6
If asked, Marcus probably would not have been able to say why he had chosen leeches as the hosts for his experimental virus. It was true that they were a simpler organism than say, a rabbit, but the complexity of the host organism had not been his concern. Most scientists would have chosen a more normal, less repulsive creature, but the nature of the virus in question sometimes changed the host in unpredictable ways, making some of the more common lab animals unsuitable for the experiment. Leeches retained their general characteristics, making them acceptable hosts, but something else in their nature made them attractive to Marcus. He could not put his finger on it, however. They just seemed right for the experiment.
The experiment wasn't a normal experiment. Usually in an experiment, there is an intended outcome, a hypothesis that is tested, some question that the experiment is designed to answer. But Marcus had long ago abandoned the conventional scientific method. His experiment had no hypothesis, no goal. He was performing it simply to see what would happen.
His alarm clock woke him early, snapping him away from a pleasant dream. He'd been in the middle of the ocean, swimming in the clearest, brightest blue water he'd ever seen. Now he was staring at the ceiling of his small room down in his laboratory beneath the astronomy tower, the only light coming from the illuminated numbers on the alarm clock. He sat up in bed and pressed the button on the clock to stop the alarm. It was five in the morning.
Still in almost-complete darkness, he got up and dressed slowly. Gray trousers, a white undershirt, and his white lab coat. He slid his feet into slippers and left the room.
The laboratory greeted him warmly. A long desk was built along one wall, and in between the four computer monitors, it was covered in a mess of computer printouts, photographs, drawings, notes, and assorted papers. The monitors showed choppy three-dimensional diagrams of various cellular types and chemical bonds, rotating slowly. Along the other wall was a long glass terrarium, one half lower than the other and filled with murky water. The room was still dark as well, illuminated only by small neon lights in the back of the terrarium and along the computer desk.
Marcus flipped on the light switch, flooding the room in bright fluorescent light. He shuffled over to the terrarium and kneeled in front of it, looking through the thick, reinforced glass. A thin smile curved his lips.
Inside, seven of his leeches were slowly oozing their way around the terrarium. The leeches had grown since the beginning of the experiment, and were now about the size of a softball. They excreted a thick slime wherever they went, and the inside of the terrarium was coated with it. The remains of some unidentified animal lay in the corner, reduced to nothing but bones and fur. In another corner were some eggs, about the size of golf balls, glistening and pulsing rhythmically with a layer of clear ooze themselves. Marcus could almost make out the leeches moving and slithering around inside.
"Good morning," he said.
As if in response, the leeches in the tank slithered toward him and pressed against the glass. On the underside of their bodies, he could see their small mouths lined with yellow, needle-like teeth. He pressed his own hand against the glass in greeting.
"Are you hungry?" It was a silly question and he knew it. The leeches were always hungry. They were ravenous.
He went out of the lab and down the hall to a storage/supply room that he had refurnished into a room for the other lab animals. Rabbits, mostly, but he had some cats, some birds, and even two small monkeys. All in cages stacked up against the wall, he fed and watered them twice a day and cleaned the cages each evening. Normally, it was the kind of work for a lab assistant or, even better, an intern, but Marcus preferred not to let anyone else into this particular lab, so he did it all himself.
He opened a cage and took out a small cat. It purred gently when he picked it up, and hung from his hand like a wet rag as he carried it down the hall. It was light gray with yellow eyes, very adorable-looking, even though Marcus didn't like cats much.
He dropped it into the terrarium through the sliding hatch on top, and then sat in a chair to watch the show. The cat hissed frantically as soon as it saw the leeches and immediately backed itself into a corner. The leeches surrounded it and then attacked, leaping onto it from all sides and tearing into the soft flesh. The cat was dead in less than minute.
Marcus, his clipboard in his lap, scribbled notes on a sheet of paper. He was especially impressed with the leeches growing ability to act as a group and attack in unison. In his first test with live prey, the leeches would attack one at a time, sometimes fighting each other to get to the prey. A rabbit had lasted almost ten minutes before getting worn down. But now they acted as one, and Marcus wore his pencil down to a nub writing down ideas and notes. Their ability to jump was also fascinating, since it was a skill they had apparently improvised when Marcus had placed a bird into the terrarium; the only way they could reach the prey was to jump for it.
They were learning, as incredible as it seemed. In addition to their increased size, strength, and agility, the leeches had increased intelligence. Marcus had stumbled onto his discovery partially by accident, partially by design. He'd been working on it for almost two years now, and the results were simply amazing, far better than anything he had anticipated.
Did anyone else in Umbrella know what he knew? He had been experimenting with their "special vaccine" for several years now, as had most of the top researchers in the Umbrella Corporation, and no one, to his knowledge, had made as much progress in understanding the course of the mutation and the biological ramifications of enhanced infection. Most animals died after exposure, or worse, and even the advanced research facility in Antarctica had not yet unraveled the method by which the "special vaccine" infected its hosts and initiated the rate of sudden mutation. One incident at the Antarctica base had inspired Marcus' work with the leeches, but he would not admit that to anyone.
The leeches were his and his alone. Eventually, when he had confirmed his ideas about the "special vaccine," he would reveal his work to Spencer, but it was still too early for that. The leeches were not yet ready. It was obvious now that the leeches could learn, but could they be trained? That was Marcus' next experiment. His work with the trainees was over, for the most part, granting him more time to spend here in the lab, with his leeches. No one disturbed him here, and no one questioned his activities, so he could work with impunity. He could spend all the time he needed working with the leeches and the "special vaccine" that spawned them.
The special vaccine called Progenitor.