Before Her

Epilogue

Epilogue
"Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have?"
Jane Goodall

The lights were on, the room shining bright as if it were in broad daylight even though it was pitch black outside, not that anyone had been outside for a long time.

Janson sat in his office, going through several different files, answering emails and so forth, the usual. His office had glass windows, allowing him to look out at his colleagues and workers, who sat at their own little offices going through files, answering emails and so forth.

There were no windows to the outside world, for the outside world was no longer a paradise, a sanctuary. There were no green grass or tall trees or lakes to swim in. The sun had taken that, taken it and roasted it all until it was a big pile of dust, literally. The scorch was what they call it. Out there in the scorch where nothing was anything for miles and miles, nothing but endless sand and what had once been.

There was a knock on the door.
'Come in.'
His personal assistant and secretary opened the door, her eyes bright to the point where it made her look crazy.
'They're ready.'
Fixing his clothes, Janson took the clipboard that had all the information he needed, for this one experiment anyways and marched to the elevator, swiping his card before stepping in, his assistant right behind him.

Soon, they reached the room where the subjects were held in, and with a swipe of his card the door beeped once before it unlocked.

Doctors scurried around, doing everything they could. All of them wearing lab coats and gloves and boots, everything needed to be perfect in this room, no mistakes.

Janson walked over to the two beds at the far end of the room, to where the leading doctors and their most valuable subjects lay, unconscious, hooked up to at least five machines each, bandaged, naked. The bruises fading, the cuts hidden behind the bandages.

Janson looked at his clipboard, flipping the pages to the ones that contained the basic information of subjects.

Jane Goodall
Subject A16
Group A

He walked over to where she lay, seeing her for the first time in a long time. She was pale, too pale. Her blonde hair spilling everywhere.

She had done well. She had created more patterns in the killzones than ever before. The killzones had blown up everywhere, taking hundreds of different turns, spiralling so fast WICKED almost couldn't keep up with them. It had been a mess to map every different killzone, but it was definitely worth it. It would take them that one step forward to finding the cure.

He looked over to where the other subject lay. They hadn't put him in the maze yet. He had been severely hurt and poisoned, since he had been found in a place he shouldn't be and unconscious before they could ask him any questions.

Janson flipped the page:
There were no labels other than the boy's name since he had been working for WICKED, not that they hadn't experimented on him. He looked at the boy, then at the page on his clipboard, containing the recent results of the boy along with his name printed at the very top in bold letters:
THOMAS EDISON

'How's the boy?'
'He's responding well sir.'
'Good... Get him ready, we will be putting him in with group A soon.'
'Yes sir.'
'The girl has done well. How is she?'
'She is in the recovering stage, her response is slow, but she's steady.'
'Good good. She's done well. Once she's at an average level, prepare her and erase her memories, we'll be sending her in with group B.'
The doctor gives a quick nod before walking up to check on the girl again.

Janson turned to his personal assistant.
'The recent memories of group A.'
'Yes?'
'Erase them.'

The plan was coming together well. They would be ready soon. The keys were here, right in front of him. WICKED just needed more time, a few more tests, a few more samples and they would be sure.
And that would be when the real experimenting began.