Drs Morrisey and Kendrick were incredibly pleased. When they came across this genetic marvel two months ago, they had a great desire to get their hands on this specimen.
Dr Morrisey said, "I said it's worth monitoring these commercial DNA companies. You never know what's in them."
Dr. Morrisey was in his fifties, stocky and bald, but a professor of genetics and a genius in his field. He was also a man with a tenuous moral sense when it came to individual rights, and he believed that in the majority's interest, rules could and should be bent.
He had devised his own little plan and had not hesitated to lie even to officials in the government about it. He was intent on getting his project done, but he needed money. And in government, there were some men with secret funds at their disposal. Morrisey wasn't afraid of the consequences. His project would protect him.
Dr Kendrick, a thin, tall man with dead eyes, a very condescending manner of speech, and an irritating nasal twang, was a professor of psychiatry who also had an extensive career as a criminal investigator. Dr Kendrick had also excelled as a doctor, using brainwashing techniques.
He loved to affect the minds of his victims. He had done a lot of research on rage, human nature, and the influence of genetics on it. His theory was that there was a rage gene, a specific gene found in people with a particularly strong temperament, the rage gene. These victims were very good to study to manipulate, as well.
Dr. Morrisey said, "I can't finish the serum yet. It's going to take time to develop, but I'll start work on it right away. I'll need donors for it then, but I'll start on her side of the serum. I need to study this target first, take samples, and make a precise plan, make this a gene therapy the likes of which no one has ever seen."
Dr Kendrick said: "Very well, I can certainly use this individual, take what you need of her, and leave her in my care; I can guarantee that she will be my masterpiece. At last, I have that last bloodsucker - and he won't even notice the threat until it's too late. I want to see if this one fits my methods, too, so this is a sort of test. A test run. If I can get this to work easily, then she will be very easy to manipulate into being just perfect for our use."
Dr. Morrisey gathered a pile of tubes and jars and moved to the unconscious woman tied to the hospital bed. She had been flown unconscious from Finland to America, here in Louisiana, to his little laboratory. The woman had been thoroughly examined, and Morrisey first went through all the test results carefully before starting to collect what he needed.
The woman would then undergo cosmetic procedures to modify her appearance and be given a fortifying serum to rejuvenate her body, to make it strong enough to survive his serum, his unique gene therapy safely.
He collected blood, bone marrow, cerebrospinal fluid, and several different tissue samples and eventually went with tubes and jars to his own laboratory where he was developing some kind of retroviral serum, a brand new kind of gene therapy that he said would have amazing effects, the biggest obstacle to this research to date had been finding a suitable target.
His serum required specific genes that had not been present on any target so far. This woman had eight out of eight, and this was a lottery. And once he could get the retrovirus in place and then find other donors, the serum would be ready, and this woman, the target omega, would be truly unique. He and Dr. Kendrick would turn this woman into the perfect weapon, a whole new creature that would obey them once Dr. Kendrick had the programming in place.
That would be only after the retrovirus had created this human into something else entirely. Something other than human. Then the target would be brainwashed, programmed, to obey, to do what they told, to kill mercilessly and brutally, and only who they told.
Dr Kendrick had his own thing again. He was developing a new brainwashing technique that would turn an ordinary person into a killer that would only kill a specific target. This woman would become his masterpiece, an incredible creature who would destroy all those that he and Dr. Morrissey wanted to destroy.
Dr. Kendrick had lost his family and several of his relatives to a vampire, one incredibly old, strong vampire who always had his own agenda. For one of the original vampire hybrids. Nicholas Michaelson. And now, once she recovered from her cosmetic surgery, he would begin.
His method would work very well on a human, and this woman would be put to the test when he put her to the task of killing the bloodsucking son of a bitch. The method requires medication and lots of long-lasting new drugs that almost completely crippled the victim's personality and allowed the programming to work without the victim's free will.
Dr. Kendrick had watched the television series The Originals and was dryly amused by the way it portrayed one of the most dangerous and immoral beasts on television. He thought in his mind that if people knew The Originals were based on reality, vampires would probably have a lot of fans. If only people really knew that vampires existed, always existed, and TV shows and movies all were based on some vampires who revealed themselves to people but then again influenced those people so that the vampires stayed in the shadows. As a fantasy, nobody ever suspected anything.
But this woman would come along and kill Michaelson, and best of all, the satanic bloodsucker wouldn't even notice the danger. His colleague, Dr. Morrisey, had developed a serum that would kill the original vampire, and he would dip a stake in the serum, equip his little assassin with the stake, and send her straight to Michaelson's headquarters.
Dr. Kendrick was delighted, and this was going to be an unqualified success. And he knew that if he could program her once, he could do it again in the future. He went to the medicine cabinet to get everything he needed. The cocktail of drugs would be strong, and the drugs would stay in her tissues for weeks, keeping her mind paralyzed so that she would do what was required, and then Dr. Kendrick could concentrate on breaking her will, breaking her completely, and then turning her into a full-blown killing machine.
Dr. Kendrick thought to himself how sweet revenge would be when he asked a pair of medical orderlies to deliver the woman to his lab now. It had been a week since the woman had been operated on; she looked much younger. A teenager almost. The woman was thin, slender, and short. Just the right little runt that no one would suspect. Just the perfect murderer.
He'd put the drugs in the drip. She'd be in a dimly lit room. She'd have virtual glasses with the same video clip running all the time, showing her directly what to do. The drugs would sink this programming into her mind, and then when she woke up, she'd do what the programming required and wouldn't know anything about it herself.
I finally woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I didn't know where I was or how I got there, but I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I did my business and looked in the mirror. I didn't recognize myself; I had lost weight and a hell of a lot of it. I didn't look like myself, and somehow I knew that even if I gained more weight, I wouldn't look the same, but I didn't think about it, I didn't think about why, how, where and I didn't remember my whole abduction.
I just did things automatically, and I didn't know what I was doing or why. I didn't feel myself or feel normal; something was wrong, but I couldn't get a grip on it, not at all. When I came back, I started to explore further where I was and how I had ended up here. This looked like some kind of hotel room, but I had no idea where in the freaking world I actually even was.
And that didn't feel strange at all, either. It was just a fact. I decided to put on some clothes; they weren't mine, but they were the right size and available, so they fit. I didn't even look at the size. I just knew that the panties, tank top, white sweater, black jeans, and sneakers were the right size, so I put them on and put my hair, blonde, straight, in a ponytail.
Somehow, it felt like me again. This was familiar, but if someone had asked me my name, I wouldn't have even known it. I left the room and found myself somewhere in the city, on the street. There were people and music. I understood people, but this was not the language I had spoken before. It was not my mother language. I started walking down one street. I read the signs; I knew where to turn; I had a destination, but no idea what it was or why. And I didn't really understand where I was going, to whom, why. I just had to go this way. It was like a compulsion. It had to be obeyed.
Eventually, I got near a rather enormous building and went in through the door. This was my destination, and something inside me grew compulsive. For some reason, I clutched something hard and surprisingly heavy in my hand, but I didn't even think to look at my hand. I climbed the stairs like a terminator and knocked on one of the doors.
The door opened, and the man who opened it must have been a fallen angel with blond, curly hair curled slightly at the neck, bright blue eyes that looked very old, and a mouth that always looked almost smiling or amused. This reminded me of something, but now I couldn't put my finger on it.
This angel was tall, probably six feet tall, muscular without being too much so, and looked at me with great amusement. He was somehow beastly, and I didn't see him as a human being but as something else, and I didn't know what I was seeing.
"Well, hello love, who sent you here? Are you a delicious little cutie pie? You certainly don't look like a meal, but maybe we could do something else first." The man said in a British accent.
"What brings you to my door, you little mouse? Tell me, is this another one of Salvatore's little spy plots? Let me see your neck for bite marks. You do smell very strange. Is this a plot by Marcel or Rebecca to poison me with your blood?"
Before I could even think of a response, I attacked this man and tried to plunge what appeared to be a wooden stake into his chest. The man quickly and effectively fended off my attack and grabbed the stake out of my hand. He grunted, caught me effortlessly against him, and sniffed the stake, and I felt a chill or some sort of danger and rage wafting from the man.
"Really?" this angel asked, amused.
Sharp canine teeth clearly visible. "I'm a little hungry and could eat you all at once. I'm a vampire, and you could be useful to me, but I'm not eating you. You smell weird."
The man looked at the stake more closely, and suddenly his expression tightened. The blue eyes were as cold as ice, and the mouth didn't really smile. He held the stake in one hand, holding me against him with the other effortlessly, and then he turned me around so I was looking into his eyes.
He looked me hard in the eye and asked, "Why are you trying to kill me? Who sent you? Where are you from? Who the hell are you?"
I replied timidly: "I don't know, I really don't know. For some reason, I don't even know my name, or where I am, who you are. I remember nothing."
"Okay, come with me, " he said, pulling me into the room.
"What are we going to do with you now?", he looked at me searchingly. "I could have a little look to see if I can make you remember."
There was another man in the room.
A dark, handsome man from the couch said: "So, Nicholas, what have you brought us? A snack, or are you thinking of making this into a toy or a pet? Or is this another Aurora job?"
The blond man replied. "This little mouse tried to kill me, and he had this! I don't think this is Aurora's work or even Salvatore's work. This is that one crazy doctor again."
He said contemptuously and threw a black-haired stake at the man. He was wearing a suit, and again, I had a flash of something in my mind: a similar but different-looking man.
"Well, well, well, these guys," the dark-haired man said thoughtfully. "these people don't understand their own best. We should do something about it."
Nicholas said: "My dear brother, what do you suggest we do about this mousy girl? She smells of something, and that's why I don't drink from her."
The other man replied: "Can't you see? She's been brainwashed. I can smell the drugs on her from here. It's a strange smell you smell, that girl. She's a walking pharmacy and just a pawn, but why? Why her?"
The blond man said, " I'll take this as a challenge. Let's dismantle that programming and then see what information we can find. Can we finally get some actual information on this Satanic doctor, or what did you say, Elias?"
The dark man, Elias, would reply: "OK, let's do it then."
The men ushered me into the bedroom, and the blond man looked me in the eye and said: "Go to sleep."
I had no time to think before the darkness swallowed me up again. It was as if I had no will of my own at all.
I don't know how long it lasted. I always found myself somewhere in between lying there in bed between two men, and they were holding me in their arms and talking to me out loud, but also in my mind. They told me I didn't have to kill anybody. It's all right. I started to remember who I was and some memories of my abduction, but my memories were still hazy and vague.
Sometimes, I would have perceptions and memories of eating some food and drinking juice, and then nothing. I slowly began to feel more like myself. Eventually, I woke up sleeping in bed alone. My understanding of the time was still rather hazy, but the compulsion was gone.
I woke up once again when the door opened and lifted my head to see who was at the door. I was still exhausted and groggy most of the time.
I don't remember this stranger's face so well other than the ice-blue eyes that seemed to look straight into my soul. I smelled passionfruit, and somehow, it was a nice smell.
I heard a voice like Silk say: "Sorry, wrong room," while Nicholas seemed to be telling this man that it was not polite to snoop. The man grunted something. The door closed, and I fell back asleep.
Nicholas and Elias entertained their guests and kept a close watch for the rest of the evening to make sure that no one went to disturb their minor project. They had almost completely unraveled the programming, and this party had just been Nick's idea. Just a little confirmation that neither Aurora nor Salvatore were working for this doctor, and Salvatore's reaction to the woman confirmed it.
In the end, the party was over, and the brothers were happy, despite what Nicholas told his brother: "Do you think Salvatore will cause trouble? I mean, he saw her. Well, at least we know it's not his idea."
"I don't think we can always elaborate that she is another blood donor or something like that. And besides, we always have women in our beds. We can share," Elias stated confidently, adjusting his tie.
"You're right, my fine brother, let's see how our little guest is doing." the brothers went to see if their surprise guest was already awake and lucid enough to chat a bit.