Shimmering Souls

Chapter 1

      Dr. Wendy Beaufort sat, huddled, in the half-light. Around her, the lab echoed, silent in its emptiness. Failure. She closed her eyes, her breath sighing out. Failure.Tears leaked underneath her lids to track down her face. Failure. Hands trembling, she gripped the chair beneath her and rolled forward. The wheels squeaked. She gritted her  teeth at the sharp sound. Always. A. Failure.

      Unable to stand the voice screaming, hollow, in her head, she jolted to her feet and scooped up the almost empty glass of wine sitting on the lab table beside her. Downing the contents in one swallow, she refused to acknowledge the evidence lying behind her. Yet she couldn’t avoid them. Turning around ten pairs of eyes reproached her, reminding her. 

      Failure.

     As though they whispered it in her ear, she shuddered. With the weight of the despair pressing down on her, she slumped down, catching herself at the last moment on the edge of the table, her knees almost touching the floor. This was it. Their last chance. Twenty years of research, of hoping and experimenting. Only to have it all culminate in this…failure. Again.

      The forms should have been evidence enough with the partially defined fetus head attached to the plump body of a maggot. The hooked tail completed the macabre picture. A surprised laugh escaped past her lips. How ridiculous to think this thing could house her experiment, her crowning achievement – a cloned soul.

      Climbing to her feet, her legs unsteady beneath her, she scrubbed a hand across her face. Setting the empty glass back on the table, she noticed the black smeared across her knuckles. After everything else she endured this night, her mascara was running, too? So much for waterproof! The thought of her team seeing her like this – a half-crazed raccoon – made her glad she sent everyone to bed hours ago.

       Time for her to follow them and go to bed, too. No doubt it would be her last night here. Once the investors heard this phase ended in failure, the well of money would dry up. At the last board meeting, she saw the sidelong glances, heard the sighs of frustration and the murmurs amongst themselves. They tired of her excuses, they wanted to see results. She promised them this time would be different. This time she would put herself up for the experiment. Not only did it mollify the investors, but it also gave her team hope. 

       And she had to admit, it gave her hope, too. The formula seemed perfect, it couldn’t fail. Earlier tonight, she had lain down, relaxed as the sedatives filtered through her system before darkness ate across her vision. When she woke, the team celebrated around her, toasting their sure success. After they had stopped her heart, the lines on the machine went crazy. Thick black smoke appeared in the glass sphere. It had hovered there for a moment before disappearing into the fleshy pods.

       She almost cried with joy, celebrating with them. Of course, she never really cried, she was Dr. Wendy Beaufort, after all. That meant she showed a stoic severe, outer appearance at all times. She pushed the fear, doubts, and emotions deep down where they belonged.

       When the husks lay lifeless as she and her team waited in breathless anticipation, she released her team in groups of four until only Graham remained. When she waved him off to bed at last, he dimmed the lights and slouched out, his head drooping in defeat. It took several hours more of staring at the husks before the doubts started to encroach and take over completely.

       Yet she still waited. The monitors sat there, their screens blank and empty. Telling her to give it up. Without some glimmer of life, there was no hope. Time for her to leave, too. Staying up all night wouldn’t change the outcome. She’d have to face the investors, the sneers of her peers. Hell, she may even be banished back to The Shallows. She shuddered in revulsion.

      She worked too hard to give up her life in the high ‘rises’ that floated in the sky. If nothing else, she would keep that, even if she had to hide out in her cube for the rest of her life. It was an awfully nice one – with sweeping mountain vistas laid out before her. She didn’t care the earth no longer looked like that. She escaped from the toxic surface and refused to go back, mucking and scraping in the dirt.

      Gripping the hard leather back of the chair, she swiveled, readying herself to turn her back on what she had worked hard for her entire life. As she turned towards the exit, a flicker of movement on one of the screens caught her eye. Her heart leaped with hope in her chest as she moved closer. Even with her nose almost touching the screen, it stayed black.

      But no, again the red flashed, just a thin line before winking out. This time the husk in the middle moved. It trembled, flexed, and then stilled. Wendy stilled, too. Her breath catching in her throat. Surely not…surely she didn’t actually succeed? And then again, it stretched, moved, and slid across the gleaming silver surface of the table.

The white, glistening body used its forked tail to push itself to its stomach. Then the eyes moved, the head twisting around until they fixated on her. Wendy barely moved a muscle, her eyes locked with the specimen on the table. It stretched again as though testing out its new body before stopping to stare at her again.

      Hardly daring to move, Wendy inched forward as she pulled a tube of Glove Goo to glaze her hands. Once the goop dried and conformed to her skin, she pushed a backless chair over to the shivering husk.

      Did it really work? She didn’t dare to hope, expecting it to fail like all the others. In her peripheral vision lay the other husks, their bodies lifeless and laying silent. Don’t get too excited…but it was difficult with all her dreams staring up into her face in curiosity.

       And she could see life reflected there. Not just a thing, empty, devoid as a clone …but intelligence burned out of those orbs with an intensity that Wendy recognized. Then a thrill of fear raced through her…it had been so long since she had felt anything like this. 

       Reaching out, her hand trembling, she laid her protected fingers against its flesh. She expected the cold spongy skin from hours before, but she jerked, her resolve shaken. The flesh felt warm, almost hot to the touch. She couldn’t believe it. Warm-blooded? Nothing in their research prepared for this.

       With feelings of elation, happiness, excitement, and…hope, yes, hope…she looked up at the high beamed ceiling in joyful contemplation. Reveling in her success, she imagined the reaction of her team, of her peers, and of the investors. Finally able to lord it over them. This high was better than sex. Wendy wanted to relive it over and over again. Nothing could rival it, nothing ever again.

      A slice of pain intruded into her subconscious. Crying out, Wendy jerked her hand, but the thing came with her, its still slimy body squelching across the silver surface like a slug. The glistening head was bent over her hand, sucking, shuddering as it fed.

      Wendy cried out again as it sucked harder, biting down, the sharp teeth tearing into her flesh. Her vision started to swim in streamers of color, white light engulfed her limited world. Now that the initial shock passed, she had to admit that it didn’t feel that bad. She remembered this feeling, cradling a warm body against her, giving her life force to save…she shut that thought down and jerked on her arm again to no avail.

      Fear, cold deep-seated fear, gripped her heart. It was going to suck the life from her and she couldn’t stop it. Her eyes swept around the room, panic-stricken, looking for something to save herself. Nearby lay a gleaming scalpel, she reached out with her free hand…and then hesitated.

      No. 

      No, that would kill it. Swinging back around, going by instinct alone, Wendy grasped the back of its slick head with her free hand and squeezed. Immediately the thing let go, a high-pitched keening coming out of its wide mouth. Inside were rows of sharp teeth, all glistening crimson.

      Grabbing a white towel, Wendy wrapped her hand and kept the thing within eyesight. It sat panting on the far edge of the table, its slick body trembling. In its black orb-like eyes, there was sadness, fear, and confusion. It didn’t understand. 

      Wendy tried to think through the fog around her brain, let her instincts as a scientist take over. It woke up with hunger. Its creator sat right in front of it and laid something on its back. It didn’t know Wendy wasn’t offering it food. It needed to be taught. That’s all.

      Thinking back, digging deep for her maternal instinct, Wendy approached it in a crouch, crooning, trying to soothe it. The trembling slowed before it stopped. The eyes still watched her in wariness. 

      Note to self for future reference, the back of the head hurts.

      As Wendy inched closer and closer, the thing looked up at her with something akin to hope gleaming in its black eyes. As soon as she stood over it, her body blocking the light, it started to jerk and writhe. Wendy recoiled, expecting another attack, but it only continued to convulse. 

      Spinning around, Wendy raced to the glass-fronted cabinet full of vials. Wrenching the door open, she grabbed a syringe and bottle of Pentathol. I have to save it. Please, it can’t die. It can’t die like all the others. Spinning back around, she skidded to a stop as the thing started to change and take shape.

      The glass syringe tumbled out of Wendy’s fingers, shattering on the floor as a scream ripped from her throat.