Emmy Laybourne by Dress Your Marines in White [ss] Read Free Book Online

Dress Your Marines in White - Emmy Laybourne
    illustration by gregory manchess

    At first, Dr. James Cutlass had thought his new job at NORAD was thrilling and full of opportunities, but that was before the demonstration... "Dress Your Marines in White" is the story of the terrifying choices surrounding a chemical weapons demonstration gone horribly wrong.

    Emmy Laybourne is a screenwriter, lyricist, and actress who's first work of fiction, Monument 14, on June 5th from Feiwel & Friends. You can also catch Emmy out on the Fierce Reads tour next month!

    Was he going to throw up or would he be able to type? James Cutlass wasn't quite sure.

    TEST REPORT: MORS compound

    January 14, 2024

    Dr. James Cutlass, assistant to Dr. Elizabeth Massey

    U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

    Jesus Christ, he was quaking in his seat. His hands shaking. Just typing in the header put him back there in the steel-colored observation chamber, flooded with light from the bright, white test room.

    James needed to write the report. They wanted it two Fridays ago. Hell, they wanted it the day after it all happened. But James had spent that day in his room with the covers pulled over his head like a four-year-old.

    He needed to write the report and get it in by five o'clock and it was four o'clock now and to make it all worse Brayden and his friends were down in the rec room, shooting pool.

    James wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. It wasn't cool to cry, when your seventeen-year-old son was entertaining. Had some pretty girls down there too. It was never cool to cry in front of pretty girls.

    All right, it was just a test report. Like one of the many, many he'd written up in the past. Except that this time a copy of his observations had been requested by the CIA. And this time, several of the test subjects were dead.

    There, then, start at the beginning.

    After extensive testing on other primates, Dr. Massey and department head Dr. Savic decided that testing on human subjects was a necessary step to demonstrate the strength of the compound to Colonel Davidson, General Green, and General Montez, in order to receive permission to begin experiments with storage and release mechanisms.

    How could he type when the godforsaken music was so ever-loving loud? If music is even what you'd call it. Screaming to a beat? Grunting in time?

    James crossed out into the hallway and opened the basement door. If it was beer he smelled, he ignored it.

    "Bray!" James shouted. "Turn it down."

    "Sure, Pops!" his son called.

    James cocked his head. The music didn't go down. Not a bit.

    "Now!" he hollered.

    Then it dipped.

    It had to be 100 percent rage now to get any response from his son at all. Brayden just lolled around, talking back and exuding attitude, until yelled at. They didn't even bother talking to him in a low voice - it was yell or nothing with Brayden.

    Susan had given herself nodes on her vocal chords and would need surgery eventually. Just from "communicating" with their son.

    If he could do it again, no kid. And probably a different career. Why hadn't he taken the gig at Merck? Anti-obesity was where the money was. Why wasn't he where the money was? Why was he in Monument, Colorado?

    Dr. Massey and Dr. Savic discussed the issue at length and decided that presenting all four subjects at the same time would make a more effective demonstration.

    "It'll knock their socks off," Massey argued to Dr. Savic during the discussions leading up to the demonstration.

    "I have no doubt about the strength of your presentation, Dr. Massey. But why risk any confusion by showing the reaction of all the blood types simultaneously. Why not show them one at a time?" Savic asked.

    Dr. Janko Savic was a tall man - Serbian or Croatian, if there was a difference. He was cautious, humorless, and exacting. Just the qualities you'd expect to find in the head of USAMRIID, of course.

    She waved his concern away.

    "You separate them,