The Biter

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

The Biter

By Plot Roach

“The subject in 4-C is cribbing again.” the lab tech reported over the intercom.

The doctor sighed and pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. “Sedate until we can find out the reason why.” he ordered.

“It this a usual problem?” the general asked, looking through the clear glass and into the lab. “My men aren’t going to start chewing on each other out in the field, are they?” he laughed, but there was a seriousness in his eyes that the laugh lines could not quite cover.

“No, sir.” said the doctor. “It’s just a minor setback with one of the subjects, that’s all.”

The two men walked away from the glass window that looked into the lab, the smell of rubbing alcohol and the glare of the florescent lights hounding their steps until they came to the outer lab area where the paperwork was stored and things were not so… sterile.

The doctor launched into his usual speech about the life form called X-309, that they had found in cellular form in the heart of a comet. Once brought back to Earth, clones cells were injected into a number of creatures. And the benefits were out of this world, the doctor thought. It increased the natural abilities of any animal it was injected to, while banishing illness and lengthening the lifespan. They had just finished clinical trials on apes, pigs and rats. The next step was experimentation on human “volunteers”. But the FDA was stalling their project in court, deeming the experiments too dangerous and inhumane to be used on prisoners with no hope of parole.

The men at the briefing nodded at the appropriate times, flipped through the booklet he had prepared for the seminar and applauded at the end. All of their questions having already been answered earlier by himself or the text provided. They patiently waited for the court to place the project into their capable hands. All to make the next “super soldiers”.

But the doctor heard rumors, funding would be cut, the animals and research destroyed, if he could not provide actual proof that it would work on a human. It’s not my fault I can’t continue with the research, he thought. Blame the damned bleeding hearts in the FDA. Even if they could not proceed with their research on prisoners, there were plenty of subjects to be had in the military, or even the private sector -if the price was right.

The meeting ended, the doctor headed out into the pristine hallway of his facility to look over the paperwork concerning 4-C. The behavior of the creature seemed odd, when compared to the others in its group. But these things happened, and must be explained before they could infect others and ruin his project entirely. Fury raged, even inside his well maintained and manicured façade. How could he continue with his research without getting caught?

That was when he saw the janitor, James, come around the corner with his cart. The man was cleaning up a small spill one of the general’s men had accidentally made by dropping his coffee upon leaving the lecture. And the thought came to him: an accident. He could stage an accident. Set an animal aside, one particularly territorial that had been infected with the X-309 cells. And when the animal bit whomever he put in contact with it, they would have their human guinea pig. Of course his lab would do everything possible to make sure the subject/victim recovered fully, but in the meantime they would not have to wait for the green light from the FDA.

That night the doctor reviewed his files, both on the humans and the animals in his care. He set us his trap and waited for the results. It turned out that 4-C was a feral cat that had been shipped to their center to test against some of its tamer cousins. Not only did the creature become more territorial with its gene therapy, but it had also become stronger and smarter. It seems a shame to lose the creature, he thought. For once it attacked the human he placed in the cage with it, it would have to be terminated for a full screening of its brain and body tissues due to its current abnormal behavior. But it would definitely stop C-4’s cribbing behavior.

And as for the human? The doctor leafed through the files. He needed someone nonessential to the experiment. Someone who knew next to nothing about what the animals were carrying and what his experiments were about. Someone without immediate family. Someone that the world would never miss.
Then the doctor’s eyes fell on James’ folder. And his plan was finally complete. He set up an extra cage in the primate lab that was scheduled to be cleaned the following morning. At the back of the room, he placed the cage, and a heavily sedated 4-C on the ground. He made sure to wedge the corner of the cage open so that the cat hybrid could escape its confines and take its vengeance out on the first person it made contact with. In this case, the janitor.

That night the doctor’s sleep was the best that he could remember since the project had begun. In the morning, he would have the answers to two of his biggest problems solved, all he had to do was wait. He expected to be woken up in the early morning with frantic phone calls about a missing 4-C and an injured janitor, but nothing came.

He took a leisurely drive into work, and even spent more than his usual time in his personal office going through updated status reports on the project at hand. Eventually his curiosity got the better of him and he went to the primate lab. Surely the creature had attacked the janitor by now… Had no one on his staff notice the man’s cried for help?

But as the doctor arrived at the lab, he noticed that the janitor was in no immediate danger. He was, in fact, scratching the feral cat hybrid under its chin and feeding it bits of a sandwich. The doctor burst through the door, livid at the results of his 'experiment'. “What is the meaning of this?!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, pushing empty cages down in his wake. The cat arched its back and hissed.

Now, the doctor thought. Attack him now!

And the doctor received his wish, but it was not entirely what he had wanted. For the cat crossed the space between the janitor’s lap to the doctor’s neck in one long jump, sinking its teeth into the man’s neck. The janitor pulled the animal off of him and set it inside one of the empty ape cages. The doctor’s vision became blurred and he reached out to steady himself, pulling even more empty cages across the floor. By the time his medical team was able to reach him, it was too late. Cells from the cat’s saliva had reached his bloodstream and began bonding with his body. He caught small bits information like a scent on the wind as drifted in and out of consciousness.

The janitor had fared the event with nary a scratch. 4-C had been transferred back to its original cage and was no longer exhibiting any unnatural behavior. The doctor, however, was not so lucky. When he woke, and could recognize where he was kept, he found himself in restraints. It seemed that 4-C’s destructive tendencies had somehow been transferred to him along with the saliva and the X-309 cells. He was kept under constant surveillance and the military requested updates on his condition on a daily basis. The bad news was that the X-309 cells had only been tested on animals in their youth. Their healing properties and longevity would not be conveyed to the doctor in his ’mature’ state. But he was strong, his IQ raised to the point where he could not convey a coherent thought because he was too busy flitting form one thought to another to ever finish a sentence. And then there was the anger. It chewed at him endlessly from within, like some creature stuck inside a cage. The smallest thing would set him off. The smell of food, the sound of laughter and even seeing his former colleges walking around free while he was strapped to a padded bed and sedated within an inch of his life.

He was transferred to the primate lab, where human tests would be conducted shortly. A male nurse asked for the janitor to accompany him while transferring the former doctor to his new home. James patted the old man on his shoulder, he remembered the doctor as the head of the project. And now he was the head of the experiment.

“Hey, James! Don‘t get too close to him, okay?”

“What’s up?”

“You better keep this man’s mouth where you can see it.”

“Why’s that?”

“It says in his paperwork here that he’s a biter.”