Project Alter

A Peak Underground

“Roze come on it's time to wake up. We have to report to work,” a female voice breaks through my dreams. I open my eyes and see my blond haired, blue eyed girlfriend in her lab coat.

I roll over, “Five more minutes Susan, please.”

She begins to tickle me, “Wake up Roze come on.” I laugh and struggle to get away from her. I end up falling out of bed. Susan looks over the bed to make sure that I am okay before beginning to chuckle because my short pixie haircut is sticking up in every direction. I grumble and get up, walking to the locker at the end of the bunk bed that Susan and I share. She gets the top bunk and I get the lower one. There are fifty total bunk beds all are occupied and there is a thin wall that separates the male from the female dorms. Just outside of the dorms is a rec room area that has a pool table and lounge chairs for relaxation times. I get dressed in my lab coat, blue jeans and a blue t-shirt. 

“You okay Roze? I mean you fell out of your bed,” Susan asks, putting her hand on my shoulder, worried.

I put my hand over hers, “Yeah I am fine just tired. I keep having these weird dreams about random things. I can’t remember much of them when I wake up though.” She nods and pulls me into a hug. I smile and blush a little as she does so.

Her breath tickles my ear, “I love you Roze.”

“I love you too Susan,” I say before kissing her cheek. She pulls away a little and kisses my lips. Her lips are so soft and gentle. We move in time with each other as we kiss. It seemed like forever and yet not long enough when she pulls away. I rest my head on her shoulder and let out a pleased sigh. She runs her hand through my hair, I could feel her smile against my forehead. 

A bell rings over head before we hear a voice over the intercom, “Everyone please report to your work stations. I repeat everyone please report to your work stations. This is your last warning.” Susan and I sigh in irritation together as we pull away from each other. We intertwine our fingers and walk out of our dorms together. We notice our friend Jonathan is already in the rec room waiting for us. He has this annoying smirk on his face and I grumble.

“Took you two long enough, we are so late to work now,” he says smugly.

Susan sneers back, “Well why did you wait up then? You could already be at work.”

“You know I hate working dearest Susan,” he stretches, defecting her rudeness. She clenches her fist and took a step towards him. I jump between them in a blink of an eye.

“He is not worth solitary for three weeks. And John please stop this it’s too early. Let’s all just go to work hmm?” I say.

Jonathan reaches his hand out, “Truce?”

“Until after work and we will settle this with a game of pool,” Susan shakes his hand. His smirk drops when she mentions pool.

“Awe come on you know I absolutely suck at pool Susan,” he pouts.

She chuckles, “Well then don’t start with the jokes so early.” We all walk to our stations and get settled in before roll call even got to us. Now I said that there was only one hundred beds right? Well there are four occupations and each four of the occupations have one hundred beds for the people who work there. We are the scientists. You also have teachers, doctors and technicians.

“Susan, Roze and Jonathan you three will be in the archives today for arriving late.” Dr. Marvin says. He is the head of our department. The three of us nod and walk to the archives. John and Susan both seem a little aggravated that we were sent here but I began to go through the first entry from the first book in the archive. I am honestly really thankful that Susan, Jonathan and I were not of the chosen thousand for the experiments. I sit at the table and begin reading the first entry out loud.

“June 24th, 2012. 6:30 am. Today we finally got the portal finished and are going to our new world today to see what we can find. There are no words for the amount of excitement that is quietly building in the room as the portal is being turned on. 6:30 pm, same day. Time is a much different thing in the world we traveled to although I do not feel it safe for inhabitants do to the creatures found on the world. Many mythological creatures lived there and were not happy with us attempting to set up a camp and study them. Those who were caught were even less happy that we had them and took various samples from them. The amount of mythological creatures that we got samples from is 26, those that have viable DNA extraction amounts are six.”

Susan looks up at me, “You mean the portal that started the war?”

“That’s the only portal I remember so I would assume so,” John says looking up from the archive he was working on.

“That’s where the idea of the new bomb came from too right? It just left a hole and burned no adverse and long lasting chemical effect,” I ask and we all nod in agreement.

“What was it made out of again?” Susan askes.

I look up at her, “Wasn’t it out of Ocilite and Rannem? From the other world?”

“Ocilite and Rannem? That's what I was making yesterday at work!” Jonathan exclaims.

“January 1st, 2017. Today is the first day of our testing. We have decided to take three children per day. That would be a total of one thousand and ninety-five children…” my voice trails off as I realize the number in the second archive is different than what we have all been told. Susan and Jonathan stopped marking and logging the new records to look over my shoulder. They reread what I said to make sure there was no mistake. After a few minutes of silence I begin to read again.

“...this year in total. We will take children born on this day to low income, one parental figure or ones whose mothers died giving birth and father died recently or was not going to be a part of the child’s life. Today we have chosen our first three. A young boy and two young girls. We have chosen that the boy will be introduced to a german shepards DNA, one of the girls will be introduced to the DNA of an ocelot and the last child a zebra. Injection time is thirty minutes post birth. We are hoping that it is not too late nor too early to start these injections at the time determined. We will keep this time for three weeks and if the observations of the children prove to be poor we will adjust the injection time by intervals of five. First we will add the five minutes and if that worsens our observations we will take five off the original thirty minutes as stated. Each injection has been made by 3:45pm on the 1st of January in the year 2017.” I finish the entry and look up to see that Susan and John had finished with the new archives. They both had taken a chair at the table and listened intently to what I was saying.

“Roze… one thousand and ninety-five children? That is not what was told to the hybrids nor the rest of our encampment here. What does that mean,” Susan asks with a slight tone of worry in her voice as she shifts in her chair.

I reread that part before answering her, “I don’t know love. I truly don’t know. Maybe the 95 died? The elders didn’t wanting that to get out? There are a lot of questions now but there is only one answer and that is continuing to read these entries.” I glance at John to find that he is completely passed out on the table and I chuckle to myself. I look at the clock and jump up to put away the archive and punch John in the shoulder. He wakes up with a start and I point to the clock. He sits up and wipes away the drool from his face and the table. We all sit there with our hands on the table. Shortly thereafter the door opens and we are let out.

“Alright guys it’s lunch time. Come on,” Luke says. Luke is maybe three years older than us and has a rather good rank in the system already. See normally it is by age that we get our rankings but it seems like he has excelled past every expectation from the eyes of Dr. Malvin. He is our head scientist although he also has a doctoral degree in the pediatric field. That is why he was head researcher of the time of the experiments. Luke is only twenty-three but he still has the keys to the archive room and some of the harsher chemicals.

We walk down the little corridor to the door to the dining room area. We walk by rank and fall into the room that way. There are not many people my age it would seem that the majority of them were either experimented on or left above ground when the war started. We go to our table and sit down. There are some scientist who watch our crops and wildlife so they are the ones to cook too. They know how to replicate the weather above ground before the war so our crops grow and our animals thrive. Each of the four jobs head person sits at a different table in the front of the room. They look out at the other tables and raise their glasses for a toast.

“Here is to 20 years of prosperity below ground here,” they all say in unison that has been practiced for many a year. There are maybe twelve people who come out and put the food out for everyone. Every four carried one big tray of one hundred plates. The first people to get food was the head table and then they mingled through the other tables until we all had food. They set the trays down off to the side and took their seats. I look at the plate to see that we were having a sandwich that consisted of braunschweiger, tomato, mayo, lettuce, onion and cheese. There was also a small caesar salad. We all begin eating. I look at the clock again. I always seemed confused on why we had lunch at this time after all it is not noon. It is precisely 9:30 am and yet we are having lunch. Breakfast is at 4:30 and dinner is at 2:30. Our proportions are determined by the cooks based on s*x, age and occupation. That way we all stay within our desired weight range. It is rare but sometimes we also get a desert like a doughnut or maybe a brownie. 

When we finish our lunch it is only ten o’clock we all stand up and fall back in line and head through our doors. The head table sits for a while to talk about today’s activities. Luke lets us back into the archive and there was another pile to go through from this morning’s testing. As soon as Luke closes the door I pull out the third archive and sit down at the table to read it. 

“January 2nd, 2017. Today we will take a look at our children from yesterday to see how they are doing. We look first at the boy. He has began to change very slightly in the skin tone beginning to take that of the pattern of the fur of the german shepherd extremely faint that would be only barely noticeable by a black light. The girl who was introduced to the DNA of an ocelot is also starting to show changes in her skin tone as well only seen by a blacklight and even then it is so faint. When we approach the crib of the third child we notice that she had a much more rapid change. Her ear were completely changed to the ones above her head and her skin tone was that of a zebra and she had a tail. Unfortunately do to this rapid change the girl child has died. She appears to have died at 1:02am last night. It is a truly sad occurrence. We will take a look at the difference between her and the other two children to see what had sped up her change and caused her death. Those will be in tomorrow’s write up. As for the children today we have picked out one female and two male. The female will be introduced to the DNA of a tapir, one of the males the DNA of a barn owl and the other the DNA of a goshawk. We injected them once again at the thirty minute post birth due to the fact we had promising results in two out of the three children.” I look up at the clock and nod. Each of the archive takes roughly thirty minutes to read. That means that we were exceptionally late to work earlier. I nod and put this archive away. Susan and John finished the new archives already and were just sitting and listening. They also were playing a game of cards.

I pull out the fourth archive and sit down to read it outloud again, “January 3rd, 2017. The DNA show no visible differences between the three children from the first day other than the obvious animal DNA difference. There is no discernible reason that the third child should have had such advance changes or the reason for her death. We will now look at the two children from the first experiment. The changes seen yesterday have been the only changes as though they are a bit more clear by the light of a blacklight. Their skin tone are more and more like the animals fur patterns. Next we will look at the three from day two. The female is getting a darker skin tone but no noticeable fur patterns. The male that was introduced to the DNA of the barn owl seems to have no obvious changes. The last boy is beginning to get the feather design in his skin tone. Today we have two female and one male. The male is going to be introduced to the DNA of a red-winged blackbird. One of the females is going to be introduced to the DNA of a jaguar and the other a tasmanian devil. Due to promising results we are still doing it at the thirty minute post birth intervals. We will also keep digging to see why the female died.” I close this archive and stretch.

Susan looks at me, “So you were right. At least with one case this far. A child died.” She had a smile but it wasn’t reaching her eyes at least that is what it appeared. It seemed like a mix between grimace and a smile. I reach across the table and take her hand, rubbing my thumb across the back of her hand comfortingly. John is just staring at the table with no facial expression. I guess they tried hard just to listen and not to take the death of the child to heart but it didn’t work so well. They appeared fine between the third and fourth archives but now it looks like it’s hitting them. Susan gets up from the chair she was in before and sits in the one next to me. She rests her head on my shoulder and intertwines her fingers with mine. I kiss the top of her head and we all sit in silence for a while. I keep rubbing my thumb along Susan’s thumb and back of her hand. Susan brings my hand to her lips and kisses it gently. She gets up and lets go of my hand to put away the fourth archive. She pulls out the fifth and sits down to me again. She leans her head on my shoulder and takes my hand again. I rest my head against hers for a second before opening the archive.

I begin to read, “January 4th, 2017. Today we will look at the children from the third day first. They are all alive and have the very faint markings of the animals of the given DNA to each child. The three from day two are all showing the signs of the skin change as well just a little more noticeable. The two from the first day are starting to show the change in the skin tone just barely without the help of a blacklight. Today we have three females. One will be injected with the DNA of a white rhinoceros, the second will be injected with the DNA of a wallaby, and the third will be injected with the DNA of an impala. We still have no plausible data on why one of the first babies in the experiment died. We will keep searching for the reason. We keep the injections at a thirty minute post birth due to no other signs of complications.”

“Do you want to just keep hearing about this? I mean if we all take a book and read than we will know at a faster rate about what happened to the girl and if any more died that way. I mean it just seems logical to me,” John spoke up suddenly that startled both Susan and I. We look at each other and nod. We all pick out a book out and on note cards tally the amount of deaths that we see. The total did end up being ninety-five but the deaths seem to end late march. We also find out the reason that these kids kept dying was because they were born prematurely and had defects in the cerebellum. It caused the animal DNA to take over far too quickly, not giving the body enough time to adjust to the differences. We also noticed that the animal DNA used in the deceased were used again on children without the defects and they survived. It also appeared when the scientists used DNA from a rare animal or mythical beast, even if the child had the defects, they had a higher chance of survival. We glance at the time and shuffle to put our archives back quickly because we had a few minutes before dinner. We sit with our hands on the table again and just wait to be let out. There is no conversation between us, we all have long faces. The idea of ninety-five children died and no one ever knew about it other than the scientists that were there for that broke our hearts. We did not appreciate the fact that we were not part of the experiments any more than we do now knowing what we know.

We jump when the door opens, “It’s okay kiddos just me. Come on dinner time.” We look up to see Dr. Malvin’s smiling face. We nod and get up from the table. John lets a yawn slip past in front of Dr. Malvin. Susan and I slightly stiffen, afraid of his reaction of such a display in front of the head of our department. 

Dr. Malvin looks over us all and we must have looked all pretty tired because he said, “After dinner why don’t you three go ahead and go to the rec room and relax. You guys did exceptional work with all of the archives getting them done way before it was even time for lunch or dinner. With all that running around, logging, marking and reading you must be rather tired.”

Susan speaks up first, “Thank you Dr. Marvin. We really can keep working if you need us though. We don’t want the others to think that we were getting extra special treatment.”

“Don’t worry about what the others think just go and rest after dinner. If anyone fusses I guess I know who to put in archives next,” he says with a chuckle and wink. We nod and fall in line for dinner. Once we get into the dining room we notice that the food is already on the table and instead of water for our drink as usual there is wine. Susan and I glanced at each other with a slight unease not sure what this special occasion is. We take our seats and wait for the announcement. Once everyone gets situated we see the head four stand up and raise their glasses.

“Today at the time of two o’clock fifteen years ago we released the experiments to their homes above ground. Here is to them and their strength to adapt and their thriving where they are. We have decided that to celebrate this day we will reveal the beginning of a new experiment in the science field. A select few, from the science field, technical field and doctoral field, will go up one more level and survey the ground,” they say in union again. It sends shivers down my spine and I glance between Susan and John. Susan takes my hand and holds it so tightly it begins to hurt me.

Dr. Malvin steps forward, “Do to the severity of this task no one under the age of thirty-five will be picked to go to the next level of the encampment. Dr. Richardson, David and I will communicate and pick by tomorrow. You will know in the morning what your assignments will be.” Susan relaxes her hand up but keeps her hand in mine.

The head four speak up again, “You may begin your feasting.” As those words were spoken everyone took the cover off their food to see that we were having smoked salmon, baked potatoes with a sprinkling of bacon crumbles, and mixed veggies. It would appear that our mixed veggies were corn, beans, peas, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. There is a smaller dish with a cover over it just above and off to the right of the bigger plate. I peek under the cover to see that there was a brownie there. We all dig into our food and finish it rather quickly as well. The first ones done have to wait for everyone else to finish. It all takes about thirty minutes again. So it is three o’clock. Everyone gets up in unison. Lining up and start heading to back to their occupational area.

Susan, John, and I head to the rec room immediately and collapse in the lounge chairs. We are all quiet for a while waiting to make sure that everyone gets through the corridor to make sure that they don’t hear what we are going to talk about. We all shift uncomfortably unsure what to do or say. We normally work until about 9:30 pm and we were allowed to rest so much earlier. 

“There was a scientist who put their own kid into the experiments,” John said. There was a bit more silence and we all stared at the ground as we thought about everything that was read.

Susan spoke next, “As the kids began growing other parts of their animals like wings, tail or the ears of the animals they were in so much pain that they would scream until their voices were to hoarse to be heard.”

I nod, “They weren’t able to give the kids any sort of pain medication because they were two small and they didn’t know what would have happened to the child.” A silence fell over the room again and we all just looked at each other. Susan suddenly jumps up and grabs a pool stick and sets up the pool table to play a game.

“Come on John. We have to be doing something normal incase someone comes to check in on us. You still owe me a game,” she says.

He groans, “Can I choose a champion?”

“I will not be your champion and there is no one else here. So no,” I say and resituate so I could stare up at the ceiling. John gets up and grabs a pool stick and grabs the chalk block to chalk up his pool stick tip. He sighs and gets ready to break the rack. Once Susan takes away the plastic he hits the white ball as hard as he can. He makes it jump and it barely moves any of the other pool balls.

“Solid yellow in the far left pocket,” Susan says before taking the shot and makes it. She sighs and aims for the rack and breaks it up more. No balls fall through though. John lines up a shot to put in the red striped ball with the number fifteen on it. He hits the white ball softer this time but not hard enough because the stripe ball barely moved. The game went on for a while but Susan won. John put three balls in a pocket the whole game.

“Do you guys realize that the age that you begin your work is age fifteen? And it’s been twenty years since the beginning of the experiments? Thus anyone beginning their work in the department at the beginning of the experiments would be thirty-five or older? You think that is just a coincidence? I mean, well I don’t know,” I say.

Susan walks over to me, “Yeah. I was thinking about that too. I didn’t really want to bring it up though.”

“You guys don’t think that they are starting the experiments up again do you? I mean that was banned they wouldn’t break the rules,” John said. I shrug and pull Susan down into a kiss. It was kind of easy by the fact that she was standing behind the chair leaning over me a little already. We kiss for a few minutes just letting the stress of today and what we read dissolve. Soon it was nothing but us, here in this moment. Completely relaxed with one another and my heart pounds with excitement. I reach up and caress her cheek softly. She breaks the kiss. I see her warm smile and then she kisses my cheek. She kisses my other cheek, then my forehead, chin and nose before kissing me on the lips again. This kiss was much briefer than the last. She walks around to the front of the lounge chair picks me up and sits down with me in her lap. My legs hang off the side of the chair and my head rests on her shoulder. We sit there in quiet peace for a while. Listening as Jonathan attempts to work on his skills at pool. Every once in awhile we hear him grumble in annoyance as he would miss the shot that he had tried to make. Susan runs her hand through my hair, playing with it. I smile and nuzzle into her neck a bit more.

John gives up and flops into the chair next to us, “So what happens if they are starting the experiments again?”

Susan sighs as the topic is brought up again, “Well if the hybrids catch them there will be a war against the encampment or at least that was what was promised to them if they were started up again. I don’t know what will actually happen to be honest. I do know that each occupational area is equipped with guns both tranquilizer and live rounds.”

“Why do we need the tranquilizer rounds? I mean who knows if they will even work? What do we do if they do work? Put them in cages or release them back in town? If we do the latter they would just come back to try again.” Jonathan says.

“I really don’t know John. can we just not think about it right now? I really just want to relax with my Roze,” Susan replies.

John starts, “But..”

“Jonathan,” I interrupt, “Please stop talking about it. If it comes to a fight I am sure we will make the right choice. I will not kill another human nor a hybrid. So I would choose the tranquilizer every time and maybe if we talk hypothetically if we use them against the other humans the hybrids would realize that we agree with them that what they did was not okay and they would leave us alone. That is where I stand, whether or not that is what I do when the day actually comes is another question. Let me remind you this though, the scientist that did this to the one thousand and ninety-five original children are still alive today. They do not see the error that they made because they were only thinking about preventing another world war by removing all of the negative emotions from these children but in turn all they did was give them the characteristics of animals or mythical creatures. They went through an intense pain for the first few years of their life and then were left to fend for themselves when the head four of the time determined that they were nothing but trouble for our society but at least they were taught how to read, write, math and history right? Wrong, how many do you think died because of starvation or dehydration? That is a probable question that we will never know the true answer unless we go above ground ourselves and let me remind you how that will kill us. We are not used to the light from the sun and it would burn us to a crisp if we were not wearing the proper protective gear which no one has even thought to make.”

John seems taken aback from all of what I said, “Wow Roze I didn’t know you were so passionate about it.”

“Would you really turn on the people who raised you? I mean wouldn’t that be a death sentence? I am just saying, I mean if that’s how you feel I will back you up wholeheartedly,” Susan says, kissing my forehead.

I take a second to think, “Honestly if I had to choose between death by the hybrids or death by execution for treason I think I would take the latter because they just send you above ground and I may be able to survive it if I time it just right.”

John nods, “I am with you guys too. But let's make this a pact, how do we want to do this?” I get up off Susan’s lap and walk to the dorms quickly and grab out an old shoe string from my bedside. As I walk back into the rec room I untie all of the knots in it I put forward my left hand. Susan takes her left hand and puts it in mine so the back of her hand is against my palm. John places his hand over mine. I place the string between my and Susan’s hands.

I wrap the string as I speak, “With this string I bind us to the pact of going against the encampment should a fight with the hybrids is upon us.” The string is completely wrapped around all of our hands and wrists when I finish and we all look at each other, each of us nod slowly.

John speaks up, “If anyone breaks the pack it is punishable by death by handgun.” We all nod again in agreement. I begin to unwrap the string.

“The physical bond of this pact falls away but the unseen bond is still there only to be released after the war if there ever is one. This is our pact, agreed on by all,” I say as the string falls away. I put the string away in the dorms. Susan walked into the dorm a little while after I did. She hugs me from behind and nuzzles my shoulder. I rest my head on her shoulder and my hands on her hands, with a smile on my face.

Susan speaks quietly, “John went to change out of his lab coat we should probably do the same hmm?” She moves her hands out from under mine and grabs my lab coat. I let her pull it off of me and she places a gently kiss where my shoulder meets my neck. I shiver slightly and smile. I turn around and grab my lab coat throwing it on the ground then proceed to do the same with her lab coat. I pull her onto my bed with me and kiss her softly. My arms are wrapped around her neck. She wraps her arms around my waist and holds me close as we kiss. I gently bite her lower lip and pull on it gently. I chuckle and look at her with innocent eyes and then pull her to lay down. I rest my head on her shoulder and close my eyes. I hear her chuckle softly, running her hand through my hair.

“You know what you are such a tease,” she whispers in my ear.

I chuckle and say, “I know but sometimes you like that.” She laughs and it is just music to my ears. If i could i would record that and just listen to it over and over again.

“I love you Roze Marie Callahan, with all that is me. I love you,” Susan whispers in my ear. 

I smile, “I love you too Susan Lynn Devito. With all of my heart and all my being I love you.” We intertwine our fingers and snuggle closer together. I end up falling asleep listening to Susan’s heartbeat.

She wakes me up an hour later, “Hey we should probably go make sure John is not bored out of his mind. Come on love.”

“Nooo,” I say while pouting. I snuggle close and wrap my arm around her tightly. She chuckles and kisses my forehead. 

“Come now lovely we don’t want to leave John up to his mischief alone. For all we know he could be planning to blow up the compound without anyone finding out. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t want to die today,” she jokes and begins to sit up. I cling to her and grumble my displeasure at the movement. She begins to tickle me and I jump, hitting my head on the bottom of the top bunk. I pout and she kisses it gently.

I whine, “Why do you always tickle me and why does it alway end up in me hurting some how?”

“I tickle you because it is fun to watch your squirm and your laughter is just music to my ears. You get hurt because you always try and pull away from me,” Susan says as she wraps her arms around me. She gently sways as she holds me close. I sigh in tranquility and smile up at her.

“What time is it anyways,” I ask Susan.

She looks at her watch, “It is 4:45pm. If you are going to get any sleep tonight you should get up, my love.”

I grumble, “Okay fine. I will get up I guess.” I stretch and wiggle my way out of her arms. We walk hand in hand back into the rec room where we see John passed out in one of the lounge chairs. We look at each other with a devious smile before sneaking up to the chair.

“OH MY GOSH A FIRE JOHN JOHN WAKE UP YOUR CHAIR IS ON FIRE,” we both scream startling him awake. He jumps up and begins running around the room.

He screams, “PUT ME OUT! PUT ME OUT!” He stops after Susan and I fall from laughing too hard.

“You two are so horrible,” he glares at us, before proceeding to rub his eyes and stretch. I wipe away a tear from my cheek and settle down from the laughing.

“Come on that was the best prank ever I mean come on you got up right away didn’t you? Besides you know sleeping in lounge chairs is forbidden so we technically saved you from a harsh talking,” I say as i get up. I help Susan up and we all sit down in the lounge chairs again.

There is a moment of silence before Jonathan speaks up, “So those archives were intense huh?”

“Well if we think of everything we learned there is a lot of unknowns left,” I say.

Susan tilts her head in slight confusion, “What do you mean?

“Well for instance we still don’t know what happened to the ninety-five children after they died, we don’t know how many of the hybrids have died due to starvation, we don’t know why they would want to start up the experiments again if they failed the first time,” I pause for a second, “and we don’t know if the hybrids can reproduce or not which means we have no clue how many there are.” A silence falls.