LIZARDS

Wilson drop of his cab in front of the old building. The rain, cold and unmerciful hit against his face, making him use his brief case as a makeup umbrella. Horrible weather, he thought, in a horrible coast town in the middle of nowhere.

He was a short, unpleasant and arrogant man, and his mood, usually nasty, was beyond terrible. How dare those small little researchers, to make him come all the way from Michigan to this dumpster? Oh they would regret not picking the phone and not delivering the reports as scheduled. Who they think they were, to take federal research money and don’t account for it? Oh he would cut them off, and tell them what he think about their freaking lizard experiments…

He knocked on the metal door, already furious, and waited, soaking in the rain, for almost five minutes, until a soft, dragged voice spoke through the intercom.

-This is a research center, we aren’t buying anything…go away…

-Look you son of a Bitch, here is Wilson Mitchels, I’m here for the reports. Now open it or I next time I will come with the cops! Dammit!

He Kicked the door, but only silence come from the other side of the intercom.

Five minutes later, when he was already dialing his cell phone after a taxi, the door opened behind him. A tall, thin figure, stared at him. The figure, that could be a man or woman, was wearing a biosafety suit, covering his (or her) entire body, the visor was a dark mirror that wouldn’t slip any hint of the identity of the user. A little startled, he spoke mildly.

-So you decided to open the door? Very nice of you…what’s with the outfit?

*

The tall figure answered slowly, as if he just woke from a deep slumber:

-…We were…conducting… a …experiment. Sorry we took sooo…. So long to open the door… Please… follow me…

Was the same apathetic voice from before. Damn, experiments? You were sleeping you lazy asshole!

-I suppose it was a experiment involving sleep?!

-…No… Genetic Engineering and chimerization… experiments…

His sarcasm was totally deflected, what made him even more angry.

-I heard about that crap before, but I am here to see the results! And you better have some good ones!

The man in the biosafety suit, just nodded and guided him to a laboratory, two floors above. The entire building was hot, humid and dark, the lab was no exception. Even worst, it was hotter and carried a mix of nasty chemical smells and something that remind him of rotten flesh.

-Damn, would kill you freaks to open a window here? What is that smell?

-…The animals… we feed to the test subjects… some must fester before feeding…

-Disgusting…

He covered his nose with his handkerchief, and brushed his sweat with the other hand. For the first time he noticed the metal cages in the center of the laboratory.

*

-What in the name of god…?

Four large cages, and eight smaller ones, each one occupied with one or two grotesque figures, a deformed mix of man and beast, part human and part reptile.

The figure beside him calmly took a clipboard with some data and pointing to the disgusting creatures start his report:

-Our…initial goal was… to develop chimeras through genetic engineering of test subjects… test subjects already fully developed, not embryos… using changed steam cells…cells directly injected on the organs that could be of… military… interest.

-God, those thinks… what are they?!?

He hold the vomit in the throat.

-those are… the test subjects…

-The lizards? The LIZARDS become those… things?!

-Not… things. Chimeras… a Living organism holding, producing…keeping… organs that have…the desired aspects… and are eligible to transplant…As planned in the…original…original plan.

-No way… explain this to me…!

-As you…wish.

*

-In…the…the first cage…test subject zero-one…Female. External characteristics are… human torso, gila monster’s lizard head… Arms…both amputated…but re-growing one centimeter per hour…where crossed with Japanese giant salamander gene…resembling… human arms perfectly… the rest of the body become a huge tumor…with teeth, hair, eyes, etc… a large group of teratomas. Objective… a donor that could produce limbs… to replace soldier limb’s lost in action…successful…

-So..this animal…can produce people arm’s?

Suddenly he look at it, the human eyes…but he saw nothing but a very profitable medical product…

-And the others?

-Test…subject…zero-two…upper body become a single teratoma…lower part is part human, part newt… He generate…over forty…forty harvestable human hearts…per week…

-Impressive!!! And the others?

*

And the figure went on. Every single aberration had a very profitable end… and he was marveled at the results. While his tour guide went up to get some copies of the reports, reports he would use to double the funding to such wondrous research, something flew and hit his leg, a small, dirty, piece of paper.

-What?

He looked behind him, and to his horror, one of the creatures was waving to him, and pointing desperate to the paper, where he could read, in blood, the following:

-“HELP! HE ARE NOT LIZARDS, WE ARE THE RESEARCHERS. THE LIZARDS SCAPED AND MADE US THEIR PRISIONERS!”