by M. D. Massey
I awoke in a hospital bed, in a concrete room that was illuminated with fluorescent lights. The walls were painted a light green color, which was a dead giveaway that I was in what once had been a military facility. My eyes were gummed shut and I felt weak and hungry. I must’ve been out for a few days, at least.
I looked over and saw Gabby crashed out in an office chair by the bed. I was hooked up to a machine that was monitoring my vitals, and had an IV running into each arm. I looked under the sheets and noted that I was wearing a hospital gown and not much else. Great. At least I was still alive and in full control of my faculties.
My shuffling around must’ve roused the kid, because she sat up and looked at me like I’d just returned from the dead. Then she gave me the sort of sweet smile that only a kid can muster in the worst of times. “Well, I guess we won’t have to shoot you.”
I chuckled, but it came out more like a wheeze. My mouth and throat felt like I’d been on a three-week bender in Cabo, after drinking the water. “Thanks for the sentiment, kid,” I croaked out. “Where are my clothes?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, we had to burn them. Captain Perez said there was no salvaging them.”
I tried to sit up, managed to get up on one elbow, and then flopped back down on the bed in defeat. I sighed. “Please tell me that you at least saved my moccasins.”
Gabby laughed and winked at me, whispering behind her hand. “I snuck them out of the trash pile and cleaned them up for you.”
I dropped my head back on the pillow. “Thanks, kid. Where’s Doc?”
She shrugged. “Probably yelling at Bobby again. They don’t get along so well.”
“Any food around here? I’m starved.”
“Yeah, but I’d better go get Captain Perez. She asked me to let her know as soon as you woke up.”
The kid left the room and I drifted off again. When I next awoke, Captain Perez was checking my vital signs. She smirked at me. “So, you decided to rejoin the land of the living. About time.”
I started pulling out tubes and removing wires. “Food. Clothes. Weapons. Not necessarily in that order.”
The Doc stomped over to the bedside and placed her hand on my chest, easily forcing me back down on the bed. “Whoa there, ranger. You’re a few days away from being well enough to leave this facility, and it’ll be another day or so before you’re strong enough to get out of bed. Let’s start with food, and see how you do from there, alright?” She started fussing around with the I.V. tubes, fixing the damage that I’d done and resecuring the lines with medical tape.
I grimaced and laid my head back down. Fact was, even that small bit of activity had made me feel weak. “I suppose I have little choice in the matter. Fine.”
She turned to the kid. “Gabby, can you bring our patient here something to eat from the mess?”
She came to attention and snapped off a salute. “Aye, aye, sir!”
We both shouted after her in unison, “Only Marines say that!”
I chuckled and shut my eyes for a moment. “What saved me? Bobby’s blood, or your hoodoo?”
“Thus far, Bobby’s blood and some I.V. antibiotics seem to be doing the trick. From what I can guess, whatever factors are present in lycanthrope blood that allow for their tremendous healing abilities are what’re responsible for your recovery. I decided to administer the antibiotics as well, just in case.”
I nodded and sighed. “Kid saved my life.”
She smiled, a rare sight in the short time I’d known her. “Well, you saved his first, so I believe he sees it as a fair trade.” She tilted her head, as if unsure whether to continue. “He fairly worships you, you know. I think you’ve taken the place of his alpha, in the absence of his pack.”
I harrumphed. “Some alpha I turned out to be. Walked right into that ambush.”
The Doc shrugged. “So did I, and I’m not without certain skills myself.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Was that a Liam Neeson reference?”
She nodded. “We have a DVD library here in the Facility. Gabby has been catching up on 21st and 20th century culture, in fact. She seems to particularly enjoy Firefly. I think she has a crush on Mal.”
I shook my head. “Well, I can’t say I’m against her having a chance to be a kid for once. Speaking of which, we need to talk about your super-serum.”
She tilted her head in response. “I’m listening.”
I struggled to lift myself further upright with my elbows, but the Doc saved me the trouble by cranking the head of the bed up to about 45 degrees. I nodded. “That’s better, thanks. Now, about that serum; I need to know how it works and what it’s going to do to me long-term. Are there any side effects? Am I going to want to start eating human flesh, or hunting little bunnies in the woods late at night?”
She smiled at the last bit, and shook her head. “No, I think the local rabbit population is safe, outside of your normal hunting activities. Gabby has lived under my observation for several years post-serum administration, and she has exhibited zero side effects beyond the intended increases in her strength, speed, and stamina.”
I closed my eyes and thought for a moment before responding, wanting to make certain I worded my next question as tactfully as possible. “And in your opinion, has the serum lowered her inhibitions toward violence at all?”
“You mean, is she a murderer?” I looked her in the eye and nodded. A dark look crossed her face for a moment, and then it was gone. “No, not at all. At least, she’s no more of a killer than what living in a world like this calls for. She’s seen some things, Scratch, but Gabby’s no cold-blooded killer.”
I closed my eyes again and sighed. “I think I messed up.”
“You mean what happened on the way back to your settlement.” I nodded. “Scratch, Gabby has killed before. Her uncle taught her how to survive in this world, long before you met her. Sure, she has her moments; hormones and overwhelm will do that. But she’s as resilient a child as I have ever known. Trust me, she’ll be okay. You haven’t scarred her for life.”
I opened my eyes with no small amount of struggle. “That’s good to know. But no kid should have to do something like that. I should’ve known better.”
The Doc tsked. “Maybe in the old world, before the War, that might have been true. But in this world? I prefer that children be equipped to fend for themselves. Gabby is no exception. It’s not your fault the world is a mess right now, so stop blaming yourself for what you can’t change. You did what was necessary to achieve an objective. That’s all.”
I disagreed, but decided to change the subject. “Gabby has abilities that are far beyond those of a normal teen. If I had to guess, I’d put her physical abilities at the level of an elite adult decathlete. I can’t imagine what a terror she’ll be as an adult.” The captain cocked an eyebrow at me, so I course-corrected. “Speaking figuratively, of course.” That seemed to pacify her, so I continued. “What I want to know is, how does it work?”
“Put simply, it’s very advanced gene therapy. The serum causes changes at the cellular level throughout the body, providing increases in limit strength, power, speed, work capacity, immune function—virtually all aspects of your physiology are affected.”
I nodded slowly. “What are the risks of rejection?”
The Doc shook her head. “Almost nil. The treatment is delivered via a combination of retroviral, liposomal, and naked DNA vector transmission, giving it a very strong chance it will take.”
“I vaguely remember that cancer can be a side effect of certain types of gene therapy. What are my chances of developing cancerous growths in years to come?”
She pursed her lips and squinted. “Minimal. The alterations in immune function caused by the gene therapy reduce the chance of subjects developing malignancies to an estimated 1-in-100,000. But of course, those numbers are merely conjectural.”
I whistled. “So, what you’re telling me is that this treatment effectively eliminates the common risks associated with ge
ne therapy, by nature of the mutations triggered by the treatment?”
“Yes. And, might I add, I’m impressed with your medical knowledge. You’re pretty smart for a hick cowboy grunt.”
I shrugged. “I had plans to enter a physician’s assistant program before the War, so I took a lot of science pre-reqs before the shit hit the fan. Figured it’d never come in handy again, what with the world being bombed back into the Stone Age and all.”
She nodded. “What I can tell you is, if your body doesn’t outright reject the treatment, there’s quite a good chance that you’ll live a long and very healthy life.”
I mulled it over. From the way it sounded, and based on what I’d observed in the short time I’d spent with Gabby, there were a whole lot of upsides to taking these treatments, and not a lot of downsides to it. I needed every advantage I could get if I was going to go up against the Corridor ’thrope pack. And, if I were to be honest, circumstances had decided it for me. I nodded to myself. “So, how soon can I start treatments?”
She looked me dead in the eye. “Within a few days. It’ll help speed your recovery, but I want to give your system a chance to flush out any antibodies you received from being exposed to Bobby’s blood.”
“I need to be out of here just as soon as I’m strong enough to walk.”
The Doc sniffed at that. “I figured as much, but believe me when I say you need your rest. At least give me a day or two to monitor you before the treatment, just to make sure your body doesn’t reject it.”
“Doc, you and I both know that I’m up against the clock.”
“True, but I’m still not initiating those treatments until I’m sure you’re in decent health. As I said, a few days—perhaps four at most.”
I grunted and pointed my finger in her face. “Then you damn sure better have orange Jello in this place, or else I’ll be notifying my attorneys.”
3
Armor
By the end of the week, the Doc had started me on the treatment protocol. It was no picnic. There were multiple deep tissue injections, bone marrow taps, spinal taps; I soon felt like a voodoo doll that’d been left to the attentions of a sadist witch doctor with a needle fetish. Captain Perez seemed to enjoy the process, and it made me wonder what I’d gotten myself into by teaming up with her. Too late to turn back now, I reflected.
Despite the unpleasantness of the process, I could tell that the treatments sped up my recovery. Some days I almost had to pinch myself, because by rights I should’ve ended up being a walking corpse. I tried thanking Bobby on more than one occasion, but each time I had tried he’d nervously mumble something about not mentioning it and make himself scarce. I finally figured out that the kid wasn’t good with accepting gratitude, which was not surprising, considering how he’d spent most of his formative years. I reflected that if I had been raised by wolves, I’d probably be socially awkward as well. So I left it alone.
The treatments went on for more than a week, and I gradually started becoming something less of a paranormal species, but more than human. Over the course of the first several days I began noticing changes in my senses. Nothing startling, but I could definitely hear more clearly. I’d lost part of my hearing in my left ear when I had taken that shrapnel hit in the ‘Stan, and had forgotten what it was like to have full hearing in both ears. My hearing wasn’t the only thing back; I began picking up sounds that had once been too faint to detect—heartbeats, for example, or the rustle of a cockroach crawling over a piece of paper.
I was noticing changes in my sense of smell as well. My nose was picking up odors I’d never noticed before, like Bobby’s wet dog smell, or the oil on a door latch across the room. There were a few times I went into sensory overload, so I took to wearing earplugs and stuffing cotton up my nostrils when it became too much to deal with. Within days, however, I discovered some sort of internal shutoff switch, which the Doc said was really just my brain filtering out background sounds and smells on a subconscious level.
I suppose the thing that freaked me out the most, though, was my newfound ability to see clearly in low light. I woke up one night to hit the latrine, and only when I was headed back to my cot I realized I hadn’t needed to turn on the lights to find my way. It was sort of like looking through NVGs, except everything was painted in shades of grey. In full daylight my color vision remained the same, but at night if there was even the faintest light source it may as well have been dusk outside.
Having said that, strangely I didn’t see much difference at all in my physical attributes. Speed, strength, explosiveness—none of it seemed any different than it did before. Captain Perez said it might be months before my body adapted enough to see improvements in those areas, but she seemed stymied by the fact that it wasn’t happening sooner. She did put me on a treadmill once, and from what we could tell I could run for days and not get tired. But besides my senses and increased endurance, the only other thing that changed was the rate at which I healed. Within a day or so after the treatments began, that incision that Wolf-boy had made over the deader bite was nothing but a faint pink scar.
Strangely though, the bite I had taken still bore signs of infection; or rather, the area around it did. The wound had closed up and healed, right along with the cut Bobby had made. But the venom marks were still there, looking like a bad tribal tattoo done by some shitty ink-slinger outside the post gates in Killeen. The lines ran out from the bite down to my hand, and up my arm well past my elbow. It didn’t hurt and I felt fine, better than I had in years. Hell, I felt like I was 18 again.
Despite how I felt, the Doc said it was something I should be concerned with, since it probably meant I was still carrying latent Z venom in my veins and that I might relapse at some point. She looked the strange marks over for the hundredth time and shook her head in disbelief.
“You know, in all the time I did research for the military we never did figure out a vaccine or a cure for Z venom.” She pointed with the tip of her pen at the marks. “And this here, what you have going on? I’ve never seen anything like it. The best I can tell is that some remnants of venom remained deep within your tissues; between the ’thrope blood and the treatments, your body has achieved some sort of immunological balance with the infection.”
After she’d finished her examination, I pulled my sleeve back down and looked her in the eye. “Meaning, I could start turning into a deader if something disturbs that balance.”
She rolled away from me on her swivel chair and crossed her arms. “Perhaps. The truth is, I just don’t know enough about what's going on here to give you a definitive answer. I’m going to run further tests on the blood samples I took earlier, and I’ll let you know if I come up with any answers.”
“I have no arguments, but that’s the last blood you’ll be getting from me for a while. As soon as I collect my gear and some supplies, I’m headed for the Corridor.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, but I really can’t do much to stop you. However, you’re welcome to take what you need from the supply room, mess, and armory before you go.”
I flashed a wicked smile at her as I buttoned up my shirt. “Why, Captain Perez, I had no idea you cared.”
She frowned at me. “I don’t, but if you die out there that means I’m back to square one. So don’t get yourself killed—if you do, I’ll personally track down your deader corpse and do research on you until there’s not a scrap left to dissect.”
I batted my eyes at her. “So you really do care, after all.” She simply shook her head in response and went back to her charts, but as I ducked out the door to find the armory, I could hear her muttering curse words in Spanish all the way down the hall.
The Facility was well-hidden underground in a hive of tunnels and rooms that I suspected ran all over what was once Camp Bullis and Camp Stanley. This place had Christians In Action written all over it, and I was certain that The Company had played a large role in both creating and funding the research that had gone
on down here. The whole place was entirely self-contained, with electricity running from a combination of solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric energy sources designed for redundancy and reliability during an emergency like the one we currently faced.
I had found out that part of the reason for those redundancies had to do with the fact that The Facility held all manner of nasty occult life forms in cold storage, off in a sector that Captain Perez told us was definitely off-limits. I couldn’t get her to tell us anything more about what was in there, other than to say there were things in there that not many people had seen and that nobody would want to let escape. I left it at that, considering that I had enough to deal with in taking out the Corridor Pack. I knew how to choose my battles, and how to avoid creating new ones unnecessarily.
The section of The Facility that we were currently in was where the Doc’s former research team had spent most of their time. I asked her what had happened to the rest of her team, and she just shook her head and said they were all gone. It seemed a little suspicious to me that out of all the people it once took to run this huge facility, the Doc was the only one left down here after the bombs dropped. I mentioned this to her, and she explained that there had been more personnel down here at first, but that one-by-one they’d all split to go after family members and loved ones until she was the only one left. I asked her why she never did the same, and she simply replied that the Army was her family. I knew the feeling, and left it at that.
The Facility itself was quite the warren of tunnels, and walking through it reminded me of a TV show I saw once about a guy who had purchased an old Cold War missile silo. The interior of that silo had looked a lot like this place: lots of concrete, exposed pipes and conduits, light fixtures that looked like they were salvaged from a World War II naval destroyer, and lots of grey and green paint. And while I could complain about the decor, I couldn’t argue with the accommodations.
