Necrocide

Chapter 28

SIX YEARS BEFORE THE OUTBREAK

As Aaron grew closer with Jonah, Natalya, and eventually Nika, strange things were brewing elsewhere. Luckily for them, it was nowhere near London. In fact, the emerging mystery was coming to light somewhere in the Forest of Bowland.

A laboratory was being constructed in a large collection of trees far away from civilization. Half of the building was already complete, and construction workers continued building the final portion. Because of that, part of the lab was a colossal rectangular structure with silver walls and wide corridors and rose three stories high while the other half was a collection of frames and steel beams laid down for further development.

In a small room overlooking the rest of the lab, two men watched the construction through a long window that took up the whole wall in front of them. Beyond the glass was what would eventually become a kind of gymnasium for the test subjects, filled to the brim with several obstacles courses and a small army of robots to use as training dummies. That is, if the dummy provided a challenge.

"You're really gonna do this, Troy?" asked the youngest man, a gentleman in his late twenties. "I know you've been planning for a while, but I still can't comprehend the scientific and biological risks you're taking with this project."

"I've set my mind on this project a long time ago, Simon," the other man, a gruffer individual named Troy Schaefer, replied. "I've seen countless lives lost throughout my years in the army and I'd like to change that. However, I'm not afraid to sacrifice less valuable lives to save others."

"But are you willing to sacrifice your own?"

"Of course. That was the whole point of being a military man. But something as groundbreaking as the goal of this operation requires the risk of multiple lives to ensure that we can save many more." Schaefer paused to take a sip of his tea. "Ironically, despite the lethality of this project, our mission is to cheat death."

"Cheat death?" Simon repeated. "Why on Earth would you want to do that?"

"I believe that death is the only thing that makes every human equal," Schaefer replied. "Well we're about to change that, Simon."

"But the things we have to do to change that. Won't the actions we will have to commit to complete this mission seem immoral in the eyes of the public?"

Schaefer glared at Simon with a grim expression. "I'd rather risk lives in the name of science than risk science over a few worthless lives."

Simon stared at Schaefer in disbelief. "So that's how you see your test subjects?"

"I don't blame him," another voice answered, the source of the voice hidden from their view. "After witnessing so many atrocities committed by mankind, you begin losing regard for human life."

Simon looked toward the corner of the room that was shrouded in shadow. He nervously nudged his glasses back onto his nose and stepped back. Even though Simon wasn't looking forward to meeting the person the voice belonged to, Schaefer stared into the darkness of the room with a sly smirk, like if he already knew he could trust the person creeping in the shadows.

"Walter Bennington," Schaefer said with a wicked chuckle. "That's a voice I haven't heard in a while. I thought they threw you in with the other crackpots."

A man emerged from the corner of the room. He shared similar features with Schaefer, both physically and fashion-wise. They both had greying hair and fuzz on their chins, but this Walter Bennington individual had hazel, almost yellowish, eyes that provided a window into something more sinister than how he appeared on the outside. A sadistic grin stretched across his face. He wore a British Army uniform with a gun strapped to his back and everything, and Simon started wondering if he came directly from a nearby base.