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This is our future.

Though their bodies were naked, their minds empty, the fearful, half-mad faces that followed Marie from behind the bars were humanity’s hope.

Marie hurried her step. Despite almost twenty years on the project, the depraved gazes never ceased to bother her.

A familiar voice entered her head, unbidden. It will be over soon, Marie.

Marie shuddered, her eyes drawn to the blue-eyed experiment in the corner cell. His drip bag had run out again and he was awake. Fear clotted her blood as she watched him. She knew, more than anyone, that Twelve-A could kill them all, should it ever cross his mind.

The experiment said nothing more, merely watched her.

Marie hurried through the heavy doors and entered the lab. “Twelve-A needs another dose. He’s awake again.” Marie hoped her fear didn’t show.

“Colonel Codgson wants him awake,” the tech, a young blonde Army lieutenant, said. The woman gave the holding area a nervous glance. “Codgson’s got techs monitoring him, making sure his patterns stay level–he’s scheduled another demonstration for this afternoon.”

Despite herself, Marie cursed. Codgson was a fool. Ever since he had discovered their prodigy’s unique talents, Codgson had made every attempt to show him off to the board. Twelve-A had been pitted against everything the other labs could throw at him–and had lived.

“Do you think Twelve-A will survive this one?” Lieutenant Carter asked, peering at the experiment through a camera installed in his cell, face etched with worry.

Marie knew the lieutenant was partial to the handsome, blue-eyed young man in the last cage on the right. She didn’t think of him as a killer.

“He’s survived all the others.” Still, Marie felt dread creeping into her soul. Twelve-A hated the Dark Room. What if this time, he decided not to cooperate? Just the tiniest slip by the technicians monitoring him and he could wreak destruction on the whole lab. It wasn’t worth the risk.

“I know,” Lieutenant Carter said, eyes fixed on the glass windows of the experiment wing. “That’s what bothers me. He doesn’t like it… it hurts him. What if he doesn’t–”

A male voice behind her interrupted them. “We have his DNA. We can always make another, if he fails to cooperate.”

Marie stiffened and turned. The Colonel stood in the hall, his perfectly crisp blue uniform accenting a bored demeanor, as if they were talking about cloning rats.

You don’t have a clue, you stupid fool, Marie thought, watching him.

The Colonel caught her gaze and smiled, a wormlike twisting that chilled her core. “The first rule of this project is not to become attached to the subjects, Doctor.”

Marie’s anger spiked, as it always did around the Colonel. “You shouldn’t leave him awake and unguarded like that. Twelve-A could kill us all right now if he wanted to. He could empty our minds, make us all stop breathing just like he does in your Dark Room.”

The Colonel snorted. “I doubt that. My techs–”

“–would die too,” Marie interrupted coldly. “You’re playing with fire, Colonel.”

The Colonel laughed and rapped sharply on the thick metal door leading to the containment area. The sound diffused with the sheer density of the metal. The Colonel gave her a smug look. “He doesn’t even know we’re here.”

Marie glared, but said nothing.

“If he did,” the Colonel said. “He would have killed us a long time ago.”

“You don’t know that,” Marie said. “Maybe he doesn’t like to kill.”

The Colonel’s gaze sharpened, as if he was a hound breeder and she had suggested his dogs didn’t like to hunt. He turned to Lieutenant Carter abruptly. “Collect the experiment and take him to the Dark Room. Our visitors are waiting in the observation booth.”

As the tech went to get the necessary equipment, Marie asked, “What’s he going to fight this time?”

“An experiment from another lab.”

Marie’s lips tightened. “Twelve-A represents thirty-five years of work. If you want a friendly competition for the generals’ viewing pleasure, go get one of the Eleven-series to be your gladiator. He shouldn’t be risked.”

The Colonel gave her a humorless smile. “There is nothing friendly about it. The lab that fails today loses its funding. If we lose our funding, every experiment will be killed and our data destroyed. We need to win. That’s why I chose him.”

Marie watched him and saw the sincerity there. Softly, she whispered, “They would kill them all?”

The Colonel inclined his head. “Now you see why it must be Twelve-A.”

“Why?” she whispered.

The Colonel gave her a long look before he said, “Congress discovered our intent. The board hopes we can stall them for a few years, and the fewer active labs we have, the better our chances will be.”

“Can’t we combine the labs? Throw them all into one building?”

The Colonel shook his head. “The genetic lines wouldn’t fight each other if they were kept in the same building.”

Still hopeful, Marie charged ahead. “Then maybe we could use some other means to determine the success of the experiments. Something that does not endanger their lives. There is evidence that latent brain activity is a clear indicator of–”

“We’re constructing a war,” the Colonel interrupted. “The alien Congress will bathe in its own blood before it realizes it can no longer hold us. Twelve-A and his kind represent Earth’s hope for independence, and it will take many of their deaths to see it happen.”

Doggedly, Marie said, “You’ve used Twelve-A three times in the last month. Why not Ten-F?”

“You want to place all of their lives on her?”

Marie licked her lips. Ten-F, though potent, was insane. She had fingernail scars down her face from where she’d tried to take out her own eyes after her final visit to the Dark Room.

“Colonel, you don’t see them after their experiences in the Dark Room. It’s obviously very traumatic for the mentals, and you’ve already used Twelve-A many more times than regulations allow. I want you to retire him. He’s too valuable to the project for any more games.”

The Colonel’s eyes narrowed. “This is not a game.” Marie started to retort, but he cut her off. “Go find out what’s taking Lieutenant Carter so long. I told them noon sharp.” The Colonel’s mouth twisted in irritation when he glanced at his big wristwatch. “We’re two minutes behind already.” He strode off in the direction of the Dark Room, hard black heels reverberating on the white tile as he departed.

Marie went looking for Carter.

Ten minutes later, she found the lieutenant slumped on the floor of the containment corridor outside Twelve-A’s cage, the behavioral adaptor still clasped in her hand.

“You killed her?!” Marie cried, jogging up to kneel beside her.

Dr. Carter had a pulse. Relieved, Marie turned on the experiment.

Cold blue eyes met her stare, unwavering. Twelve-A was only two feet away, squatting naked in front of the bars, watching her. He was angry.
M
I’m not fighting.

Marie stumbled away from him. She began to reach for the behavioral adaptor, and then froze when she saw him following her motions with his eyes. Twelve-A knew what she was thinking. He’d never let her use it.

Tentatively, Marie retracted her hand. “You need to fight. If our lab fails this match, they’ll all die.” Eyes still fixed on him she motioned to the other experiments.

Twelve-A’s eyes flickered toward the others, and then back at her. They’re miserable. You treat them like animals. They’re better off dead.

In that moment, she realized that Twelve-A could not only kill Marie and her comrades, but he could also kill his own kind.

“No!” After twenty years of living her work, the experiments were Marie’s children. At the thought of losing them, she almost forgot the history of the man in front of her. She reached through the bars to touch his knee. “Things will get better, Twelve-A.”

He recoiled, drawing deeper into his cell before she could reach him. You can’t lie to me.

“I’m not.” Marie held his eyes. “Just once more. I’ll make sure you won’t have to do it again.”

Twelve-A glanced to the side, away from her, pain etched in his young face. For long moments, he said nothing. Then, ,i>Take me to the Dark Room.

Marie glanced down at the unconscious lieutenant, then at the experiment. She left the behavioral adapter on the floor.

#

“Watch closely,” Colonel Codgson said, addressing the visitors. “See how he paces? Our experiments show an innate aggression… a drive to fight. He’s anticipating the kill.”

Marie watched with her back to the Colonel, recognizing Twelve-A’s pacing for what it was–anger.

“Is the experiment contained?” one of the visitors demanded. A nasal, gray-haired woman pointed at the large behavioral modifier in the corner, indicating the two technicians monitoring it. “Are they all that stand between us and that monster?”

In the Dark Room, Twelve-A stopped and gave the observation booth a small frown before continuing to pace. The others did not notice, but Marie’s heart clenched.

He knows we’re here, she thought, horrified. And he’s listening.

“We’re in no danger,” Colonel Codgson replied. “The walls are a foot and a half of lead-ceramic composite. Even the windows are leaded. His abilities cannot penetrate.”

“Has this been proven?”

“Beyond a doubt,” Colonel Codgson replied.

On the other side of the glass, the Dark Room doors opened and a second experiment, a naked redheaded woman, was thrust inside.

The fight ended as swiftly and without drama as they always did with Twelve-A. He simply walked up to the other experiment, gently took her chin into his hands, nodded, and his opponent collapsed.

“Amazing,” the nasal woman said, though she did not sound very amazed. “That’s it? Why didn’t they fight?”

“No one can fight Twelve-A,” Colonel Codgson said, pride seeping through his voice. “He is our finest creation.”

Again, Marie thought she saw Twelve-A glance in their direction, but an embarrassed-looking Lieutenant Carter was already leading the experiment from the room, her fist wrapped tightly around her portable behavioral adaptor. The moment Twelve-A looked at her she twisted the dial and made him scream.

As Marie watched the other technicians rush in to help Carter carry the experiment from the room, she felt indefinable sadness. The Lieutenant’s good will had officially ended.

She and I were his only two friends in this place.

Afterwards, Colonel Codgson hosted a celebration to commemorate their continued research, but Marie could not stay. She left the restaurant and drove back to the lab, thinking about the look of anguish she’d seen on Twelve-A’s face as Carter and the others had prodded him back to his cell and re-attached the driplines.

Even though she got chills thinking of it, Marie wanted to see him. Console him.

When she got there, the lab was cold and dark. Marie flicked on the lights and moved to the holding area, swiping her card and pushed one of the thick leaden doors open. Inside, a sixth of the lights remained permanently on, more for the technicians’ comfort than the experiments’–no one wanted to be alone in the dark with the monsters they had created.

Somewhere, near the back of the room, Marie heard crying.

Though she carried no restraining devices, had followed none of the pre-entry monitoring protocol, Marie stepped inside the corridor.

“Hello?” she whispered.

Though she knew her words had not been loud enough to carry beyond her own ears, the sobbing cut off instantly.

Cold prickles crawled across Marie’s arms and back. It was Twelve-A. He hadn’t been drugged. She had seen him get drugged.

Had Lieutenant Carter forgotten to refill the bag? Or had Twelve-A made her forget?

The idea was terrifying. Marie knew right then she should scurry back behind the protective leaden walls and wait for assistance.

And yet, she found herself rooted to the place, unable to leave. Guilt welled in her gut like a moldy sack, weighing on her soul.

They don’t deserve this, she thought, eying the other experiments in their beds. All slept, either naturally or by drugs, splayed out in naked disregard like animals.

The crying had not begun again, and Marie got the eerie impression that Twelve-A waited for her in the darkness. Realizing how blithely she’d stepped into his trap, Marie’s pulse began to race. Fear paralyzed her. Like a farmer standing feet from a tiger hidden in the undergrowth, she had entered his realm, and her continued existence was solely his decision. Running was no longer an option, as much as her panicked thoughts screamed at her to do so.

She made herself move deeper into the corridor of cages.

Twelve-A was tucked into a fetal position on his bed, knees to his chest, back against the corner where two walls joined. As soon as he saw her, he stopped rocking.

I know their fear before I kill them.

Self-loathing emanated off of Twelve-A in a thick mental wave that made her stumble against his cell. Panting, Marie struggled to keep from bursting into tears at the emotional barrage. Knowing that this was how he felt, that this was him, Marie had to act. Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened the gate to his cell and went to sit down on the thin mattress beside him.

“It’s okay,” she said, touching his knee. “You’ll never have to do that again.”

The touch made Twelve-A jerk, and for the first time, she realized that he had never been allowed to touch another human being before, other than those he meant to kill. Before Marie could correct her mistake, he unfolded and threw himself into her arms like a frightened child.

There, the lab’s most dangerous creation cried into her shoulder.

Marie froze, terrified of his presence, terrified of what she’d done. She felt Twelve-A’s body tremble against her, wracked by an emotional torment whose very residues still left her weak and nauseous. Despite her fears, she felt tears coming to her own eyes and softly began stroking Twelve-A’s shaven head.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

He shook his head against her chest and sobbed. Pent-up breaths exploded from him in tortured spasms. His grip on her back began to hurt. Marie said nothing more and wrapped her arms around him.

Biologically, Twelve-A was a healthy eighteen-year-old boy. Mentally, however, he was as vulnerable as a small child. They had kept outside stimulation to the barest necessary for survival, sedating him with drugs for most of his life, never speaking within hearing range, never giving him a chance to think.

The reason was simple; undrugged and unhindered–like he was now–he could execute his keepers with a thought. Unrestrained, his cell open, he could cast Marie aside and simply leave the lab. He could walk through the open containment area doors, all the way to the reception area, where it would be a small thing to get past the guard and escape, never to be seen again. Like with Carter and the drip-bag, he could probably even make them all forget he had even existed.

Marie considered all these things as she sat there, holding him, but found she did not care. He needed her, and that was all that mattered.

Thank you, came his mental whisper in her mind. Twelve-A’s body had calmed somewhat, leaving only an underlying shuddering, like someone who’d spent too much time in the cold.

“I’m going to help you,” Marie said, before she realized it was true. “I’m going to help you escape this place.”

Twelve-A looked her in the eyes and said, I could escape any time I want.

“Then why don’t you?” Marie whispered back.

The others, he replied. If I took them with me, they’d all be caught and brought back here.

She watched him closely. “But you wouldn’t.”

He shook his head once, and it gave Marie chills. She wondered just how powerful their experiment was, just how much he’d been hiding from them.

Tentatively, she said, “You know what’s outside the complex, don’t you? Can you actually feel beyond the walls?”

Twelve-A looked away. His silence was answer enough. All of their precautions, all of their procedures, all their efforts to keep him ignorant of his humanity… all had been for naught. Twelve-A had been in contact with the real world since the moment he’d been born.

“I’ll get you out of here,” Marie said. “I promise.”

#

That night, she drafted an anonymous letter to the funding committee, to three separate civil rights groups, to eight government officials, to six leading scientists, and to three different news agencies. She knew it would end her career. She knew she and her colleagues would spend the rest of their lives in prison. But, after everything she’d done, it seemed a fitting demise.

To Marie’s surprise, her letter was not published the next day. Nor the next. Not even a whisper of it came in the weeks that followed. Her only indication that something had happened was the Colonel’s increasingly terse attitude, his shortening temper.

“Get Twelve-A,” he snapped upon entering on the final morning. “He has another demonstration to make.”

“No!” Marie cried, stepping between the iron-faced Lieutenant Carter and the holding area. “You promised, Colonel.”

Codgson’s eyes were chipped obsidian as he said, “Someone betrayed us to Congress. Confirmed their suspicions. Their ships are coming. The committee is here to decide which specimens to use in the fight against the Dhasha commander. They want to see Twelve-A in the Dark Room, to see just how much they can do with him.”

“Let me do it,” Marie said, desperate, now. “Let me retrieve him.”

The Colonel glanced back to frown at her. “Why?”

“He is like a son to me.”

“He is an animal, Doctor.”

It took all of Marie’s willpower to say, “It’s not a crime to be fond of one’s dog, Colonel.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Make sure he’s in the Dark Room in six minutes.”

Marie was shaking as she walked down the corridor. Congress was coming, and Earth would feel its wrath for ages to come. She, and every other scientist who worked on the experiments would be killed. The experiments themselves would be murdered, the labs destroyed. Their only hope of avoiding the coming apocalypse was if the experiments could do what they were created to do.

Defend them.

Marie felt helpless as she approached Twelve-A’s cell. She’d tried to help, but she’d brought the aliens to their doorstep, instead.

It wasn’t you, Twelve-A told her. I never let you send that letter.

Marie clearly remembered sending it. She remembered checking twice, just to make sure.

Then Marie gasped at what he was trying to tell her. She had been in her own home, twenty miles from the lab. His influence couldn’t possibly reach that far. But if it had… Fearful, she began backing away. Twelve-A watched her through the bars.

He was huddled in one corner, his lanky knees tucked under his chin. Once more, she felt like she was caught in the tiger’s stare, but this time the tiger was debating.

After a moment, Twelve-A looked away.

Marie sank down to her knees in front of him, relief washing over her. Softly, she said, “I can help you get out of here. I can help you start new lives on the surface.”

Twelve-A’s blue eyes flickered toward her. We can’t go now. The aliens will kill us.

Marie felt like she’d been struck. “You know about the aliens?”

They’re destroying the other labs. This is the only one they haven’t found.

Marie blinked at him, once again shocked by how much he had managed to hide from them.

“We need you to fight,” she whispered. “We need you to stop the-”

I’m not killing the aliens.

“But you’ve got to help us defend the-”

No, Twelve-A thought. I don’t.

Coldness settled in the pit of Marie’s stomach. “You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?”

I’m killing everyone who knows about this place. It’s the only way the People are going to survive.

Marie met the deep blue of his gaze and sweat slid like ice down her back as she began to bargain for her life. “Once we’re dead, then what? Where will you go? What will you do? I can help you create new lives for yourselves. I can help you adapt.”

He didn’t answer her. Looking drained, he got to his feet. Come with me to the Dark Room. I want you to watch something.

Reluctantly, Marie did. Once they stood outside the small green door, Twelve-A gave her a gentle nudge down the hall, toward the observation booth. Confused, she went.

Inside, the occupants were milling in obvious agitation. Every face she had ever seen inside the lab was there, checking their watches, grimacing at the blond experiment pacing in the Dark Room. As more staff filtered into the observation booth, Marie anxiously glanced from Twelve-A to the group of observers and back, wondering what he planned for them. Her entire body trembled with fear and adrenaline. She’d heard the mental’s death was painless, like falling asleep. She was terrified she was about to find out.

“So what are we waiting for, Colonel?” one of the generals finally demanded. The group had become more and more aggravated as nothing happened in the room before them.

“We’re waiting for your test subjects,” the colonel replied briskly.

The general’s face went slack. “What test subjects? We’re here because you told us your famous Twelve-A could do something that would save millions of lives.”

At the Colonel’s frown, a man in a black suit bitterly snapped, “Do not tell us you brought us all together to waste our time, Colonel.”

The Colonel stared back at them in complete confusion. “I never sent for you.”

A thin woman with short-cropped brown hair snorted. “Then who did?”

In the center of the Dark Room, Twelve-A stopped pacing. He turned, his ice-blue eyes cold beyond the leaded glass.

Me.
It was like a mental thunderclap. Several members of the committee screamed and staggered toward the door. Only Colonel Codgson remained where he stood, staring at Twelve-A through the glass with a queer little smile.

Twelve-A nodded at them.

As one, the two dozen uniformed men and women occupying the room collapsed in a falling wave of flesh.

Except for Marie. She kept breathing, waiting for it to happen, but it never did. Minutes after her companions’ wide eyes began to glaze, she was stunned to find herself still standing amidst the corpses. Alive.

She looked at Twelve-A. Beyond the glass in the center of the Dark Room, his body had slumped to the floor with his victims. Heart thundering, Marie went to see if he lived.

Put me back in my cell, Twelve-A told her, when she entered the room and knelt beside him.

Marie recoiled. “Your cell? Why?”

I want to die.

“No!”

Do it.

It allowed no argument. In a daze, Marie drew him to his feet and helped him back into the containment area. As she settled him onto his bed, Twelve-A said, Please kill me.

The mental whimper was infused with so much emotional agony that it left Marie’s chest afire. Still, her eyes flickered toward the IV rack they used to keep the experiments sedate. “I’ll go get the drugs. They’ll make you feel better.”

Twelve-A caught her hand as she turned to go, his blue gaze intense. You should kill me, Marie.

“No,” she said, finding strength in the words, “I shouldn’t. I should get you and all your friends out of here.” She patted his hand and he released his hold. She went to the labs, got the drugs, and hooked them to the rack. As she was connecting his IV line to the bag, however, he stopped her. His cerulean eyes were angry.

If you’re not going to kill me, leave.

She winced at the force of his thought. “What about your friends?”

Don’t worry about us. Leave. Lock the doors and never come back.

Marie met his deep blue stare, saw the danger there, then hurried from his cell. She heard the gate to Twelve-A’s cage slam behind her as she went to the containment doors and wrenched them shut. She used her card to lock them, then rushed through the facility, gaining speed as she realized she was the only one left alive. The only one who knew about the experiments. The only one who could help them create new lives on the surface.

The only one who could keep them alive.

She could rehabilitate them. Find them jobs. Find them friends.

The guard was not at his booth. Buoyed by her new mission, Marie hurried past, pushed through the bullet-proof glass doors, and locked them behind her with another swipe of her card. She followed the corridor, climbed the stairs, and exited through the single door at the top. Facing it, the entrance looked like the door to a decrepit coffee shop, with the Coffee House Express sign hanging askew and the paint peeling.

Under the façade, however, the door was tank-proof, the walls behind it bomb-proof. It would take nukes to get inside.

Marie locked the entrance with her card, sliding it through an inconspicuous crack in the wooden trim.

Thank you, Twelve-A told her. That should keep them out.

“Yes,” Marie said, hurrying toward her car. “But don’t worry–you won’t be in there long. I’ll find somewhere to keep you. The war will make it harder, but once I’ve got living quarters and food, I’ll come back for you.”

You don’t understand, Marie.

She stuck her key into her Ford. “Don’t understand what?”

Once it’s safe, we’re going to get ourselves out.

“But I can-” Terror infused Marie’s soul as she realized why Twelve-A had left her alive. Babbling, Marie said, “Please, Twelve-A. I can help you. I won’t tell anyone. Please-you don’t need to kill me.”

Twelve-A gave a mental shudder, buoyed on a wave of self-loathing. It’s always so hard.

Even as she opened her mouth to scream, a wave of calmness overpowered her. Her eyes drifted shut and she slid to the concrete beside her car, the keys tumbling from her hands to clatter on the cement. Trapped in the darkness of her own body, Marie felt her heart stop.

Somewhere, deep underground, Twelve-A replaced the IV line and closed his eyes. His shoulders began to shake as he waited for oblivion to take him.

END

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More of Sara King’s work can be found in Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest issue 11.

Sara King is a 24-year-old Alaskan sci-fi writer who wrote her first full-length novel at the age of 12. She’s written 10 novels and 26 short stories since, and her story “The Moldy Dead” appeared in issue 11 of Apex Digest (her first sale!). It takes place in the same world as the sci-fi series Donald Maass is representing for her in NY. Sara King has sold stories to Cemetery Dance, Blood, Blade, and Thruster Magazine and Aberrant Dreams. Check out her website at www.kingfiction.com.