Designated (Book 1): Designated Infected (30 page)

She stared into the Euromex Oxion microscope and watched
the sample of blood in the slide slowly coalesce. The microbial viral
parasite had all but consumed the cells in the sample, the viscous
remains no more than a smear of coagulated paste on the glass slide.

Anastasia sighed in resignation as
she pulled the slide free and rolled over to her in-lab incinerator,
lifting the small metal plate, the miniature wall of heat smacked
into her, making her gasp at the sudden assault on her senses, before
she dumped the slide into the roiling wall of flame.
A
deep sense of regret welled up within her as she rolled further into
the lab, the wheelchair beneath her moving seamlessly on the titanium
bearings as pushed herself towards the waiting man.

Staring up into the eyes of the convict before her, she
saw nothing but resignation and could not help but wonder what had
made a man fall to such a level where he was willing to have his very
being destroyed.

'Are you sure you wish to do this?'

Without saying a word, he slid his arm through the
six-inch wide hole in the high-strength clear Lexan sheet and closed
his fist rapidly, making his veins rise to the surface.

'Just do it.' His heavy Georgian accent turning the
words as he spoke.

'Very well.'

Anastasia felt along his forearm as she searched for a
vein, her latex gloved fingers sliding over the tattooed forearm of
the “Volunteer,” probing gently around the base of his
inner elbow and wrist. Finally finding one large enough, she briskly
inserted the needle and depressed the plunger.

The man grimaced and retracted his arm once she had
pulled the razor tipped hollow tube from his now condemned form. 'I
do not know what will happen to you, or if it will be painful. I can
only say thank you, and that what you will be going through will help
a lot of people in the future. I can only hope this brings some small
measure of comfort to whatever time you have left on this planet.'

The man looked back at her as he sat down on the single
Lexan framed bed set against the padded wall of his cell.

'Don't waste your pity on me, after what I done this is
the least I deserve. At least this way it's painful enough to make up
for it.'

Anastasia looked at him for a second longer, before she
lifted the thick disc of Lexan and slotted it into the hole, twisting
it to the left as she watched the flat plastic hooks lock together
sealing the hole completely.

****

The man sat staring at the wall, he hadn't moved since
Anastasia had injected the Infected blood into his system seven hours
ago, for the sake of a control sample she had made sure the blood was
clean of all known infectious diseases or infections, and that it was
type match for the subjects own blood. It was all to ensure that the
only reaction shown was from the virus itself.

As she watched, she could see the sweat beginning to
form on his brow as he fought to keep himself under control. His
mouth moved on the video monitor. Snatching up the remote she turned
up the volume but still nothing came through. Frowning she turned the
volume up full, but still all she was greeted with was the electric
humming of the speakers.

Angrily she threw the remote at the speaker's control
panel located on the wall behind the monitor. A wash of booming sound
roared out at her as the small credit card sized remote collided with
the speakers call button.

'Stupid Anna, so very stupid.'

Rolling over she picked up the remote and set it into
the small cradle on the arm of her chair before reaching out and
pressing the button once more.

'What is it you want?'

The man's head pivoted, mucus running from his nose in a
never ending stream as he stared at her through blood shot eyes. The
darkened patches around his eyes were slowly increasing, making him
seem almost panda like as he gazed at her through the Lexan glass of
his cubicle; if it wasn't for the myriad of Tattoos covering the
shaven dome of his head, she would, at one point have considered him
a desirable man, but now he looked worse than death himself.

'Food.'

Anastasia kept her finger pressed on the button.

'Before I have it sent through, tell me please, how do
you feel'

The man snarled, slamming his fist against the plastic
glass, before doubling over as he clutched his stomach and vomited
over the floor. Blood tinged bile and stomach acid poured from him,
coalescing in a steaming pool about his feet as he staggered back to
the single bed in the corner.

'I feel like I'm dying, does that help.'

Anastasia sighed as she flicked a switch on the panel
leaving the speakers permanently open.

'Not really, everyone we have ever encountered has been
far beyond the initial stages, I do not wish to recreate the perverse
and hedonistic ways of my predecessors, or my German counterparts of
the nineteen forties, to gain my results.

'I am a caring woman at heart, and wish no harm to fall
to any one. So please, make this easier on yourself, and me, by
telling me exactly how you feel; then I promise, I will give you food
and water, to your heart's content.'

The man's head levered up from the pillow it was resting
on, blearily he gazed at her.

'Make it a Budweiser Gold and you got a deal lady.'

Anastasia smiled slightly and nodded. The man levered
himself up off the cot and swung his legs over the edge sitting
upright as he braced his elbows against his knees. Anastasia could
see his laboured breathing, and the mucus still running freely from
his nose as he attempted to breathe normally.

'Feels like I got a case of the mega flu really, my
appetite is through the roof. I aint been this hungry since I spent
three weeks in solitary on noting but a slice of bread a day, and my
throat and mouth are so dry they hurt.'

Anastasia scribbled rapidly on a note pad even though it
was all being recorded.

'My guts has cramped something fierce, so badly I've
collapsed from the pain several times and it hurts just thinking
about breathing.' He turned his head and looked at her his gaze
pleading. 'How's that?'

Anastasia nodded. 'Thank you, look behind you to the
small shelf there.'

He gingerly turned his head to the small rebated shelf
behind him and watched as a tray was pushed through it by a small
metal armature. A grin blossomed on his face as he took in the sight
of the fresh meat and vegetables that lay steaming on the plate.

Like a man possessed he descended on the tray forcing
the food into his mouth as his jaw worked furiously to chew it as
more and more was forced in. Anastasia watched in fascinated
revulsion, as the man, designated subject A; devoured the meal. Even
as her eyes remained glued and the camera silently recorded it all
for posterity, she scribbled in shorthand on the small A5 pad resting
against her lifeless leg.

A week rolled by that slowly turned into a month without
Subject A's condition getting any worse or better, as the month
turned into two Anastasia began to notice a subtle shift in his mood
as he paced his cell.

'So can you tell me how you are feeling today?' At that
precise second if Anastasia could have recoiled and stepped back she
would have, Subject A's eyes were a blaze with unbridled anger as he
turned to face her.

'
You
wanna to know how I feel?' H
e
slammed his fists into the glass as he glared at her. '
I
'
m
fucking starving, get me my food now you bitch.
'

Anastasia breathed deeply as she continued to write
rapidly on the pad resting on her knee.

'Co-operate and I will get you your food. Please sit
down and describe how your feeling.'

The man's face seemed to ripple as sores and pustules
began to push through his skin. The angry red skin around his eyes
and mouth oozing as it split against the rising pressure beneath its
surface.

'
Gimme
my food now!
'

He slammed his balled fists against the Lexan again as
Anastasia fought against the urge within to scream back at him. 'Not
until you tell me how you are feeling today.'

He grabbed at his head as he screamed in rage and pain,
slamming it into the glass his forehead making the panel shake under
the impact.

She stared at him noting how the two symptoms still
present were the uncontrollable bodily functions and the ever present
mucus discharge flowing from his reddened, split and bleeding
nostrils.

'Do you still know what you are doing here?' She quizzed
in hope of distracting him from his own self destructive anger.

'Hell yea!'

His chest heaved as he fought to keep himself under
control. He shook as his stomach lurched, bile and blood spewing
forth from his blistered mouth as he voided his stomach's contents
onto the floor.

A dark stain covered his posterior as he leant forwards
his bowels emptying into the jeans he had requested only a day
before. Anastasia forced herself to watch as he dove forwards,
scraping his hands through the heavy mix on the floor searching for
any signs of undigested meat in the pool beneath him.

She wanted to press him for information but decided
against it, it was clear that nothing was going to deter him from his
quest for food, and he certainly wasn't in a logical frame of mind.
Sighing, she moved away from the glass as she pressed a button on the
remote, his attention shifted from the mucus puddle beneath him to
the tray of steaming meat and vegetables on the shelf as the small
motorised armature pushed it through.

His eyes widened as he stared at the pile of once living
tissue, then with a guttural roar he flew across the room and tore
into it.

Anastasia once again forced herself to watch and notate
on what she saw, even though the bile rising through her gullet was
slowly pushing past the point of no return. She watched and waited as
he paced his cell and ranted, his rage boiling over to the point of
violence as she watched him pacing like a caged tiger; time slipping
by like grains of sand through an hour glass.

Then on the fifth month of observation he snapped, a
blood curdling wail echoed through the laboratory as Subject A
descended irrevocably into insanity.

The pounding of flesh on glass flowed through the room,
rolling like a wet blanket over everything and everyone as he began
to hammer on the Lexan panel. Anastasia snapped out of her nap, her
head jerking up from the desktop where it had resided. A glistening
string of opalescent drool clung to her lip as she pushed away from
the desk.

Startled and scared at the sudden outburst she flailed
uselessly as her mind played through the sleep induced nightmare. Her
eyes snapped open as the shattering of china rang like a bell, her
coffee cup connected in a burst of decorative porcelain, with the
polished concrete floor as it tumbled off the counter top.

She pushed the shards of china under the desk as she
pulled her note pad from the desk top. Setting it down on her lap,
she dragged her fingers through the stray strands of hair clinging to
her sweat dampened brow.

Her wheelchair's tyres squeaked slightly as she pushed
herself between the rows of desks and work stations, heading deep
into the laboratory seeking out the source of the ungodly noise. The
subject paced about the cell, his head lolling from side to side as
he chewed at his finger tips and nails.

Incoherent mumblings rolled over him as he salivated
profusely, the thick silver pink strands hanging from his chin like
vines from a tree. His foul bodily excretions filled the floor
shifting around his feet like a mire, the thick sludge of vomit and
stool, rippled like wet mud as he pushed through it, his feet kicking
up clods of the foul muck sending it splattering against the sides of
the cell.

Anastasia watched as the subject slowly began to gnaw
away his finger tips the white shards of his own bone splintering and
puncturing his lips as he bit deeper and deeper into his own flesh.
Her chair rolled sedately to a stop mere inches from the Lexan
partition, staring in at the foulness before her she couldn't begin
to comprehend the devastation being wrought on the being who, but a
few months ago had been a condemned but willing participant.

The pustular sores coated most of his head and upper
torso, their oozing, yellow, syrup like core wormed its way across
his greying skin as he tore at the remnants of his t-shirt. The
tattered garment hung in rags from his rapidly diminishing frame. His
head pivoted on his neck, the corded sinew of his tendons showing
clearly against his paper thin skin.