The Experiment (15 page)

I thought about trying to say something to make him feel better but I didn’t care anymore… His game was coming to an end soon and he would answer for his crimes against these people…

After a few hours he returned to his talkative self and everything seemed like it was back to normal. I guess he was more upset with the native than he was with me... It would be another week before I’d have to tell him no again. Knowing Horus, he probably
really believed I would change my mind.

I didn’t know what would happen when I did say no… Hopefully he wouldn’t have me forced to do it or kill me… I just had to count on Kayin getting everything set up by then so it won’t even be an issue… Horus will be dead…

By the end of the day, 3 more had died from infections, 7 from various illnesses mainly caused by the conditions, and 4 from the injections… It was just another average day for Horus.

It also reminded me that his “perfected” treatment was killing natives every day… He must think I’m a complete idiot if he’d try to tell me the risks are “so minimal they aren’t even noteworthy.” He obviously doesn’t value my life at all either.

Now I was sure he’d planned on using me as his first “human” subject all along… It would explain so many things…

As usual, I wanted to walk up behind him and cave the back of his head in… I just had to get through another hour or two and he’d tell me I could leave…

I was getting so sick of standing around all day writing down all the information about every native he injected… Height, weight, eye color, hair color, blood type… Over and over again. I know I had nothing real to complain about… there were just so many reasons I couldn’t wait for this to all be over.

I’d like to say “so I could put it all behind me”, but I
know that’ll never happen… I’ll never forget Horus and all the things he’s subjected me to. I wanted to, but I don’t how I possibly could. I don’t see how anyone would be able to… No matter how strong they were…

Eventually Horus let me know the current group would be the last for the day.

“Ok Atlas… Take a total count of how many were a success today”

I looked over the papers. “Total of 23 are still alive and seemingly fine.”

Of course he didn’t care about the 14 who died. He never cared about them… Not once did he even show an interest in the number of natives he’s killed...

Every night when he dismissed me, I had to make myself say “Have a good night.” Even though I really wanted to say so many other things…

It was harder than usual. Especially after finding out that this whole time he was planning on testing his new treatment on me… That he was willing to blatantly risk my life like it was nothing. After trying so hard to make me believe he cared about me and that he wants me to be his permanent assistant…

If I learned anything about his experiments, it’s that most likely I’d be just like the first groups of natives… Sacrificial, so he can perfect the treatment… It was just like 3 said – He was obviously afraid to test it on himself. That told me enough…

Almost every aspect of him was fake and selfish… and the rest… pure evil.

I shouldn’t have expected any less from him… If anything, I should have easily seen something like this coming…

As soon as I made some distance from the lab I started to run, I needed to get to Sara… Now we had a time limit. I was almost sure he threatened me…

Within a minute I was at her door knocking.

When she opened it I was out of breath, but I did my best to casually say “Can you tell Kayin to meet me as soon as he can, I have some very important news about the mining operations.”

She smiled “Oh of course, he’ll be so happy to hear from you Atlas. Thanks!”

We had to put on a show… just in case…

I said goodbye and went back to my room to wait for Kayin…

A few minutes later I heard someone walk by… I assume it was Sara going to relay the message.

I was too anxious to concentrate on anything so I just walked around the room thinking about what I should say to Kayin. I kept thinking about 3 and how much he could change everything. If anyone could actually communicate and coordinate with the natives it’s him.

One good thing, is I could tell he despised Horus… How could he not?

I just hope once 3 finds out about my plan he’ll help us. It could really make the difference between succeeding and dying… Now I just had to convince Kayin that it would work.

If I’d had the chance I would have just put the injectors back… Now there’s also the risk that Horus will eventually discover some of them are filled with water. I’d have to just hang on to them and do a switch again if I get the chance…

It seemed like hours before there was finally a knock on the door.

“Hey, have you seen Kayin yet?”

I was a bit confused “No”

“Hmm… He must be busy. I was going to head to the observation room for a while, would you like to come?”

He must be waiting there...

“Yeah absolutely.”

As we walked, I tried to form the idea I had come up with into a rational explanation… It wasn’t exactly easy, but I was almost sure he would understand what a difference it could make…

When we got to the observation room, Sara grazed my hand and continued walking… It was still emotionally trying to be around her. I wanted to call out to her as she walked away, but I just kept my mouth shut…

When I walked through the door, Kayin was
standing there, looking down at X-451. He didn’t turn around but he must have known it was me.

“Been a long time Atlas… Heard you have good news?”

“Yeah, I finally did it”

“Great, and don’t worry about how long it took. In our situation more time is a good thing… It’s just giving me the chance to get more people on our side.”

He turned to me “So is there a reason you asked to see me specifically? Not that I don’t want to, it’s just a risk… Do you have them with you?”

“Things have changed Kayin…”

I went on to tell him about the secret Horus had revealed to me and that he was trying to force me to test his new injection… He was just as shocked as I was… And he agreed they would use it for their own purposes instead of to help everyone.

“No way, you can’t do that Atlas. You’ll die, just like the others, and he knows it.”

“I know, but I’m pretty sure he threatened me and then gave me a week to decide… But that’s not all, I think I have a plan that will really help us and save me at the same time.”

He folded his arms across his chest “Go for it. I’m all ears.”

“This native Horus turned into a super genius can help us Kayin…”

Clearly confused by my statement, he said “How?”

“Forget about slightly advancing a few of the natives… That plan depends totally on luck. They might even attack before you want them to. So many different things could go wrong… The more I think about it, the more I feel it’s not worth the risk anyway.”

I got closer to him. “Horus is all alone or with me most of the time; everyone from his science team has been reassigned… I’m about the only person who sees him besides the guys who come and go with the natives. They only show up when he requests it and they’re totally random. I rarely see the same faces.”

He brought his hand up to his chin. “What about Neros?”

“A far as I know, he only talks to Neros when he has to, and it’s not often… I’m telling you Kayin, the guy never stops working. He’s like a ghost.”

He seemed intrigued. “Ok…”

“The native Horus calls “3”, displayed an obvious hatred for Horus, and he even automatically disliked me… But he’s one of them. If he finds out about our plan he’ll help us.”

“Help us do what? By the time we free him it’ll almost be over.”

… “I think we should kill Horus tomorrow and get 3 down to the planet so he can start trying to coordinate with the rest of the natives. If you just take him to a few of the sites no one will notice… He’ll
be able to learn their language faster than you could imagine. He could explain everything to them.”

What I said obviously surprised him… And judging by his face, I could see he was afraid of my plan. Hopefully he just needed a minute for it to register.

Kayin turned around and looked up at the ceiling. He brought his hands up to the back of his head and let out a long sigh…

“Ok, yeah… I guess that could work… but do you really think we can get all that done before someone questions his absence?.. I just don’t see that happening Atlas. I might be able to set everything in motion before you give Horus your ultimatum, but that’s a whole week.”

“Kayin I’m telling you, 3 is so smart it won’t take long. We can just take him around to the sites in an airship and tell everyone he’s one that got left behind or something like that… No one will even look twice.”

I stepped closer to him and did my best to be deadly serious. There was no doubt in my mind that using 3 instead of gambling on advancing random natives was substantially better.

“I’m willing to bet my life that no one will notice Horus is missing for at least a week Kayin.”

He still looked really doubtful; I could see his eyes darting around the room as he tried to think… I was right, the plan scared him… “I don’t know about this Atlas, I need time to think.”

“Look, even if they do notice he’s missing they’ll have no idea why… How could that possibly lead to Neros figuring out our plans… If anything, it could distract them and help us even more.”

Kayin sighed and started pacing. Then he walked back over to the asirium wall and leaned up against it. It was kind of an interesting sight… From where I was standing, it almost looked like he was floating around in space…

“I like the plan, I’m just afraid of it to be completely honest with you… We’ve worked so hard and been so careful picking and choosing who we recruit. It’s really amazing that we haven’t been caught. I would hate to give it all up just to slightly raise our chances of winning when we already have a decent plan.”

I nodded and said “I understand, and you’re right… But I really think it will do more than slightly raise our chances. I think it’ll ensure we succeed…”

He interrupted me “I’m going to think about it Atlas. You’re right; upping our chances just a little bit could make all the difference in the world… It’s a sound plan, and the other one is a huge gamble that could easily backfire … Let me run it by a few of the others and see what they think… I’ll meet you here an hour before we have to report in the morning and give you my decision.”

“Thank you Kayin.”

We shook hands and he left…

I decided to stay for a while and look out at X-451. Even after all this time I couldn’t get over how beautiful it was compared to Aeris. It really did help me forget about everything and attain some type of momentary feeling of peace…

I was too wired to sleep so I spent most of the night in the observation room. As I continued to look down on X-451 I thought back to my first day on the Aurora. It was still hard for me to believe everything that’s happened is real.

I went from being excited about the adventure of saving Aeris to becoming part of something truly evil… Before all of this, I didn’t even know people were capable of such things…

After a while I sat down, leaned against the wall and just looked out at the stars…

Eventually I started to fall asleep so I made myself get up and go back to my room. Tomorrow was either going to be a crazy day or a normal one. Either way I needed some rest so I could think and be coherent... I hadn’t gotten much lately and it was obviously starting to have an effect on me.

I had no idea if Kayin was going to give my plan the ok. I’d understand if he didn’t… But like he said, even something small could make all the difference and it had a much better chance of working than the other plan.

I just knew that it would make it so all the odds
were in our favor. I hope he knew that too and that I’d finally get to kill Horus tomorrow… And it was going to be slow and painful. Just like it was for all the natives.

Chapter 10

S
omehow I managed to fall asleep last night, and today I felt energized for the first time in months. That combined with my new idea and the possibility of finally putting an end to Horus had me ready to go. I wanted this to happen today.

As I walked to the observation room I told myself not to get upset if he turns it down… I can’t let my anger towards Horus interfere with my judgment. And Kayin’s is a lot better than mine, so my judgment was telling me to listen to his…

If he wants to stick with the original plan and says we have enough people to take the ship and all of the mining sites – I trust him.

I was a few minutes early but Kayin was already waiting for me. I guess he appreciated X-451 as much as I did…

The moment I walked in he said. “So I ran your plan by a couple of guys I really trust and respect… They both agreed the advantage it could give us is worth the risk. Even Sara agreed that at this point, no one would notice Horus is missing.”

I was so relieved, but immediately began to feel nervous as the realization of killing Horus today entered my mind. I knew it was just a normal reaction… I’d never actually killed any before but I knew it had to be done and I felt confident that I was
the one to do it.

“Thank you Kayin… You won’t regret this”

He smiled “I better not… So where do we go from here?”

“Have you looked into getting a transport ship?”

“That won’t be a problem; most of the people in that division are on our side. All I have to do is ask.”

“Oh, ok great… that makes things a lot easier. I thought we were going to have to find a way to steal one…”

I thought for a moment and said “Well I know what to do, I just don’t how I’m going to do it yet… I have to find a reason to get him back to his lab… We’ve been spending almost every day preparing more natives; we only go back to his private a few times a week now.”

We both stood there for a few minutes trying to come up something.

Kayin finally said “Just tell him you need to talk to him about 3… He can’t risk anyone overhearing so you can suggest going back to the lab for privacy without making him suspicious.”