As the screaming got louder, former
Chronos scientist Howard Jackson laced his fingers together to
stop them from shaking. This was the third time that the Lost
Unit processing had failed. The nosebleeds had already started
for him, and he could see that Hayami had only a few days before
they started up for him as well.
"More problems," Hayami muttered sadly
as he walked back into the room.
"Yeah, so I heard," Howard said. "We
don’t have much time left ourselves."
"Here," Hayami said, wiping away a
stream of blood dripping from Howard’s nose.
"Thanks for that. I don’t think I’m
going to last much longer, either," Howard said, as Hayami
handed him the tissue.
"Don’t say things like that. We’ve lost
too many friends already. After we managed to get away from
those Zoanoid patrols, you’d think something like this would be
at least relatively easy."
Howard chuckled with mordant good
humor. "Yeah, you’d think it would be. But this process wasn’t
intended
to produce Lost Units at all. We’re trying to deliberately screw
with the Zoafication process, that’s going to have serious
consequences."
"I know that," Hayami said, running a
hand through his already disordered hair. "I think we all know
that by now. At least, those of us that are still alive.
Speaking of which, I think we should go take care of Arnold
now."
"Yeah," Howard muttered sadly.
The screams had stopped by now, so
Howard and Hayami both knew that Arnold Hanson was dead. Walking
back into the room with the processing-tank, the two former
Chronos scientists looked at their friend and colleague for the
last time. He looked now like some kind of hideous, mutated
freak. Caught between his human form and the Zoaform that had
ended up being his death sentence.
The processing-tank had already been
drained, and the three remaining former Chronos scientists had
all gathered around it by that time. There were no words
exchanged between them, since there was nothing that they could
really say anymore. Their group had consisted of twelve people
at first, then Sumio had vanished with the Relic. Donald Akers
and Jerome Baker had gotten separated when they had all run from
the Zoanoid patrols.
Those two had probably ended up killing
themselves rather than being recaptured by Chronos. One of the
only female scientists in their group, Hitomi Mimori, had
sacrificed her own life to distract another of the Zoanoid
patrols that they had ran right into. Two more of their number,
Jhon Willams and Kakashi Hitomori, had been buried in the rubble
of Mt. Minakami. They had marked a grave for all of the people
who hadn’t made it out of Chronos, all of those who hadn’t been
able to regain their freedom in any meaningful way.
There were no bodies in those first five
graves, of course. But the two next to them held the deformed,
mutated corpses of Emile Saavedra and Lorne Stevens. The first
victims of the failed Lost Unit processing. As Danielle Sorenson
threw a sheet over Arnold’s body and wrapped him up, the two men
helped her to pick up Arnold’s body and carry it. All three of
them were wondering just which one of them would be next.
There were six shovels leaning against
the wall, because there had once been six people there to use
them. Now as Hayami, Danielle, and Howard each took a shovel for
their own use, they tried hard to ignore the fact that there
were three more than they needed. As the three of them carried
their burden out into Sumio’s spacious back yard, they headed
almost instinctively for the makeshift plot where a few of their
group was buried.
At the end of the row of grave markers,
there was a small pile of unmarked wood slats. The slats had
been carefully carved into grave markers by Danielle. She had
also been the one to carve the names of each of their fallen
into the markers, since woodworking had been one of her passions
before she had come into the employ of Chronos. Hayami and
Howard wondered what they were going to do for her if she was
the one to die next.
As their three shovels broke ground for
the eighth grave, the three former Chronos employees looked down
at the cold earth they were overturning. No words of false
comfort were spoken, each of the people standing at the
gravesite was a realist and so wouldn’t have appreciated being
talked to that way. They all knew that they were dying; knew
that their only chance of survival was a slim one.
They had known from the beginning that
they were playing with fire, and now all that they wondered was
just who was going to be the next to burn. Once the grave was
deep enough, the three scientists laid their dead friend in it
almost reverently. Then, once that was done, each of them tossed
a small handful of dirt into the freshly dug grave. Then,
standing back up, they began to fill it again.
After the grave had been filled in, the
two men stepped back to let Danielle work. Removing a small
carving knife from her pocket, Danielle set down to do her last
job. All that she carved into the marker that she held was the
most basic of information: name and age. Their eulogies could go
on for pages, but there wasn’t any real way for such complicated
people to be summed up by the simple epitaphs that were normally
seen on headstones.
Not for the people who knew them,
anyway.
Once she was done with that, Danielle
laid the marker on the gravesite and rose to stand next to her
colleagues. One by one, as a way of remembrance, the three
remaining scientists read the names of their fallen to
themselves: Donald Akers, 23; Jerome Baker, 25; Hitomi Mimori,
25; Jhon Willams, 24; Kakashi Hitomori, 26; Emile Saavedra, 21;
Lorne Stevens, 27; and now Arnold Hanson, 25.
There were three unmarked wooden slats
left in the pile, three more that they each hoped would never
have to be put to use. But even then, each of them knew the
risks of what they were attempting to do.
"You still remember that promise we all
made to each other, right?" Danielle wondered aloud.
"Yeah, Danni. We remember," Howard said.
"We remember every time," Hayami
muttered sadly.
"Sorry. It’s just…"
"We know," Hayami said. "It gets
harder the more you have to deal with it. You end up needing at
least something
to hold on to."
"Yeah," Danielle muttered, staring down
at the grave again. "Thanks for understanding, Toshi-kun."
Hayami nodded solemnly, remembering even
as Danielle did the promise that they had all made to each
other. Since it was far too dangerous for a bunch of wanted
fugitives like them to try and make contact with any of their
family, the six escapees had made a promise that those who
managed to survive the Lost Number processing would put flowers
on the graves of the ones who had died.
It had been something of a consolation
for them, to know that they would at least be remembered
somehow. But so far, not one person had managed to survive and
become a Lost Number. As the three survivors took one last look
at the graves in front of them, Danielle couldn’t help but
recall the lines of an old poem she had learned in school a long
time ago, before she had even heard of Chronos.
She didn’t want to recite it aloud,
though. The fact that it was incredibly depressing
notwithstanding, there was also the fact that there was an
almost reverent silence that hung over this place, one that
Danielle didn’t want to intrude on. Still, ‘Flanders’ fields’
did seem a very appropriate poem for a time like this. They
might not have been the ones fighting on the front lines, and
their may not have been regular guns, but that didn’t change the
fact that they were still in a war.
When Howard started to sing, a mournful
but unrecognizable song, Danielle paused to listen. It didn’t
seem all that appropriate from where she was standing, but when
Howard came to the line ‘find the one song before the virus
takes hold’, Danielle started to listen more closely.
"What was that from?" Hayami asked.
"It was a song I heard a while ago,"
Howard smiled secretively, as if he was about to impart a great
and terrible secret to them. "I went to see a musical on
Chronos’ time this once. It depressed the hell out of me, and I
don’t remember the name right now, but a few of the songs stuck
with me. This one just seemed like it fit."
"Could you sing it again?" Danielle
asked.
"Sure," Howard said.
When he started to sing, Danielle was
quick to join in. Hayami just listened as their voices blended
together. He hadn’t ever been interested enough to find out just
what his colleagues would sound like if they tried to sing.
Danielle’s alto, though, did make a nice counterpoint to
Howard’s baritone. Once they were finished, Hayami smiled at
them and the three of them walked back into the laboratory set
up inside Sumio’s house.