Storymania - The Winds Of Change by Darcy K Metz

The Winds Of Change (2)
Darcy K Metz

“Irene, I purchased the business license and registered the company name: Russell Biotechnology Incorporated. Did you come up with everything else that I need?” asks Conrad as he pours himself a glass of wine. Irene is sitting across from him at the oak dining table in their modest apartment.

“Everything is in place now. You are now known to the government as Zachary Russell, born in Portland, Oregon on March 12, 1950. I have everything you need: a birth certificate, State of Oregon driver’s license, USA passport, and your credentials. They are the same as your true ones, B.Sc. in biochemistry from New York State University, and a Masters of Science in human genetics from Berkeley. I also secured a $750,000 loan from the bank, was rather easy, the bank manager had one of the weakest minds I’ve yet come across,” Irene says as she continues with her dinner.

“Nice, you even made me two years younger,” laughs Conrad.

“Well, now that you have finished changing, you look barely older than my thirty-three years. Not that I am complaining at all,” smiles Irene.

“Good stuff. We have all the staff we are going to need and the building is remade, secure as a bunker. I have attained some official contracts as a cover. We will be doing some medical testing and research with new pharmaceuticals that I will be overseeing. These alone will bring in nearly a million dollars annually. And I will “treat” my first patient next week. What is his condition?” asks Conrad as he takes a sip of his wine.

“He is a very rich lawyer in his mid fifties. He has had two heart attacks, and his DNA test shows him to have no genetic predisposition for any heart problems. His problems are resultant of his lifestyle. And although he is a good lawyer, his mind is easily mine,” grins Irene.

“Good, maybe he can represent the company,” says Conrad jokingly, “and how much is he paying us?”

“He has already put up the quarter million dollars deposit. The other 1.5 million will be in the offshore account tomorrow.”

“Good stuff. Millionaires just like that. Depending on how it goes, we can start scheduling more. How many minds can you control anyway Irene?” asks Conrad.

“I don’t think there is a limit. Like I said before only children, geniuses, the insane, and other metahumans are free from me. Remember at the hockey game in San Jose, I tried an experiment; I easily connected with close to 20,000 minds for the duration of the game with no problem at all. But I only will control those that we need to.” Indeed Irene spoke the truth. She had became one with close to 20,000 people and she continued to be for two days afterwards until she let go. It was no strain on her whatsoever and she functioned normally in her day to day affairs. She didn’t feel what she was doing was wrong, after all, her and Conrad were not out to hurt anyone. They were just out to become wealthy. So what if she would erase the methods of treatment from everyone’s minds. Conrad was going to cure them, make them absolutely healthy, and prolong their lives. The gift Conrad would give his clients is priceless, so it is okay for them to get rich from it, she often thought to herself. Conrad had saved her life and she had helped bring him back from the brink of madness. She now loved him more than anything and as a result would do anything for him.

V

It is now late October 1993 and Russell Biotechnology Inc. is now set to finish the year with just under 100 million dollars in business. That is of course only the documented business. After nearly three years in business, Conrad has cured just over 3,900 people. These people have been cured of every form of non-genetic disease. Even the deadly HIV virus has been eliminated from over 100 people. At an average fee of 1.5 million dollars, Conrad and Irene have put away 5.8 billion dollars in foreign accounts. And of course, Irene has fully erased from their memories the methods of the treatments. She now has unconscious control of over 4000 people.

A twenty-eight year old man has been coming to the clinic for a few months undergoing all sorts of tests. Joseph George is a Canadian of First Nations ancestry who fought for the UN forces in Asia in 1989. He thinks that he was exposed to chemical or biological agents. He has been sick ever since, suffering from extreme fatigue, and grotesque legions that spread and heal all over his body. Conrad has met him and has real sympathy for him. His genetic tests show nothing relating to his condition. An unidentified substance was found in his white blood cells that Conrad has never seen before. None of his colleagues in the medical profession or the military were of any help. Conrad has offered to help the young man for a mere $10,000 since Irene is sure that she has his mind under control.

Irene is in her office at the clinic when suddenly she feels a quick jabbing pain in her head that is gone as quick as it came. It caught her off guard, and like a computer, she quickly checks on the minds of those under her influence. All is normal except for one. She has lost contact with Joseph George, and to her surprise she is unable to make contact with Conrad.

“Something is not right, Conrad is supposes to be administering treatment to Mr. George right about now,” she says to herself. Then her phone rings, it is her secretary.

“Excuse me Ms. Spinoza, but there is an emergency in the treatment chamber.”

“Okay, I’ll be right down there.”

Within seconds Irene knows what has happened before she gets down to the sub basement level. She rushes downstairs and enters the chamber. There, to her horror she sees Joseph George lying supine and naked on the floor. Lying across from him is Conrad on the floor, naked, lying prone, sweating profusely and shivering. The treatment had gone wrong and now both men lay in a comatose state. “Get a physician down here right now,” orders Irene as she kneels down beside her husband, “and get some blankets for them.” Conrad! Conrad! Please hear me. I don’t believe it. Something happened to that Joseph. He is out of my reach now. Somehow, he, Irene pauses in her thoughts, she looks at Joseph George with a mixture of disbelief and contempt. She then looks back down at Conrad. He was somehow different, but now I know for sure. Joseph George is one of us.

VI

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: NOVEMBER 1993

Irene sits in the living room of her and Conrad’s penthouse apartment. In a guest bedroom Conrad lays in bed still in a coma after some three weeks since the incident at the clinic. In the room next to Conrad’s lays Joseph George in the same condition as Conrad. Irene has hired a full-time nurse to watch over them and a physician from the clinic checks on them twice daily. There has been no change in their conditions at all. Irene has had to deal with postponing all treatments, hoping those near death will make it for Conrad to come through, if he is the same that is.

“Irene! Irene!” screams Conrad at the top of his voice.

“Ah! What the hell! Where am I! Who the fuck are you!” yells Joseph at the same time, and with the same sense of urgency as Conrad.

Irene bolts into Conrad’s room, he is sitting up, staring at her confused. At the same time Irene hears a few loud thumps from the next room followed by a loud thud and someone running out the door. I’ll be right back. She enters Joseph’s room and finds the nurse lying on the floor unconscious, blood pouring from her nose. Irene checks the nurse’s mind. She is alive, not hurt too badly. She leaves the room, and runs to the entrance of the apartment to find the door open. She tries to make contact with Joseph, but is unable too. She gets on the phone and calls the physician, and then gets back to Conrad’s room and explains to him what she knows.

A week later Conrad is up and ready to go back into giving treatments. They had called the police to find Joseph, but he has not been seen anywhere. All that Conrad remembers from the incident with Joseph is that the treatment had been going like any other one, and then he blacked out, and the next thing he knew he woke up in the guest bedroom at home hooked up to medical equipment.

Back at the clinic, Conrad is discussing some test results with Irene. “Joseph’s blood had some kind of strange chemical in it before the treatment. I had never seen anything like it and there was nothing at all like it any of the literature. I was unable to get any help from the leading experts either,” he says to Irene as he is reading some of the test results after.

“Exactly. And while the two of you were in coma, we took various blood tests from you and Joseph. Those results were staggering; Joseph’s blood showed no traces of the substance at all following the treatment, so we are assumed to conclude that that was what made him sick. His genetic profile was identical to the one taken before the treatment. And the significant mutations that occurred in your chromosomes after you administered treatment, there is no explanation,” explains Irene as she looks at similar tests.

“I am at a loss for that, especially since I am suffering no ill effects whatsoever. And it seems that the lack of this chemical in Joseph’s blood is directly related to you losing mental contact with him Irene. We cannot simply hope that he just went insane, he knows about us and we have to find him,” ends Conrad as he puts the papers down. Irene looks at Conrad with serious concern on her face, “Yes I agree. If he knows what we fear that he knows, there is no telling what will come of it. If we find him and are unable to control him, we have no choice but to eliminate him.”

VII

RUSSELL BIOTECHNOLOGY INC., APRIL 1996

It has been over two years since the incident at the clinic in the treatment chamber; more than two years, and with all of their wealth and resources, not a trace of Joseph George anywhere. Shortly after the incident, Conrad was soon only able to treat one or two people a week. He just did not have the energy and required long periods of rest. This was definitely a symptom of the genetic alterations that occurred. With such a limit on how many people they could treat, they now charged enormous sums of money with a minimum of seventy-five million. This had caused some problems, some clients who were turned away were harder for Irene to control. Conrad has been suffering from depression as a result of being unable to help more people. He is ready to quit it all and sell the company. And why not, they have amassed over thirty billion in assets just from the treatments. The research side of Russell Biotechnology Inc. now deals in over three hundred million, and Conrad has actually begun negotiations behind Irene’s back to sell the company. If all goes well, Conrad and Irene can disappear in a matter of a few months and start a new life elsewhere.

Entering the clinic today is Frederick; a wealthy Austrian who is suffering from advanced stages of HIV. He was promised treatment for four million over two years ago. He has since been told to come up with one hundred million and no less. Even with all of his worth, he would barely make ten million. All of his calls have gone unanswered. He is a very desperate man, but that is not why he escapes Irene’s control: Frederick has been an active member in MENSA for more than twenty years, he is a gifted genius.

Frederick has entered under the appearance of a technician; he has convinced security that he is a new employee just starting today. Frederick always knew how to talk and charm people. After about forty-five minutes in the clinic, Frederick stumbles upon what he is looking for: Zachary Russell himself, the man who can save his life but refuses to out of what can only be despicable greed.

“Well, well, the famous Mr. Zachary Russell. I bet you forgot who I am,” says Frederick in a thick Austrian accent as he enters Conrad’s office. Conrad looks towards Frederick from behind his desk, he was in a meeting with one of his physicians and a young female grad student, and they in turn look towards Frederick

“Yes, that is me. Can I help you, I am in sort of an important meeting here,” answers Conrad in a low, somewhat angry voice.

“You don’t know who I am? You were supposed to cure me of HIV two years ago, and now I have developed AIDS. I have come for my treatment and you will treat me. I am a very desperate man and will not die from this sickness!” exclaims Frederick as he pulls forth a semiautomatic handgun and points it right at Conrad.

“Wait! Let’s not get carried away here. I am sure we can discuss this,” answers Conrad as he stands up with a hand in front of him.

“There is nothing to discuss! You will treat me or else you will die!” Frederick walks up towards the desk. He is standing between the seated physician and young student who are silenced with fear. Frederick points the gun a mere two feet from Conrad’s chest.

“Frederick, sir. You don’t want to hurt anyone, let us,” Conrad says as Frederick interrupts him. “Oh I don’t do I,” then without any warning Frederick turns the gun from Conrad and shoots the young woman in the head at point blank range Blood and brain scatter on the office wall six feet away, the woman’s body falls forward. Before anyone else can do anything, Conrad leaps his six foot seven inch, 258-pound body over the desk and grabs the gun hand of Frederick. Without the slightest struggle Conrad forces the gun to Frederick’s chest and empties six bullets into his chest. The physician dives out of his chair away from the mess. Conrad drops the gun onto the floor.

“Oh shit! The poor woman, she was just starting grad school,” Conrad trembles as he picks up her lifeless body; a good quarter of the back of her head is gone. He looks over at the physician who is just getting up. “We have to take her to the chamber, and treat her quickly.”

“What are you talking about Mr. Russell, she is dead,” answers the physician.

“Just do as I tell you, we must hurry. Follow me!” demands Conrad as he hurries to the basement of the clinic. Once they are in the chamber room, Conrad places the dead woman on the steel table. He immediately begins undressing himself.

“Mr. Russell, I beg you, you can’t treat someone who is already dead. We don’t know what could go wrong?” explains the physician as he locks the doors.

“I have to try. Don’t waste time, get me what I need now!” demands Conrad who is now completely naked.

“As you wish,” replies the physician as he picks out a rather large syringe from the cabinet and removes the sterile packaging. He presses the needle into the dead woman’s right arm and begins to draw blood. After a few minutes the syringe has filled to nearly 300 ml. He removes the syringe from the woman’s arm and walks over towards Conrad who is standing in the centre of the room. In front of Conrad is a rather large table that is just below the height of his waist and covered by thick foam padding. Conrad appears to be just standing there naked, staring through the wall some distance ahead of him. The physician inserts the syringe into a vein in Conrad’s right forearm. He then slowly begins injecting the dead woman’s blood directly into Conrad’s bloodstream. Conrad doesn’t flinch and is breathing very slowly, almost in a trance like state. After several minutes all of the woman’s blood has been injected into Conrad. The physician looks up at him and remarks, “I sure hope this works.” Conrad says nothing.

After about five minutes it begins. The physician stands back and watches the dead woman lying on the table and hopes for the best. A large pool of blood has collected around the woman’s head as she lay on the table. Her appearance seems to flicker first, then her features begin to become less defined and blur together. The intensity of the flickering picks up and she becomes more blurred until she looks simply like a flesh toned human figure with no distinguishing characteristics. Within a few minutes she starts becoming transparent and a turbulent, wave like motion passes throughout her body. Then after only a few seconds in the transparent state her body completely disappears. Her clothing falls in place where she was lying. Nothing whatsoever remains of her physical body, not even the blood that had pooled on the table around her head. The whole process takes less than five minutes.

Less than thirty seconds pass and then the physician turns his eyes to Conrad. Conrad begins undergoing a similar state. His features begin to blur followed by the turbulent wave like action. The only difference is that Conrad’s body does not become at all transparent. And then Conrad’s entire chest and abdomen region begin to expand. The expansion takes on a definite form as it bulges out a good three feet. The form of a human body being extruded in a jackknife form with the buttocks coming out first. From Conrad’s lower abdomen, the form takes a bend: thighs have started giving way to knees. At the same time an entire backside is taking form with definite shoulders, and the upper part of a neck. The blurring becomes less intense the more that the human form is extruded from Conrad. They seem to be almost dividing; there is no appearance of any kind of opening in Conrad’s body. The form is a definite form of an adult female. All that remains to appear are the feet, hands and the head. Conrad’s body and the one forming from him now look as normal as before.

Throughout this ordeal Conrad’s face doesn’t register anything, no pain, no discomfort, nothing. Finally the human figure slides right out of Conrad’s body and falls to the padded table below his waist. Conrad falls to his knees, he is now breathing hard, his entire body flushed deep red, and sweat begins coating him. The whole process from disappearance to reappearance took seven minutes. The physician runs over to Conrad, “Mr. Russell, are you all right?”

“Yes.... Check... her,” Conrad barely gets the words out as he is panting hard. The physician turns to the naked young woman lying on the table, she is the grad student and she looks normal except that there is no sign of a wound to her head. The physician turns her onto her back, places his cheek next to her nose: breath! To his absolute shock and delight, she is breathing. He checks her carotid pulse and feels a strong, healthy beating and a rate of 109. The physician looks towards Conrad who is still flushed and sweating hard.

“Mr. Russell. Sir,” the words barely make it out of the physicians mouth, “you, uh, she is alive. You have reanimated the dead.”

VIII

CONRAD & IRENE’S PENTHOUSE APARTMENT: AUGUST 1998

“So now you two know all that there is to know,” says Conrad looking out the window at the city lights, “what happens after tonight?

Carl Franken stands up and walks over to Conrad, “I just want to know how this all started, I mean my transformation. I am sure you would like to know why you are the way you are too Conrad.”

“Yes I would. I hate being like this. Even with all my wealth I am not happy. I just want to live a normal life with Irene,” he looks over at the woman who would be lost without. Irene gets up and walks towards her husband and puts her arm around his waist, leaning her head onto him. Joyce Dickinson follows suit and joins Carl.

“What comes now Carl?” asks Irene in a concerned voice.

“We take a vow to watch out for one another. Normal people won’t take kind to knowing the truth about us,” Before Carl can continue, Joyce adds, “We wait for Joseph to contact us. We find the rest who are like us, and then we all meet together with Joseph. Then he will tell us the truth we are all looking for.”

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