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To the average onlooker, the patient, who had started to stir after weeks of a medically induced coma, was little more than a sleeping woman in her early 30s, a bit emaciated from the time without exercise or movement, but otherwise healthy enough to rejoin the rest of the world. No one would confuse her for a supermodel, but she was no less lovely than any other average woman of her age. Slim-ish, with a narrowing but not exactly narrow waist, and the outline of wider hips beneath the sheet. The same sheet gave hints to what appeared to be average-sized breasts. As the song said, "Every woman's beautiful in her own way," and the patient was no different.
As she stirred, she rustled and rolled to her side, revealing more evidence of her womanly hips, the kind made for birthing, as the wisdom of great-grandmothers might say.
The two assistants watched her gradually awaken on the full-color monitors, carefully making their notes on notepads both electronic and on paper locked into a clipboard.
"Not bad work," said the first, a man in his mid-twenties with dark, short hair and a stocky build. "I think the induced coma was the best idea after all."
Oh," said the second, a woman in her late 30s with long, straight gray and blonde hair, sitting on about 20 pounds more on her frame than she felt comfortable with for her height. "No doubt about that. Dr. Ferguson made the right call. That's for sure."
The first nodded. "Like you ever doubted."
The second shrugged.
The woman on the monitor shook her head and wiped her eyes as she finally regained consciousness. She glanced around the mostly bare hospital room. She tried to sit up, fell back to her side, winced, and realized that she didn't have the strength for that kind of exertion yet. "Where the hell am I?" she said aloud, but not to anyone in particular since she hadn't noticed the cameras in three of the corners of her room. "I wonder what the hell happened to me."
She twisted her neck and shoulders to look around, and after a few moments, she found the call button on the side of the bed frame. She pressed it, waited a few seconds, then pressed it again.
Both assistants listened through computer speakers as a thin, AM-radioed voice answered the call. "Nurses station."
"Yeah," the patient said. "I just woke up."
"That's wonderful," the voice responded.
"I don't know what's going on."
"That's to be expected. You've been asleep for several weeks, almost two months."
"Two... two months?" the girl said in a dry combination of weakness and shock. "What happened to me?"
"I'll call the doctor and let her know you're awake. She'll want to see you and tell you all about your condition. In the meantime, just rest, and we'll get you some water and get some readings on your vitals."
"Hey..." the patient grumbled at the tiny built-in mic. "Hey, I just wanna know what happened to me."
But the nurse was done with the call and offered no response.
The patient pushed the call button again.
The two assistants zoomed in to see how angry she was growing thanks to her confusion, knowing full well it would get far worse as she learned more about the changes she had undergone while in the coma.
"Answer me, damn it," the girl growled scratchily at the bed frame mic. "Tell me what the hell happened to me. I have a right to know."
Still no response from the nurse.
"Fucking answer me," the patient yelled this time, then coughed to get her breath back. No doubt it was difficult to put that much effort into speaking, hell, into anything, after such a long sleep. Her throat and mouth must have felt like Egyptian parchment from the age of the Pharaohs.
After a few quiet moments, the door opened and two male attendants entered the room. Both were tall, at least 6' 2", and both had shoulders and arms like they had just come off the site of a photoshoot for hot blue-collar laborers in action.
"Thank god," the patient said, then relaxed a little into the bed. "Can one of you please tell me what the hell happened to me and why I'm here?"
Both attendants smiled politely, and one said, "The doctor will go offer all of that with you."
"Will you at least tell me what's wrong with my voice?" the girl asked.
"The doctor will--"
"Fuck the doctor," the girl spat. "Somebody tell me what the hell is going on, or I'm going to get up and walk right the fuck out of here right now."
She tried to push up against the mattress again and fell to her chest.
"Ouch," she said, then noticing her breasts, added, "What the fuck?!"
As she spoke, one attendant grabbed her by the right arm and spun her over onto her back. The other took her left arm. Then they both fastened her wrists into the leather cuffs on the side of the bed.
"Stop it! Stop! What the fuck, man!" the girl cried and grunted with wheezing breaths. "Let me go!"
But neither attendant paid her any mind, and once her wrists were restrained they also forced down her legs and strapped her ankles into cuffs at the foot of the bed. Once did, they stood back to survey their work and watched her jerk and pull at the cuffs for several minutes, cussing them out as she struggled until she was finally spent, both in movement and speech. In the end, she simply lay still, panting and whispering between her tears, "Please let me up."
When she had finally calmed down, one of the attendants spoke up. "This is for your own good. We don't need you flying off the handle and hurting yourself or anyone else."
"Please..." the girl begged, and the attendant smiled at her warmly.
"Not yet," he said. "Trust me. This is all for your own good, young lady."
"Young lady?" the girl said, looking at him as if his head had suddenly turned into a balloon or a teapot or something equally unexpected and impossible.
He smiled again and pushed a syringe into the IV in her arm.
"Laaaa..." she began but fell fast asleep again before she could finish the thought.
"Want to place a bet on how she'll take it when the doctor tells her the full story?" the male assistant asked as he reset the zoom on the camera nearest the patient's bed.
"Oh, no bet needed. She's gonna freak."
"Well, of course. That's why they used the straps. Well, that and she used to be a total rat bastard before all this started. Dangerous too."
"I saw the file," said the female assistant. "You don't have to tell me. If anyone deserves all this, it's her."
"Bet she won't see it that way," the male said. "And I'd bet my annual salary on that."
"Safest bet you'd ever make, Bill," the female assistant said. "I certainly wouldn't bet against you on it. She's going to be so pissed when she finds out what the doctor did to her."
Then they grew quiet and watched the monitors again as the patient rested calmly alone in the room as the two attendants exited. The lock clicked loud enough to hear it even on the computer speakers after they closed the door. The two assistants nodded, and the woman excused herself to get a hot tea while the man picked up his clipboard and ticked a few more boxes on the top two sheets.
Meanwhile, three floors above, Dr. Nora Baynes also watched the entire event on her monitors. Good, she thought, she's finally awake. Now I can really get started.
A short woman, only 5'5" in her stocking feet, Baynes weighed on the light side of the 130s, even after a heavy meal, and she was about as imposing physically as a mouse might be to a tiger. She was bossy at work and used to being in charge, but outside of the office, few people took her as a threat and many more saw her as a target and an easy one at that. Her black curls and D-cup breasts only reinforced the idea that she was walking helpless, easy prey for a purse snatcher or worse.
Still, here in the office, she was not just boss. She was god. She was alpha and omega and all points in between. If she wanted it, it happened god damn it. And if it didn't somebody lost their job.
And she could back it all up, all of the bossiness, the godhood, the threats -- all of it. In the lab, she was a genius. No, she reminded herself, a mother fucking genius. So much of a fucking genius that she could rewrite the laws of genetics and biology.
When that bitch, patient zero -- Lila Hammond -- woke up again, she'd find that out. She'd find that out the hard way.
* * *
The plan had been set in motion four months ago, right after Dr. Baynes' 28th birthday party downtown. The asshole was going down. The asshole needed to go down. It wasn't just fate or revenge. It was justice. Absolute fucking justice.
Admittedly she shouldn't have had so much to drink. Admittedly, she knew the alcohol would affect her ability to fight off drunk assholes like Larry Keller. And she knew that "Killer Larry" would hit on one woman after another at the party until he found someone either stupid enough or drunk enough -- on in her case, almost unconscious enough -- not to resist his come-ons.
So it had been that when she missed her period, she thought about the fumbling rape and had brought it up to him in the stairwell at work. Not only did he deny that she asked him not to, but he insisted there was no way it could be his fault she got "knocked up," since she was obviously such a slut the way she came on to him at the party.
Hell, she had only been invited because her sister had sent the invitations and didn't get her text about the people from the office to ignore.
Of course, she threatened to go to HR and to the cops after that, her anger ignited even more by his attitude and his dismissal. She had been the stupid victim and had been willing to just put it all in the past -- like she said, stupid, but also weak and embarrassed -- but after confronting him, the was no fucking way that was going to happen. His ass was going to get fired at the very least, and he was going to jail if she had her way.
That's when he grabbed her and pushed her against the wall. "Who's going to fucking believe you, slut?" he asked.
"The folks who do the paternity test," she had responded smugly.
"You came on to me."
"Bull shit."
"Prove it."
Then he let go. She had gotten right in his face again, and that time he pushed her toward the stairs. He had smiled as she lost her balance and toppled over, tumbling down step after concrete step. The rubber guards on the top of the steps did nothing to stop her from smashing her head, neck, and knees on the way to becoming a jumbled and jangled mess of bleeding woman on the next landing.
He had stared at her, smirked, then opened the door and gone back inside the hallway to the labs and offices. She had to yell for nearly two minutes before someone found her.
The broken ankle and sprained wrist had almost been worth Larry being fired. But the worst part was that she had lost the pregnancy during the fall. Not that she necessarily actually wanted the kid, his kid, but she might have. Or she might not have. Either way, that bastard had stolen another choice from her.
She formed the plan lying in her hospital bed as soon as the drugs were clearing from her addled brain.
* * *
Dr. Bayne was called to the patient's room moments after the cameras saw evidence of her waking up again. As she did, she took in her surrounding, tugged and jerked at her wrist and ankle cuffs, realized her plight, and immediately started screaming and cussing loud enough to disturb anyone else in the hallway -- if there had been anyone else.
When Dr. Bayne entered, the patient glared at her.
"You!" she screamed. "You did this to me. You did..." She glanced at her breasts and then back to the doctor. "Did... this... to me. How the fuck did you do this to me?"
"Good morning, Lila," said Bayne.
"The fuck I am," the girl said.
"I beg to differ, Lila."
"Stop calling me that."
"It's your name."
"The fuck it is," the girl spat, still jerking at the bindings. "You know good and god damn well what my name is, bitch."
"Of course, Lila."
"Fuck you."
"Such language for the person who has been taking care of you all these weeks."
"Fuck you."
"Unstrap me from the god damn bed."
The doctor grabbed the clipboard from the foot of the bed and flipped through the pages of data. "It's for your own good, my dear," she said.
"Fuck my own good, bitch."
"So much anger. But don't worry," the doctor said calmly. "We'll help you work through that and be a good girl."
"I said to let me go."
The doctor smiled but continued to read the papers.
"Let me go," the girl screamed as she shook the bed with her struggling.
"Keep it up," said Baynes. "You'll wear yourself out eventually and still be strapped there."
"Let me the fuck up right fucking now!"
Another smile. "So we'll still need to keep you on the mood stabilizers for the time being. That's more than evident based on your behavior."
The doctor sat in the padded chair beside the bed. She crossed her legs and rested the clipboard on her knee, holding it in place with the palm of one hand.
"I'll show you behavior, bitch. I'll show you all kinds of fucking behavior if you don't let me up!"
"And probably the milder sedatives throughout the day as well. After all, we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself, would we?"
"It's not me I'm gonna hurt, bitch."
"Tsk. Tsk. Dear Lila. I doubt that very much."
"Let me up and I'll prove it to you."
Baynes put the clipboard on the floor, leaning it against the front leg of the chair. Then she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "Why don't we try something more simple first. Just tell me who you think you are."
"Fine," the girl grumphed, finally starting to rest again after the struggle against the cuffs. "You know exactly who I am."
"Of course I do, Lila, but I want you to tell me. Show me how much you can hurt me."
"I'm Laaa..." she started, then she winced and yelped in pain. "I'm Laaar..." she tried again. "What the hell? Why can't I say my name?"
"Something wrong, Lila?"
"What's wrong with me?"
"I'll tell you what," Baynes said and pulled a page from the clipboard and turned it over. She handed the pen to the girl and said, "If saying it is too hard for you, just write it here for me instead."
"Fine."
The doctor held the clipboard up where the girl could access the empty back of the page. She started to write, but only got halfway into the 'L' before she yelped again and dropped the pen onto the side of the bed.
"What the fuck did you do to me?"
"I tried to tell you who you are, my dear, but you just wouldn't listen. I guess some things never change."
"What the fuck?" she said, this time her voice much softer, suddenly realizing just how dire her situation was.
"I still can't believe you haven't asked me about the baby or about my injuries. Everyone else around here has been incredibly sweet during my recovery, but you haven't asked about anything but your own selfish whims."
"What did you do to me?" the girl practically whimpered. "How did you do this to me?"
"I'm a genius, remember," the doctor sat down again and crossed her legs, bouncing one slightly on the other. "Even you have to admit that."
"Dammit," the girl said. Then she screwed her face up in a determined expression and slowly said, "My. Name. Is. Laaa..." She sucked in a lot of air and made the kind of face a woman having a contraction might make. "Goddammit!"
The doctor nodded slightly. "Neural inhibitor," she said. "A chemical marker in the identity part of your brain. It causes tremendous pain when you try to access your former name. As long as you leave that old name alone and just accept your new one, there's no need to feel any of that pain."
"My name is L..." she started, but she couldn't even get past the 'L' this time before her entire body shuddered from the pain. "My name is..." she stopped. She glared at the doctor. "My name is Lila."
Nothing. No pain. No neural response.
"Good girl," Baynes said. "Keep that up, and you'll be out of those cuffs in no time."
"I'll kill you for this, you bitch."
"You can try, but you'll find similar chemical markers in other parts of your brain as well. Try to harm me or anyone here, and you'll experience pain far greater than that of just trying to say your name."
"How the fuck did you do this shit to me?"
"Like I said, I'm a genius. Doctorates in Biotechnology, Robotics, and Chemistry. Put them together in the right experiment and, voila, we get you, Lila Hammond, or Patient Zero for the journals when we go to print after all this is over."
"Lila... Hammond?" she all but whispered.
"Yes, Lila Hammond. You."
"Goddammit."
"Well, in this case, you can damn me all you want, bearing in mind that since I created you, I'm the closest thing to god you're going to meet."
"Fuck."
"Eventually," the doctor said, changing which leg was on top of the other.
"What?" Lila asked.
"Nothing to worry about now, dear. But, to answer your question about how, well, I can give you the 'For Dummies' version if you like."
The girl glared at her.
"If you ask nicely," the doctor added.
"Fuck you," the girl said.
"Fine with me," said Baynes, and she got up from the chair, hung the clipboard back on the foot of the bed, and walked toward the door.
"Fucking tell me!" the girl yelled this time.
"You had your chance. We'll try again later."
Dr. Baynes stepped out but didn't yet shut the door.
"I want to know. You'd better fucking tell me what you did to me, bitch!"
"In the meantime, I think you've already exerted yourself more than I should have allowed you. Mustn't let you push too hard yet, after all." The doctor flipped off the light so that only a dim LED lamp above the head of the bed gave the room any light. "I'll have Ben drop by in a minute to give you a little something to help you sleep again. Then we'll try having a polite conversation again tomorrow if you're up for it."
The door closed and the lock clicked shut.
The girl who was now Lila Hammond screamed and jerked for several minutes in the dim light until one of the assistants unlocked the door, entered, and then injected another heavy dose of sedatives into her IV.
Within just a few seconds, she was out cold again, her angry fit just a memory stored on the footage taken by the cameras in the corners of the room.
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