The Ganga Shift

Chapter 2

Chapter 2“Oh my God,” Brayden moaned as he took in a long, drawn-out whiff. “What the hell is that smell?”

He stuck his nose between the bars of his holding cell, inching himself as close as possible to whatever sent such an intoxicating scent into the room. His nostrils flared in approval.

His cellmate, Chase, sat on the other end of their prison, leaning against the concrete wall. “Control yourself,” he warned. “Remember what happened the last time you turned during the day?”

Brayden glanced down at his arm. The flesh was still pink and raised from the change-burn. It still hurt like hell. If the pain wasn’t enough of an incentive, remembering how his stomach turned at the smell of singed hair and skin was enough to reign himself in.

Everything smelled so much more intense once the virus changed them. Everything sounded so much clearer. And the taste of food . . . Oh, Jesus. The chewy, delicious flavor of a b****y rare steak was enough to get Brayden off.

His prude of a cellmate, on the other hand, had too much self-control to allow himself to get lost in the new sensations. They were foreign, new, and by Chase’s experience with them, dangerous. Endless hours Brayden found himself subjected to the control-freak’s rantings. The guy would go on and on about how they had to find a way to control this change that was forced on them. As far as Brayden was concerned, it was a hell of a lot easier to just accept it and make the best of the situation.

Chase ran his hand through his thick, black hair and closed his eyes, struggling to keep the calm facade up. Catching a glimpse of the man’s trembling hands made Brayden’s upper lip twitch into a smirk. The smell, wherever it was coming from, was overwhelmingly inebriating. Impossible to resist, even for the all-mighty Chase, who had resorted to humming to himself to escape the temptation.

“Not this s**t again,” Brayden complained. “You drive me crazy with that bullshit.”

“It’s called meditation,” Chase said dryly. “It could help you control—”

“Oh, shut up. There is no controlling whatever the hell this is, Chase. Face it: they f****d us up. Just enjoy the perks of it, huh?”

“God, I hate dogs,” Chase mumbled.

“Stop calling me a damn dog!” Brayden lifted his upper lip, exposing his teeth as his canines morphed into fangs. “I’m a f*****g wolf, cat.”

“Put her in cell three.” A voice from down the hall yelled.

“Not yet,” Doctor Conley’s familiar voice countered. “I want to talk to her when she comes to. Put her in the examination room.”

The enticing fragrance drew nearer, and even Chase made his way next to Brayden to check out the source. Their mouths watered as the sound of footsteps closed in.

Two guards dressed in full military camo carried the limp, lifeless body of a girl down the narrow corridor between their cell and the empty one across from them.

The orange jumpsuit she wore hung off her petite frame like a tent, contrasting with her dark beige skin tone. Her black hair was tied into a messy bun, but her long bangs covered her face, barely exposing her almond-shaped eyes. She was conscious, if only barely, and blinking rapidly as she struggled to take in her surroundings.

The men tasked with transporting her were marines, and part of the few that were privy to the intentions of this site. They were around often, and this smell had never accompanied them before. As they passed directly in front their cell it became glaringly obvious it was the newcomer that smelled so delicious.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Brayden stuck his arm between the bars and grabbed at one of the guards. Desperate and unashamed, he begged, “Just a minute, please.”

“Get back in your cage,” one of the Marines ordered.

“But, I just want to smell her.”

The jailors looked curiously at one another and shook their heads in unison with sardonic grins plastered on their faces.

“Sorry boys,” the same one teased. “This one’s defective. I doubt you’ll get to play with her.”

A growl played on Chase’s lips, kept at bay only by the sight of Doctor Conley following the men.

“Gentlemen.” The doctor acknowledged them only briefly. As usual, he couldn’t be bothered to socialize with the lab rats. Unless, apparently, they were of the hot Asian variety, like the latest recruit.

Out of habit, the boys nodded their respect but remained silent as they watched the group disappear into another room. The marines entered only long enough to restrain the girl onto a stainless steel medical table before they took their place just outside the doorway. Doctor Conley closed the door once they exited, leaving nothing but a trace of the odor escaping from the bottom c***k.

“Are you with me, Ms. Baker?” Doctor Conley leaned over his subject, watching her close for a sign that she was regaining herself.

Isabella groaned an incoherent response. She attempted to sit up, but the leather belts across her knees and chest kept her still. Still groggy from the sedatives, she didn’t have the energy yet to fight against them.

Apparently satisfied with her presence, Doctor Conley opened a manila folder and began flipping through its contents.

“Five-foot two, one hundred and two pounds, and twenty-two years old,” he read aloud. “There’s no information readily available on your parents, Isabella. Why is that?”

A fog clouded her mind. She could hear him, but she couldn’t make her mouth move. The more she came to, the more she realized how cold she was. A bone-chilling freeze shook her entire body.

Slowly, her mind started to clear, and her first lucid thought sent her heart racing in panic.

She was trapped.

Isabella lurched forward, but the restraints kept her from getting far. She lifted her head, the only part of her body not tied down, and tried to scream. Terror stole her voice; nothing but air escaped her lips. She wiggled and writhed, but the more she struggled the more the realization set in that she was going nowhere.

Finally, she managed to will her eyes open. A piercing light penetrated through her retinas just before the glow was covered by something coming at her. A hand came down on her forehead, slamming the back of her skull onto the table before a flattened palm slapped over her mouth.

Tears stung Isabella’s eyes, and she sobbed against the stranger’s calloused skin.

“Shhh,” Doctor Conley whispered in her ear. “I can’t have you riling up the other prisoners, Isabella. If you scream, you’ll put them in a feeding frenzy. Now, I’m going to release you, and you will remain calm. Understood?”

She nodded as a tear ran down the side of her head, disappearing in the shine of her hair.

“Good.” Doctor Conley took his hands away slowly. From inside his breast pocket, he pulled out a bottle of hand sanitizer and rubbed himself from fingertips to elbows. Alcohol mixed with the already present stench of ammonia, making Isabella’s stomach roil.

“Now, your mother. Let’s start with her.”

“Please . . .” Isabella’s voice cracked and she swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat. “Some water?”

Conley huffed out an annoyed sigh before he reached down and unlatched the belt holding Isabella’s chest and arms to the table. As she sat up, he took a specimen cup from a cupboard and filled it with water from the sink.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she took it from him.

A check around the room revealed nothing as to her whereabouts. Barren concrete walls interrupted only by the occasional stainless-steel cabinet and a door fitted with a fingerprint locking mechanism.

So, that’s why he’d given her some wiggle room without any fight. She’d have to kill him to get out on her own, and as usual she had been judged by her small stature alone. He deemed her unthreatening because she was petite and pretty. Not the first man to make such a mistake.

Isabella moved her eyes around the room. Damn. No scalpels, scissors, or any instruments at all left out. It seemed it was this bastard’s lucky day.

“Ms. Baker.”

Isabella jumped at the gruff tone in Doctor Conley’s voice. After a lifetime of dealing with the most despicable scum imaginable, it took quite a bit to make her flinch. Something deep and unexplainable about this creep sent a foreboding jolt through her limbs.

His grey hair was short, but stood on end. The way his glasses rested on the bridge of his nose made him look as though he could be Albert Einstein’s twin brother. There was something completely unrestrained and deviant lurking in his eyes. He could pass for the evil twin.

She nodded, acknowledging him with a respect that was completely out of character.

“Where am I? This doesn’t look like—” she asked.

“It’s not. We’re in a facility just outside of Colorado Springs.”

“Colorado Springs?”

“Where is your family?” he repeated his request, not hiding his irritation at having to do so.

“I don’t have one.”

“I see. A lost girl.”

“Isn’t that why I’m here?”

“I don’t ask the wardens why they choose the prisoners they do. I’m simply grateful for the donation.”

“Donation?” Isabella’s cheeks burned. If what this mad scientist look-alike said was true, Warden Walker had hand-picked her for this freak show. Heaven help if she ever laid eyes on that bastard ever again.

An almost child-like smile spread wide across his face. “Genetics are a wonderful gift. Speaking of which, I do need to know as much as I can about yours. It seems you’re quite special.”

“There’s nothing special about me, Mr. . . .”

“Conley. Doctor Conley. Looking at you, I might agree. You seem perfectly ordinary by all accounts, but your reaction to our serum tells a different story.”

Isabella closed her eyes, recalling the conversation between Walker and Conley. “It’s more of a lack of reaction, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. By now, you should’ve succumbed to the effects of the virus. Yet, here you are, with zero abnormalities. Peculiar.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, doc. Since I’m not being a good patient, I say you let me walk out the door and go back to where I came from.”

“The gutter? Don’t be stupid.” He waved a dismissive hand at her before continuing. “Now about your parents. Their whereabouts?”

“They aren’t that hard to find, Doctor Conley. You might’ve done a little homework before—”

Conley swung his hand hard, knocking the cup from Isabella’s light grasp. He lunged at her, closing in until his reddened face was an inch from hers, and he placed one hand on either side of her waist so that he hovered over her.

“I don’t have the time for banter,” he growled. “Years of research, this entire operation, all of it is waiting on whatever the f**k is wrong with you. We can’t move forward until we know what makes your DNA so goddamn different. The cutesy tough-girl s**t might have worked on that dumbass warden, but I warn you Ms. Baker, all it will do for you here is sentence you to death by hunt.”

Isabella shrunk back. Bits of foam speckled the corner of his mouth. This was the textbook picture of a madman. Death by hunt. What the hell did that mean?

“They’re in prison,” she admitted. “Both of them. My mother is in Texas, and I don’t know where my father is. He’s been in the pen since I was born.”

“Right.” He stood straight and pulled on the bottom of his lab coat. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You’re not the first Asian subject to take part in the experiment, so I doubt your ethnicity is involved.”

“I’m Japanese,” Isabella corrected the common and all-too-grating generalization.

“It’s all the same thing.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Who raised you? Where did you grow up?” He continued his interrogation as if he hadn’t heard her protest at all.

“All over Colorado, Doctor Conley. It just depended on where they had an open spot in foster care.”

“That does nothing for me,” he complained. “You were incarcerated on d**g charges. What was your d**g of choice?”

“Cocaine.”

“Not unusual. When was the last time you used?”

Isabella shook her head. She had always thought herself to be detached compared to other people, but this man took the cake. Nothing seemed to affect him, not even a sob story about a powder-addicted, parentless reject. Most people instantly wanted to save her. Conley was too worried about saving his experiment.

“I don’t know. A year ago maybe.”

“Ms. Baker, I don’t care about your disgusting, weak-minded habit. You’re not at the Denver prison anymore. You’re in my medical facility. You aren’t in danger of going to confinement. Let’s be clear: I’ve already sent some blood work off. Don’t dare lie to me. My time is too precious to dance in circles with the likes of you.”

Death by hunt.

Isabella ran her tongue along her dry, chapped lips. “A week. Maybe less.”

“Any other hard drugs?”

“No.”

“And you’ve been using it throughout the injections?”

“More or less.”

“Hm.” He tapped his fingers on the edge of the metal table Isabella still sat on. “You’re certainly not the first host to be contaminated by that garbage. Which means we’re no closer to finding an explanation now than I was before. We ran a myriad of tests on you while we had you sedated. And I wasn’t lying earlier, I’m still waiting on some blood work. Hopefully we can find a breadcrumb from some of the results.”

Isabella crossed her arms over her chest, covering herself as a sense of violation came over her. What sort of tests had they performed without her knowledge or consent?

“You can’t do this,” she insisted. “You can’t take prisoners and use them as lab rats. You can’t experiment on people just because they’re in your custody.”

“Don’t be so naïve, Ms. Baker. The Tuskegee s******s study? Project MKULTRA? Project MKOFTEN? I’m sure none of these ring a bell to your uneducated ears, but trust me here. The US government has been conducting research on gutter rats long before you, and they’ll continue to do it after you’ve served your purpose.” He ran his eyes up and down her body. “You should be proud of yourself. You and your kind are finally as useful to society as the chimpanzees I keep down the hall. That’s a step up I’d say.”

Isabella clenched her fists into a ball and tried to sling her legs off the table, but was hit with the stiff reminder that they were still fastened to the table.

“Son of a b***h,” she mumbled.

“I won’t repeat myself, Ms. Baker. You will behave yourself while you’re in my custody. We don’t tolerate tantrums in my facility.”

She stilled herself at once. Though small-statured and unimpressive, Doctor Conley carried a dominating presence. It was as if she were his pet. He left Isabella with a strange, foreign desire to comply with his demands.

His expression softened, and he patted her on the shoulder. “You’ve cooperated well enough, considering the conditions you’re used to. We’ll talk again once I’ve reviewed the results.”

“Are you sending me back to Denver?” Hope hinged on her voice. The Denver Correctional Facility certainly wasn’t paradise, but it was preferable to this place by far. She had no control here.

“Absolutely not,” he said with finality. “That stupid warden took much too long to bring this anomaly to my attention to begin with. I need you here where I can run follow-up exams at my leisure.”

“And once those are done? If everything comes back okay, I mean. Maybe I’m just a one in a million freak who got a diluted dose of your stuff.”

Conley shook his head without a hint of regret or remorse. “You’ve been exposed to far too much to mingle with the general population. You will remain here. I’ll have my men escort you to the showers and then your cell.”