THE BASEMENT

January 10, 2015 — Atlanta, Georgia

Detective Darius Mitchell was forty-five years old, twenty years into the job, and bone tired of cases that never seemed to end cleanly.

He sat at his desk in the Atlanta Police Department’s homicide division, staring at a stack of files he could recite from memory. His coffee had gone cold hours ago. Outside his office window, Atlanta moved on—traffic, sirens, lives continuing. Inside, everything felt stalled.

The phone rang.

“Mitchell,” he answered.

“Detective, this is dispatch. We got an anonymous tip on the Marcus Webb shooting. Caller says the suspect’s hiding in an abandoned pharmaceutical building on Marietta Street. Old Meridian Pharmaceuticals facility.”

Darius straightened. Marcus Webb had been killed three days earlier in a gang-related shooting. Any lead—any lead at all—was worth checking.

“Address?”

“1527 Marietta Street. Building’s been empty since 2005.”

Darius grabbed his keys.

THE BUILDING

Marietta Street cut through Atlanta’s industrial district—warehouses, rusted fences, graffiti-covered concrete. The building loomed exactly where dispatch said it would: three stories, boarded windows, chain-link fence sagging at the gate.

Darius called for backup.

“Units are twenty minutes out,” dispatch said.

He didn’t wait.

The front door hung open. Inside, the lobby was gutted—broken glass, overturned desks, pigeons nesting in the corners. His footsteps echoed as he moved cautiously, hand on his weapon.

“Atlanta police!” he called. “Come out with your hands up!”

Silence.

The first floor was empty. The second floor held rusted lab equipment—microscopes, exam tables, shattered beakers. Nothing living. Nothing recent.

Then he saw it.

A staircase leading down.

The basement door was different—heavy steel, industrial grade. The lock had been forced open recently.

Darius pushed it wider.

The hallway beyond was long and narrow, concrete walls closing in. Six doors lined the left side. The right side had been sealed shut with concrete blocks.

He approached the first door.

A small reinforced window sat at eye level.

He looked inside—and froze.

A hospital bed.

Human remains lay atop it.

Medical equipment surrounded the body—IV stand, monitors, tubing—everything arranged with clinical precision.

Darius swallowed hard and opened the door. The remains were old. Female. Young.

He backed out.

Second door.

Another body.

Third door.

Another.

Fourth. Fifth.

Each room identical. Each death methodical.

Darius felt sick.

Then he reached the sixth door.

And heard breathing.

Faint. Wet. Real.

He looked through the window.

A woman lay on the bed.

Alive.

THE SURVIVOR

Darius burst into the room.

She was impossibly thin, swallowed by oversized hospital sheets. An IV ran into her arm, connected to a nearly empty bag of clear fluid.

“Ma’am,” he said, kneeling beside her. “Can you hear me?”

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Help me,” she whispered.

Darius radioed immediately. “This is Detective Mitchell. I need an ambulance at 1527 Marietta Street. Multiple deceased. One critical survivor. This is a major crime scene.”

As they waited, Darius examined the equipment. Old—but functional. Maintained. Someone had been coming here. Changing IV bags. Monitoring vitals.

Keeping her alive.

Not to save her.

To study her.

The sirens arrived eight minutes later. EMTs rushed in, stunned into silence.

“I don’t know how she’s alive,” one said. “We’re taking her to Grady. Now.”

Darius watched them wheel her away.

Five dead.

One survivor.

And someone responsible.

BRIANA

At Grady Memorial Hospital, doctors worked frantically. Dr. James Wilson pulled Darius aside.

“She’s shutting down,” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen neglect like this.”

“Can she talk?”

“Five minutes. That’s it.”

Darius approached the bed. Machines beeped softly. He took her hand.

“You’re safe,” he said. “Can you tell me your name?”

The ventilator was adjusted.

“Briana,” she whispered. “Jackson.”

“How long were you held?”

“Years… I don’t know.”

“Who did this?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“The doctor,” she whispered. “Georgiev.”

“Where is he now?”

Her breathing hitched.

“He’s still operating,” she said. “More of us. More places.”

The monitors screamed.

Doctors rushed in.

Briana Jackson died at 3:47 p.m., January 10, 2015.

She had survived seventeen years in captivity.

And told the truth with her last breath.

THE PATTERN

Forensics identified the five victims within days.

All had disappeared in fall of 1998.

All were Black college students from Atlanta HBCUs.

All had volunteered for a Meridian Pharmaceuticals clinical trial.

Meridian Pharmaceuticals.

The abandoned building wasn’t abandoned by accident.

It was abandoned when the experiment moved on.

The trail led to Dr. Patricia Morgan, a university administrator.

She had access to student financial records.

She identified desperate students.

And she was paid to do it.

Fourteen students over eighteen years.

Fourteen human experiments.

Two facilities.

One doctor.

The Decatur warehouse was worse.

Ten rooms.

Nine bodies.

One bed empty.

Georgiev had escaped again—but not the evidence.

Fourteen victims were now known.

Fourteen families finally had answers.

THE ARREST

January 28, 2015.

Marietta suburb.

A gated house.

Nikolai Georgiev opened the door calmly.

“I murdered no one,” he said as they cuffed him. “They were volunteers.”

“You locked them underground,” Darius said. “And watched them die.”

“They were subjects,” Georgiev replied. “Sacrifice is necessary for progress.”

Georgiev was convicted on all counts.

Fourteen life sentences.

Patricia Morgan received thirty years.

The Kesha Thompson Clinical Trial Safety Act passed in 2016.

Too late for fourteen students.

But not for everyone else.

TEN YEARS LATER

January 10, 2025.

Darius Mitchell stood outside the Marietta Street building.

Fourteen plaques now lined the wall.

Fourteen names.

Fourteen stolen futures.

Gloria Thompson called him, as she did every year.

“Thank you for finding them,” she said.

“I wish it had been sooner,” Darius replied.

“You didn’t stop,” she said. “That matters.”

Darius drove back to the precinct.

Another case waited.

Another family would need answers.

And he would keep going.

Because someone had to.

The end.