Odd Jobs: Part Four

Cody

The iron hot pain shot up and down my leg. I gritted my teeth together to keep from screaming. The white haired guy who's name was Lewis was pressing a thick cloth on the wound in my thigh with two hands, keeping it from bleeding out. I shut my eyes breathing heavily through my nose. Please Matt, please make it away. I hoped against anything he wouldn't do something stupid and come back for me. Not unless he had help.
There was crashing in the front room, loud swearing. R, the guy with the gun, stormed in. His face twisted with rage "He got away! The piece of s@#% ran for the old town hall!".
"That was no reason to shoot the subject we do have! You know the boss wants them whole" Lewis tied the cloth to my leg and stood up, glaring at the other man "If the experiment fails because of the injury, you're to blame".
R spat on the floor and grabbed him by the neck of his shirt "If you don't want to end up like Mason over there, I suggest you keep your mouth shut" he shoved him away and walked up to me leaning in close enough for me to smell his garlicky breath "Thanks to this brat we've lost a day. Maybe more" he punched me in the mouth.
My eyes watered. I was already fight back my pain, he didn't need to make it worse. Hadn't he hit me enough for f@#%ing day? I gathered the blood welling in my mouth and spat it in his face "Go to hell!".
He drew his hand back to strike me. I grimaced shutting my eyes, the blow never came. Lewis had caught his arm and was glaring angrily at him "Enough! You've damaged the subject more then necessary! If you're so wound up, go and search for the subject you lost".
R face twisted in to an ugly blood spattered snarl, his livid eyes never leaving mine. He turned sharply without wiping off the mess and made for the door "Fine, at the least I can take it out on him" retching the door open he left, slamming it hard enough to make the computer monitors behind me stutter.
"You wont find him!" I shouted to no response.
Mandy stood up shakily "Sh-should I help sir?".
He shook his head "No. I've got it from here. Take Conner to his room, he's not looking to good. When you finish with that go and alert Brandon, I'll need his help".
She hurried over to the guy I had shot in the shoulder. I couldn't see what she did next because they were behind me, when she was within my sight range she was supporting him. He was barely conscious. As she hauled him out the door the machinery behind me started to hum. Lewis had turned it on and was now flipping various levers by the sound of it. Only now did my blood run cold with dread. I was caught, fully and 100%. The only bright side I could possibly find was whatever they were about to do to me, wouldn't happen to my brother. By now he had to be miles away from this crack house. I tugged experimentally on  the leather straps pinning my arms. They didn't budge. The humming behind me grew louder. My heart doubled its pace. S@$%! Stalling was over, this was it "What do you want with me?" I asked unable to hide the fear in my voice.
He didn't come in to my line of sight but I could hear a smile when he spoke "Obviously we need two healthy test subjects".
"Why not use one or your cronies?".
"They don't work".
I swore, would he knock it off with the clipped answers, I wasn't getting anything out of him. The tubes embedded under my skin twitched in usion as first air, then a dark blue liquid flowed throughout them. I didn't feel any different, sooner or later the chemicals would kick in "What do you mean they don't work?".
He flipped a few more buttons or switches and the hum got even louder, like an old AC puffing its last breath "In the beginning we thought we could use any person in good health. Running a few test on each one of them showed the subjects had only a 3% chance of survival. We took the chance any way".
"They died?" I rasped feeling hot all over, my face flushing while my stomach cramped up.
"Not in the way you might be expecting, but yes, they did die. Every last one of them. By then the boss had discovered a pattern in the many ways each subject died. Later conducting background searches, he found the subjects that lived the longest had specific talents. Ones we were looking for in fact. We knew what to look for and that's how we came to find you and your friend".
My head throbbed sickeningly. If I had felt hot before it was nothing to I was feeling now. A nerve racking fever raged inside of me, breathing was becoming harder "W-what makes us so special?".
"digging up your job history we found the majority of the jobs you did involved water. A lifeguard, swim instructor, even a pool cleaner".
"So?" I coughed biting back a yell. My muscles giving off short lived spasms.
"You love water. You may not even know it yourself, part of you longs to be close to it because of this you have a 50% chance of survival. A far higher rate then the-".
His voice faded in to the hum of the machine. The words he spoke no longer making any sense. The blue liquid wreaking havoc in my body. My heart felt ready to explode as the blue stuff mixed with the blood in my veins. A horrid sharp pain cut in both side of my neck. I cried out. It was like someone was digging a knife in my neck. Back and forth, back and forth. The feeling was so powerful I expected to see a fountain of red spilling over my chest. The spasm in my muscles grew more intense, instead they were twisting, bunching and stretching in ways I didn't think possible. My head snapped back, a shriek ripped its way out of my throat. Once I started I couldn't remember how to stop. If they wanted me dead couldn't they have killed me with the gun? I writhed, desperate to break the restraints. I wanted this to end, I didn't care how. I only wanted it to be over. If I had to with stand another second of this agony I would lose my mind completely. My eyes rolled back in my head, my entire body shuddering uncontrollably. Suddenly I couldn't breath. Not even a little. My never ending scream cut short. I hadn't had a chance to inhale or anything, I was like someone had put duct tape over my mouth and nose. The lights dimmed, sounds were muted, I began to lose feeling. Great I thought sincerely, I was dying. A world of nothingness would be better then this or whatever came after a person stopped living. The dimming lights were replaced with a deep blackness, dark and endless. I felt light, weightless.
I was gone. Just like that. I had gone from unbearable agony to nothing at all. Soooo, was I dead? Was this limbo? Unfortunately it wasn't. I could make out distant voices coming from somewhere. Two sets of hands moving my limp body. At first their touch felt ghostly, like they weren't really there. The more I focused on it the firmer they felt.
My eyes blinked open on their own, everything was out of focus and blurred around the edges. I wasn't in the chair anymore. That much I could tell. Now I was lying on my side on something that was moving or bouncing. A stretcher? The feeling in my body was slow to return, when it did I wished it hadn't. A ached all over. Literally, I even ached down there! I still felt like I was burning up a high fever. Not nearly as horrible as I was a minute ago. As a bonus I could breath again, it wasn't coming as easily as it should but I could breath. I shut my eyes, hoping to beat down a throbbing headache. Now what happens? Did I pass the part where he said I would die or did that come later?
The urgent voices above me started to come together, no longer sounding like senseless babble. Two male voices. One excited and the other anxious.
"He made it through the first phase! No ones ever made it-!".
"Shut up, if we don't get him hydrated he won't last much longer!".
It was only then that I noticed how extremely thirsty I was. It was like I had never even heard of  the word water. I panted, my throat closing up. My skin was dry and papery feeling. Every breath burned as it went in and out. Coughing did nothing to help. I couldn't think of much else but getting wet, somehow. Even if that meant peeing myself. The stretcher bounced and swayed, I had now idea where they were taking me. Their voices fading in and out I was only able to catch every other word. The male voice closest to my head sounded familiar, I felt I heard it before but I couldn't remember when or where.
The moving stopped and I was set on a low bed it felt like. One of the guys emptyed a bottle of water over my head and neck, sopping wet towels were being laid over the rest of me. The guy put his hand behind my neck, holding me up and slowly pouring the cold water down my throat. I gulped at at, my strength returning some. I took the bottle from him and downed it myself. The water helped almost instantly, my skin was already feeling back to normal. Now I was just tired. Instead of being in so much pain I wished someone would shoot me already. He lowered me back down, his hand super gentle compared to the others thugs that handled me. That was a concern, was this dude a sicko? Not like I had the strength to fight him off if I had to. It was getting easier to breath, maybe it wouldn't be to long before I could make a break for it. Whatever sh#% was pumped in to me didn't seem to have left me paralyzed, or worse.
"Cody?" the dude asked softly. Concerned. I knew that voice, I knew it. He was some one who betrayed me "Cody can you hear me?".
"What are you?-" Lewis asked, but the guy hushed him.
I mustered the energy to open my eyes, for some reason that was actually hard to do. Everything was blurry, a figure was leaning over me. Gold blond hair and beard with stripes of grey. My vision cleared. I was looking at my exact double. Only difference was he looked twenty something years older. I knew his name, Gregory Lopez
I was staring face to face with my dad.