GENERAL HOSPITAL AM I THE KILLER

The Other Side of Humanity

The swimming pool…

As always it was nearly dark, and Patrick was kicking his legs beneath the water slowly while pressed up against the side of the pool; and then he opened his eyes.

He looked out across the pool to the far end, the shallow end, and saw that he was there; the real Jason. And then Patrick smiled.

"It's time," Jason said, with anger in his eyes, "I want you to tell me what the hell is going on?"

Patrick nodded his head, and climbed out of the pool. He looked up at the clock on the far wall, and saw he had enough time left to tell Jason what he needed to know, but nothing more; not now at least.

Patrick had already made one batch of the complete Jason memories, and had already injected Nikolas with them.

He still had to make a special batch of memories to inject Jason with if and when Nikolas ever found him. It would not be a second batch of real Jason memories, as Mother had instructed. It would instead be a unique batch of memories that would, if Jason could interpret them correctly when he injected him with them, help him defeat the Cassadines and save everyone else once and for all.

But with Nikolas Cassadine out there, somewhere, it was only a matter of time until he used Jason's complete memories to find Jason, which was what Patrick actually needed to have happen in order for his plan to work.

He put on a shower roble and sat down as he motioned for Jason to come over him on.

Jason walked over to where Patrick sat, and pulled up another lounge chair and sat down.

"Who are the bald men?" Jason asked first.

Patrick thought for a moment, and then answered.

"Please excuse…my speech pattern…it is a result of an injury…as for your question, they call… themselves Cassadines…they are an offshoot of… humanity… and have lived underground… for as… long as we've lived on the surface," Patrick explained. "But…whereas our population…has exploded into the billions…theirs has dwindled…to where now only two hundred or so of them remain…and they all live…in a cave about a mile below… the hospital."

It sounded all too fantastical to believe, as Jason took it all in.

"What's inside the injections?" Jason went on to ask.

It was the most obvious question, Patrick deduced.

"They are trying to… determine what drives us," Patrick replied. "To… not… only procreate as much as we do… but what is it that inspires… us to be more than we are. During… the sleep time… which they call the Cleansing… they… select a few of us at.. a time and inject them with a new set of memories. They want to see if people will follow… the… same path as… other people had after injected with the… same memories… And always… without fail… they do… For example…will a man or woman… with the new memories of winning lots of money from a raffle played here at the hospital… and boasted to share the wealth with… others...actually do so? In every… instance… the answer is no…he or she will win the money…and ultimately share…it…with no one else."

"I don't understand; what did they learn from that?" Jason came back with.

"In that… instance," Patrick tried to explain again, "the person… who wins the lottery… will not share winnings with complete… strangers despite saying… he will… even… as a few have done… promising God… that…they would. The Cassadines… took that to mean… that integrity did not lead to… a society's success….it must be something else that…makes humans like you and I…different from them."

Jason nodded his head. It still didn't make much since to him, but Patrick seemed to understand what it meant. So then, Jason asked the next and more important question; and it was a selfish one indeed.

"What does any of that have to do with me?" Jason asked. "And why don't you and I fall asleep when all the others do?"

Patrick reached out and put his hand on Jason' shoulder.

"You are… the control… subject," Patrick replied. "Every so often… they… inject a random person… with the… artificially created memories I created…A person I also named Jason."

Jason didn't like that answer for two reasons, and without warning he pushed back Patrick's arm from his shoulder, and then suddenly grabbed him by the collar.

"You're telling me that you created the fake memories these freaks are injecting into us!" Jason said angrily. "Why shouldn't I just snap your neck now?"

Patrick could see the anger in Jason's eyes, and realized his life was seconds from ending. So he knew there was only one thing he could say that might stop Jason from killing.

"Your wife…Elizabeth…her life is in grave danger…and unless you act…quickly…they will kill her…"

Continued…

This issue featured

Steve Burton and Jason Morgan

Jason Thompson as Patrick