Chapter Text
The grey clouds almost flooded his vision, looming over the horizon. He wasn’t sure if the running was what was making everything seem blurry or if it was the tears. Footsteps thundered behind him in the grass, reminding him of everything happening to him.
Reminding him of the life he needed to save.
Reminding him of the almost primal need to escape. To flee. To survive.
The chain-link fence before him grew in size. He launched himself at the fence, his yellow coat a stark contrast to the gloomy atmosphere. His attempt to climb was futile, he should have assumed so. He definitely didn’t have the strength to pull himself up.
He was a teacher for gods-sake! A scientist!
He yelped as fingers dug into his leg. He attempted to fight back, kicking and screaming to the faceless hounds trying to tear him down. He fell to the ground with a thud, flailing and lashing out. Why didn’t they hear him?
Why didn’t they understand?
It was for the better of the world, they said.
He was pushed deeper into the grass, unsure if the wetness was the tears still streaming down his face or the dew and water leftover from the previous night’s rain. He could barely feel the insertion of the needle into his neck over the increasing adrenaline.
In the approaching distance, he saw the swooping ginger hair. The lights from the building behind her create a halo behind her head.
She was the savior.
And he was left as the martyr.
—
He almost wished that the sinking feeling in his chest wasn’t dread. Maybe something was bad in the food that morning? Dull hope that maybe food poisoning would be the cause of his upset stomach, he looked across the boardroom, packed with people from all over the world.
‘Project Iron Mary’
That’s what it was called. A two-person submarine actively being built to explore the depths of the ocean. But not just any ocean, no, to find whatever had been contaminating and polluting the rest of the sea.
The first thing that called to the problem was just the huge amount of deep-sea creatures that had been appearing on pacific shores. Which was odd in itself, but on top of that, said creatures were covered in new limbs and plant-like structures. The majority of them also attained scarred flesh and teeth.
Very. Long. Teeth.
Just the thought of it caused Grace to shiver, a grimace crossing his face as he thought back to the creatures he was brought to essentially test on. They looked radiated. Looked like they should have been dead.
But through that all, they were alive.
Definitely not thriving. From what he had heard from the other scientists on site, they definitely didn’t act like they should. Most of the creatures looked like they were just floating, unsure of what they were supposed to actually do. Like those affected by a parasite.
But a very few of them seemed to be acting completely normal, unaware of all that had changed on them. New limbs either hanging limp or flailing wildly as if unsure how to work. Those were some of the creatures Stratt allowed to live in the containment of the facility.
Most of the creatures either arrived on shore dead, died shortly after retrieval, or were killed on site if deemed a risk to the team.
When Grace had been picked up from the middle school he taught at, Stratt had given him one of these dead creatures to test on. He was unceremoniously sent into a lab, hazmat suit and all, to get a look at it. Eventually, after two rather grueling days, they were able to determine the area of the ocean that they came from, and the fact it was spreading.
But it didn’t quite answer why.
Anyways, back to the boardroom, stuffy and overwhelmed by the sounds of people talking over each other in various different languages. The discussion came back to what they were going to do about this deep-sea danger. Grace ended up zoned out the entire time, head swimming with the possibilities of what they could do. He remembered some mention of some place called the Coalition of Iron, but he wasn’t sure. It was apparently some sort of convict reintegration program, and they were grabbing volunteers.
What he couldn’t believe was that they were going to send people into an ocean that is making fish turn out like.. that. But what could he do about it? He’s just here to study it. He had met the other two members on his team just a day or so prior, Yáo Li-Jie and Olesya Ilyukhina. They seemed like alright people to be sharing a lab with, but even that wouldn’t last forever. They were just doing the prior research before the sub was actually sent down.
Actually, he knew one of them was going to continue their research, when they inevitably got sent down as one of the members in the Iron Mary. Yáo and Ilyukhina were the main scientist and back-up scientist for the mission, the back-up being a precautionary. If something went wrong with one, Stratt would send the other.
But if something were to happen to both of them..
Grace wasn’t sure he wanted to know who they would use to replace them.
The other half of the two-man crew would be the convict sent in from the COIs reintegration program. Like a plea deal, he thought with a frown. Apparently there was a pool of people who signed up, they would pick a name out of a hat or something and that was the lucky one for the mission.
It was odd. Honestly, the whole situation was odd.
As the meeting drew to a pause, Grace noticed some people getting up and wandering around. With a sigh of relief, he immediately popped out of his seat and darted out of the room. After dodging the people exiting and entering the room for idle chat, he found himself in a quiet corner down the hall, still keeping in earshot for when they would reconvene.
“Dr. Grace.”
He startled, crashing into the wall beside him. Apparently, while even in earshot, he wasn’t listening. He leaned against the wall to catch his breath as she approached.
“Ah! Stratt, what brings you over to my little corner of the.. Uh, hallway?” He flustered, arms flailing around him before he haphazardly stuffed them into his cardigan pockets. He swore he spotted a slight quirk of her lips, but it was gone as soon as he blinked.
“I came to ask you for your thoughts on the meeting.” She dipped her head in acknowledgement, leaning beside him on the wall as she took a sip from her disposable coffee cup. How Eco-friendly. He wouldn’t be surprised if this was her third cup of the day, and it wasn’t even noon yet.
“Oh, well, it was fine. Great as any meeting going over the destruction of our beautiful ocean.” Grace chuckled, voice strained as he avoided her gaze. “It’s often hard to fully pay attention in these meetings, y’know? Everyone wants something different and wants it at the same time. I can only follow one trail of thought.”
Stratt hummed in response, her eyes locked onto him. He couldn’t quite read what she was thinking, but he had never been able to. She stood there silently for a bit, causing Grace to start fidgeting again.
“Hopefully the mission will go well, then.” She finally spoke, pushing off the wall. “We can’t afford to lose any time or resources, who knows how much time we have left.”
She watched him again, then dipped her head. “I wish you luck in your research, Dr. Grace.”
And with that, she turned and walked off as silently as she came.
—
Finding solutions was easier said than done.
He, Yáo, and Ilyukhina had found something odd, though.
A sample was pulled up from the ocean floor, seemingly to be made entirely of blood. But none of them could figure out what the blood was from. Any organism that came into contact with it started sprouting the same mutations that the original creatures seemed to. When they dropped some of the blood on a fish someone had caught specifically for testing, it started to boil before peeling and some teeth started to grow through the new layer.
“Wicked.” Ilyukhina had said with a grin.
Grace agreed, but he assumed they meant the word in different ways.
The first time they ran this trial, he left the room to relieve himself of everything he had eaten that morning. It took around an hour for him to return, and when he did, Ilyukhina gave him a questioning thumbs-up. Grace responded in kind. As the three of them continued these trials, he managed to stomach it a bit better. Eventually he realized that they left a bucket nearby to the lab explicitly for him.
He was sure his team thought he was weak.
He knew they were right.
He almost collapsed when one of the trials ended up with something growing gills and starting to breathe, even though it had previously been deceased. It revived itself for only a short amount of time before suffocating on the air again. Grace had to spend a long time in the bathroom after that, mostly trying to make himself look presentable again.
Some of the trials started growing more root-like structures, which was even more odd. They were all unsure what the root system could be used for, but it led them to theories. A whole whiteboard within the lab was just used for these ‘root-theories’.
He felt like they were getting nowhere with this.
More and more of the deceased aquatic life they were testing on ended up reviving itself. The boils leading to the peeling of scales and flesh into eventually a whole new layer of scarring, sometimes coming up with a new set of gills or the mouth-like structures some of them had. They would start to breathe again.
Every time one of these creatures came back to life, Grace and Ilyukhina would attempt to move it into the tank they made in the lab. Yáo would keep to the sidelines to update their notes about the current trial. Most of the creatures wouldn’t make it to the tank, dying before they got the chance. And when one would end up in the tank, it would quickly pass.
“I feel like we’re doing something wrong.” Grace said, passing their latest attempt off to Ilukhina, who held it with a sad gaze through the cover of the suit.
“I feel like we are doing a lot wrong.” Ilyukhina huffed, disposing of the corpse. Her shoulders were hunched, a direct contest to the strained smile she tried to hold on her face when she turned back around. “At least what we are doing is somewhat humane. But it really does come down to us or them.”
Before Grace could respond, Yáo called them over. A new specimen, an eel of sorts, sat before them. Grace assumed it was a moray. It was the only one he could remember off the top of his head though.
“Look, we have one more trial for the day then we’ll be done, alright?” He spoke, already readying the sample. Both Grace and Ilyukhina nodded, watching and almost preparing to dash. Yáo put a lot bigger spread along the body of the eel, watching as its skin started to bubble and boil, eventually bursting and peeling away to reveal a new layer of reddish skin. Long, angular teeth started protruding out of the new body as it started breathing again.
Grace and Ilyukhina quickly darted forward to grab it and dump it into the tank. The three of them stood and watched as it lay still in the thick liquid of the blood. Two minutes.. Five minutes.. Grace didn’t think it was going to move again, sighing in defeat. He slumped against the tank at the ten minute mark.
It moved.
The mutated eel started swimming around the tank, looking for somewhere to hide. The scientists watched, mouths agape in awe.
“Seems like something worked.” Grace croaked, watching as something almost akin to horror started to seep into his system. It continued to live. It continued to live.
“Seems like we have something to show Stratt afterall.” Yáo said, stepping back. “Let’s go inform the others.”
—
With the departure only being three days away, everyone within the project got together to celebrate the new research. Yáo had told Stratt the news of the revived eel, and she seemed proud of the progress. No one could really say. But everyone took advantage of the situation anyway.
As Grace sat alone at a table, he watched the room around him. People chatting and cheering, drinks sloshing, and he was sure he heard someone on a karaoke machine earlier. He gripped the red solo cup he had with him, already half-way through his second drink. He hadn’t spoken to many people at the party, still conflicted from the revelation earlier in the day. But he wouldn’t speak on that.
This party also introduced the team to the Iron Mary’s driver, a man named Simon Fisher. Funny name, Grace had thought, snorting over his cup. Given that they are going to send him into an incredibly dangerous ocean.
Ironic, that was the word he was looking for.
It’s not like he was wishing the man ill-will. Far from it. But Grace was one to fear the unknown. And there was nothing more unknown than stuffing some people in a tin can and dunking them deep into the ocean.
If something managed to leak just a smidge, if someone came into contact with the blood, everything would be over.
It was all he could think about. He seemed to be over here drowning down his sorrows, just to inevitably make them worse. But everyone else here was having a grand ol time. He didn’t understand. Maybe it was just something about that bravery gene he had heard so much about. Maybe it was his anxiety coming back for him. But he couldn’t be sure.
Maybe when this was all done, he would go see his therapist again.
He shook his head of his thoughts, eyes catching on the driver, Simon, lurking in the opposite corner of the room. He had a vaguely uncomfortable look on his face as some of the Iron Mary’s engineers were talking animatedly about something. Grace smirked, hiding his face as he took another sip of his drink.
At least he wasn’t the only one having an unpleasant time right now.
It was a shame though, that a man that attractive would be sent down into the depths of the ocean with only the hopes of returning. His heavy brows furrowing and long hair framing his face as it seems one of the engineers said something stupid.
Grace sighed, downing the rest of his drink and pushing himself from the table. He tossed the cup as he stumbled out of the room and back to his bunk.
He had enough for the night.
—
The day of the mission came quicker than he expected.
And it went so much worse than he imagined.
Apparently, Yáo and Ilyukhina had been taking a look at the eel that morning before moving some of their samples. They hadn’t been wearing their suits as containment should have been secure. But none of them had realized that the eel they had in the tank could have been aggressive. It jumped out of the tank, attacking Yáo and splashing the contaminated blood all over the two of them.
And now Grace found himself standing alongside Stratt, looking into a containment room. Both scientists sprawled out on their own respective cots, some doctors in full suits checking over them. Grace could see the skin on Ilyukhina starting to peel, showing some of the scarring underneath. And with how her breathing started to go ragged, he could tell she wasn’t going to last much longer.
And Yáo would only follow soon enough.
They were transforming before his very eyes.
“So.. What do we do now?” Grace wheezed, eyes wide as he watched the scene. He was still fighting against his turning stomach. “Thats our entire science team. Who do we send down now?”
He turned slightly to see Stratt already staring at him, a resigned look on her face.
“It’s not our entire science team.” She spoke quietly into the empty space between them. The words seemed to hold weight. “We do have one more.”
Silence filled the hallway, Grace freezing and staring at Stratt. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Dr. Grace.”
“You-! You can’t send me in that sub!” He protested, taking a step back, his body flailing wildly. “I have not been trained for that, for one. Secondly! Secondly! I don’t want to go. You can’t make me go, Stratt.” His protests started to border on pleading, tears welling up in his eyes as she watched him impassively.
“You are our only hope.”
“I can’t go, I don’t- I don’t want to die.”
“It is a very unlikely chance it’ll kill you.”
“You know that thing has not been fully tested against the ocean. I know that thing has not been fully tested. I have a great chance of dying down there. I can’t do this.”
Stratt pinched her brow, letting a sigh escape her. Grace almost thought he had won until he saw her press something on her watch.
“It is you, or it is the world.” She stated, looking back at him with a sorrow seeping into her gaze. “I’m sorry, Dr. Grace. But the world must live on.”
Suddenly two guards came around the corner behind Stratt, eyes glued to Grace. He backed away a few steps, almost stumbling over himself.
“No- no, no! You can’t do this! You can’t send me!” He cried, turning and fleeing the hall as the guards gave chase. He pushed through some of the stray people lingering in the hallways and common areas, he would have felt bad if he wasn’t trying to escape for his life.
He managed to burst through the door exiting the building, ignoring the yelling from behind him. A light haze covered the hills as he ran, stumbling through the wet grass until he came across a tall chain-link fence. He attempted to climb it, fingers digging into the cold metal as the guards caught up to him.
“Stop! Stop- Let me go!” He cried, trying to cling to the fence for his life. “You’re killing me! I don’t want to die!”
The men managed to pull him down, pinning him to the cool, dewy grass. He couldn’t really understand what they were saying, but his body seemed to numb as he caught a glimpse of metal in one of their hands.
As his eyes grew unfocused, he saw the silhouette of Stratt approaching. He gasped, tears streaming down his face.
“I just wanted to live.”