by David Archer
Afterward, the two of them sat on the bed in the tiny room and talked. Janet was delighted that her superiors had lifted all restrictions on Danny, and it was time to let him know what was really going on.
Slowly, cautiously, she told him everything. Danny took it in, doing his best to keep up the act of being an enthusiastic supporter of the plan. A couple of times, completely at a loss for how to keep up the pretense, he had simply kissed her. She took it as a sign of his devotion to the project, as well as to herself, and giggled with delight each time.
Two hours later, a bell rang somewhere outside their quarters. Janet’s eyes lit up and she turned to him.
“That’s it!” she said. “It’s happening now!”
“Happening now?” Danny asked. “What’s happening now?”
“That bell means it’s time,” she said. “Doctor Branigan is about to make the first of the new hybrids. This is what we have been working toward, a super soldier that will soon be able to put an end to war, to make all the nations put down their weapons. Well, not this one by himself, but he’s just the first. Come on, we get to watch.”
She just got to her feet and grabbed his hand, then let him out the door and through the hallways. They had to get into the elevator and ride it down several levels, and then they moved with dozens of others through yet another hallway. Finally, they came to a large room that was set up like a round theater, and Janet pushed and shoved until she got them right up to the rail.
Danny looked down into an operating room, the kind you would see in a teaching university medical school. There was no one inside at the moment, but Janet was acting so excited that he knew something big was about to happen.
All he could do was wait and see what it was.
* * *
The door to the cell slammed open, shattering the silence and making the two prisoners jump to their feet as men flooded through the door, guns in their hands. Minutes later, Swaggart and Marco were back on their knees, hands pulled roughly down behind their backs once again.
Swaggart grunted as he was pulled up and out the door, looking back to find Marco receiving the same rough treatment. "What the hell are you bringing him for? I’m the one they want."
The guard grinned at him. "He’s coming along as incentive, in case you decide to put up a fight. You do, he dies."
Swaggart scowled, but didn’t even consider trying to make a break for it. He’d been told that his transformation would take two days; all he could do now is hope that Noah and the others would find them in time.
The two of them were taken in the opposite direction this time, toward an elevator at the near end of the corridor. The doors opened instantly when one of the guards pressed the button, and Swaggart was shoved inside the small lift.
As the doors closed, leaving Marco behind, Swaggart began thinking that it might be time to try for freedom. He had just come up with the only plan he thought might have any chance of success when a fist suddenly collided with his stomach and he grunted, falling to his knees as the air was forced out of his lungs. The guards all started to laugh, even as one of them reared back and struck Swaggart across the face, hard. He fell to the ground, slightly dazed, just as the elevator doors started to open.
The man with the voice was there, and he didn’t look happy to find Swaggart on the ground. The guard who had struck him shrugged. "He was trying to escape."
Swaggart heaved himself to his knees, but it took some effort with his hands still tied behind his back. He looked at the voice and scowled.
"No, I wasn’t," he spat out. "These bastards just wanted to have a little fun."
The look on the man’s face said he didn’t care. "Get him up," he ordered. "Did you put Mr. Turin in the isolation room?"
The guard who had spoken nodded, leaving the others to haul Swaggart to his feet. "They are just putting him into place now."
Swaggart growled. "You hurt him and I will make your life a living hell," he promised, determined to do all he could to keep Marco alive as long as possible. “I’ll make you wish you had never been born.”
The man just smiled. "If you cooperate, then he'll live to fight another day," he said, and the meaning was so clear that it sent a chill down Swaggart's spine.
Swaggart kept his mouth shut as he was hauled down the corridor, quickly enough that he had to force himself to keep up. He hadn’t been able to pay attention to the elevator, so he had no idea if he was any closer to the surface than he had been before.
His escorts forced him into a large room and Swaggart looked around, not liking where this was going. He found himself in what looked like a cross between a lab and a hospital operating room. Computers and instruments surrounded a bed that was fitted with restraining straps. There were cameras in various positions around the room, all of them aimed at the bed itself.
Overhead, he suddenly realized that the ceiling was made of glass. There was a gallery up there, like you find in medical schools, the kind of gallery that allows students to observe an operation. Swaggart saw dozens of faces peering down at him, and one of them caught his attention. Danny McRae was in that crowd, and the look on his face was one of pure shock.
In a split second, Danny raised one hand with the pinky outstretched, then curled it into his fist. This was the sign that Swaggart had taught him and all of his other undercover operatives, a way to identify themselves to one another when necessary. At that moment, it meant that Danny was still on the job, even though he was a prisoner in this terrible place.
“You guys really think you’re ready for this?" Swaggart asked, careful to keep any sign of fear out of his voice. "Maybe you ought to go ahead and run some more tests or something?"
The man with the voice barked an order, and the guards worked together to force Swaggart down onto the bed. He fought as much as he could, but there were just too many of them.
"This isn't going to help you!" Swaggart shouted, trying to kick one of the guards away. "You turn me into one of those things, and I guarantee I’m going to rip all of you to pieces before I’m done!"
"That is where you are wrong," the voice said, leaning against a nearby table. "You see, Doctor Branigan has managed to isolate the most important aspects of his cocktail. You won’t look any different at all, Captain Swaggart, but you will be ten times as strong as any other man, and you will obey orders whenever we give them to you. That is the reason we worked so hard to get you, because you will become the prototype for the greatest soldiers that ever lived. You will be the first of your kind, virtually invincible but easily controlled. You, Captain Swaggart, will be the ultimate soldier."
Swaggart shook his head, fighting as hard as he could, but there were just too many of the men holding him down.
A door in another wall opened, and another man entered the room. He was frail and weak, and had the look of someone who had not been able to sleep in quite a while. It took Swaggart a moment to recognize Doctor Branigan, and then his own eyes went wide.
“Branigan? Branigan, don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Branigan, you’ve got to hold out. I’ve got people, good people, and they’ll be coming to save us all.”
Branigan glanced at him, but there was no strength in his eyes. He stepped over toward a cabinet at the side of the room and began preparing a hypodermic. He carefully selected two different bottles and drew a small amount from each one up into the syringe, then turned toward Swaggart again.
"Branigan, please," Swaggart said, looking wildly at the man as he came closer with a hypodermic extended. "You don’t have to do this. Branigan, we found Lisa, she is safe. They don’t have anything to hold over your head anymore."
Branigan paused and looked at him. “Young man,” he said, “you simply do not understand. I have done things that no man could live with. My daughter could never forgive me for the things I have done, I know that. This, whether I would have chosen it or not, is my destiny.” He looked at Swaggart sadly. “And yours, it seems, is to become my masterpiece.”
Swaggart glared at him, but then he felt the needle go into his neck. He lay there for a moment, just wondering how long it would be before he felt the effects, but the answer came much sooner than he anticipated.
Dear God in heaven, he thought. Every cell in my body is on fire!
* * *
E & E operatives go through intense training, including some of the most rigorous physical training implemented by any agency. Noah and the rest of his team had been trained in everything from parkour to mountain climbing, so rappelling down the ropes that were suspended from the helicopters wasn’t going to be much of a challenge.
“Agent Wolf?”
Noah turned at the sound of his name and found an army captain standing beside him. “Yes?”
“Sir, I’m Captain Johnston,” the officer said. “I’ll be commanding the Rangers.” He held out a helmet. “Since you are leading the mission, I thought you ought to be equipped with our communications. This helmet has an incorporated transceiver, voice activated. It will keep you in direct communication with me at all times.”
Noah took the helmet and strapped it on. “Very good, Captain,” he said. “Remind your people that we are likely to come face-to-face with some incredibly dangerous creatures. While this is a rescue mission, those men who have been altered cannot be restored to their natural state. The best thing we can do for them is kill them.”
The captain nodded. “I can understand that, sir,” he said. “I’ve seen the images and footage that has been recovered, and—I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live like that.”
“I completely agree,” Noah said. “Now, how many squads will you be bringing?”
“I have four squads, sir, comprising eight fire teams. Each team consists of six men, two of whom are equipped with XM556 microguns, and they are highly skilled with them. At three thousand rounds per minute, I don’t think there’s anything that can stand up to them for more than a second or two.”
Noah nodded. “Those should be effective,” he said. “We also found the M32 with HEAT rounds could get the job done, but a lot more destructively.”
“One man in each fire team will be carrying one,” Johnston said. “Everybody else will be carrying the usual tactical small arms. M4s, three round burst.”
“Very good. Are they ready to go?”
“Sir, we’re always ready. Major Wilson says we will be departing in about forty-five minutes. Helo’s are fueled and ready, though, so we can move as soon as you give the order.”
“We will stick to the Major’s schedule,” Noah said. “We’re trying to get as much satellite intel on the objective as we can.” He nodded at the captain one more time. “I’m going to go check on that, now. Come along, if you like.”
Captain Johnston followed him to the Quonset hut, where Neil was studying real-time satellite display of the compound that was their objective.
“What have you got?” Noah asked.
Neil looked up with a grin. “I can tell you that you won’t run into a lot of opposition on the surface, but there’s definitely an elevator inside that building. Thermal display shows me that people gather in one spot, but then their heat signatures disappear. They’ve either ridden down an elevator far enough I can’t pick up anything, or they’re all taking a cold shower together.” He pointed to a spot on the display showing where the elevator had to be.
Noah nodded. “Okay, that will be our first objective. We take the elevator down as far as we can, then work our way back up level by level.”
“Noah?” Neil asked. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“I think you and Jenny ought to turn on the hot spots on your phones, keep them on you. That way, if I come up with anything new, I can reach you on subcom.”
Noah looked at the skinny kid for a moment, then nodded again. “Sounds like a very good idea,” he said.
Captain Johnston raised an eyebrow. “Subcom?”
“Classified,” Noah said.
* * *
The burning was starting to fade, but Swaggart didn’t find much comfort. There were aches and pains around every joint, and it felt like they were being torn apart and then reassembled, somehow. It had subsided to a degree, but he was still in enough pain to make him dread the thought of moving.
He was strapped down to the bed, making it almost impossible to move at all in any event. There was one guard in the room with him, holding a massive rifle, but everyone else had left. He didn’t notice them leaving, because the pain had shut out everything else for quite a while.
He wondered how long it had been. One of the things he knew from experience was that pain can make a second seem like an hour, sometimes. He had no way to know whether he had been out of it for a few minutes, or a few days.
No, that wasn’t correct. More than a few hours would have left him dehydrated, and he didn’t feel the thirst that naturally came with dehydration. It hadn’t been nearly as long as it seemed, but that was good. It seemed like an eternity.
He groaned, and then instantly regretted it. The guard snapped to attention and aimed the rifle in his direction. Despite everything else, Swaggart almost chuckled at the look of sheer terror in the man’s eyes.
The guard watched him for a moment, then turned and tapped on the door beside him. “Doctor Branigan?” he called out. “He’s awake.”
The door opened and Branigan stepped inside. He was alone, and the look on his face was one of pure dejection. He stood in the doorway for a moment, just looking at Swaggart, then walked in and closed it behind him. He walked slowly toward the bed, until he was looking down on Swaggart’s face.
“I see the hate in your eyes,” he said softly. “I can tell you that it’s nothing compared to the hate that I feel for myself.”
“I don’t hate you,” Swaggart said, gritting his teeth against the pain. “I pity you. You have been forced to do things no man should ever have to do.”
Branigan nodded slowly. “This is true,” he said. “I simply didn’t have the strength to refuse, not when they held Lisa. They said they would kill her if I didn’t comply, and I just could not allow that to happen.”
“I understand that,” Swaggart said. “She’s been found, though, and she’s safe, now.” He lowered his voice. “So now you can do something else, something to help put a stop to these people.”
Branigan looked at him for a second, then let a small grin appear on his face. “I already have,” he said in a whisper. “They told me to make you the perfect soldier, strong and powerful and obedient.” He suddenly winked. “Two out of three isn’t bad, right?”
Swaggart stared at him. “What are you saying?” he whispered back.
Branigan reached over and laid a hand on Swaggart’s forehead, as if checking for a fever. It allowed him to lean closer and whisper directly into his ear.
“I perfected it,” he said. “I identified the genetic sequence in the cocktail that was responsible for the effects on the brains of the subjects. That allowed me to show them subjects that would be obedient, but it also let me know which part of the sequence to eliminate in order to prevent that effect.” He winked again. “You got the final version. Your mind is not affected, but you are as close to a Superman as there ever has been. You are ten times as strong as anyone else, and your body will heal any injury within minutes. Your skin is as strong as most body armor. The entire process takes only an hour, perhaps a few minutes more. Has the pain ended yet?”
Swaggart shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “No, not yet.”
“When it does, you will be ready. The straps will not hold you, and you will be fast enough to do what needs to be done.”
Swaggart looked into his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll kill them all, an
d then I’ll get you out of here.”
Branigan felt his throat, as though looking for a pulse. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m an old man, and I’ve done enough damage. They have taken all of my notes, so that they can re-create my formulas if anything happens to me, but I made sure to never write down the truth. The formula exists only in my head. That’s too much power for any man to live with. I have already taken steps to ensure that no one will ever be able to get it from me. Another variant of the cocktail; it will alter my mind sometime in the next few hours, so that I won’t be able to remember anything so complex.” He shrugged. “It’ll be a little bit like having a mild case of Alzheimer’s. But I think it’s necessary.”
Swaggart looked up at him. “There are those who think of you as a villain, Doctor Branigan,” he said softly. “I’ll make sure they learn that you are actually a hero.”
Branigan smiled. “Perhaps you might tell that to my daughter, someday.”
“I promise,” Swaggart said. “But I still want to get you out of here.”
Branigan said nothing and turned away. He looked at the guard and shook his head.
“This subject is taking longer than the others,” he said. “You can relax. He won’t be capable of anything for at least a couple of hours more.”
The guard looked at him, then turned his gaze to Swaggart, whose eyes had closed again. As Branigan left the room, the guard sat down on his stool and put the butt of his weapon on the floor. He held onto the barrel, just in case, but it was nice to know he could relax for a little while.
TWENTY-ONE
Marco had been taken in a different direction after Swaggart was dragged away. He had been placed into a small room, much smaller than the cell had been. There were several windows in its walls, but they only allowed him to see into a storage room and what looked like some sort of command center. It was almost deserted at the moment, but he studied it as hard as he could, anyway. If he ever did manage to get out of this place, he wanted to be able to report everything he had seen.
