GREEN [complete]

CHAPTER 13: Mars

Mars was two hundred pages into his new book when Warren, the new programmer, slipped into the lab. Three mongrels followed close on his heels. They wore ORCTech uniforms, but Mars didn't recognize them.Warren wandered closer, a slimy smile spreading over his teeth.

"Poor bastard," he said, stepping up to the glass. One of his mongrels waited by the door, the other two hovered over either shoulder. They weren't canine-based like the ORCTech mongrels; one of them had a broad set of speckled wings and the other had thick tusks protruding up from her lower jaw. "You're already dead—just too dumb to realize it."

Mars placed a tattered piece of cloth in his book and closed it, setting it aside. He stayed silent. He wasn't dumb. He knew he was going to die. Just because he couldn't make the humans' noises with his mouth didn't mean he was stupid. He could understand them and everything they said. He scrunched lowered into his coil and watched Warren.

"Jones thinks you're her key to a cure," he said. The look he gave Mars radiated smug superiority; the kind of superiority only a weak man, who'd never tasted what it felt like to win, could muster. "We just can't have that now, can we?"

"Who are you?" Mars asked.

Warren ignored his question. "Dylan"—he shook his head—"Dylan made the mistake of caring about you. In the end, they just couldn't go through with it." He rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms. "But there's no one's pesky conscience to save you now, is there?" He nodded to his mongrels.

Mars pressed himself into the corner of his cage. "Where is Jones?" He looked between Warren and the mongrels, then at the third that stood guard by the door. "I want Jones." Jones might not care about him for the right reasons, but she cared about him. It was in her best interest that he stay alive.

But Warren didn't listen. Mars bared his fangs and tightened his coil, his rattle shaking to warn them off. They kept coming. He glanced toward the door again. Where was Jones? He wanted Jones. She would help him; she would save him from whatever Warren was planning.

The door opened and Mars did the only thing he could think to do: he attacked.
He jolted toward the first mongrel, driving his fangs into their forearm. The mongrel shrieked, his bird wings flapping against the walls as he panicked. Mars held fast. He should have been paying attention to the second one. She grabbed his arms and slammed him into the wall. She stung the back of his neck with a needle, pumping a sedative into his neck. Mars flailed, trying to fight the blurry daze. He failed.

He flopped forward, already numb by the time he struck the ground. The world swam around him as Warren knelt next to him, plugging a cord into the back of his neck. "We're just going to do an emergency update ..." he said, pulling out a tablet. Behind him, the mongrels were injecting an anti-venom in the one Mars had sunk his teeth into.

Warren set the tablet on his floor next to Mars and pressed the comm behind his ear. "Dr. Jones?"

It took her a few seconds to respond. "What is it?" Her words were chased by a large yawn.

"The investors are coming a few days early." His eyes never left Mars. "Me and Thompson are getting C9M moved to observation right now."

Jones cleared her throat of any surprise she might have expressed while Warren had her silenced and said, "Very well. Where are they?" Mars could almost see her straightening her lab coat and tucking a disorderly strand of hair behind her ear, only to make way for even more disorder.

Help me. He tried to cry out; to say anything, but the sedative kept his cheek pressed firmly against the cool tile, a thin trail of venom seeping from his half-open mouth.

"They're expecting you in the lobby any minute now. Don't worry." Warren yanked the cord free and folded his tablet. "We'll make sure C9M gets where he needs to be." His voice was bright, everything about his tone suggesting that he was being helpful. He wasn't.

Each breath was harder than the last as the sedative infected his brain, his lungs, his heart. The floor was taken out from under him as a pair of Warren's mongrels heaved the upper half of his body onto one of their gurneys. His tail followed limply, dragging the floor behind him as they wheeled him toward the door.

Warren walked alongside them, looking down at Mars only once more. "Alright, Mars, are you ready to die? I'm certainly ready."

His mongrels peeled away, disappearing from view. Warren met Thompson down the next hallway and asked the man to help him. Thompson agreed. Mars tried to call for help; he tried to move his hands, his eyes, his rattle, anything ... but it was no use. He couldn't even manage a squeak, his throat unresponsive and his tongue still. All he could do was watch the bright lights pace over the ceiling.

Everything was white. White lights, white ceiling, white walls, white coats.
Warren and Thompson wheeled him into an observation room that he was all too familiar with. It was the room they always took him to when they ran the trials, only this time, he doubted he would ever be leaving it. Whatever Warren had downloaded into his code would surely kill him, and it would look like nothing more than another failed experiment.

Mars tasted his own venom, leaking down the back of his throat. It tasted sweet over his tongue. Harmless. It wouldn't be harmless if he could pierce Warren's skin—but there was no hope of that happening, he was too far gone.

Mars let his eyes slide closed and tried to focus on the lethargic beat of his heart, but the panic welling in his veins kept yanking him into chaos. Mars wanted to scream. He wanted to thrash. He wanted to do anything. But he couldn't. He was helpless, and no one in the world could help him now.

His own body was a prison and there was no escape.

Warren and Thompson locked the wheels on the gurney and left him alone in the white room. Jones entered soon after, her soft face smiling down at him through a clear mask. She cupped his cheek in her gloved hand and dragged his attention of the abyss. "You're going to do great, C9M," she said. "Warren made sure that your body knows just what to do this time. Everything will be okay."

It wouldn't. It wouldn't be okay.

He tried to move his hands, twitch his fingers even, but he was mute. Warren had silence him. But Jones would realize something was wrong, wouldn't she? She had to know something was wrong. Everything had to be okay. He wasn't going to die here. He couldn't die here.

Jones pulled a bottle filled with neon green out of her pocket.

It radiated so hot it overpowered her hand. Her hands shook ever-so-slightly as she removed a fresh needle from the same pocket and fit it over the mouth of a syringe. She pushed the needle through the top of the bottle and drew the stopped back until the syringe was full. She was going to notice. She was going to realize something was wrong. Everything was going to be okay. She pointed the needle up, squirting a thin stream of the green into the air. Any moment now, she would see. The needle lowered. An unheard scream built in his throat, but he couldn't let it go. He couldn't scream no matter how hard he tried; no matter how much he needed to. But she would know. She wouldn't kill him.

Mars clung to his last tattered threads up hope until the needle sank into his neck. In the back of his mind, an alarm went off. But it wasn't in his mind. It was in the room too. Jones jolted back, taking the needle with her.

Mars closed his eyes, and let the alarm scream for him. Everything was going to be okay.