All right, let's be going," Leary said briskly, waving a hurried hand to the guards who had seemingly appeared out of thin air. There were two more besides the one next to me, each of them holding onto Trai and Abby, respectively. At Leary's command, they dragged us forward and through the one of the doors.

My hands were still cuffed behind my back, the metal biting painfully into my wrists, and the way the guard kept tugging on them didn't help at all. But as we were led down the long, dim corridor, I was much too apprehensive to complain.

Our footsteps sounded loud and intrusive as they echoed off the walls, penetrating the heavy silence around us. I flinched at every step I took, knowing that every one brought me closer and closer to my fate...whatever it was.

Eventually, Leary stopped in front of a door, which automatically slid open upon recognizing his presence. He stepped inside, then turned around to face us, smiling and saying, "Thank you, guards, that's all you'll be needed for. You are free to return to the ceremony."

The three men nodded, then pushed us all through the door after Leary. We were in a dark space, and though I couldn't see anything, I instinctively knew that it was very large. Monstrous shadows hugged the walls, looming over us with their still bulk. At first, the dim light from the hallway gave meager illumination; then the door eased shut, and we were plunged into a thick darkness.

Leary's voice drifted out of the shadows, saying, "Stay put while I find a light." None of us answered. For me, at least, it was because the black cage around us seemed to be suffocating me, pushing on my lungs so that I was unable to speak.

After a moment, there were three quick clicks, and a series of bright fluorescent lights snapped to life above our heads. I was momentarily blinded by the sudden glare, and when my vision cleared, Dr. Leary was standing about two feet in front of me, grinning in a decidedly creepy way.

"Welcome to my laboratory," he began, stepping aside and sweeping an arm around to encompass the entire space. "What do you think?"

I glanced around the space a single time, and was speechless.

"Holy hell," Abby murmured, summing up my thoughts exactly. I turned my head from side to side, taking in my surroundings in utter horror. A feeling of nausea was building in the pit of my stomach.

"What is this place?" I demanded shrilly.

Leary chuckled. "My laboratory," he said simply. "Isn't it lovely?"

"That's one way to put it," Trai muttered.

Staring at the scene before me, I couldn't help but think that it was anything but lovely. Rather, it looked like something out of a cliché old horror movie. Rows of tables lined one side of the cavernous space, littered with beakers, jars, and other instruments. That in itself wasn't too disturbing; neither was the wall above the tables, covered as it was with charts and diagrams. It wasn't until the left half of the room that things started to get disturbing.

There, scores of clear, cylindrical containers were arranged into several wide rings. Thick wires protruded from them, pumping a grayish substance inside. And within the containers...well, that was the worst part. Because within the containers, suspended in the jellylike liquid, were dozens of human bodies. The ones closest to us were the smallest: shrunken babies with closed eyes and clenched fists.

I sputtered, "Are those..."

"Fetuses? Why, yes," Leary said calmly, staring at the sickening display with something like affection. "They're only in the first stage of development, though." He strode to the wall and slammed his hand on a button, and the ring of tanks began to move. They rotated in a full circle, revealing a series of larger, bulkier tubes. Inside these ones were not babies, but full-grown men and women, floating lifelessly in the thick gray jelly. Every single one, as far as I could tell, was a Superior. Some of them had their eyes open, staring at us through glassy orbs.

"These are the finished project," Leary said. He tilted his head and examined the containers before him with a smile.

Abby's mouth was hanging open, and she stabbed a finger toward Leary's prized experiments. "Why would you do this?"

In response, the doctor simply laughed and said, "For many, many years, I have had a dream. Some may call it an idealist's sick fantasy, but I consider it to be the ingenious plan of a brilliant visionary." He smiled at us. "You see, I want to create a new nation, composed entirely of Superior human beings. And in order to achieve this dream, I am creating Superiors from scratch. They only take a few months to develop, you know. And, after this year's batch of candidates are converted, I am almost certain that I will have enough."

"Enough for what?" I asked, shuddering.

Dr. Leary turned to me, though his eyes darted wildly and couldn't seem to focus on my face. "Enough Superiors for my flawless species to finally reign supreme."

○●○●○●○

Right on cue, Abby snorted. "God, shut up," she sneered, "you sound like Dr. Frankenstein. And anyway: if you have a hundred kids becoming Superiors every year, why do you need to...grow your own?"

"Well, you see, the gene enhancement and age acceleration surgeries don't always go as planned," Leary explained with a shrug. "Occasionally, there are minor—ah—mishaps, and the candidates do not survive." At the horrified expression that I'm sure crossed all of our faces, Leary assured, "It's a very rare occurrence, of course. These are merely back-ups; a precautionary measure of sorts. I don't often use them; in fact, most of my creations have been in this state for years. The containment unit has a regular temperature of below freezing, and the gray liquid sustains their bodies, providing the nutrients they need for full development."

He spoke about his "creations" so casually, as if growing human beings in a secret, underground lab was something people did every day. Although, for him, this twisted hobby seemed to be as natural as breathing.

"This is disgusting," I said hoarsely, trying not to be distracted by the human bodies suspended only a few feet away from me. "And your idea of a perfect society is even worse. Our flaws are what make us human, Dr. Leary."

"What's so great about being human," he hissed, "when you could be something greater?" Smiling hugely, the doctor stalked over and put an arm around my shoulder. I tried to pull away, but found that his grip was iron.

"Can you not see it, Delaney? A perfect world, full of beauty and intelligence and strength. With my assemblage of Superiors, several hundred strong, the normal ones wouldn't stand a chance. All the inferior humans would be gone, destroyed, leaving a new, improved race in their place. It's a wondrous notion, is it not?"

I ducked out from under his arm and backed up a few steps. "It's not," I breathed. "You're talking about about genocide here. You're talking about murdering your own species."

It was silent for a moment as I watched Leary's expression twist and morph until it finally became a nasty grin.

"No, my dear," he murmured at last, "not my species. Yours. Your pathetic, worthless species. With luck, its inferiority will soon be gone. And you three are going to help me."

With that, Leary strode down the aisle between the tanks and the tables, beckoning for us to follow him. I carefully averted my eyes to the floor, not daring to look up and see the horrors around me. But as we neared the end of the room, I caught sight of a clear plastic box, filled to the brim with human bodies.

"What are those?" I demanded, horrified.

Leary barely glanced at them. "Oh, just a few of last year's candidates. What, do you think we give all of them Superiority? Some of them are used for my experiments. These ones, though, went slightly awry." I stared at the bodies, wide-eyed. Some were bloated, some missing limbs. I wondered, fearfully, just what kind of experiments he was doing.

"Come on, now." Leary had continued to a clear sliding door in the center of the wall. Humming to himself, he opened it, stepping aside to let us in.

The room was painfully bright. Panels of harsh lights bore down from the ceiling, reflecting off the stark white walls and mirrored tile floors. Trai, Abby, and I had to shield our eyes, but Leary seemed perfectly at home. Against the far wall were three chairs; the only furniture in the space. They looked somewhat like dentist chairs...until I noticed the metal cuffs over the arm and footrests.

"If you'll just proceed this way," Leary said, gesturing to the chairs, "we'll begin. I'll have to unlock your restraints for a moment in order to secure you properly, but I assume none of you will do anything rash, right?"

We shuffled toward the doctor hesitantly as he surveyed us from behind his wire frames, his lips moving slightly as he muttered to himself.

"Abigail, why don't you go first," he suggested brightly, grabbing Abby by the arm and pulling her toward him. He fished a small remote control from his pocket and pressed a button, and Abby's handcuffs fell to the ground.

There was a split second of silence as Abby stood still, her hands still behind her back as if she was restrained; then all of a sudden, she burst into action. Whipping around, she planted her foot in the center of Leary's stomach, sending him flailing backward. The remote flew from his hands and she dove to catch it, slamming her palm on all the buttons so that Trai's and my handcuffs unlocked as well.

"Come on!" Abby shouted, dashing toward the door. Leary began to stand, but Trai punched him in the face with enough force to make the man crumple back to the ground. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me forward, the two of us reaching Abby as she was trying to figure out the door. When it finally opened, the three of us tumbled out into the lab.

"Hurry!" Trai yelled. I suddenly remembered that Nessa and Perfecta had told us to go along with Leary's plans for us. That thought only made me run faster.

"Stop right there." Leary's voice came out of nowhere and froze us in our tracks. I glanced carefully over my shoulder, gasping as I realized that the man was only a few feet behind us. He had to have had some kind of superhuman speed to come after us so quickly.

"Turn around," he commanded coldly. I was the only one who did so, meekly.

Leary was livid. His face was smeared with blood from when Trai punched him, which only added to the ballistic murderer look he was sporting. With tight, measured steps, he approached Trai and Abby, hooked a hand under both of their chins, and literally lifted them off the ground to spin them to face him.

"I told you to turn around," he hissed, "and you will listen to me." He gave each of their necks a squeeze before releasing them. I could have sworn I saw finger-shaped bruises beginning to form on their flesh. "I also told you not to do anything rash. And what did you do? You tried to run away." Like a proper psychopath, Leary began to laugh. "Children, you have no idea what kind of things we can do to you. You are lucky we have shown you so much leniency. But it appears that you don't appreciate our kindness. As that is the case, I'm afraid the situation has been changed. And I am absolutely certain that you're not going to like it."

I struggled against the restraints of the souped-up dentist chair, biting down on my tongue as they became tighter. Leary glanced at me over his shoulder, stating, "The more you fight it, the more it will hurt." I glanced at Abby and Trai, whose cuffs were so tight that they were slicing into their skin.

Leary had wheeled in a metal table, and was sifting through the papers and instruments that littered its surface. I thought of the mutilated bodies of the candidates, products of experiments gone wrong. Were we going to be next?

"What are you going to do to us?" I asked hoarsely.

Leary explained without turning around. "My latest project has been disease resistance. As I'm sure you know, Superiors have a very advanced immune system, which makes them much less susceptible to pathogens. There are, however, certain infective agents that can affect the Superiors, including the common cold. My goal is to achieve completely immunity to every disease known to man, and to enhance the body's defense system so that it will destroy any new pathogens before they can cause any harm." He spun to face us, tilting his head. "Unfortunately, my last few attempts have had disastrous results. I injected my patients with the immunity serum, but when I inserted pathogens into their bloodstream, their bodies couldn't handle it, and they, well, died."

"So what, you're going to try the same thing on us?" Abby demanded, leaning forward.

"Yes," Leary confirmed, "with a new, improved formula. It should work. But if it doesn't"—he looked me straight in the eye—"that would just be a shame."

A/N: When Dr. Leary said "Welcome to my laboratory" I immediately thought of Dexter's Lab, and how he would say it. Hence the video sur le side xD. Sadly, it doesn't have Dexter actually saying laboratory... but I love it anyway.