Emmy Laybourne - Dress Your Marines in White

She was trying to convince James and Cha. Or trying to convince herself?

“We’ll aim for thirty seconds of exposure, but if there’s any trouble, I’ll signal you. If there’s any sign of trouble, we’ll kill the whole thing. Don’t you think it will be okay? I think it will be fine.”

“I think we might consider Dr. Savic’s suggestion to test the blood types separately,” James offered. “We still don’t know how fast we can expect to see a reaction from type AB.”

“Dr. Cutlass does raise a good point—” Dr. Cha interjected.

Massey started to pace, new ideas for the presentation streaming out. James got a notepad. He knew her well enough to reach for it automatically.

“We’ll have them strapped down, on those black padded testing beds, so they can’t move. Let’s put the subjects in white, too. It will look good against the dark padding.”

James wrote it all down.

“What if the O gets free?” he asked.

“From the restraints?”

“Dr. Massey, I think it could be possible. But then I’ve never seen the effect on a human subject.”

She had. In 2021. She and Savic and a retired general were the only ones who’d survived the leak.

“We’ll have an armed guard in the room. Just in case,” she conceded.

It would be safer to do them one at a time. Safer for the subjects, by far, and for whichever assistant she assigned to be in the test room. But he didn’t press it with Massey. It wasn’t that she didn’t welcome a good argument. It was that she hated cowards.

And he was afraid.

And if he hesitated, even for a second, she’d know it. And then she might make him be in there.

On the morning of the demonstration, I ran through a safety check with the head of the lab, Dr. Savic, and the lead lab engineer, Hans Longreman. Mr. Longreman assured us the test suite had been reinforced with silicone sealant and that the air filtration system was similarly reinforced.

We did a run-through of the release and gel spray down of the room. Mr. Longreman insisted that such a test was a waste of materials — that he had already tested it several times — but Dr. Savic insisted. He reminded Mr. Longreman that MORS is a substance of unknown strength and virulence. We ran the test and the foaming gel rained down and expanded almost immediately.

I was satisfied that the demonstration could be performed safely on the subjects.

Brayden and his music. It was back up again, shaking the floor. James took the baseball bat and pounded it down onto the carpet. He kept the bat by the door to the basement for this exact reason — to signal Brayden to turn down the noise.

When Massey picked the subjects from the files the warden at Leavenworth sent over, James helped. The warden had made the offer to all their lifers and all twelve of them volunteered. They all wanted out of The Castle, it seemed. But how could the inmates have known what they were getting themselves into?

Dr. Massey made the final decision, selecting them as if she were casting a play.

A giant brute for O. A guy who looked ethnic for AB — did she think he’d be more garrulous, somehow, because he looked like a gypsy? A regular-Joe-looking type B guy. For type A, a man whose skin was so white, he seemed like he might be an albino.

Dr. Savic looked over her selections. His sign-off was needed.

“This one,” he said, the type O brute on the screen of his tablet. “Why so big for the O?”

“I didn’t pick him for his size, per se,” Massey lied. “He just seemed more dignified, somehow, than the others. I thought it would provide a good contrast when he experiences the effects, that’s all.”

Savic grunted his assent, massaging the scar on his jaw with his good hand. James had noticed he did this often when discussing MORS.

“You don’t need to have a large man to show that type O becomes a monster,” Savic said. “MORS will do it to anyone.”

The way Savic looked at Massey made James’s scalp prickle.

James pushed away his coffee cup. The chalky film of cream shifted side to side in the cup, rocking back and forth. He didn’t need more coffee. Caffeine was the last thing he needed.

After an extensive briefing, Dr. Massey, Dr. Savic, Colonel Davidson, General Montez, General Green, and I entered the viewing room. Also in attendance were several aides.

Dr. Massey explained the goal of the presentation, and the test subjects were brought in by Dr. Cha.

Cha pleaded with Massey when she told him he was going to be the one in the room.

“You’ll wear full protective gear with an oxygen tank, for God’s sake,” Massey snapped.

“But why do you need me in there?” he asked. “I can bring the subjects in and strap them down and leave—”

“In case there’s some problem with the dispersal mechanism,” Massey insisted. “Can you imagine how stupid we’d look if we get all the brass in the viewing room, the marines strapped down and pfffft — nothing happens?”

No, Cha had to be there, according to her.

James forced himself not to think of that photo pinned to Cha’s workstation. Wife. Twin sons. Toddlers with round faces and bashful smiles.

Cha, dressed in his suit, looking more like an astronaut than a person, led the marines in.

The four test subjects entered. They wore white medical scrubs. Short-sleeved. As Massey had requested.

Their hands were handcuffed but it wasn’t necessary for the demonstration.

Why were they cuffed? Why? Not because they were dangerous criminals who might escape at any moment — it was to trick the brass into thinking that the armed guard was there in case they tried to escape.

The armed guard, of course, was there to kill them in case the experiment spiraled out of control.

But Dr. Massey didn’t want to scare the brass into thinking that MORS was unsafe to even test, because she wanted them to fund it.

James felt anger rising in his chest. This would be the last time he would play the scene in his mind, he promised himself. Tomorrow he’d call the hypnotist from the commercial. His wife could scoff all she wanted. She hadn’t been there.

Against Cha in his suit and the guard in his suit, the marines looked very unprotected. Meek, even.

Well, not Gruin, the type O. He looked like Thor. A shaved-head Thor with SEMPER FI emblazoned on one arm.

Each subject wore their blood type in black paint stenciled on the chest of their medical scrubs. This was to aid the viewers in recognizing the effects of the compound.

The AB looked scared. The A looked scared. The B looked bemused.

B had short, reddish-brown hair. That color like an Irish setter. And freckles. Freckles on a full-grown man always made James feel sad, somehow. Like didn’t that guy know his childhood was over?

Dr. Cha turned and gave a thumbs up to the safety attendant in the containment annex. The attendant sealed and locked the door.

As the test subjects were brought in, General Montez stood up. He said that he recognized one of the test subjects. It was Private Michael Ceglowski (type B blood).

“That’s Ceglowski,” said the general. “I know that soldier.”

“General Montez?” asked Dr. Savic.

“He served under me in Iraq. He was a member of an escort and we were ambushed. We saw some action together. Is that him? That can’t be him!”

“Yes, sir,” I confirmed. “The subject is Private Ceglowski.”

“This can’t be right. He’s serving a life term in the stockade? That can’t be right.”

Dr. Massey turned to James with a hard glint in her eyes and a nod, willing him to do something. James pulled up B’s file on the tablet.

“He was involved with the Marshad incident, sir. Serving a life term with no parole.”