Page 17

Chief Aiken Oakley

Everything was a blurry, twisted haze.

Oakley snapped his eyes open, and the first thing that hit him was blinding white light. It was a brutal assault on his senses, piercing his head like slivers of glass.

He stiffened, like a slab of concrete, every inch of him resisting when he tried to move. His heart hammered against his rib cage, and he felt the pounding not only in his chest but clear down to the soles of his feet.

It was as if the beating of his pulse was too powerful, each thud reverberating in his muscles and bones, sending tremors through his limbs.

Oakley’s skin burned as if his blood was boiling.

He opened his mouth to cry out, but his tongue was heavy, and the air tasted disgusting, as if he were sucking on a metal spoon. It was a sour taste he couldn’t explain, as if the air wasn’t breathable.

What the fuck is happening?

He tried, but he was unable to focus. Images and sounds flashed and faded as quickly as they came. He tried to hold on to anything long enough to make sense of it, but he failed time after time.

What’d happened? Where am I…? Who am I?

Every answer felt just out of reach, slipping through his fingers like raindrops, scattered and impossible to collect.

But one thing stuck like a splinter lodged in his mind.

A man.

Oakley didn’t have a name for him, only a faint scent of amber, musk, and earthy sweetness that lingered on the edges of his thoughts. Strong hands, warm and steady, a deep voice and rumbling laugh. Eyes that were as beautiful as the leaves of a bamboo tree.

The more Oakley tried to hold on to the memory, the quicker it fled. He didn’t know why this man of mystery was relevant. All he knew was he was alone, and without him , there was a wound in his soul that was raw and unable to heal.

Help!

He tried to holler, to say anything, but his throat was tight and burning red-hot as if he’d swallowed hot coals. The sounds that came out weren’t words. They were more like growls, jagged rasps scraping against his vocal cords.

Frustration surged. Why couldn’t he fucking speak? Why couldn’t he move?

His body didn’t feel like his own. It was humming with restless energy, something feral and untamed demanding release.

And then the hunger came.

It began in the pit of his stomach, a gnawing emptiness that refused to be ignored. It was almost primal, as if he were craving to sink his teeth into something.

The offensive squeak of leather, the shuffling of feet on hardwood floors, and the noise of different voices made his head throb. It was all too loud for his ears.

People were arguing.

“Assistant Director Madison—”

“Please, call me Hank.”

“Um, Hank, this is becoming egregiously unethical,” a stern voice said. “Tell the director I agreed to this project with the guarantee that the subjects of my gene mutation tests would be volunteers . I did not sign up to abduct our country’s soldiers. These men are still classified as MIA. They should be returned to their command and accommodated, not experimented on! This isn’t just wrong. It’s a violation of fundamental human rights, and I refuse to be complicit in this any longer—”

What? Who’s MIA?

“Dr. Calhoun, you were hired by this organization to create a serum that would change DNA sequences in humans when inserted with animalia nucleotides. Your contract has no authority over subjects.”

Oakley forced his eyes open, squinting against the harsh light, but he was able to make out the faces of men and women standing in white coats outside a large room he was lying prone in.

“Now, Dr. Calhoun, I can understand your moral dilemma, but we’ve tried your test on countless candidates, and unfortunately, their endurance and neural strengths were substandard. They were genetically too weak. The chiefs, on the other hand, survived days in one of the most intense physiologically stressful environments in the world, when most men are killed in the Amazon within twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t care if they’re the ideal candidates. They’re abducted candidates,” the same man stressed.

What the fuck…abducted? From where?

“You promised their survival of their recovery mission would be reported to their commands… That was three weeks ago!” Dr. Calhoun hollered, his voice like a nail being driven into Oakley’s forehead.

What mission?

His mind was dark, so full of holes and emptiness he didn’t even feel like a human being. He was a piece of a person. He wanted to know what the hell was happening to him.

Another low growl emanated from his chest so ferociously it scared him.

“Dr. Calhoun, these men obviously value glory over all. They’ll continue to save lives…on a global scale. We’re not backing out of this project because it’s gotten too real for you. I’ll go to Director Ross if anything goes awry, but I am the overseer of this project, and it’s my call.” The guy sounded like the villain in a slasher film as he lowered his voice to a low snarl. “And my call is to proceed.”

“‘Ideal candidates’?” a female whispered as if this was a conversation none of them should be having. “These men are very resilient, yes, but it doesn’t mean they won’t succumb under the strain of what you’re doing to them. As the ethologist, I have a duty to inform you that inserting the puma DNA and the black hawk’s plasma proteins is radical engineering. You’ve demanded we begin that phase, but the sequences are far from stable.”

Oakley took in the woman’s worried expression as his heart rate tripled. He’d been taken from wherever and was being experimented on, but the rest of the conversation was going over his head.

He didn’t know who he was, but he was positive he wouldn’t have agreed to anything like this. Not even for a million dollars.

An Asian man put his hands up between the four of them and spoke in a calm but insistent tone. “Director Madison, even if Dr. Calhoun’s serums are given in lower dosages, there’s a limit to the amount of another species’ genetics you can force into the human system before a psychosocial collapse becomes unavoidable.”

“Precisely,” the lady added.

The man continued his explanation. “The last human hybrid I worked on showed considerable identity dissolution after several months of consistent treatment. I know these soldiers are remarkably strong, but their cognition will continue to shift and their neural pathways will rewire in ways we may not be able to control after long.”

Oakley was trying to decipher the scientific jargon, but whatever medicine he was on made it too difficult.

“Dr. Pheung, I hear your concerns, but you will follow my directions. Double the dosages and frequency. Our country is in peril, and we need heroes now…not in five years. All I demand is that you do the jobs you were recruited for—and paid generously for, by the way—and submit your results to my office every hour.”

Oakley’s eyelids were getting heavy, but he heard footsteps and the rustling of fabric.

The man who asked to be called Hank grinned. “Unless you want to give back the two-point-two-million-dollar advance you were paid so your wife could receive the groundbreaking medical treatments for her stage four cancer.”

“Doubling! You’ve gone mad. Shame on you, Director Madison!” Dr. Calhoun’s outrage was becoming too much.

Please, stop! Stop yelling! Oakley thought he was going to throw up from the sensory overload.

“I am done trying to explain morality and obligation to you. When I leave, my first stop will be to the Department of Human Services, and next to the military base, where I will stay until I’ve spoken directly with their commander, who I’m sure will immediately storm in and shut down this entire operation.”

Oakley squeezed his eyes shut a second after the assistant director pulled a black handgun from his waistband and fired three shots into the raging doctor’s back before he could clear the threshold of the room.

Screams and shouts reverberated and ricocheted off the walls until they slammed into his brain.

The unforgiving sounds of the gunshots and the cries of fear overwhelmed him. His pulse stuttered in a desperate rhythm as the shockwaves from the shots shook his bones.

He tensed all over, his fight-or-flight kicking into full gear, but he couldn’t run. So he did the only thing he could and released a vicious growl into the room that made the remaining abductors spin around.

“Fuck, he’s awake!” someone hollered. “How is he awake? That shouldn’t be possible.”

Oakley wanted to slam his hands over his ears, but something tight and thick was secured around his wrists.

“It doesn’t matter how, just put him back under, hurry!” the assistant director barked.

No, no, no. I want out!

A sharp prick pierced the sensitive skin in the crook of Oakley’s right arm.

Slowly, his body began to feel as if it were sinking into the surface he was lying on, and once again, the world faded into a dull blur, and the few memories he’d attempted to conjure dissolved like smoke.

The last utterance he heard was the frightening threat of the man who’d just murdered someone in cold blood.

“Let what happened to Dr. Calhoun be a cruel but definite lesson. No one gets out. You will do your jobs…or else.”