"...And then, after the Professor and I tested it over and over again, we ended up spending the rest of the night creating the first batch for the human parasite! Scheduled for testing today!" Dexter raved on his morning visit to Ben. Ben just blandly stared up at him from his laid down position on the floor next to the front of his cell. Which was weird, since he usually stayed as far back as possible, but he'd been that way since Dexter arrived, like he'd been waiting.
"Don't worry, Ben. We'll be out of this situation soon."
-Nights Apart-
The first subject was a girl that would not stop fighting her head to toe binds and flailing as much as possible. She was brought in on the same table she laid on that very moment, muzzled, fighting and flailing all the same. Didn't these things get tired?
Whereas the snail cure was a transparent, the human one was white. Which made it that much easier to see when it was injected into the part of her eye that should have been white, but was green instead. The poison was given directly to the parasite this way.
She kept struggling for the better part of an hour before it seemed like she fell asleep. Another thirty minutes and her eyes snapped open, normal eyes, and her heart rate went up. She was hyperventilating and spasming as if she were having a seizure. She suddenly stopped, along with her heart-beat. Dexter sighed.
"Attempt one, human anti-parasitic poison batch one, subject perished."
-Nights Apart-
The pacing helped. It was sort of like rocking a baby to sleep, Ben supposed. Walk around with it and it settles down. It's been helping him keep in control. He knew he was more settled down than the others, that much anyone could tell. He didn't try to attack (minus that one incident with Dexter), he didn't try to escape (minus that same incident) and he didn't spend his in-between time wailing and scratching at the floor and walls, he spent it resting from all the pacing.
At first he'd been spending his time laying around moping. Then Dexter started with his daily visits and soon the foreign instincts imposed on him were becoming harder to keep down, so he decided he'd mope later and fight now. And then he tried to attack Dexter again and he started moping all over again for a little while.
God he couldn't believe he couldn't stop himself from trying to kill Dexter. The best he could do was hold himself back. He had nightmares he couldn't wake up from that made it feel like it was happening all over again. His hands around Dexter's throat. His thighs straddling a smaller body squirming beneath his, trying to throw him off with all it's strength. Panicking and watching it all happen from a backseat in his mind, unable to stop any of it from happening. He'd start pacing as soon as he woke up.
He wondered if the others were as conscious of their actions as he was. Were they awake and in the backseat, too? Did they know what they were doing? Or was that just another trait specialized to him?
Did he have more control because he was a quarter Anodite? He remembered Dexter saying the fusion parasite was oriented on humans and nothing else. It would explain a lot. He was he last of the lot in the escape pods to be affected. He had to watch the infected turn on the uninfected in the little space there was in his pod and only a little while before they hit Earth did he experience all that being infected had to offer.
His pacing was momentarily interrupted by footsteps. Was it Dexter? It had been a while since he'd come to visit.
No.
Multiple footsteps. Dexter never brought anyone with him.
Have they come to collect another specimen to test the cure on? Did they find a cure?
It was the Professor and a few KND agents. But wait...
The Professor was in... restraints? What the hell was going on? Ben slammed onto the front of his cell to get a better look as they passed his cell. It was only after they locked him in a cell and walked out that Ben caught up with events.
The Professor had been infected.
-Nights Apart-
Batch seven was ready, and so was it's subject. As usual there were KND operatives near by in case anything went wrong, but Dexter doubted that would be the case. The boy was tied down like he was for a reason! None the less he never made a fuss about it. He hadn't been to visit Ben in over a week because he was so busy with the human version of the cure, but he consoled himself by thinking that soon they'd be able to spend time together where a cell wasn't involved. Soon.
Some of the subjects were coherent after the parasite died, they'd even spoken for a few minutes before they would inevitably expire. Dexter was putting his hopes into this one being the one.
The Professor would have the honor this time.
In fact, the needle was a mere millimeter away from the boy's eye when a metallic snap echoed through the laboratory. One of the arm restraints had, had a screw loose. With inhuman speed, the boy reached up and pulled off his muzzle before grabbing the Professor by the arm and sinking his teeth into it. This all happened in the second before anyone knew what was going on. In the next second the boy was shot and killed, and the KND were moving to restrain the Professor.
Dexter just stood there, shocked, as the events unfolded and the Professor was lead out of the lab and to the containment unit.
"Damn it!"