Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

Optio	By : Ripsi Category: +M through R > Resident Evil Views: 8319 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Resident Evil fandom/franchise or any of their characters. I make no money from this fanfiction. It is merely a piece of fiction written by me.

Chapter List
- 1-Annus Novus
- 2-Domus
- 3-Calor
- 4-Posco
- 5-Ludus
- 6-Felix Dies Valentini
- 7-Desiderium
- 8-Dormientes
- 9-Curre
- 10-Gravatus
- 11-Vita
- 12-Vigilo
- 13-Arcanum
- 14-Phasma Phasmatis
- 15-Possessio
- 16-Mutatio
- 17-Anniversarium
- 18-Monstrum
- 19-Lues
- 20-Vita Post Mortem
- 21-Iterum
- 22-Eam
- 23-Fidelitas
- 24-Veritas
- 25-Pacisco
- 26-Mundus Novus
- 27-Febris
- 28-Chemia
- 29-In Aeternum
- 30-Frater
- 31-Historia
- 32-Familia
- 10
- 11
- 12
Optio
Chapter 11: Vita
April 29, 2001 Sunday 11:23 AM
Subject: Redfield, Claire
Location: Denver, Colorado
Status: Fine
It was a good day to go for a walk in the park, so Chris decided to drag me out for some people watching and hopefully a few vendors would be near. There was a birthday going on so we did happen upon an ice cream vendor who happily gave us cones, and we settled on a green bench while enjoying the view of dogs being walked and catching Frisbees before returning them to their owners. Usually I enjoyed a scoop of strawberry, but for some reason today I couldn’t really finish it.
As he took the final bite of his cone Chris mumbled out, “You love strawberry,” frowning at what he considered odd behavior.
Taking another unenthusiastic lick I figured it was time to give up on forcing it down. “I can taste the sugar,” I commented, handing it to my brother who shrugged and happily worked on finishing it for me. Giggling at how greedy he could be I said, “I can’t believe you’ve been here for so long. What about Jill?”
As he finished up his second cone he looked to me and said sincerely, “Claire, my sister is more important than a woman I’m not married to or even in a legitimate relationship with.” Though I intended to talk sense into him for Jill I decided against it, I just wanted to work on our relationship as sister and brother while he was here. “Let’s walk,” he breathed, getting to his feet.
“I knew there was only so long you could go without physical activity,” I joked, walking next to him down the trail. He gave a smile, knowing that the steroid jabs were not ever serious, though he had most definitely beefed up since he joined BSAA.
In reply he said, “We’re walking to get rid of those love handles you put on. But seriously pull up your pants you’ve got a muffin-top thing going on right now.” Following his advice I realized that though I wanted to burst into tears he was right, the love handles I had discovered weren’t going anywhere, but it wasn’t like I had been in the exercising mood or anything so I’d have to deal until Chris could no longer fight to urge to hit the gym and then I’d just tag along. I really needed the motivation at this point.
Just from his tone, his facial expression, I knew that today was the day he would want to talk about the whole road trip/boyfriend ordeal. “I had to learn sooner or later,” I offered, stuffing my hands in my pockets, but he just stared ahead at the turns ahead of us, probably glad there was a steep hill to climb coming up.
For a whole minute he was silent, but when we reached that hill he mimicked my movement of putting my hands in my pockets. “No father, brother, or even an uncle wants to see a young woman they care about being hurt like that.” He licked his lips. “Do you think he cared about you?”
Nodding at the ground below me I said, “For a moment.” He wouldn’t have told me he had feelings if it wasn’t true, that just wasn’t the type of man Albert Wesker was, it couldn’t be since he so freely let me know that love between the two of us was pretty much impossible. “It wasn’t love,” I added with certainty.
“So you’re okay with it.”
No, but I didn’t want to tell him that so I lied with, “Getting there. Looking back losing my virginity wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Shaking his head he put a massive arm over my shoulder and pulled me to him. “What am I gonna do with you?” For a while we talked like we were brother and sister, not like father and daughter, and this meant I’d get to laugh and joke about it all like it was nothing instead of being scolded. I don’t know how I was away from him for so long when I had missed him so badly in the past that I put my life in danger twice to find him.
“Let’s get pizza.” Not arguing with his suggestion I nodded and we walked back to the car.
April 29, 2001 Sunday 1:17 PM
Subject: Redfield, Claire
Location: Denver, Colorado
Status: Danger
As I killed the engine I gave a loud groan, wondering if the pizza was the cause for the cramps I was having. Worried, my brother turned in his seat, “Are you all right?”
Shaking my head I whispered, “I’m not sure.” To make myself as comfortable as possible removed my seatbelt and tugged the ponytail holder from my hair, since Chris first arrived it stayed in a tangled, messy bun.
His brown eyes fell to my waist where my hair stopped, and with wide eyes I lifted a few strands up. “I didn’t know your hair had gotten that long.”
Before I could say, “Neither did I,” I felt a tug in my abdomen that was so strong that to lessen the pain I leaned forward with my head against the steering wheel. I let out a hiss of pain, squeezing the wheel in my hands. “Shit!”
Quickly, Chris released himself from his safety belt and looked around the car, “Look you get upstairs and I’ll handle getting the stuff all right? Do you need something?” Somehow I managed to nod.
Looking back to him I managed to gasp, “Ibuprofen.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, can you walk?” The pain was beginning to disappear, but there was still a tingling feeling that lingered which told me that whatever this was, it wasn’t done. When I removed myself from the car, Chris took the driver’s seat, but he didn’t leave until I made it into the building, and shortly after that I heard the gear shift quickly as he must have skipped a slow start and tried to go forty-five as soon as the car would let him. With shallow breaths I endured the slow elevator ride, holding myself up by the railing, and I needed the support of the wall as I headed for my apartment to struggle with the lock.
Right after I locked the door I doubled over in pain, clawing at the fake wooden floor, for some reason expecting my attack on the faux material to alleviate that one bothersome symptom. My insides felt like they were twisting and tearing apart, and I was unable to even crawl to the bathroom. That left me with one option: puke in the umbrella bin next to me. I heaved and heaved until there was nothing left to throw up, yet my stomach was still plagued with contractions that encouraged me to continue purging. Exhaustion then teamed up with gravity and I fell onto my back and immediately began rubbing my heels against the floor which only made my head slide up against the door.
I didn’t want to scream, but when it felt like something in my gut had burst I had no choice. I screamed bloody murder, my voice managing to reach octaves that I didn’t think my voice box would even allow without permanently ruining it. Both the strain and fear that I felt caused me to perspire, and I grabbed hold of my abdomen, pressing against it to maybe stop whatever was going on. It was akin to the menstrual pains I suffered as a young teen, but these were ten times worse and those days should have been long gone. The pressure I was adding did not help though, it made it worse.
My limbs shot out as the pain worsened, and I began banging against my door as I screamed that someone come help me. Yet no one did, and as I realized that Mr. Sidorov had yet to bang his broom against the ceiling I felt more alone than I did in Red Lodge. Then something inside of me somehow communicated to me that this was it.
I had no idea why, but I was going to die.
April 29, 2001 Sunday 1:30 PM
Subject: Redfield, Claire
Location: Denver, Colorado
Status: Danger
I saw flashes of things, felt flashes of pain. I remember someone banged on my door, and then I was hit in my head so hard that I became alert, and it was because someone broke the door in. Of course after I registered that new pain I was slipping into unconsciousness.
“Chris?” I groaned hoarsely before I had faded into the blackness, remembering his face looming over me, and there was the girl from across the hall too.
“Shh, it’s okay Claire,” he panted unconvincingly, and then I realized that I was moving along with my running sibling.
Lights streamed past me overhead, and I then saw men and women running alongside me in scrubs with masks and those funny hair nets. I tried to move my arms but something had me restrained.
My eyes were now wide as I turned my neck left and right too quickly to take anything in like I had planned. “Chris what’s going on?” I demanded, louder than I was upon awaking, but even though my throat was sore from earlier I continued to ask questions. “Where are we?”
He brought a finger up to his mouth to shush me, something I took as sign that it was somewhere I wouldn’t have wanted to be.
Despite being tied down I attempted to sit up, my restraints keeping me from accomplishing this minor action. “Who are you people?” My shrieking was tuned out by the hospital personnel; they were probably used to uncooperative patients by now. “Somebody help me!”
The stretcher stopped moving, and a curtain was pulled around me while nurses scribbled feverishly on their clipboards, and Chris bent down next to me to brush loose strands of hair behind my head.
“It’s okay,” he breathed, gently petting my head. The sight of people readying IVs and syringes though told me differently.
Deciding to try a new tactic I stared into Chris’ brown orbs pleadingly, even pathetically I imagined and whispered, “Chris, please help me. Don’t let them do this.”
Shushing me, he kissed my damp forehead. “Claire, you’re sick. They just wanna see what it is, what’s wrong with you?”
A doctor with a glasses and a mask covering his mouth and nose ripped back the baby blue curtain, another nurse following behind with an ultrasound machine. “What’s wrong?” His voice was demanding almost, and as soon as he laid his cold, gray eyes on Chris they became slits. “Get that civilian out of here!”
Offended, Chris hopped up. “I’m not a civilian and she’s my sister!”
“We need you out.” The finality in his voice was deadly, but at the last minute he seemed to remember that something called manners existed since his young years in the Stone Age. “You will be let back in once we have determined a prognosis.” I pleaded with God that Chris stayed the same hardheaded man that he was in the Air Force.
In Chris’ presence the doctor appeared to display a bit of intimidation, until the hulking man that was my brother looked back to me, his jaw taught with rage he promised, “I’ll be back.”
“CHRIS!” I was ignored as he moved past the creepy physician, and he purposely bumped into him and knocked him back a significant distance.
His nostrils flared, but the doctor repeated his question to which one of the female nurses replied, “Patient was incapacitated on the floor and rendered unconscious from its opening, and is hemorrhaging blood possibly from her uterus.”
“My what?” I looked back and forth, deciding to struggle once more before that awful pain took hold of me again, forcing a scream out of me.
“Doctor,” the nurse said, staring down at the clipboard, “she’s the Denver Survivor.” For a moment there was complete silence, even from me despite the persistent twisting of my entrails. What did they mean Denver Survivor? Then I let that statement replay in my head: THE Denver Survivor. My eyes became wet with tears once I understood that we were all under surveillance by health officials after making it out of Raccoon City, but in my case I had two incidents of exposure under my belt so was I the talk of Denver’s medical world? All of those blood tests I endured at every doctor’s appointment I had attended after ’98 were not standard by any means like I was being told by every receptionist, nurse, and doctor.
I was the only citizen here that was going through it. Once I came back from my eye-opening moment I was too late to scream for help again, and a needle was jammed into my neck. They quickly became blurred figures, yet their voices still came to me clearly.
“Prepare for a sonogram,” Creepy Doctor ordered, pulling up my gown, exposing me to the cold, hospital air, and soon the feel of that icky, icy gel being spread over my stomach agitated the cause of my pain, but at this point I couldn’t even scream. They must have begun because I heard him drawl out, “Ohh myyyy God-ah. There’s something in there.”
“She’s pregnant.”
I couldn’t be pregnant the only person I’d slept with was the very sterile Albert Wesker! I’d taken pregnancy tests that claimed I wasn’t carrying a child!
“Doctor!” a new voice cried. “The blood shows signs of infection!”
“Get someone from the CDC.”
The voices continued to swirl, making no sense even though what they were saying was as simple as it could get. “Infected.” “It’s the fetus.” “Impossible.” Soon my brain began to pound from it all and a bout of Vertigo sent my body through the sensation of disorientation even though I knew exactly where I was, and I just wished it would all stop. Then, there was blackness.
April 29, 2001 Sunday 1:42 PM
Subject: Wesker, Albert
Location: Denver, Colorado
Status: Fine
It had merely been luck that I had still been in the vicinity when the call pertaining to a possible biohazard was sent to the CDC, and when it was established that the patient was The Denver Survivor all scheduled plans had to be forced back. Now that I was no longer human I could once more risk whatever was necessary to make it to the hospital before a complete and total quarantine was issued. They had already begun to set up, and that bumbling buffoon that she had the misfortune of claiming as a sibling was only now looking up from the payphone to take in the sight of his precious little sister being locked away from him. Auspiciously I did not have the same limits as he, which would have been the cause of the end of the Redfield bloodline had I not lingered to ensure that she was safe.
They had not moved her from the first floor yet. “Hmm.” I removed my safety belt and before ripping the headset from my ear I commanded, “Be ready.” Not hesitating to consider the consequences, I shifted into drive and stomped down on the pedal, earning myself the sound of squealing rubber and an audience. “Goodbye.” The sound of honking horns would not deter me as I kept the wheel straight, barreling through the temporary barricade while men in hazmat suits scattered helplessly.
I stole a glance at Christopher, smirking at his shocked expression though he could not see me through the tinted windows, although perhaps he possessed the necessary amount of brain cells to conjure up an idea of who was driving. Who the fuck was I kidding? “Idiot.” The car crashed through the sliding, glass doors easily, and I pulled up the emergency break. I readied my body for my expulsion from the automobile and I successfully rolled from the vehicle, over the hood and onto the glass littered floor, pulling my gun from my jacket.
No silencer was necessary today, I thought to myself with a grin.
Before a command could be uttered I dispatched the five agents in the lobby with quick shots, and I was actually beginning to feel like my old self. Once more, I could look on at how easily humans were taken down by a bullet to the shoulder, a morbid fact which prompted a deeper appreciation for my ascension. Now was no time to gloat though, I needed to get to Claire before she was moved and before any other government organizations became involved in the matter since chances of retrieval after that would be extremely low. It did force me to question though what was it that was going on with her? The only way the CDC would need to be called in would be if she showed signs of infection, and upon this recollection of information I could not help but regret not informing her that though my enemy had no record of her the good U.S. of A did.
No more men were emerging from the hallway, which was a sign that I had arrived just in time, and now I needed to keep up this track record since the hospital cameras would soon be confirming a sighting of me. A new batch of officials would contain trained men with weapons, and although they would pose no threat against me I would be leaving here with cargo I could for some unknown reason, yet admittedly consider precious. The sound of murmuring directed me to the correct room and without question I disposed of every physician standing inside, my eyes falling on the unconscious and exposed Redfield sibling with tubes jammed into each arm. Rather than take a moment to assess the situation I chose to unhook her from the machines and pull down the thin hospital gown that they hadn’t cared was pulled up.
A moment of sentiment washed over me, and I had no choice but to immediately nip it in the bud as a beep alerted me to the arrival of our ride. Without attempting to rouse her, I took her into my arms bridal style and ran from the room, avoiding the path traveled earlier. The electronic doors slid open as I approached them, walking out onto the path strictly reserved for Ambulances where several men clad in black held their automatic weapons at the ready.
“Albert Wesker you are surrounded! Put the subject down and surrender yourself to the United States Government!” The man in the middle was horrible at projecting confidence, perhaps he knew his gun wouldn’t have helped even if he could have used it, and why would they threaten me when I held “priority number one” in my hands? With a smirk I thought, maybe it’s because I lost my shades.
The sound of rubber peeling pierced the air of seriousness, almost forcing the obedient soldiers to take their eyes off of the target. “Good day gentlemen,” I drawled, just a few seconds before a black Sedan skidded sideways to a halt but not before denting its passenger door with the bodies of half a dozen of the men. As a reminder that they could not shoot, I made my way to the car facing them and I boarded through the left back door to ensure that Claire was inside first. It was all too easy.
It disappointed me how quickly we slipped through their fingers, yet since Claire’s life was in my hands it was best that I not complain. In her drug induced sleep she groaned and her muscles twitched violently, so much to the surprise of my driver I positioned her so that her head lay in my lap.
A pair of brown eyes met with mine in the rearview, and a feminine hand delivered a pair of shades into my own. “What exactly is going on?”
“Ms. Wong you are not being paid to ask questions,” I replied, my gaze returning to the pale face that rested on my thighs. I had only seen her a week ago leaving her apartment yet a difference in her appearance was notable: her hair had grown at the least six inches longer, her cheeks were plumper, and her own scent had changed in some way. With a frown my curiosity had peaked, leading me to disregard the possible judgments of the driver to satisfy my own inquisitiveness, and before I thought back to the present medical instruments that were in the hospital room I pulled down the top of her gown slightly. Clenching my teeth was the only way to keep me from saying anything at all.
The ultrasound machine… It was impossible.
“Where to?” Ada purred.
“The Cheyenne facility.”
“Isn’t that one operable?” she countered with an already arched brow raised.
No reply from me was necessary for one look told her that I did not care. Right now what supplies I would need was a mystery, but surely I would need someplace with a reliable circuitry system and sterile instruments. Whatever drugs they supplied Claire with had kept her asleep the whole two hours, yet she attempted to toss and turn which were movements that were not permitted by me or the small space of the backseat.
I had access to the labs of the Cheyenne facility still, and there were very few people who still held that privilege. I figured that taking the back entryway was my best option, so I instructed Ada to get rid of the car and wait in the office of the level seven labs. There was no need for her to see or know what happened as I myself prepared to understand why exactly Miss Redfield needed to be sent to the ER. The plan had originally been to observe her for a month to ensure that she was safe and it appeared she had been if one did not count her visit to a party that she was unable to leave until the next day.
Many did not consider me a man of my word or a man who believed in fairness, they claimed that I even hated those who I employed, but the loyalty Redfield had demonstrated was far stronger than the sort money could buy. Therefore I chose to wait, to watch her from afar before I went about my business, and I would be lying if I said that I owed her nothing. Carefully, I laid her down on the operating table, and I found every tool I would need and washed my hands before putting on a pair of gloves. There had been no need to search for the ultrasound machine; it was placed next to the operating table already, and for a moment I remembered that the Nemesis project was tinkered with here.
Moving to raise the gown, I heard the tiniest moan that signaled that she was waking up, and without my shades I stared down at her half lidded eyes, able to see that she was struggling to stay awake. Then her eyes fell upon me which caused them to open just a bit wider. Though I expected her to say my name instead her face twisted into an expression of pain, and she reached for her abdomen. “I will try my hardest to help you.”
Groaning loudly, she arched her back and opened her mouth to speak. “I’m pregnant,” she warned tearfully.
Now that I had the confirmation that was needed I felt a frown settle on my face, knowing that the outcome of this would not the preferred one and I had a feeling which one she preferred. Once more she howled in agony, the pain so unbearable that I witnessed her beginning to claw at the source of the pain. “Tell me are you feeling contractions?”
Possibly from something she witnessed on television she began using the Lamaze technique, although I doubted that it would do her any good. “I don’t know what those even feel like!”
Being a woman I expected her to know this, however in her current condition I needed to remain as calm as possible with her. “Imagine the worst menstrual cramps possible,” I replied, starting up the machine next to us.
For a moment she thought and clenched her teeth to keep from crying out once more. “No,” she groaned.
“Then Lamaze won’t help.” My information was blunt but my last concern was keeping her hopes high about the pain, I needed to be sure that she would live through this and to be sure that what was within her was actually human. The gel was nearby, and I grabbed it to squeeze it out of the tube onto her abdomen. This machine was a brand new instrument they referred to as a 4D ultrasound machine that would be released to hospitals by the end of the year, and this was a much better model since I would be able to view what was happening in real time.
Before I took a look I stared down at her, knowing that my eyes were unnerving enough, but she needed to understand why I was saying what I was. “There is a possibility that this child will not be human.”
Despite her pain, she grew still and silent. “What are you saying?”
“I will have no choice but to terminate this pregnancy if it will cost you your life.”
I reached to begin the ultrasound but she took hold of my arm, surprising me that she had any strength left. “If this baby is human, make sure it survives no matter what. Promise me,” she demanded, those blue eyes may have matched my own with the intensity of her gaze alone.
Since we were pressed for time I gave a short answer, hoping that she would drop it and relax. “Yes.” When she received reassurance her focus returned to the source of her pain, and I heard the sound of heels faltering behind me.
Ada stood there with a box in her hands, justifying her intrusion before I could bark at here to leave us. “You left Birkin’s package with me.” Never had the spy been nervous in her actions before, yet the sight of Claire screaming at the top of her lungs had managed to shake her to her core. Wordlessly she left after sitting the wooden box on the counter to my left.
Knowing that I could waste no more time I pressed the transducer to her stomach, the display image surprising even me. A few times she asked what it was that had me so confounded, yet there were no words to describe what you had never truly seen before, and it was already made difficult by the bad news I would have to deliver. What I witnessed was unnatural and as impossible as its conception should have been. It was a very active embryo that appeared to be in the last embryonic stage, bordering on human but not quite there, yet from the way it moved I could see that it was fully developed.
Usually by the final week as an embryo it would be only one half of an inch, but this particular specimen looked to be close to half a foot in length. The life within her was incomplete yet complete by its own standards, and as the creature twisted within her it revealed to me an overextended coccyx, yet rather than it being smaller than its body it looked to be the same length.
Somehow she found the strength to sit up to stare at the display, and she whispered with a despaired tone, “It has a tail…” Her viewing was ended as she gave another groan, and I saw clearly what was causing it: the being was attempting to force its way from her abdomen without caring that it would damage its own host and mother on its way out.
I took my eyes from the screen and let them settle on the wooden box, knowing that I had no option but to tell her the truth. “Claire, it is attempting to tear its way through your abdomen. The chance that you would survive does not exist.” Seeing her tears in some way disturbed me, pushing me to do what I wished to refrain from, but now I could see that there was no way for me to surgically remove the creature in time. “Unless you are willing to set aside all you believe in for the smallest chance that you may live.”
Somehow she managed to stay calm in order to hear me out in my attempt to save her life. Though she seemed afraid she endured me stepping away briefly to open the box left to me by my late colleague and friend, William Birkin. Inside was nestled a capped syringe that held a gray colored liquid with a disk that more than likely was placed to tell me the specifics of this particular concoction. All I knew now was that it was special, having been created before my own virus had been produced, and with the syringe in hand I neared her once more.
Displaying what could have possibly been her salvation I grabbed her arm with my free hand, “This is an experimental virus.” I felt her muscles tense and knew that she would attempt to free herself from my grip, but I tightened my hold on her and quickly added, “That may bring you back. And when it has done its job I swear to you that I will find a way to remove it from your system. The choice is yours.”
With the knowledge that her young life would undoubtedly be ended by a product of her own body, she bit down on her bottom lip so hard with contemplation that she drew blood, and she refused to speak her answer to me. Claire Redfield would never speak the words, “Make me a monster,” and for a moment I will admit that I feared that she would choose pride over her own life. Then she nodded once, and without delay I used my teeth to remove the cap from the needle and tapped the glass with my fingernail before plunging the needle into her neck without warning. With a gasp, she relaxed, but it was not because of the virus. I looked down to her stomach that had remained flat throughout the gestation period, and saw something subtly pressing upward from inside.
Those blue eyes never left me as the last bit of her life drained from her, she went silently (which in my eyes was strong), and I reached for the scalpel to my right. The surgical steel cut through her easily, getting me to what was technically my offspring quickly, and I was left without a clue of what to expect. I could see a part of its body, and I took this moment to grab hold of it, not having to be mindful of its host’s wellbeing. For something so small I could tell that it was strong as it wriggled in my hand, and I pulled the blood-covered creature from her as it screamed and struggled against me.
There was no sign of humanity in what I held onto. No sex was present which was the first thing I noticed about its physical appearance as it threw its head back and forth, showing that it possessed complete and total control over its motor skills. The tail was whipping wildly from the bottom of my hand and it gave another anguished wail, presenting me with a full set of teeth that it snapped angrily, and I did not rule out that maybe it used those very same teeth to gnaw through the innards of its mother. The scientist in me faded into the background as I was once more struck with the fact that this was my child that I had created with the woman lying dead on the table before me. Yet this thing knew nothing of the significance of our relationship to it, and as it set its orange eyes on me I knew that I needed to end it now.
Quickly with the thumb and index finger of my free hand I clamped onto its neck and tightened them fatally, ending the screeching and quite possibly the suffering of my own flesh and blood. To avoid any creeping sentiment I placed the body in the surgical tray and began sewing up Claire’s wounds, trying to remember how long she had been lifeless. If the virus I administered was anything like my own then she should have been awake by now, but here listless gaze was steadily staring at the place my face last was in her vision.
“Put her in the cryotank.”
Ignoring Ada’s insubordination, I ripped the brunette’s gown from her lifeless body and lifted her from the cold table. The spy watched as I carried her to the next room that was primarily occupied by a large tank that had been empty for years. For all I knew it could soon be occupied for twice as long as that.
April 29, 2001 Sunday 6:36 PM
Subject: Wesker, Albert
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Status: Fine
For hours I conducted research on the specimen that emerged from Miss Redfield, confounded by its very existence. From what I could tell it had began its gestation period at the start of April, and I knew the exact day that it was conceived from that information alone. We had engaged in relations only once this entire month: our last day in Red Lodge, Montana which made the gestation period twenty-six days total. Rapid growth in this case was an understatement, something that was proven by its apparent “over-development” seeing as it had two full rows of teeth.
Though conception occurred twenty-six days before it had the appearance of an eight week old embryo except it was much larger, and I struggled to grasp an understanding of the whole thing. It would take weeks of study to get an answer, and since the monitors showed no brain activity whatsoever for Claire it appeared that all I had was time. Completely naked, she floated in the clear, bluish liquid, her hair floating around her, and I took in her appearance for notes. Her hair had grown to reach her waist in a matter of weeks, her breasts had increased an entire cup size, and her body held a noticeably new amount of fat around her waist, arms, and face.
The hCG levels within her body were barely there which proved that what she carried had not been human and that if she had taken a pregnancy test it would have read negative. Somehow it managed to keep her body from recognizing its presence, all the while residing within her for protection and nourishment. So from its start it possessed some sense of self preservation.
My desire to escape the thought of my lost offspring lead me to grow curious about the contents of the disk that had been with the syringe. This long after his death Will still managed to surprise me. Knowing that I should have played it already I placed it into the CD-Rom drive. An image of my former colleague appeared on the computer screen, and he did not exude the cockiness and confidence he was once known for.
“Hello Al. If you are watching this I am dead. Believe it or not there were a few people we could still trust and that person seems to have kept up his deal and delivered the box to you. Please understand that it took years to get to you because it was necessary to wait for things to cool down lest this package be intercepted. I’ll bet you’re thinking, ‘What the hell has he come up with now?’ Well I’ll tell you. Before I made your virus I stumbled across the most extraordinary cocktail, yet I never got to test it on a human subject. Petri dishes only showed so much Al, but what it showed me…”
His face showed that he was proud and in disbelief all at once. “It is something special. It may not be strong enough for you to want it but for someone else it could be a diamond in the rough. I don’t know what you will choose to do but if you administer this to a human then I implore you that it is given to someone worthy of the effects. Do not waste the only product of mine yet to be tested on the undeserving, someone who is meant to be disposed of.”
For a moment he looked saddened. “I would ask how Sherry and Annette are but… I won’t receive an answer,” he added with a scoff. “If they’re alive though, tell them both I’m sorry, tell them that I love them and that if I could go back and change what brought about my demise then I would. Hell I’d be a fool not to.” The laugh he gave was meant to lighten the dim mood he created for himself, but the fact that he had died because of foolishness only made it all much worse.
“Take care Al. I hope that this can in some way help you. If this is the last good thing I can do for a friend, then whatever happens to me, wherever I may go, I’ll know that my final act did something for someone who was close to me.” With a disheartened smile and a nod, he ended the video, officially making it the last time I saw William Birkin.
I knew I would never watch that video again.
My eyes wandered back to the woman in the cryotank who was clinically dead, but it did not shake the trust I had in Will, nor the faith I had in her genetic makeup. If she could carry life within her that was not probable in the first place, then I had to think that she would soon react to the virus. This whole time I attempted to overlook the obvious when it came to Claire even though it danced before my eyes and rang out in my mind.
Though I prided myself on having no attachments to humans I knew that there was a reason that I worked to save her. I had exposed myself to the public and the United States Government all to keep her from receiving a stamp that labeled her as their property. Had I not intervened then she would have died in their hands and product of our affair would have become a project for them to monitor and put down when they grew bored of funding it. That left me to face a fact that I repressed and hid for almost a month.
I still cared for her.
Still there was something else that just as incessantly nibbled away in the back of my mind and though I had neither desire nor the ability to take advantage of it, it was still a verity that I needed to keep in mind. Against all odds and with a human no less, I was able to procreate.
- 10
- 11
- 12
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Optio