Human Instincts

HUMAN INSTINCTS

An Apocalyptic Novella

Ioana Visan

Copyright © 2012 Ioana Visan

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

HUMAN INSTINCTS

Copyright © 2012 by Ioana Visan

All rights reserved.

Cover Image by Derrick Coetzee

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

First eBook Edition: June 2012

Table of Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Books by Ioana Visan

1

Dr. Deanna Nichols ignored the shrill whine of the intercom, her eyes darting intently across the data scrolling up the screen. The glow washed out her already pale face. Even if it were His Majesty the General himself, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—tear her eyes away. Here, in the Medical Research Unit, she was the boss, and she didn’t take orders from anyone.

The reaction couldn’t be rushed, and she needed an answer. After a long series of failures, she didn’t put much faith in the results, but it would have been too much if she had missed the key moment—assuming the result was positive—because of some nagging employee from the administrative department who had remembered some urgent matter that presented no importance to her.

When the cycle ended, her sigh made steam crystallize on the protective mask that covered her face, so she removed it with an absent gesture. Officially, her shift had ended for the day, and she was alone in the lab. The other doctors and assistants were either busy with other things or had retired to their rooms to get some sleep. The lack of success for so long would have ruined anyone’s good spirit. Another opportunity wasted, hundreds of hours of hard work, and in the morning, she had to do it all over again—just like every other morning for that matter.

Deanna saved the data so it could be included in the statistics, and she set the parameters for the upcoming test that would be completed overnight. She programmed the machines, ignoring the recommendations to save energy. Such warnings arrived on a regular basis, sent to everyone without discrimination, but only certain departments were indeed affected. She’d worry about it the day the General himself came to tell her she had crossed the line and not a day sooner.

She ordered the incineration of the used tissue samples, removed her gloves, and tossed them into the recycling compartment. Her skin tingled from the inside gel. Since they couldn’t afford to be wasteful, even if they had living standards better than in other parts of the world, the gloves were going to be sterilized, melted, and remolded so they could be reused the following day. They didn’t throw away anything, if possible.

As she had countless times before, she wished for the luxury from before the war, when the entire process was mechanical and didn’t need human intervention, the only interaction done through a computerized interface. She rubbed her eyes, but the chronic fatigue couldn’t be chased away that easily. During moments like these, she wondered why she didn’t give up. Three long and difficult years had passed and the team, brought together with haste, was exhausted. Sometimes she felt the same. Unlike the others, though, she was determined to continue. She had responsibilities.

When she walked by the cage with the chimpanzee, she stopped and carefully inserted her fingers through the bars to pet his head.

Sorry, Abe, she murmured. It looks like we’ll be torturing you a little more.

The chimpanzee answered with a sad stare and pursed his lips. What did he know? Fed up with being pricked by needles and run through tests, even an artificial banana couldn’t cheer him up anymore.

Along the wall, two babies of four and nine months old slept in the incubators on wheels. Deanna called the nurse to take them back to their mothers. They didn’t run the tests on human subjects, only on tissue samples taken from adults, but in parallel, they followed up on the newborns’ evolution. For now, the prognosis remained discouraging.

The beep occurred again, this time more persistent, accompanied by a visual message in flashy colors, the brightness of which irritated her eyes. Her hands shoved deeply into her lab coat’s pockets, Deanna walked up to the monitor. What did they want now? They bothered her only when she was busy. Actually, she worked all the time, but that was no excuse. If she had news, she would contact them. Why was that so hard to understand?

The short message, only a few words, made her frown. General Mackenzie was requesting Dr. Nichols’s presence in his office as soon as possible. Up until now, he hadn’t stuck his nose into her business, and he had never bothered her without a serious reason. Something must have come up that required her attention, something important since he called her to him and they couldn’t speak through the usual channels. She hoped it wasn’t yet another catastrophe.

She was tempted to delay her visit a few more minutes just to prove her independence. She wasn’t under his command, so she didn’t have to jump and show up to report. However, as the commander-in-chief of the entire armed forces as well as the commandant of the base in which they both ran their activities, a big part of the funds granted to her research program depended on his goodwill.

That last thought convinced her to give in and see what he wanted. She released her long hair from the ponytail, ran her fingers through it, and pulled it back up. After she made sure she looked presentable, she left the lab. A few extra seconds wouldn’t matter much.

2

Various people saluted her in the corridor, and Deanna answered with a short nod. Many people knew her by sight, especially after she had become the head of the research department upon Professor Larsson’s death. Some gossiped that she was too young for such a responsibility, but no one questioned her credentials. She was the only one of the professor’s assistants still alive, and she had worked by his side for the entire duration of the project.

The farther she got from the lab, the faster the number of lab coats decreased, replaced by the increase of military uniforms. It was quite a bit of a walk. She had intentionally set up her lab in the most distant wing of the complex so she wouldn’t be bothered by the daily agitation and routine maneuvers. The General had granted her the space, happy to be able to isolate the potential infectious source. The downside was that when they had to meet, she crossed several corridors and used at least three elevators to get to the level reserved for the head of command. When no civilian remained in sight, she knew she was close.

Deanna presented her IDs twice, but she didn’t have to wait outside. The secretary looked relieved to see her and told her to walk in right away. The General was expecting her.

She found him standing with his hands clasped behind his back, contemplating a big world map that spread over a good part of the wall. Old age had caught up with him, but he still kept his back straight, an intimidating air surging around him. His cheeks sagged, and his hair was almost white. The burden of the last few years had left its mark on his person, but not on his psyche. He was just as determined as she remembered him to be from the first meetings, always warring with someone. Or at least having a good cause to support, he claimed.

Deanna cleared her throat.

General, you asked to see me, she said, refusing to admit she had been ordered to come.

Dr. Nichols. Mackenzie slowly turned his head to look at her.

If it’s about my research— she said defensively. She didn’t have an excuse and wanted to be done with the matter swiftly.

It is, he said with a grave voice. But it’s not what you think.

Because of the age difference—he could have been her father, God forbid!—he allowed himself some familiarities when they weren’t in public, especially when they had a fight. Deanna clenched her fists in her pockets. At past midnight, she didn’t feel up for having an argument with him. She would lose disastrously, and even on a good day, she could barely stand up to him.

I want to show you something. Mackenzie suddenly became more alive. He crossed the room with big steps, heading to the screen used for the war council’s presentations. It was connected to the workstation on his desk and, when he turned it on, a white sphere appeared on the dark background, a tridimensional representation of Earth that Deanna had seen countless times.

The agglomerations of red dots spread here and there, not more than three or four on each continent, made her heart ache whenever they appeared in front of her eyes. Initially, she thought the General was trying to show her an increasing trend in the population’s demographic or, more likely, a decreasing one. She kept up with the latest statistics, official and unofficial. She received regular reports, but she hadn’t noticed anything unusual lately.

She watched the image carefully while it rotated, aware that Mackenzie stared at her instead of the screen as if waiting for something, but the first rotation completed without revealing anything new. Deanna blinked and forced her eyes to focus again. Instinctively, she counted the sources.

Two were in Europe, one of them only two hundred kilometers away from their base, and none in