3 September 2012
I barge through the crowded corridors, my phone still in my hand. It bears the message -
"Where are you Jason? Meeting has started."
I send a man sprawling as I bowl past him. I hear him swear loudly, but I don't stop. I reach the lift just as the doors begin to close. Forcing my way in, I punch the button for floor three and check my watch. Only five minutes late. It's not too bad.
The doors slide open and I dart out. In seconds I reach the end of the corridor and rush through the door. I have just enough time to hear the words 'We had to shoot the last specimens, Declan, and if you call that success-' before the room falls quiet.
And then I realise-
I've walked in on the wrong meeting.
Seven people are sat around a table. All of them are watching me with frigid glares. A frog jumps into my throat. I manage to blurt out a 'sorry' before I step back through the open doorway. Then I run for it.
I find the correct meeting ten minutes late. The subject is "brain activity during an epileptic seizure" but after two minutes my thoughts are straying. Instead, I find myself thinking about the meeting I just gatecrashed. I only heard one sentence of what they were saying -"We had to shoot the last specimens, Declan, and if you call that success"- but the more I think about it, the more it troubles me. By "shoot" they surely meant an injection, right? And "specimens" could be anything. I mean, most of my experiments involve mice, or even rats. By "shooting specimens" they could mean anything.
And yet...
Somehow, all I can think of is people being murdered in some crazy experiment.
Modified - Part 1 • Opuss № I