This is the end, beautiful friend, the end.
One nameless day on the Feral Labs Caribbean Facility, right as the sun was
slinking into the western sea, the power suddenly and abruptly went out. There
was panic, of course—some of the older islanders remembered the lockout. A few
flicked switches helplessly. Others noticed the sudden end of a mechanical
buzzing that they hadn’t realized was there, in the duplexes and village center
and jungle. Some didn’t notice anything at all.
Of course.
The labs were silent, or at least appeared to be. Inside, of course, there was
chaos—the scurrying of general staff down to a bunker in the lower levels; the
digital clicking and beeping as years and millions of dollars of priceless
research were destroyed; the clanking of guns being put together and
bulletproof vests being put on.
Of course.
The mansion appeared as if nothing more dangerous than a dinner party was about
to unfold on its doorstep. The floor was clean. The beds were made. The table
was set. And alone in the master bedroom watching the sun set across the clear
window frame in a comfortable leather chair, Dr. Nicholas Moreau’s right hand
grasped the silver handle of a metal suitcase and wondered.
He knew they were coming. He had ordered the generator and computers destroyed.
He had told the guards to prepare for a Code Blue-Six-Seven. He had assured the
staff that the bunker would be safe.
The good doctor could only hold them off for so long, after all.
The investigations must have started two, three years ago? He rubbed his
forehead. Around the time Feral Labs tried to go public. The little business
maneuvering Moreau did around the board to keep it under his name had rubbed a
few of the members the wrong way…just enough to start questioning him and his
little scientific projects offshore. It was just a little push in the wrong
direction, the little butterfly wings that would start the tornado. Just a few
non-loyal people in powerful places…
He gripped the suitcase tighter. Bastards, every last one of them. They didn’t
understand at all. This was true science—actually breakthroughs, not like what
passes for it on the mainland, confined by laws and lobbying groups and agenda
politicians. This island, his island, was the REAL city on the hill that
In the distance, just past the platforms, a small fleet of boats appeared on
the horizon.
“Nicky, honey?”
He didn’t move his head; he didn’t move his eyes. Aubrey would come to him. She
always did.
There was a moment pause…then the echoing taps of footsteps crossing the marble
floor. Good old reliable Aubrey.
“Where’s Nick?” he asked as she put her hands on his shoulders, squeezing and
rubbing.
He heard her sigh slightly, before replying. “He’s in his nursery. It’s far
enough back from the front so that if there’s any stray…” She choked up.
He grabbed her hand loosely, lovingly, opening his grip on the metal suitcase.
“Why?” she asked, and he became silent.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice only slightly urging. “Could you go get him?”
There was no gleam of dishonesty or mystery, nothing mischievous. His voice was
soft, kind, almost childlike.
Again, silence. He looked out to the sea, watching the small fleet come
crossing the surf. By the time they got here, the guards would be ready for
them, waiting within the compound, ready in the various nooks and crannies and
among the windows of the lab’s façade, the evidence of whatever crimes any
government could pin on him long destroyed and the three of them long gone.
Aubrey’s hands slowly lifted off his shoulders and his listened to her heeled
footsteps tap across the marble floors and out the door. Alone, once again.
He watched the ships. Damn them.
It was some lower level idiot in one of the branches who happened to come
across the list. Back in the old days anyone that happened across that list
simply joined it. In the last few months, however, not everyone has been the
most…friendly.
It only took one manager. One manager, who had received and followed a memo
from an executive ordering any suspicious “items or information” that could
possibly “implicate Moreau in a possibly unfortunate investigation that might
result in his outing,” who passed it onto the board of directors, who passed it
onto the government, who passed on orders to the military to prepare a somewhat
covert operation. According to a few loyal employees on the mainland that fed
him information, rumors were already starting to filter into the media.
Dateline and 60 Minutes were making calls, all trying to get an interview with
the famous Moreau, an executive, then some other employee, anyone that would
give them any information, true or not. Then it was one secretary, wide eyed in
the glaring lights of investigative reporter and her camera who mentioned
helicopter flights to and from a mysterious island…the private
The entire thing was a mess. Alphonse would be disappointed.
He smiled and looked at the suitcase in his hands. Everything would be right,
once his plan was in action. The people who matter—him and Aubrey and
Nick—would be safe. There were a few failed experiments, a few empty spaces
that people were expecting filled…once they were rescued and returned to the
mainland, they were free. Of course, a few alterations would need to be made
first.
Slowly, he picked up the walkie-talkie that lay on the glass table beside him
and pressed in the button. “Hello, Security-Control?”
There was a short cackling of static. “Yes?” a voice, thin and hidden behind
the white noise, replied.
“This is Moreau.” His voice was equally as thin, a whisper from a dry throat.
“Are the lab staff in the bunker?”
More empty static. “Yessir.” There was a hint of a southern accent.
“Please enter code 34-G into the computer, please.”
There was more static, longer this time—maybe whatever guard who was manning
the station now knew what 34-G meant and was a moral man—before the voice
returned. “Entered, sir.”
Far below him, deep within the mountain, the door to the bunker bolted shut.
Vents above the lab staff opened suddenly and any evidence that anyone could
hold against him started to choke on the harsh, poisoned air.
Of course.
“Thank you,” he said and placed the walkie talkie back on the table as he heard
high-heeled footsteps return on the marble floor. There was a gurgling sound,
sleepy yawns of a small child who had just woken up. Aubrey and Nick.
“Look, its Daddy,” Aubrey cooed into his son’s ear. The small boy didn’t
respond; he was still half asleep.
Moreau turned around. They were beautiful, the two of them. Too beautiful to
witness the horror that was about to unfold on the tropical paradise below
them.
“Now,” Aubrey said, holding their son against her breasts and rocking him up
and down slightly, “what is it that you want?” She sounded slightly annoyed.
“If we don’t get to the bunker soon…”
“No,” he interrupted, his voice still sore and dry. “We don’t need to go to the
bunker. Listen, Aubrey…I have an escape for us.” He held his arm out widely.
“All three of us.”
She placed Nick down in a comfortable chair and looked back at him quizzically.
“An escape?”
He picked up the suitcase and flicked open the metal locks. “Yes.” Slowly, he
opened the case up and turned it around. In it, encased by the steel-gray foam
protection, were three small and fragile vials and three hypodermic needles.
She stared at him for a moment, her face confused, before melting into a whole
storm of emotion: anger, hatred, sadness, fear. “Nicky…” she said, her voice
melted into a whisper. “What are those?”
He smiled, a paradox of nervousness and self assurance. “These, Aubrey, are
serums.” He took out the first one and flipped it in his hand. The liquid was
clear, like water. “Human serums.”
She was still in shock, still not understanding. It was his secret project,
after all; no one, except for a select few lab techs (all of whom were probably
down in the bunker, now) had any inkling of this. It was almost like…a secret
island within a secret island. His own little pet project.
“They’re one shot. There shouldn’t be any pain, really. It’s just a cosmetic
change.” He took out the needle and inserted it in the top of the vial,
pressing out the air with the plastic plunger. Bubbles violently popped in the
clear liquid.
She sat down on a chair next to his son—hard.
“Just hair color, eyes, skin tone…” he continued, not even pausing, his voice
coming back to him. “A few changes to the face, voice-box, maybe some more fat
or muscle, just enough to make us unidentifiable.”
“Honey,” she said, finally speaking after her long silence on the chair, “why?”
It was his turn to be quiet. He had her under his thumb for ages, since school
at least. She worshipped the very ground he stepped on, and followed those
footsteps out to this island. And now, the very moment that he needed her
obedience the most, the moment he was going to save his family’s life…she had
decided to ask questions? He frowned—an obstacle he was not expecting.
“Aubrey...” he started, confused, “we need to get out of here. It won’t be safe
soon.” He pulled up the plunger; the clear serum flooded back into the vacuum.
“There won’t be much pain, if that’s what you’re worried about. Nick won’t feel
any worse than a toothache.
“Nicholas, no.” Aubrey’s voice was firm now, unbendable steel. Her eyes had
started to fill with water. “I will not let you make my child one of your
experiments.”
His red eyes opened wide with shock as he looked over at the red haired boy,
still sleeping in the chair. He looked so peaceful, there, curled up and
vulnerable. “An experiment?” he asked, increasingly shocked at her
disobedience. “No, Aubrey, this is to save his life. Don’t you realize what is
going to happen out there?” Another sweeping motion with his arms, this time
towards the windows and the boats now within the range of the island.
“If they find us, Aubrey, they will. Kill. Us.” He was getting angry now, angry
at her and the world around him that was falling apart. “Don’t you get it?
There won’t be any mercy. They won’t understand what I’ve done here. They’ll
see it and shoot first.”
Aubrey had started to cry. “No, Nicholas, I don’t see. This is all…just a game
for you, isn’t it? You just want to win. You just need to win, even if it means
cheating. The great Nicholas Moreau dominates all.” Her tears were violent now;
streaming down her face. “You need to escape, you make an escape route. You
want a son…” Her voice started to choke up. “…you’ll make one.”
The vial he was holding shattered on the floor.
“How long have you known?” he asked quietly.
“Sabin told me years ago.” She was sobbing now. Nicky started to stir. “Almost
since you came up with that insurance policy of yours.”
The room was silent except for the sobs and tears of the woman in the chair.
“Aubrey…”
“No, Nicky!” She stood up, her heels clicking on the marble floor. “I will NOT
let you do your experiments on us!” Still sobbing, she reached down and grabbed
his son, pulling him out of his sleep as he started to cry—a duet of
sadness—and started to run out of the room.
“Aubrey!”
Down on the beach below, the boats landed.
He chased after, down the hallways and past the empty rooms, past the intercoms
calling for him, waiting to see if they would implement Code 35-G for the
islanders or to lead his hired troops into battle, past the dusty rooms where
Alphonse would have slept or lived, perhaps with his own army of experiments or
a student named Montgomery or even a castaway trapped on this island, chasing
after her like a madman with a needle in hand, but still she ran, ran to the
elevator and fell down, away from the top of the mountain and into the hell
below.
Of course.
And he ran away from the elevator and out the front door, standing on the
verandah that overlooked the labs and the village beyond and the beach beyond
that, where boats were landing and troops were preparing and the islanders were
watching or hiding in their duplexes or in the jungle, the last order never
issued, and he stuck the needle in his arm as the wind picked up.
He screamed, in pain and horror and sadness, alone.
This is the end, my only friend.