The final, rattling breath of the patient on the table was the only sound in the room as the four doctors stood back to watch their experiment fail. The man on the table was in his mid forties. He was once a military operative trained as a sniper. The idea of Dr. Greene was to test the serum to see if it would sharpen his eyesight, maybe give him night vision. Anything was better than the norm that is the human senses. Pulling a sheet across his body, Doctor Greene sighed and pushed his glasses up on his nose, his brow furrowed slightly.
"Take him down to the morgue. Tell the coroner that he had a heart attack from PTSD. Tell them that I will file the report and send it down to them as soon as I can. Don't let the other patients in the common room see this. It will only stir up a riot."One of the other doctors looked up from what he was cleaning and cocked his head to the side. "How do you suppose we get him passed them without drawing attention?" The short, balding man asked Doctor Greene sharply.
Greene turned back toward the man, a hard gleam in his eyes.
"I don't know, Stephen. Dump him in a laundry bin for all I care! Just get rid of him!" Greene snapped, her voice acidic as he slammed the door behind him. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a deep sigh. 2 year. They had been doing these tests with the serum for nearly 2 years, and only four patients had actually survived past the third injection. Doctor Greene shoved his hands into his white coat pockets and casually strolled by the common room and cafeteria, watching the patients out of the corner of his eye, taking in their every move and action.
Reaching his office in the south wing, Greene unlocked the door and pushed the heavy wooden door open with his shoulder, grabbing three files from the basket hanging from the wall beside him as he entered. The day was just getting started for him it seemed. He sat down behind his mahogany desk as flipped through the first of the files, trying to find a new "patient X".
The sound of a squeaky wheel echoed across the hall as the orderlies pushed a gurney down the hall. It was empty, but from where she sat in the window sill, Jo could see the faint stains of blood on the white sheets. Her eyes narrowed just a little as she watched the two doctors whisper back and forth and disappear down the hall, heading toward the 'restricted section' of the hospital. The faint smell of cleaner and gasoline wafted up from the elevator doors that they had just opened. The doctors try to hide what they do down in the basement, but they have patients here that were specifically trained to hone in on their senses and specialize in picking up minute details.
Jo leaned her back against the wall and looked over at two other men sitting at a table, conversing quietly. They had seen it as well. The one on the right, a tall man with dark, curly hair, nodded slowly as he met Jo's eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out as a long sigh. She had been her for nearly 5 months now, and she had watched countless men and women go down that elevator and never come back up. It nearly made her sick to think about what was actually going on down there.
Footsteps echoed as Doctor Greene emerged from the elevator and made his way toward his office. She lifted her chin slightly as he looked around the room, watching and noting every movement. Her skin seemed to crawl as his eyes landed on her and he smirked slightly. Jo turned her head away and stood from where she had been sitting. The white walls, white floors, white coats, everything in this place, it nearly drove her mad. She couldn't seem to sit still for long periods of time without doing something. As she started walking towards the door, three guards stood up from behind the counter and crossed their arms over their chests.
"I'm going to get breakfast. Stand down, you filthy apes," she snapped and tossed her hair over her shoulder. The one on the far right lunged forward at her, but the other two held him back. Jo smiled sweetly at them before walking lightly out into the hall and toward the cafeteria wing. If there was one thing she loved while she was imprisoned there, it was teasing the guards. They never seemed to fight back, but they definitely reacted. Jo made her way between the long, tan tables in the cafeteria and stood in front of the bar. It reminded her of a high school cafeteria. Grabbing a tray, she let the ladies behind the Plexiglas barrier drop food onto her plate behind picking a seat near the window.