This choice: Tell Jillian what happened • Go Back...Chapter #2The Test Subject by: imaj   If you can’t trust your own girlfriend, who can you trust. She even promised yesterday not to tell anyone about the SX-3 spill in the lab. It’s just a question of how to tell her. How to break the news you’ve absorbed her protégé.
“Jillian, Jill,” you begin hesitantly. “I know this is going to be difficult to understand, but… Mark’s right here. I’m Mark.”
“What,” says Jillian, shaking her head. “I must still be half asleep, because I thought you said you were Mark there.”
“That’s exactly what I said,” you explain slowly. “The SX-3, I think it did something to me.”
“Stop it Darcy,” replies Jillian, her voice trembling on the ragged edge of hysteria. “This isn’t funny. You can’t be Mark.”
“Think Jillian,” you interrupt, grabbing her by the upper arms and giving her a gentle shake. “Who else knows about the accident in the lab, the SX-3 spillage.”
“He must have told you,” Jillian shouts. “Please stop this Darcy, you’re frightening me.”
“You know how scared I was that anyone would find out about the accident,” you say, shaking her again. “Why would I tell anyone else about it? You promised not to tell anyone about it, because you knew how much it meant to me. We’re the only two people that know, think about it Jillian.”
Jillian stares at you silently for a moment, tears starting to make their way down her face.
“Mark,” she asks softly. “Oh God, Mark. How did this happen?”
You gently lead Jillian over to a sofa, sitting her down before you explain things. She sits quietly and attentively as you relate what happened when you tried to take the SX-2 papers from Darcy. From time to time she sniffles, but for the most part she manages to keep her emotions in check. When you finish, she sits silently for what seems like an age, thinking your story over.
“And Darcy is inside you now,” she finally asks.
“I think so, at least as far as I know.”
“Can we get her back out,” Jillian asks, staring into your eyes.
“I..” you hesitate for a moment. Jillian turns to look away. “I don’t know.”
“We need to run tests at the lab,” she says, still looking to the side. “Work out what’s happened to you. Work out how to Darcy back.”
“We can’t let anyone at Protean find out what we’re doing,” you insist.
“We’ll be careful,” replies Jillian. For a moment she tries to hold your hand, to reassure you, then she thinks better of it. “Besides, Darcy is always coming into the lab, so no one will think anything of it.”
You would be lying if you said you weren’t scared. Walking straight back into Protean Industries is risky, but you can’t deny that the labs have the best facilities to research your condition. Reluctantly you agree go with Jillian.
*****
Arriving at Protean is unnerving. As usual, there is a noticeable security presence in the main foyer. A couple of guards mill around and there are a series of card operated gates to get into the main elevator. Even though you have Darcy’s ID card, and even though you look, sound and act like her, you half expect a klaxon to go off and a squad of heavily armed goons to jump out and detain you.
You submerge yourself in Darcy’s persona, relying on it hide your nerves behind a veneer of apparent calm. Swipe the card, through the gate and smile at the guards, everything seems to be fine. Jillian ushers you in to an elevator and you finally relax as you make your way up to the lab.
The morning is taken up by a bewildering array of tests and examinations, which Jillian performs with a brusque efficiency. She takes just about every kind of tissue sample you can think of; blood, skin, hair and more. You get dragged around the labs for an hour to all the different scanners, having X-ray, ultrasound and MRI images taken of you. Jillian explains it to your co-workers as ‘showing the intern the machines’. By the time lunch is approaching, you have been poked, prodded and investigated in just about every part of the body you can think of, and some you never imagined of.
In short, it is quite thorough, and leaves you feeling tired and drained. You find a nice seat to rest in while Jillian looks over the results she has already.
“I don’t understand,” she murmurs half to herself. She’s comparing on of the X-ray plates with one she took of Darcy when she first started as an intern. “Where did all the extra mass go? The tissue density should be greater to account for the mass of two people in the one body. The two X-rays are practically identical. I need to see the DNA tests…”
Actually, that does sound odd you think. You are about to get up and go take a look yourself when an intense pain rips through your stomach. You shriek involuntarily.
“Are you ok Mark, I mean Darcy,” says Jillian, looking up from the results. You double over clutching your stomach as a second wave of pain washes over you.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” you say hoarsely, lifting yourself from your seat before stumbling and falling to the floor. Your stomach turns somersaults and you feel something rush up from inside you.
Then it gets really weird.
Your jaw opens wide to accommodate the sheer volume of vomit, distending far beyond what should be natural. The fluid is warm and sweet. Viscous, it seems to start solidifying as it leaves your mouth. The flow stops for a moment, giving you a chance to realise what’s happening.
Jutting out from your impossibly wide mouth is another Darcy. Or her head at least, possibly even the real Darcy.
Sweating profusely, you raise a hand to just in front of your face. It as if you are melting, the fingers of your hand fusing together like a glob of molten wax. Slowly the colour fades from your skin and it takes on a bright blue hue, matching the tone of the SX-3.
You have no time to think on this as another swirl of liquid starts to move around inside your stomach. It swells and grows and, just as you think the pressure will make you burst open, well…
That’s when you burst open.
Splitting vertically right down the middle, your torso opens and Darcy comes tumbling out. She lies on the clean surface of the lab floor. Her breathing seems shallow and she is unconscious. Otherwise, she appears unchanged from when you met her earlier this morning. You rise unsteadily to your feet, by this point little more than shapeless blue mass with only the vaguest approximation of human form. Then something snaps within you and your form returns, exactly the same as it was before you absorbed Darcy.
You are you again.
“Well at least we got Darcy back,” says Jillian with a wan smile. She looks as if she is about to be sick herself.
“Ugh, I need some fresh air,” you grunt. You stumble over to a window and open it. “Do I have a spare set of clothes here, I can’t leave in a bathrobe.”
“I think you had something in your locker maybe…”
“Fuck,” you interrupt. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
“Mark,” says Jillian, thoroughly appalled.
“Come over here,” you explain. “Quick, out in the car park.”
As Jillian comes over, you point out the reason for your outburst. Winding their way through the car park outside are three olive drab humvees. It’s a military convoy from Fort Suffolk.
“How could they know,” you say quickly, starting to panic
“Mark,” says Jillian, placing one hand on you shoulder. “The Army comes here all the time, they’re major partners in Protean. That’s how we got our jobs here.”
“I don’t know,” you say edgily. “I need to get out of here, as fast as I can.”
“No, if you run off that’s as good as letting them know. You need to calm down.”
“And what about Darcy,” you say so quickly that words run together. “How are they going to react when they find her unconscious on the floor?”
“I’ll tell her there was an accident at the house this morning and that we need to run some tests. And I do need to run more tests. On both of you.”
“Maybe I should just absorb her again,” you interrupt.
“No,” says Jillian, slapping you across the face. “You’re hysterical. Snap out of it.”
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