Robbie Dorman - Regrowth

“What do you think we’re doing, Jon?” asked Stone, raising his voice. Stone stared at him with his cold eyes, and Jon didn’t answer. Shaw had given his directive, and they were to follow it. There was no other way.

“I know,” said Jon. “That sounds as good as anything. But we still have to adjust for the amount of damage we’re inflicting.”

“I’m telling you, we open it up,” said Stone. “Increase the bandwidth. Rate of regeneration, rate of absorption, broaden the skin’s tolerance threshold—”

“Didn’t you say that would lead to side effects?” asked Jon.

“It can,” said Stone.

“Like what?”

“Elasticity in the skin,” said Stone. “All of this comes from hagfish, and so their skin would emulate that. It’s not out of place in a sea creature, but on a mammal? The skin becomes more and more permeable, to allow for greater absorption rates. It will recognize a wider range of things as food, more or less.”

“When do we recognize that what we’re turning this animal into is no longer a chimp?” asked Jon. The question hung in the air, a silence between the two of them.

“What are our other options?” asked Stone. “If we want to increase the speed of this, these are our choices. Efficiency will only shave off a few minutes. This is what Shaw wants. We have to give it to him.”

Jon balanced the thoughts in his head. Stone was right. They had exhausted their playbook, and the only way to make the process faster was to push the chimp’s systems to their limit.

No, that’s not right. We have to turn it into something else .

“What do you suggest?” asked Jon.

“We dial everything up,” said Stone. “All the way. See what we get.”

Jon sighed, but nodded. “Okay. And for the trauma?”

“Shaw talked about soldiers, on the front lines. I say we start with a bullet.”

“A bullet?”

“One gunshot,” said Stone. “To the gut. A survivable wound site.” The thought immediately turned Jon’s stomach to acid, and he felt the bile rise in his throat. He swallowed it back down.

They got the team together and started building models, assessing the new accelerated serum. They also built the testing rig, where they could restrain the animal, be safe from their own gunfire, and make it watertight, able to hold the nutrient bath.

Mel pulled him aside.

“Are we really doing this?” she asked. Her eyes were wide and full of emotion.

“Yes,” said Jon.

“We can’t,” said Mel. “These aren’t rats, Jon. They won’t be sedated, and we’re just shooting them? I didn’t join this team to be a part of a firing squad.”

Jon looked in her eyes, and then looked down, unable to meet her gaze for long. “Neither did I,” said Jon, finally. He looked around. The rest of the team worked. The two guards stood there, passively. He felt the electric eyes of the cameras on him. How powerful were their microphones?

He leaned into Mel, whispering in her ear.

“Have you noticed how emptier this place is? Shaw is removing people, one by one. And we will be next if we don’t play ball. I don’t know what else to do. They’ll take Tommy.”

He leaned back and looked again into Mel’s eyes. A tear flowed from one eye and she quickly wiped it away. She held eye contact and then nodded.

“You don’t have to watch,” said Jon. “Make an excuse. Work on the models. I know it’s not that much better, but it’s something.”

Mel nodded again and went back to her workstation. Jon sighed and looked through the batch of the latest models. The greatest hits of the model still stayed stable, despite how hard they had pushed the accelerator. It boggled Jon’s mind. How flexible was the DNA of this animal? How far could they push it without complete cell collapse? The advanced CRISPR software helped, filling in the gaps whenever necessary. And even if there wasn’t cell collapse, would the thing coming out on the other side even still be a chimp?

Jon tried to hold off the first experiment, but with the modeling results coming in, he couldn’t push it off for very long. Shaw’s eyes were on him, and he felt the pressure building. They had bought some time with their success, but Shaw’s patience would only last so long.

Still, this was only the initial test. They would have time to do more. They would need it. Jon expected little from the first experiment, except suffering for the chimp. He still held that he didn’t think the chimp’s body could handle how far they were pushing it. If it succeeded at all, he thought the chimp’s heart very well might explode, or it could suffer an aneurysm. Every creature had a limit, and they were getting dangerously close to reaching it.

But he let Stone have it. Maybe a failure with this chimp would give them some leeway to dial it back.

Jon’s stomach roiled as they brought the first chimp out for the test. Mel stayed at her workstation, working on the next model. He could see the distress on her face. Jon himself would watch, no different from before. This was his project, and he would bear the burden of the memory.

They restrained the animal, strapping its arms and legs to the wall with tight leather restraints, doubled over. And then another over its torso, and then its hips. It wouldn’t be able to move much, which would increase the chance of survival. It murmured complaints as they strapped it down, but it still largely remained docile. These chimps were bred for testing, and had their wilder traits removed.

A biologist went in and slid the serum home, and instantly it rewrote the chimp’s genetic code. It bellowed. What did it feel like, your DNA being snipped and rewritten, overwritten? Reassembled? DNA had no nerves, so it wouldn’t hurt, but the body’s changes had to be felt. Jon could see it, the skin softening, a translucent sheen covering the animal.

“Fill it with the nutrient bath,” said Stone, and they did, closing the enclosure, sealing it, and then pumping in gallon after gallon of the milky white substance. The enclosure filled, covering the chimp up to its waist. It was confused now, looking around, unsure of what to do, or what was happening to it.

Jon could barely breathe, forcing the air in and out.

Your breath is a swinging door. Your breath is a swinging door.

He tried to stay calm, but his heart raced away. The chimp had suffered nothing yet.

There was debate about what kind of gun to use, and who would fire it. None of the scientists were marksmen. Jon and Stone eventually settled on one of the guards, using their assault rifles. They were trained in the weapon, and it would represent something found on a battlefield. So one of their guards waited nearby, for his signal to line up a shot.

The area behind the chimp was absorbent, able to capture any stray bullets, but Jon didn’t expect the guard to miss. The chimp stood only ten feet away and wasn’t moving. It was an easy shot.

Not easy. Simple.

The nutrient liquid finally stopped pumping in, and Stone waved the guard over. Stone relayed instructions to him again, and the man coolly nodded. Everyone backed away, behind the shields, and the guard adopted a firing stance, pulled his rifle to his shoulder, and flicked off the safety.

Jon held his breath and plugged his ears with his fingers.

BANG.

He fired one shot, and it hit the chimp in the torso with a dull thud between the leather restraints of its upper torso and hips. It screamed in pain, the noise of the gunshot still echoing in the space. The guard flicked the safety of his rifle on again, and he stepped back, waiting for further instructions from Stone. The chimp screamed, blood leaking out from the hole in its stomach. Jon swallowed vomit.