Guinea Pig (9 page)

“I'll stay here thanks.”

It was the only thing to do. He knew that. It wasn't just about pride and hurt feelings, it was about the fact that he didn't want to be near her. But she didn't understand rejection. Laurel wasn’t someone who was used to that – least of all from him. And he watched the shock growing and the wheels turning behind her eyes as she tried to work out what had happened. What she should do. He sipped at his coffee as he waited for her to say something.

“Don't be like that.” She flashed her white teeth at him a few seconds later and a trace of what he had once felt for her returned. But only a trace. That bothered him, though he didn't quite know why. “I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. We were good together. But really, it was just a stupid mistake. Things were getting so serious and I was scared.”

She was lying. He knew that. Just as he also knew that he should be falling for her lies as he had every time before. But he wasn't. Somewhere along the way she seemed to have lost her power over him. Had she hurt him that terribly? At the time he'd thought so. But not now surely? Instead he'd hardly thought of her at all as he'd battled with his own problems. And now that she was here he still didn't want to think of her.

“But now you're ready?” Will couldn't keep the sarcasm and disbelief out of his voice. But she either didn't hear it or didn't want to.

“Yes.” She smiled at him, her face full of tears and innocence – full of lies. “You don't know how ready. How miserable I've been without you. I made a mistake but I'll make it up to you. I promise.”

“In fact -” Her eyes turned to the couch, “- right here, right now.”

“No.” He could have shouted it at her. Maybe he should have. But in the end he not only wasn't interested, he just didn't care. And Laurel didn't understand. He wasn't even sure she'd heard him as she kept teasing him. With her pouting lips, breasts stuck out as far as she could and tummy sucked in, she was really trying to work him. And it left him completely cold.

“Please. I know I've done wrong but it was only because I was afraid. You know that I love you. I always have. That's why I took up with such a loser. Martin wasn't half the man you are. You have nothing to be jealous of. I promise you.”

Unfortunately for her she was right; he wasn't jealous. He was just disappointed – in himself. How could he have ever fallen for her? Her lies were so transparent.

“And you aren't a tenth the woman I thought you were.”

The words slipped out almost by themselves, he certainly didn't plan them, and yet he knew they were exactly the ones he'd wanted. The ones he should have said long ago. Of course when the coffee cup came flying at him he knew that they weren't the ones Laurel had wanted to hear.

“You bastard!”

She yelled at him angrily like a mad woman while he dried his face off on his sleeve. In fact she was screaming her head off. But still it meant nothing to him. Why? He didn't understand that. But in the end he simply couldn't be bothered listening to her. He just didn’t care She could yell and scream all she wanted. He wasn't completely sure why he didn't care, and he was sure he should. But her outburst still didn’t make any impression on him. None at all. That seemed wrong to him somehow. Not that long ago he would have done anything for her. Taken her shopping. Bought her presents he couldn't afford. Escorted her to all the parties she wanted to attend. Been the attentive boyfriend. He had done all of those things and more. But for the life of him he couldn't think why he'd been that way. She wasn't even that pretty.

After that of course things went predictably downhill. Laurel calmed down a little and then thought she could try to charm him again. It didn't work. And when he told her not to try she got angry again. There was more name calling, shouting and tears as she went through her entire repertoire of skills, none of which had the slightest effect on him. They didn't hurt him. They didn't make him sad. They didn't make him angry either. He'd turned a corner in his life. He didn't know when exactly. But she had no power over him any longer and he just kept telling her to leave until finally she did.

That should have been a good thing. But as he watched her stomp down the hall and then out the front door and down the street, he knew it wasn't. She was beautiful and dressed to kill. A honey blonde honey trap in high heels. She had almost thrown herself at him. And it had meant nothing to him. Nothing at all. Once he would have fallen at her feet. In fact every time. Now he could barely even be bothered watching her leave.

It was the changes that were happening to him. He finally realised that after he'd shut the door and returned to his coffee soaked chair in the lounge. They were still happening and it wasn't just his body hair. There were new changes. Ones he hadn't even realised were happening. But they had been and he simply hadn't noticed, caught up as he had been with everything else.

He'd hoped that the changes would start and end with the loss of his body hair. That the nightmares and the daydreams would go away. When he'd finally found the Pastor at the church he'd almost been convinced of it. But they hadn't ended there. They'd kept going. But so slowly and subtly that he barely noticed them. And when he had he'd always been able to put it down to other things. His body hair had been joined by his facial hair, and now what was left of his normal stubble was thin and wispy at best. He scarcely needed to shave, and soon he knew he wouldn't. But that he'd told himself was simply the same thing. Body hair and facial hair, it wasn't really any different.

The dreams were more worrying but still, he seemed to be coping with them. And as for the occasional mental lapses where he sometimes saw the world through a stranger's eyes, they were just odd. He hadn’t yet lost his grip on reality.

He was also trimming down, not that he'd been fat before. But he'd told himself that that had something to do with his diet. Since there were no supermarkets operating he had had to rely on what he had in the pantry and what the military could provide. So there was no more chocolate and no more beer for him. And it might also have had something to do with the fact that meat repelled him for some reason. But that he'd told himself was simply because he couldn't really cook as well as he once had without a proper stove. And the inability to cook could also have something to do with his continual stomach upsets, which in turn could be nerves. It had all seemed so reasonable.

His skin was changing colour. Darkening slightly, but more than that, it had developed a slightly translucent quality. He didn't know what that was about. Only that in certain lights he almost seemed to glow a little. Laurel had called it a sun tan, and he'd tried to think of it the same way. Just the effect of being out in the sun a lot more these days rather than stuck in a library or in his room bent over a computer.

Everything else could be explained away. He had explained it away. But not this.

Now he could add one more change to his list, and it was a bad one. The worst so far. He was losing his sex drive. That was why she had no power over him. That was why he no longer felt hurt or angry. She no longer mattered to him. It wasn't that he was too busy with the rest of the disaster that was his life and his world. It was that he simply didn't care about that sort of thing any more.

He was losing what it was to be a man.

Will felt a cloud descend on him as he sat there. A weight of despair and anxiety that he'd been steadily trying to ward off for weeks. He'd been lying to himself. Trying to pretend that what was happening to him was minor. That it was mostly in his head or related to his lifestyle. But this wasn't minor, it had nothing to do with the changes in his lifestyle, and it wasn't in his head.

Of course the moment he added this new change to the rest, he could see a pattern. He understood how some of what was happening to him could be connected to other changes. He'd done some pre-med classes and he knew there was a common denominator. A lot of it had to be directly related to his hormones. Specifically his male sex hormones. His body hair and facial hair were vanishing. His sex drive was failing. His skin was becoming milky smooth again. It was as though he was becoming a boy again. Heading backwards through puberty. It was exactly what he would expect if he had run out of testosterone.

And maybe that could explain other things. His changes in diet, the fact that he no longer liked meat and was losing weight. Hormonal changes in women were known to cause all those sorts of things. Maybe it was the same for men? Then again maybe he just wanted to believe that rather than the alternative – that there was something else going wrong with him. He had no way of knowing.

But even if he was right and it was hormonal, knowing the answer didn't help him fix it. And he needed to get this fixed. If he was already suffering these symptoms after two or three weeks, what would he be like in another few weeks? Would all his masculinity go? His balls – would they undrop? Would his voice become higher pitched? Would he become completely sexless? A eunuch?

It was a terrible thought. To no longer be a man. To be nothing. Because the one thing he had always known – that every man knew – was that he was a man. It ran to the very core of his being. He couldn't take that. What man could? And yet what choice did he have?

As he sat there and considered his future Will knew that he had to redouble his efforts to find the doctor. This had to be fixed.

It was time to go back and talk with Pastor Franks. And maybe impress upon him a little more of his desperation.

Chapter Ten.

The internet café was full. It always was these days as people rushed to it and a few others from their ruined houses, hoping desperately to be able to contact friends and family. There were still millions of people living in the fifty square miles of ruined city for one reason or another, and they all had people to talk to. So they all had to do the same thing. Find a place outside of the city where there was power and phone lines and start typing. Because of that, sessions were limited to twenty minutes – one session per person per day. It was the only way to make sure everyone got a turn. It was a pain as rules went, but because of it Will found a spot after only an hour waiting in line and was quickly downloading his messages. He had to be quick if he wanted to catch the news headlines as well, and these days for anyone living in the city the internet café was the only way to do that.

There were no newspapers – not local ones anyway. With the power down the telly didn't work. Phones, even cell phones were useless without networks, and networks needed power and cell towers. And the little wind up radio the National Guard had been handing out only found one station. The emergency broadcast network. It didn't have news, only announcements. Where the food trucks would be and when. Where the evacuation points and medical centres were. What to do in case of a fire or another ice storm.

He'd tried pulling the battery and radio out of the Nissan's remains, but even when he had the range was limited. The entire broadcast network system for Los Angeles was gone and without a proper aerial he couldn't reach outside the city. In any case the battery had died soon enough and he couldn't recharge it. So the twenty minutes he had in the internet café was the only chance he had to find out what was happening in the world as well as to hear from friends and family.

Most of the messages were from his family of course. They were worried for him, and he couldn't exactly blame them for that. And they only knew about half of the problems in his life. The ruined flat and the ice storm. He'd never told them about his narrow escape from the sink hole or the experiment he'd taken part in. He hadn't wanted to worry them. But it was getting to the stage where he was beginning to think he might need to. The changes were becoming more obvious.

Despite his earlier theories, the changes weren't just hormonal. He knew that now. Maybe they'd never really been theories so much as desperate hopes he'd tried to cling to. But now they weren't even that.

When he'd woken up that morning and stared into the bathroom mirror wondering if there was anything left on his face that needed shaving, he'd seen his eyes looking back at him and freaked. They were no longer blue green. They were gold.

When that had happened he didn't know. He probably wasn't the most observant of people, especially first thing in the morning and he didn't stare at himself in the mirror a lot. But he knew it was bad. And he knew it had nothing to do with hormones. Eye colour didn't change when a boy reached puberty. And if that wasn't hormonal why should he assume the other changes were? The fact was that he shouldn't.

By that logic he now had at least four different and distinct sets of changes working their way through him.

The loss of body hair, facial hair and his sex drive could all be put down to his hormones. Maybe due to a lack of testosterone. And those at least he hoped could be fixed if the worst came to the worst and the changes couldn't be undone, simply by taking hormone replacements. But that was only if the changes were because of his lack of testosterone. It was only a guess and his guesses hadn't been good lately.

The darkening of his skin was something else. Something to do with melanin deposits. It wasn't just a sun tan and baby smooth skin brought about by a lack of the male hormones. It was something different. It had to be when he was also starting to turn a little gold. He didn't know what it was or if it could be fixed, but he could hope that in the end it would only be cosmetic. Maybe even covered up with cream. But how likely was that with everything else that was happening to him?

Then there was the change in his diet. He not only couldn't stand the smell of meat, he couldn't touch dairy either any more. The milk powder wasn't off, his pallet was. To add to the weird he seemed to crave fruit and grains. In fact he was starving for them. He had no idea what was causing that but he was sure it was more than just the results of hormonal changes. And it was likely connected to the continuing stomach cramps, rumbling in his bowels and overwhelming cravings for healthy food. All of that he knew was linked in turn to his continuing weight loss. Serious weight loss as he was having to cut new holes in his belt. These days he had no fat on him anywhere but still strangely, plenty of muscle. In fact he was starting to look like he spent his days in the gym instead of on a couch.

But as of this morning he had a whole new one to deal with. Gold eyes made no sense at all to him although they went well with the slight golden glow of his skin. No one had gold eyes. If anyone asked he had decided to tell them they were just contacts. So far no one had asked though. People were probably too busy worrying about their own lives to give a damn about anyone else. Certainly no one in the café had given him a second glance as they busied themselves at the computers.

The frightening thing was that there might be more changes coming too. In fact he already knew there was at least one. There was something happening with the skin on his back. It was itching abominably and aching as well. All the way from his shoulders to his buttocks. For a while he'd thought it was his primitive laundry system which involved buckets of soapy water and then hosing the stuff off while it hung on a line. Or maybe it had something to do with his necessarily short showers as the water was freezing cold. But it hadn't gone away when he scrubbed his back or rewashed his clothes. And the skin was raised like some sort of welt while his back ached abominably. Whatever was causing it, he really wanted to get it fixed before it turned into something more serious.

But the solution to his problems wasn't in his hands. It was in Doctor Millen's. And thus far the man had remained resolutely missing. He hadn't contacted him. Not a visit or a note. He hadn't returned to the church. Will had, immediately after he'd sent Laurel packing and realised his sex drive was dying. But the pastor hadn't seen his missing doctor. In fact Pastor Franks had been worried about him. He'd said that the fact that Doctor Millen hadn't come in for so long suggested there was something very wrong. Normally he visited every couple of days without fail.

It could be that he was dead. Killed in the ice storm. And if that was the case Will knew he was screwed. He would never have an answer as to what he'd done. Or why. Or more importantly if it could be fixed. Alternatively like many others Doctor Millen might simply have fled. That wasn't a good thing, but at least if he was somewhere else he was still alive. And if he was alive there was hope that one day he'd find him and get the answers he needed.

Still, it had been over a week since he had visited the church last. Maybe it was time to think about another bike ride out there.

In the meantime all he could do was try to keep living his life. To make the best of things. And maybe if and when the city started recovering from the ice storm, he could see another doctor and start getting some proper medical attention. After all, even if it couldn't be undone surely some of what was happening to him could be treated?

And above all else he knew – though he kept wavering on it – that he could never tell his family about this. They would have a collective heart attack. They'd never wanted him to come to Los Angeles. To attend UCLA. Not even when he'd received a full scholarship. And this would just be proof for them that it had been a mistake. Besides which he couldn't stand to see the looks of worry on their faces. Especially when there was absolutely nothing they could do.

So once more he would download his email, print what he had to and read them later. And in the morning he would ride back, buy himself another twenty minutes and frantically type and send a whole lot of replies telling them that everything was fine. That he was doing well. Though it felt bad he would lie his arse off. It was the only thing he could do.

Then, just when he thought he'd reached the end of his in box full of family messages and the obligatory spam, Will came across one more labelled GTP7, and the letters jumped out at him.

He knew them instantly. They'd been on the forms he'd signed at the Fairview Institute. GTP was the trial he'd been a part of. It stood for Gene Therapy Protocol. And he was the seventh person to undergo it. GTP7 was him – his subject number. His heart leapt into his throat. Someone had found him! Doctor Millen? Could it finally be him?

But even as he rushed to click the button to open it he knew that there was something wrong. There was no sender. Or rather the sender's name was just a random jumble of letters and numbers. That seemed wrong somehow. Who didn't use their name as part of their email address? Spammers, that was who. Normally if he'd seen an email like that he would have deleted it unopened. Just in case there was a virus. But he couldn't do that this time. He had to know, so he clicked the email.

Inside was a letter. Though to call it a “letter” was far too grand a word for the few precious lines that had been written. It was a note at best. And all it said was that the sender knew about his problem and was working on it – and that he wasn't in any danger.

There was no signature, no personal details. Not even a simple “cheers”. So he had no way of knowing whether it was from Doctor Millen or not. There was also an automated line of text at the top of it saying that the email address could not be responded to. So he had no way of asking. No way of even telling whoever it was of what was happening to him. It all seemed very cloak and dagger. And when he was slowly mutating into a golden eyed pre-pubescent boy with dietary issues and a growth on his back, that didn't strike Will as a good thing. But at least someone had answered him. Someone knew of his problem. And maybe – if they actually meant what they said – he was safe. Assuming it wasn't simply a line to keep him placated – which it could also be.

Yet even if it was just a throwaway line designed to keep him calm it still meant that someone had heard about him. So one of the people he'd tracked down had obviously said something to someone – unless they'd written the email themselves. And that was a short list. In fact it consisted only of the pony tail wearing technician and his wife, neither of whom he could imagine telling him lies. They'd been as shocked as he had.

Was this a good thing in that at least he'd reached someone who knew what was happening to him? Was it a bad thing since that same person was obviously doing his best to say nothing detailed and give away no personal details? Or was he simply in the exact same place he had been before he'd opened the email? Nowhere. He suspected the last.

Naturally he had no answers as he hurriedly printed the email off, and then the meta-file about the email. His time was nearly up and there were many others waiting to use the internet. But at least someone knew. And maybe if he could find a friend of his with some serious hacking skills, he might even have a place to begin looking. No matter how secretive they were trying to be his friend Jarod – if he was still in the city – could probably back track their IP address and find out where the email had been sent from.

Just as he returned to his seat however, the precious pieces of paper in his hands, there was a sound almost like that of a whip being cracked and he instantly lost his train of thought. It was a very loud whip crack, like a sonic boom.

“
What the hell!”

Will looked up. Everyone in the café looked up. Those in the queue checked the windows. The sound was so loud. As if some huge mountain man had just snapped a bull whip inside his ear drums. And immediately he knew a sense of dread. He knew something bad had just happened. Everyone did. Will's blood chilled and his mouth went dry as he waited to find out what. Surprises had not been welcome lately. And loud noises had all been harbingers of doom. Everyone else was doing the same. Probably everyone else was thinking the same thing he was. What now?

Will peered through the distant window but couldn't see anything. The city looked calm. Broken but quiet. The sky was blue. And the city noise was almost nothing. There weren't even people screaming as there too often were. No one else could see anything either. But they were all looking. Whether they were standing at the window or sitting at their computers they were all looking. And though Will like surely everyone else there wanted to believe it was nothing, he knew better. Just as everyone else did.

“Shit!”

A woman yelled it from where she stood in front of the shop window and at first Will couldn't see what had caught her eye. Not even when she was pointing at it. But then it sailed into sight and he wanted to say exactly the same thing. He just couldn't. He was all but paralysed with shock. Rooted to his seat in front of the computer.