-7-

Julia found out later that this sanitized room was just a part of the bowels of a tomb-like laboratory, extending over a number of chamber-like rooms and this, the entrance, was the least malevolent, although to Julia it was the harbinger of a terrible doom that she wasn't quite certain of yet. It was brightly lit with fluorescent lights, and completely white, very much gleaming unnaturally. A short, dapper looking middle aged man with grey hair and in a lab coat greeted them at the far door, and they were each given a coat, gloves and a face mask. Julia's was wrested upon her by one of the men; to avoid unnecessary injury, she let them get on with it.

They followed the man through double-glass doors into another room, with a long vault against one wall, reaching up to the ceiling, higher than even the tallest of the party could have reached without a ladder. Julia could hear strange sounds emanating from the vault, like a number of human moans, but that was morbid she thought, it must be something else, they could never get ethics approval for that kind of thing, surely they wouldn't be testing on human subjects. She heard louder moans still, groans like something from a Frankenstein movie; she looked over at the vault in horror. They all looked something like lockers, it was hard to explain the difference- they were cleaner? More expensive than university or gym lockers? The man noticed Julia's concern, and told her, "Here, you see, this is where we keep our subjects." He went over to the vaults, opened one by entering a digital code into a small computer board, it beeped indicating his success, he swung open the door, and pulled out an empty tray, like the ones found in a morgue, large enough for a man to lie on. Understanding immediately, Julia looked at him in disgust, and he said, "Oh, we have used ones, if you want to see."

He entered the code for a second locker-like door, and then he swung it open. When he pulled out the tray, there was a man lying on it, full-lengthed, bound hand, foot and mouth, he squirmed grotesquely, helplessly on the tray, moaning at the party, his wild eyes fixed for a moment on Julia, and she fought to get away from the man that still had her by the wrists, back towards the door she had come from in, away from this terror. The test subject was naked, except for a number of bandages over his forearm, his wrist and his waist. He had a drip, injected into the veins of his inner elbow, a chain collar around his neck and wrists, all attached to the tray, to stop him escaping, and, still hidden by the dark, she suspected that there were identical chains also binding his ankles, where the scientists had methodically chained him following their experiments.

"This specimen, we've injected with stomach cancer of the mucosa." Said the man.

"And don't worry," He continued, "We follow the Minitrue SECHS guidelines- standards of ethical conduct for experiments on human subjects to the best of our ability; we limit the number of test subjects, limit their suffering and discomfort where possible and ensure that all testing is absolutely necessary, with promising outcomes more or less proven to be guaranteed, before testing can even begin. This way we know that testing is worthwhile and suffering is as closely balanced as possible to scientific rewards of the study. You see, often animal subjects are just too anatomically different from humans that results aren't translatable. Wait, but of course, you already knew that."

"But this has been done before," Said Julia, "How can it be ethical, it's like a war crime!"

"For the greater good." Said the woman, and, "scientific progress." Said the man.

"Let's continue our tour. Maybe you'll be persuaded by our state of the art equipment." He continued.

Julia looked back towards the vaults, she couldn't guess how many there were in total- two hundred? The moans combined to make a terrible din, she couldn't believe she wasn't dreaming it all. "Persuaded of what? What for? What am I good for in all this?" Said Julia.

"Of your participation, to continue your research. We're improving on your team's idea because it was so promising, you see, but with more finesse from our top minds, and of course with access to testing on subjects of a human anatomy, and the human physiological make up, we believe we can improve upon it. There are only minor things we need from you and then you'll be done, you shan't need to worry."

It was just such a practical thing to this man, Julia almost trusted him. "And then when we're done, you'll let me go?" She said, realizing immediately the naiveté of her own question.

She caught a smirk from the woman whose job it had been to track her down for so long. "I'm sure we'll come to some arrangement." Said the coated man, with a smile that he must have practiced a million times on numerous stake-holders and during networking functions with business associates, "I'm sure afterwards, when we're done, we can assign you to one of our less nasty studies; perhaps a study that allows for use of painkillers on test subjects, where the painkillers do not interfere with results, of course. We need all the test subjects we can get, it's just such a complicated job finding people who won't be missed, as Sarah can attest." He nodded towards the woman. "Sometimes we're allocated subjects from the Ministry of Love, but these are getting increasingly rare. And you've made yourself such a difficulty to get ahold of, we have to make the best of you, I'm afraid, otherwise all this energy would have been expended for nothing." He continued thoughtfully, "and we can't have you telling tales, this being a classified and controlled enterprise."

Julia looked from the man to Sarah and back again, it seemed that there was no escape. And it weighed on the back of her mind- if she got out of here, where would she go besides? They would track her down in the city or in the industrial districts, and when she couldn't even trust the proles, who else was there to go to?