Take a bite out of time - 2 OF 3

TAKE A BIT OUT OF TIME - PART TWO OF THREE


JANUARY 27th 2013


The siren wails through the corridors adding urgency to the ambiance of the red flashing lights that line the walls. Constantine rushes half sprint down toward the source of the panic. It had happened again.

The swinging doors flap open, Constantine pushing his way into the laboratory where the others wait impatient.

“I don’t know what went wrong. The formula was checked three times and all of the scans were coming through even until ten minutes ago when it all just went, I don’t know.” The dark skinned man draped in lab attire turns to Constantine making reference to the man sized glass chamber hanging from the ceiling near the center of the room with his metal clipboard.

Constantine moves through the lab tense and rushed in search of an answer to their encroaching dilemma. “How many strands did you splice on top of the original?” He speaks over his shoulder while staring down at one of the many computer screens that line the walls of the room.

“There was no splicing sir. This one was count zero.”

Constantine freezes, his breath held, his hands clench. “What do you mean?”

One of the others steps to the glass container, filled with a neon glow, something twitching on the inside. “This was our first zero project. I know you were there when we discussed this I don’t understand why you’re acting so…”

Constantine twists on a dime, face in face silencing the man. “Acting so what Set? Acting like I just heard the call siren blare out through the entire complex signaling a grade three emergency in the manifest lab? Acting like you and your fucking God complex may have very well fucked us all again? Your smug demeanor does not set you apart from the reality that we all share here. “

“Tell me again which one of you called him down here?” Set speaks to the five other men in the room as a whole.

Constantine’s rage begins to seep through his pours in the form of green scales and dark horns. He shifts from the visage of the man he had been hosting these past few months in an effort to cull the irrational fears of the humans that they reside with, to a full form demon.

“You test me Set.” His voice low and hard.

“Just fix it.” Set’s eyes flash red in a call to violence, should Constantine push too hard.

Distraction, the glass walls of the status bubble responsible for the trouble at hand crack long up the side with a sound of fresh popcorn stepped and crushed on a hardwood floor.

“What is it capable of?” Constantine speaks to deaf ears as the crowd’s attention is pulled complete to the shattering glass capsule.

“What kind of parameters did you implant it with!?”

Set turns slow to Constantine as the bubble busts and rains shards down on top of them.

“None.”

The creature contained within drops to the floor, crouched and tucked. Child in size, its body covered in a thin film of moss green gel.

She stands slowly, the frame and figure of a girl no more than ten years, no less than seven, the eyes her only tell, black and empty, soulless.

Constantine slams a palm down hard onto the emergency lockdown button sticking out from the wall near the front entrance, sealing them in.

“Don’t hurt her.” Set lifts his arms out to his side in defense of the young girl. “We didn’t put this much work in just to obliterate the project upon completion.”

“I would hardly call that complete Set. It’s not near half finished its incubation cycle.” Constantine makes to the other side of the lab where he fumbles his way to loading a large needle meant to sedate the intended target.

The child does a quick survey of her surroundings. Six nervous men, likely to mean her harm, unsure of what to do. All attention directed toward her. So this was life.

She springs forward at the closest of them mouth first. Her teeth elongate on cue as she shifts her weight to come down fast on the man’s throat tearing into him with the ferocity of a rabid dog.

He screams and struggles but the life is gone too quick to mount a sufficient reaction.

Set screams at the others as they shift to true form, fangs and claws, scales and horns. “Don’t kill her!”

She turns from her feast of flesh and blood on the floor to the beasts behind her. They advance and she responds.

The first of them rushes her, swinging out toward her in search of blood.
Set cuts short his advance, hand gripped tight around the neck he jerks and pulls. A crack and snap the life leaves him. Set drops the body to the floor. “I told you to leave her be.”

No sooner have the words passed his lips does the child spring on him. She wraps arms round his front, claws in chest she holds him like a parasite as she inserts her fangs into his neck.

“Get it off!” He spins and struggles to no great success as she slowly drains him from behind. His tail whips at her backside, she continues unflinching.

The others step back, half fear, half satisfaction. Justice would serve his ignorance.

“What are you looking at? Stop her!”

The child’s eyes go wide, shifting from black to clear gloss. She loosens then drops to the floor unconscious.

Set stumbles back to his feet like a drunkard to face Constantine standing to his back, syringe in hand. “I didn’t kill her Set, though I ought kill the both of you for this spot of madness.”

Set heaves, hands on knees catching breath. He looks down at the small, fragile naked body of the child that seconds past brought him so near his death he could still feel the hand of God hovering above him waiting to lift his essence out of life.

He shuts his eyes and catches it, breathes regular again then stands to attention at eyes with Constantine once more, the curl of satisfaction round his lip.

“She’s perfect.”


SIX DAYS LATER


Set stands center under the only true light in the large auditorium, hands and feet in shackle.

Around him the governing bodies of the Council, the beings charged with the duty of leading this endeavor to its eventual success, a body which until this day Set had been an honored member of.

One of the council leans into the light, eyes fixed on Set, emotionless and unmoved he speaks monotone to him. “And in concern to the welfare and state of the whole, this body not excluded from consideration, you Set have been charged with negligence unbecoming and in all ways detrimental. You have been found in lack of character and as is you will be cast from this council and the habitation upon which it governs. The only solace you may find in our decision is that you have not been hanged and sent on. There will be no remark.”

Set’s expression is one more of disappointment than shock or fear. Constantine looks down at him from his seat on the council. Needless to say he had been an integral part of the decision making process to which Set now found himself the victim of.

“Remove him.”

Two men, black cloak and hood, step to Set on either side and take him by hand. They escort him from his place of judgment out of sight of the council.

Set uses his last moment amongst his former peers to lock gaze with the one responsible for his excommunication.

Constantine speaks to the rest without breaking his gaze.

“Toss his beast out with him.”


END PART TWO