New chapter tomorrow. In the mean time, I would like for you good readers to review a short story I wrote entitle Project: Zarathustra.
Project: Zarathustra
~* A Short Story *~
+=+ By Davy Jones +=+
Detective Gary Hoyt slammed the grey steel door of the interrogation room in the New York City police precinct, then looked around the sterile white room. Seated at a cheap metal table in a cheap metal chair in the middle of the room was a faintly-twitching middle-aged man. The man’s grey eyes darted around the room as if searching, and he brushed an aged hand through his salt and pepper hair. When the door slammed, the seated man jumped as if he had been shot.
Gary Hoyt sat down at the table, a manila file folder in his hands. The blonde-haired, green-eyed detective was fresh on the force, looking for a big case. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the one he was looking for.
“Dr. Liam McLeod,” Hoyt said, reading the tab on the file folder. The middle-aged man visibly calmed at the sound of his name.
Hoyt continued. “I must say, this is quite a story you’ve told here.”
Liam McLeod smiled, but with no emotion. “Every word in that report is true. All of the pictures, documents… everything.”
Hoyt perused the file. “Well, from what I can understand, you’ve released some sort of neurological bacteriophage that is a real killer, to put it bluntly.” The detective paused for a moment, sighed, and began again. “And from what I hear, there is no cure.”
McLeod nodded. “Yes, that about sums up the global crisis.”
Hoyt glowered at McLeod. “How can you be so apathetic about this. No cure, no immunity… everyone and everything on earth will die!”
Dr. McLeod shrugged. “It is a terrible outcome of the project, but it was a possibility from the beginning.
Hoyt slammed his hand down on the table, resulting in a loud clank. “Do you understand? EVERYONE is going to DIE because of YOUR little Project-.” He paused in his tirade to looke back at the file. “Your little Project: Zarathustra.”
Still McLeod seemed unfazed. “Ah, yes. Zarathustra was Friedrich Nietzsche’s fictional orator. Nietzche was a firm believer in übermensch philosophy. Superhuman philosophy.”
Hoyt rolled his eyes. “This guy is delusional,” he thought, then continued the interrogation. “So I take it that this was some sort of super soldier project that is against every international and national law in the world.”
“Cleverly disguised as a pharmaceuticals research study. The whole thing was paid for by government funding.”
Hoyt sighted. “Okay. Now, let’s have the story once more.”
Dr. Liam McLeod nodded and began to speak.
* * *
“They’re all dead. Every last one.”
Dr. McLeod pulled the stethoscope away from the cold, lifeless corpse. He ruffled his grey hair, then let out a sigh as he turned to his colleague.
“The project is over, Kurt.”
Dr. Kurtis Cooper took a quick look at the ceiling, searching for some answer or sign. The young man stared at the body on the morgue table, disappointment prevalent in his rich brown eyes.
“So, what happens next?”
“We walk away,” McLeod replied, “and leave these virus ravaged bodies hidden away in here.”
Kurt turned his gaze to the elder doctor. “Are you sure that this is the way to go, Liam? The neurological viruses could escape the lab. We need to quarantine, then set up a safe perimeter. After that, we can incenerate the lab.”
Liam McLeod slowly shook his head. “No, no. If we do anything conspicuous, then the scientific community and the associated press will swarm on this project, and you know well what could come of that. Project: Zarathustra must remain as it is: unknown.”
Kurt Cooper gazed at the rows of morgue doors, imagining all of the harmful bacteriophages that were festering in the bodies of all of the test subjects of Project: Zarathustra. If only they could take it all back…
“Remember,” McLeod added, “we’ll be the Nazis of the twenty-first century if we go public. So, Kurt, help me get this body into the chamber.”
Kurt complied, almost in a trance. They covered the male body in a white sheet, pushed the metal slab into the chamber, and shut the door. Kurt shivered from more than just the chilly temperatures of the Arctic laboratory.
McLeod walked to the door out of the morgue and hung up his lab coat on a rack. He beckoned for Kurt to do the same, and the younger man slowly walked over and hung his coat up as well. Then the two exited the morgue and strode down a sterile white hallway, through a pair of metal doors, and into a small hangar bay. A helicopter sat in on corner, the pilot leaning up against it smoking a cigarette. Upon seeing the two doctors, he climbed into the cockpit and started up the engine.
Kurt and Harry walked across the runway in total silence; the sound from the rotor blades drowned out all other noise. When they reached the helicopter, the pilot pressed a button on the console, and the roof of the hangar slid apart, revealing a grim, grey Arctic winter sky. McLeod climbed inside and strapped into the co-pilot’s seat. Kurt stood on the frozen floor, staring off into space.
“KURT!” Liam yelled over the rotors. “It’s time to go! Come on!”
Kurt climbed in and strapped into a seat behind the pilots. He motioned to a pair of headsets next to each of their seats. Liam and Kurt placed the headsets on their heads.
“It’s ironic,” Kurt said over the headset.
"What is, Dr. Cooper,” McLeod replied.
"Project: Zarathustra was meant to excel the human race, but in the end it killed hundreds of lives.”
McLeod sighed over the microphone. “Sacrifices must be mad for science. No one could have known one hundred percent that something like this could have happened.” He then took of his head set, twirling his fingers to signal the pilot to take off. The pilot nodded, then lifted the helicopter into the grey Arctic noon.
After four hours of nonstop flight, the helicopter touched down at the edge of John F. Kennedy airport in New York City. After he turned off the chopper, the pilot nudged McLeod, who had fallen asleep during the trip. Cooper, on the other hand, had stayed wide-awake. The pilot opened the doors, and McLeod jumped out into a light afternoon snow. Kurt jumped out as well, and the two scientists began walking to the main airport terminal.
Suddenly, Kurt fell to the ground and spasmed in uncontrollable. McLeod turned and gazed in horror as his colleague writhed in tortured agony. He let out screams and shrieks, but it was no use. The whole episode lasted only a minute, leaving one dead doctor lying face down on the tarmac.
McLeod stared in morbid fascination and shock at Dr. Cooper’s corpse. It wasn’t so much that Kurt had died, but how he had died.
It was the same death as the test subjects of Project: Zarathustra.
The pilot was also shocked. He turned to McLeod.
“W-what happened t-to h-him?” the pilot said, voice wavering.
McLeod shunned the question. The pilot reiterated his point, and then Dr. Liam McLeod answered truthfully.
“Neurological bacteriophages infiltrated his brain, causing uncontrollable seizures and ultimately resulting in complet nervous break down.
The pilot was wide eyed with fear as he asked the next question.
“How?”
McLeod got straight to the point. “It was a project to create men that were stronger, smarter, and more adept at living by stimulating their brains with a newly discovered virus found only in polar climates.”
Without thinking, McLeod sat on the frosted tarmac next to Kurt’s dead body and let the snow fall on him. The pilot, meanwhile, called 911 and told him about the dead scientist. Within five minutes, police cars swarmed the scene and took statements, and the coroner took Kurt to the Medical Examiner’s office.
* * *
When McLeod finished his story, Detective Hoyt let out a deep breath. “So, you came from some sort of Artic lab, correct?”
McLeod nodded.
Hoyt pressed further. “You mentioned that Dr. Cooper wanted to quarantine. Did you have the preventive measures?”
McLeod shook his head. “We didn’t know how contagious the new virus was. We injected the bacteriophages into the bodies of the subjects.”
Hoyt sighed. “You know, everyone one earth will hate you.”
McLeod merely nodded. “Yes, the thought crossed my mind. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do now.
Hoyt glared at Dr. McLeod. “You’re lucky I can’t beat you up right here.” With that, Detective Gary Hoyt got up, walked to the grey steel door, opened it, strode out, and slammed it with a loud clank. Liam McLeod, who had reverted to his twitching, added one last line.
“Sumus omnes mortuus.”