A Fool Act at God: Veolce

     “So how have the tests come along? You know the higher ups will want to see some improvement on the cases’ health.”
     “If they want immediate results, tell them to come run these experiments themselves.”
     “You know the drill. They start the company, they get to sit on their asses and collect the big money while we work ours off to make them happy.”
     “True.” The scientist holding a clipboard of data sighed. He grabbed the corners of his eyes with his index finger and thumb, causing his glasses to rise. He hadn’t joined with those damn things, they were the result of eye strain as an occupational hazard.
     “Out of the original seventeen we brought in,” he paused glancing into the one-way glass, “only this one seems to have…survived. The rest were not as receptive as this one.”
     “This is all? This is the only thing we’ve got to show for?”
     “Sadly, yes.”
     “This is disappointing.” He turned to leave. “And you know what they’ll do, right? Shoot the messenger.” With that he left the observing room.
     The first scientist hung the clipboard he was holding back on the nail beside the door while he looked into the room containing the one male figure.
     The odd looking man stood there against the far wall with his head down and arms crossed. The scientist could see the man’s long, multi-toned hair with his bangs hanging in front of his eyes. A lion tail swayed absently behind him, the odd colored red, green, and black fur showing the same as his hair. The baggy clothes he wore hid many more animalistic traits that he was not born into this world with.
     “Pynn…” the scientist whispered the man’s name silently. He was beginning to wonder if Genesis’ methods were really for the better. Maybe he should leave before things became worse.
     The man’s two foot ears twitched noticeably. He lifted his head to look in the general direction of the scientist. The man’s eyes unnerved him. One was yellow with the pupil a slit while the other was grey and that of a human. The way he looked at him made it seem that the glass was more a window than anything else.

     The rain fell unrelenting. Sometimes heavily in steady sheets and other times as a drizzle when it let up for a few seconds. It was a perfect night to spend indoors, wrapped up comfortably in a blanket with a book or nuzzled up to someone in front of the tv. It was a perfect night to be anywhere than outside with the elements.
     A lone figure stood on the sidewalk in front of an alley. He was surrounded on all sides by towering buildings. A lamppost nearby shone partially on him, illuminating only a little of the right side of his body. He tilted his head upwards, looking at a window of the apartment complex across the street. He had grown all too familiar with that window. More with the pane of glass than the person behind it.

     “And this is where you’ll work Miss Chambers. Your colleagues are Mr. Ryan Iavruun, and Mr. Jeremy Bohwa. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask either one of them or any of our other employees. “
     “Thank you,” a woman told the scientist who had escorted her through the building with a tour. He nodded slightly and left her at the door to one of the labs. She turned toward her new job with a look of hope on her face.
     “Ex… Excuse me,” She faltered in a light voice.
     Both male scientist who occupied the sterile and painfully bright, white room looked up at her from their stations. One of them, a man with dirty blonde hair walked over to her from the table he had been leaning over.
     “Hello,” he said in a friendly voice. “I can only assume that you are the new girl for our division.”
     “That’s correct,” she told him.
     “That’s great,” he smiled broadly. “Otherwise we would have had to kill you for seeing our secret experiments.” He drew a dark expression and glared at her intently which caused her to gulp. “But since you aren’t,” he grabbed her hand with the smile on his face once again and pulled her in, “let’s get acquainted.”
     He brought her in to the middle of the room and spread his arms out to indicate the entire place. “This will be your home. That other place you live in now,” he muttered under his breath to her, “you’ll forget about it soon enough.” He pulled away from her and gestured to the furniture in the room. “This rock hard, plastic covered sofa will be your bed, the glass wall you walked through is the window to the world, and these various chemicals, equipment, and fluorescent lighting will be your life.”
     She took in the place that he showcased to her while becoming more aware of the expectations the company called for.
     “Now that the boring is out of the way,” he turned back to her. “Now for the people. My name is Jeremy. And this fellow who hasn’t looked up from his work,” he gestured to a man with brown hair who was sitting at a microscope, “is Ryan.”
     The man now known as Ryan looked up at her once more and nodded toward her.
     “And now for you,” Jeremy butted back in before she could say hi. “What’s your name?”
     The woman with long, brown hair held back in a ponytail answered lightly, “my name is Vicky.”

     The hood of his soaked coat weighed down on his head. Due to his head's angle, it slowly slid back and off, exposing his facial features slightly. Stray hair that was held back by the hood fell in front of his face. Without even thinking, he took it with his fingers and placed it behind his ear. It wasn't until he brought his hand back in view that he caught himself.
     It all seemed so mundane now. It had taken getting used to at first but now he rarely thought about it unless he saw his reflection or felt the extra appendage that would sway on its own accord. He knew several people who were going through the same ordeal but it never hit harder than it did when he saw himself.

     “Can you pass me that vial Vicky?” Ryan asked the woman. Several weeks had gone by proving that she was a valuable asset to the team despite her young age and a friendly person to get along with. This added to the workplace. She made the dreary place lively while making Jeremy’s liveliness not affect their work as much as it did before.
     “Sure,” she said, handing him the vial of clear liquid from the rack. She had spent many of her days like this. Helping him around his microscope and cultures, taking a particular interest in his field of expertise.
     “What are you two lovebirds doing over here?” Jeremy asked popping up between them, placing one hand on each of their shoulders. Both adverted their gazes and blushed slightly.
     “Will you leave us alone Oas?” Ryan shot at him. “We’re busy trying to work unlike some people.”
     “Sorry Veolce,” he said back, stretching out the sorry. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your little “alone” time.”
     Ryan was about to say something back to him when Vicky jumped in, partly to stop the fighting and partly to get info from them.
     “What’s with your nicknames?” she asked perplexed. “You’ve used them since I’ve been here and I never understood the meaning behind them.”
     “You mean ‘Oas’ and ‘Veolce’?” Ryan asked and she nodded. “Those were projects we worked on in the past. They were just made into our nicknames like most of the other scientists in here. It’s kind of a way to lay claim to your work.”
     “Oh, I see,” she said. After a little contemplation she continued, “when will I get my own?”
     Jeremy chuckled. “It took many of us years before we could claim our own. It usually went to the senior members of the projects. But don’t worry,” he added at the end seeing her downtrodden expression, “we’ll give you any recognition that you deserve for the projects you help on.”
     Vicky smiled at him. Ryan couldn’t help but smile up at her. It seemed to make him happy seeing her happy.

     The light from the streetlamp lit his right hand perfectly. Every detail could be seen very clear. He turned it over and looked at the back of it. He wondered what his old colleagues would say about him now. What would they do if they saw him? How would they react? There were only two who would remember him very well. He hadn’t seen one of them in months and the other one was…
     He stared at his right hand. The hand that caused it all. The one that brought this fate upon not just himself, but several of those he was now one of. The very people he helped to create for the sake of science and man’s foolish attempt at God. He was now part of the scorned. He was now a GELF.

     “I wonder if Vicky is enjoying her time off,” Ryan pondered aloud in the quiet lab. She had worked there for roughly a year now and deserved a little break. Since she was using that time to care for her sister’s dogs while she was away and have some time of peace away from all this, the lab seemed quieter than usual, even with Jeremy there.
     “Don’t worry about her,” Jeremy told him not looking up from his work. “She’ll be better after a break from this mad house we call a job.”
     “I guess you’re right,” Ryan conceded. He turned back to his work at the microscope. Studying genes for a scientific facility was a hassle when you were mostly restrained to one piece of equipment. He bent down to the eyepiece to look at the new strand he was dealing with now. He placed his glasses on his forehead and looked into it. Those cursed glasses he had to wear. He didn’t need them until seven years ago when he started working here. An occupational hazard that came with the job.
     He was absentmindedly adjusting the knobs that controlled the distance between the lens and the slide when Jeremy suddenly appeared next to him, slamming his hand on the counter and causing a nearby graduated cylinder to spill it’s contents on the table..
     “You’ve grown too quiet now,” he said as Ryan jumped. “What are you working on now?”
     There was an audible crack to Ryan and he saw the jagged lines appear through the lens. He had broken the slide.
     “Just working on that new strand they want,” he told Jeremy. “And thank you by the way.” He pulled out the slide gingerly and laid it in his open palm.
     “Sorry about that man,” Jeremy told him and quietly returned to his workstation leaving Ryan with the mess.
     Ryan searched about for something to clean the spilled liquid up. Finding nothing in sight, he decided to dispose of the slide in the contaminated waste bucket first. He rose from his stool and placed his left hand on the counter. There was a moment a coolness against his palm before he realized where he had placed it down.
     His hand slowly left from under him and his body reflexively prepared for the impact on the table. He landed on his elbow with his right arm pressed against his body. He slowly stood up and held his arm out. He slowly opened his palm.
     The rubber gloves he was wearing offered no protection at all to broken glass. Several small pieces were embedded in his hand and the blood was mixing with the strand of DNA that was on the slide.
     “Are you okay man?” Jeremy asked him.
     “I’m fine,” Ryan lied. “I’m just going to dispose of this and then I have to go use the bathroom.”
     “Alright. Are you sure you’re okay?”
     “It’s nothing to worry about. I’m just going to clean this liquid off my coat in the bathroom.”
     “Alright. But hurry back. We’ve got some work to do.”
     “Don’t worry,” Ryan told him with a faked smile. “I won’t be long.”

     Many things had changed over the past five months but his appearance was the least of his concerns at this point in time. His skin had turned pale green with scales at different locations, his hair turned blue, his lower canines elongated to extend out his mouth even when it was closed, his eyes changed from a beautiful blue to light brown, and a tail grew out where his spine met his pelvic bone. The only good thing that came out of it was the improved eyesight which allowed him to ditch his glasses.
     All this made him undergo many personal and social reforms. He could no longer go outside in the day and when he left his apartment after dusk, he still had to wear a coat with the hood over his head. He could do very little for his tail except wear baggy pants, or for his claws except hide them in his pockets and refrain from touching the very small amount of people he saw on his alley excursions. Most nights, those alleys led him to this very spot, looking up at that window. And that window usually resurfaced too many painful memories.

     “Let go of me!” hollered the restrained man. It was taking four guards to hold on to him, forcing him into a chair.
     One of them successfully slammed his arm down and strapped it to the arm of the chair. The man reflexively turned to stare at the guard. A deep growl bellowed from his throat.
     “Keep him down!” called out another man. Three of them were still struggling against the surprisingly strong man. The fourth was still staring into the captive’s brown eyes that were burning with rage.
     Another man stepped forward from the shadows with a syringe in his hand. He measured some form of fluid into the needle’s chamber. After making sure it was free of air, he turned to the new captive.
     “This is for the best Veolce. If we don’t control this now, there’ll be no saving you.”
     Ryan had tried so hard to hide the inevitable. He kept his hand bandaged and away from sight at all times. When he awoke one day to find his eyes had changed color, he stopped making direct eye contact with anyone who knew him well. Trouble came, however, when his skin slowly started turning green and with his hair becoming a shade of blue.
     The scientist broke his stare with the guard and turned glaring eyes at the bearer of the voice. Despite the fact that he knew him, the rage welling inside him and the transformation’s effects were clouding his judgment.
     The one with the needle slowly walked forward cautioning the scientist that he meant no harm. The act would have been perceived as friendly to any person. It was too bad that the man being bound to the chair could no longer be classified as human.
     With a surge of anger and a low roar, Ryan pulled his right arm with the abnormal strength he was experiencing. With one Herculean tug, he ripped the arm from the chair. With the same motion and momentum, he punched the guard in front of him, breaking his jaw, and swung backward to stab the man who had restrained him with the metal rod protruding from beneath the chair’s armrest.
     Reflexively, one of the guards released Ryan and stepped back. This was a terrible mistake.
     “What the fuck is wrong with you? Help me restra--GLRCK”
     Now that his left arm was no longer being held down, Ryan grabbed the remaining guard by the throat and sunk his claws into his neck. He rose from the chair and held the man aloft. The guard grabbed at his hands and vainly tried to dig his nails in.
     Ryan glared at him with such ferocity that the guard’s eyes went wide with fear and a warm patch started forming at the front of his uniform. Disgusted with his captor, he flung him sideways into the last standing guard causing both to fall into a pile and a state of unconsciousness.
     “Easy now Veolce,” the scientist said in a frightened voice. The syringe fell from his hand and shattered on the floor.
     Ryan stepped over the guard with the broken jaw and advanced towards the man. The glass crunched under foot as he walked right through the liquid.
     “You have to regain your senses,” the scientist said more assuredly. “This isn’t like you. I know you wouldn’t harm anyone. It’s just the genes that you’ve been infected with.” He bumped against the door to the room and fumbled for the handle with his left arm behind his back. “You have to fight this. You need to control your anger and you’ll return to yourself.”
     Ryan stopped directly in front of him and look him in the eyes. There was a moment where it seemed the talking was helping. His brown eyes showed a little less of fire.
     The scientist placed both his hands, having given up on the door, on his chest. “It’s me,” he said with pleading eyes. “Your friend. Oas.”
     This seemed to have helped matters more. Ryan’s breathing was calming down and he didn’t look like he was about to strike the man.
     “I can help you. We can get this all worked out. Maybe even find a way to change you back. All we have to do is run some tests and keep you in an isolated room. After about a year or two, after we’ve discerned what went wrong with the gene, we’ll know what we’re dealing with when it comes to you.”
     The fire returned to Ryan’s eyes with the last statement Jeremy made. He reared back his hand and punched him hard across his face. Surprisingly, the blow didn’t break anything and only knocked him down, though Ryan wasn’t finished with him.
     He bent over and grabbed Jeremy by the neck of his shirt and belt. Experiencing the abnormal strength once again, he hefted his friend and lab partner over his head and threw him towards the wall on the left. This was the only wall in the room that housed a one-way mirror.
     Jeremy flew through the air, his body breaking the glass with little effort of his mass due to the force of the throw. He sailed into the small room beyond and hit the giant machines on the other wall that dealt with analyzing data from the captives who occupied the chair. A brief moment of electrical flashes and metal crunching under the force of the object thrown against it and Jeremy fell to the ground on the brink of death.
     Cuts from the glass, electrical burns that scarred his flesh, shattered bones with some jutting out of his skin, a broken spine, and puncture wounds from the machine’s protruding devices were only several of his injuries. Ryan walked towards the remains of the mirror as more guards armed with guns stormed through the door. He ignored their orders to freeze and looked inside at his latest victim. The blood, frailness, and pained expression on Jeremy’s face stirred something within him: the human inside.
     Ryan made a move to leap inside and check on his friend but a remnant of glass cut him causing him to look at his hand from the pain. He then saw the chair’s arm still strapped to his own, the claws that now replaced his hands, and the blood that was drying to the nails of his left hand as well as on the rod of the armrest. He then realized what had transpired in the room and what had befallen Jeremy.
     Tears started to brim his eyes, mixing with the new surge of anger at his own actions. He turned around to face the guards who readied their guns. Several moved toward the former scientist but it was futile. He swung at them, not aiming to kill anymore, to fend them off and rushed the closest to the door. He broke through their defenses and ran down the hall. His aim was not for the exits where they would be waiting for him but for the closest window. Without any thought of his well-being, he hit the glass with all his might and fell through the crisp, autumn night.

     Tears were now streaming from his eyes but the heavy rain masked any sign of them. Despite this fact, he rubbed his soaked sleeve over his face to remove the salty fluid. Two months had passed since that day with him never leaving his apartment. During that time, his lower canines elongated and the new appendage at the base of his spine had grown due to the effects of the gene that now composed most of his DNA. He had also grown several inches and his musculature had hardened, giving him the physique he always wanted.
     It was only a matter of time before Genesis would hunt him down to recapture or kill him. When that day arrived where they broke down the door and stormed the small living area, he was gone. He had left days before when his changes seemed to slow where they had stopped and to leave behind everything that reminded him of his past life and those he had hurt. The only thing he kept were some clothes and the straps from the armrest. He had cut them off carefully and secured them to his wrist and forearm where they had been to remind him of his sins and of that gruesome night.
     One month was spent wondering the streets in search of food and resting spots. He knew better than to stay in one area for long with one of the most powerful organizations still after his head. It was one night in late February when he was found by Erika, one of his old colleagues who had left Genesis in its early stages when she found out what her research was going to be used for. She had somehow been infected as well and was now working with other GELFs to put a stop to Genesis. He has since then been helping them in their labs to create a cure for the virus.
     He was so lost in thought that he barely realized that someone was walking up the other side of the street toward the apartment complex. Though the umbrella hid the figure’s face, he could tell who it was by their stride and long, brown hair. Reflexively, he took a step back and removed most of himself from the lamp’s light.
     The woman placed her umbrella down on the steps when she reached the cover of the awning. She fumbled her hands over her keys to find the one that unlocked the door. She walked in and turned around to pull the door shut against the wind but as she did so, she looked up and say the figure across the street. Any other night she would have closed the door faster and made her way to the elevator, but tonight, she stopped and studied him. She knew it was the person she had seen some nights from her window or on her walks home.
     Sensing that she had seen him, he stepped back once more and pulled the hood over his head. The woman was not deterred though and she walked back into the storm, her umbrella forgotten.
     “Ryan?” she asked into the gale. She pressed forward and asked again. “Ryan is that you?”
     The man turned around to hide his face and whispered, “don’t call me that.”
     “It is you Ryan,” she exclaimed in a happy tone. “I’ve been worried sick about you. After I went back to work, I heard some very crazy rumors about you. I even went by your place to check up on you when you never showed up for work but there was no answer. The other tenants said they hadn’t seen you in a while but they wrote it off as common given your history to work several days in the lab. You have no idea what I’ve been though Ryan.”
     The man before her hunched further and whispered a little louder, “don’t call me that.”
     “I’ve been interrogated by several departments on your whereabouts, they won’t tell me what’s been going on though, and no one will answer my questions about Jeremy. I-”
     “Jeremy’s dead,” he cut her off.
     “W-what? What are you saying Ryan?”
     “Don’t call me that!” he finally told her.
     “What’s wrong with you?” she asked and tried to step in front of him but he turned away. “Why are you acting funny?”
     “Because I don’t want you to see me like this.”
     “Like what? And what did you mean about Jeremy?”
     “Jeremy’s dead,” he told her once more. He turned to face her for the first time in months and lowered his hood, his fear thrown aside by the fact that she must know the truth. “And I killed him.”
     The shock that she showed on her face was soon followed by tears. She threw up her hands to cover her face but instead of fleeing for her apartment like he had thought she would, she threw herself onto his chest and began to weep. Unsure of what to do, he stood there with his arms apart, not wanting to touch her. He soon wrapped them around her when it was evident she wanted him to hold her.
     Her tears lasted for quite a while. The news of their friend and finding the man before her was just too much for her to take in all at once. After what seemed an eternity, she pulled back a little and looked up at him.
     “H-how did it happen?” she asked.
     He told her all about what happened during her leave and of that dreadful night. He didn’t spare any detail of his fight and what he did to Jeremy. After hearing his story, she had a hopeful look in her eye.
     “You left almost dead,” she reiterated and wiped at her eyes. Restating his sin caused him a surge of pain. “That means he could still be alive. They might have tried to save him or something.
     He didn’t say anything to dash her sense of false hope and optimistic personality. Truth be told he had thought the same thing but after seeing the darker side of Genesis, he knew better. After a short silence where they just looked at each other, she smiled at him and placed her head back on his chest.
     “I’m glad that you’re alright,” she said, snuggling a bit closer to his body heat to cover the fact that they were standing in the rain, drenched to the bone. “I was so worried about you.”
     “I was worried about you,” he told her, laying his cheek on her head. They stood there like that for a while until the question burned its way out of him. “You don’t mind that I look like this?”
     “Why would I mind?” she asked, looking back up at him. “I still love you, no matter what you look like. You could be pink with purple polka dots for all I care.”
     He couldn’t help but smile back down at her and give a little laugh along with her.
     “I’ll help you, you know? I can use the labs at work to come up with a cure for you.”
     “You don’t have to do that,” he told her. “I don’t want any harm to befall you for my mistakes. I’d rather have you leave there now.”
     “Nonsense. I want to help. There’s nothing you can say to change my mind. And besides,” she paused looking a little guilty, “there’s nowhere else for me to work. If I stay there, I can help slow their progress.”
     They smiled at each other again with a loving look in their eyes. This was the first time anyone had cared so much for him like this. He was glad he had found her, even if it was through some very tragic means.
     “What do you want me to call you?” she asked, laying her head back on his chest.
     “Hmm?”
     “You told me earlier not to call you Ryan. What do you want to be called?”
     He thought about it for a second. He hadn’t really been called anything lately. Even at the hideout he was referred to as ‘the quiet person’ or ‘manically depressed lizard’.
     “Veolce,” he told her, deciding on his nickname from work. It would help to remind him what he was now fighting for and keep the memory of a friend alive.
     “I like it,” she told him. “I think it really suits you.”
     He held on to her, never wanting this moment to end. He hadn’t known that this night would lead to something like this but he was glad he had made his way here. This revived something inside him that he thought he had lost: hope.
     “You know I never did get that nickname you promised me.”
     Veolce laughed. “Don’t worry. I think you’ll get it soon enough. You’re greatest achievement will help more than just me.”