Rebirth: Chapter 94: The Scientist

Roxy ended the call on her mobile phone without an answer for the fourth time. There had been no contact from any of her allies at The Brotherhood’s regional headquarters. She feared the worst. All the vampires she had trained to infiltrate The Brotherhood must have been killed.

Either the doctor had been killed in the battle or he had escaped, which meant they were starting from scratch again. The vampire community couldn’t know for sure how much the humans knew about the biology of vampires.

Of course, the vampires were doing their own scientific experiments. They had their own agenda, something similar to the humans’ plan but it would be ready to test far sooner.

Roxy lifted herself out of her chair onto a pair of crutches and hobbled down the dark hall to the laboratory door. It would be another day or so before her legs would finish healing completely after such a severe injury. She opened the door and took a step inside, telling the scientist working in the lab not to let her disturb him. She sat down on a stool on the opposite side of the workbench to the scientist and watched him work.

The scientist had two racks of bullets, a pistol, a small paintbrush and a small glass bowl of blood in front of him. One by one, he picked up the bullets, dipped the paintbrush in the bowl and coated them with a thin layer of blood. He then placed each bullet in the second rack to let them dry. When he had finished coating all of the bullets with blood, he picked one up and loaded it into the pistol.

‘Let’s see if it works,’ he said and got to his feet. Roxy followed him out of the door and across the corridor, into the room facing the lab. The room they found themselves in was bare and well lit. The only furniture in the room was a wooden chair, to which a gagged and naked man was tied. His face was soaked with sweat and he was white with fear.

The scientist pointed the pistol at the naked man and pulled the trigger. He flew backwards and struck the wall behind him, falling into a heap on the floor, still tied to the chair. Neither the scientist nor Roxy helped him up. The scientist took a stopwatch out of his pocket and pressed the button to start the timer.

‘How long until he turns, Doctor Forrest?’ asked Roxy.

‘Hopefully under an hour but I’m working on making it more fast-acting,’ he said.

‘When will we be able to execute the next phase of the plan?’

‘The day after tomorrow.’