However, somewhere along the way, a hitch had developed. Bolson hadn’t wanted that. The files and his personal thoughts made it very clear he’d been against the idea from the start. “I guess your doctor didn’t want to go along with the plan,” Paul offered.
Apparently in dismay at the scientist’s lack of team play, his captor shook his head. “Bolson was old. He was sick, and he knew that he was dying. At the beginning, we put him in charge of the program and let him do what he wanted.”
“And he got results.”
Simpson’s eyes shone with a kind of manic glee, the kind that knew a secret and wanted so very much to impart it. “Oh, he got more than just results. The man was brilliant. You have no idea what ideas he had! Everyone said it was impossible to create life—not just cells, but different people—from stem cells. He proved them wrong.”
With a grunt he shifted his bulk and scratched his jaw. A note of respect combined with awe entered his voice. “It was his idea to create beings based on nightmares. He said they’d be more terrifying to the enemy and he achieved just that. All we wanted were results and we let him do what he wanted, provided he came through for us. Well, he did—big time.”
After he noisily cleared his throat, Simpson’s voice took on an introspective air. “But, like a lot of the bleeding hearts out there, over time he grew a conscience. Bolson told us he didn’t want to play along. We told him he was under contract. This was a matter of national security, and if he didn’t do as ordered…pfft.” He made a slitting gesture across his fat throat.
“Bolson got the message. What we didn’t know was that he’d altered the programming of what he created. And no one caught on. His work was so top-level and so secret only two people knew about it, me and the owner of the company. As head of security, I knew every little detail of what Bolson had access to. And he had access to everything—shipping manifests, contractors…everything.
“And he was clever, too. He got the parts from about twenty different suppliers. It was like stealing wheelbarrows from the company.”
Paul didn’t get the wheelbarrow analogy, but he recalled Mrs. Porter’s words about different crews of workmen coming at all times and from different towns. It all made sense now. “So how did you find out where we were?” he asked.
A harsh chuckle followed along with a knowing smile playing around Simpson’s fleshy lips. “We figured out from the girl’s flight patterns where she was going. That, and we got a call from a concerned citizen who saw your girlfriend hiss at her dog a couple of days ago.”
“Mrs. Porter,” Paul said softly, recalling the old lady’s nosy nature and realizing that he’d been under the microscope all along. His anger then grew at her betrayal. “She would rat me out.”
Simpson shrugged and recited, “I can neither confirm nor deny the identity of the informant.” A snort followed his by-the-book statement. “She was just worried. So being the good citizen that she is, she called the FBI and told them what happened. I still have a couple of contacts on the force and they came through for us.”
As Paul stewed, Simpson made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You can’t blame her for that,” he said. “Anyway, as I was saying, Bolson did some cutting-edge stuff. He didn’t just make creatures. He made those things people, gave them feelings and emotions and made them almost…human.”
With that last word, a note of venom entered his voice. Shifting his position briefly in order to scratch his huge rump, he resembled a water buffalo about to dump its morning breakfast.
“Is that so bad?” Paul asked.
“For you, maybe not,” Simpson said, “but for us, it was. We wanted weapons, controllable weapons. We never knew what Bolson was thinking. Then one day, he decided to cut and run. And the little bastard managed to escape us with the most important data for almost two years.”
“It doesn’t say much for your spying ability,” stated Paul, unable to contain his sarcasm. “I thought you used to work for the FBI. Didn’t they train you guys well enough?”
His remark earned him a swat across the face. For a big man, Simpson moved fast. “You got a big mouth, kid, and a big nose, too. Keep yapping and we’ll close one and cut the other. You figure out which.”
An immense glower settled over his features, but he eventually nodded as if admitting defeat. “Yeah, we fouled up. I admit that. We never thought he’d actually run, but he did. It took us all this time to track him down. Who figured he’d set up shop in the countryside? We spent millions trying to track him down. We sent agents to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. At first, we thought he turned traitor and wanted to sell his secrets to the highest bidder, but no, he wanted to create a nice group of monsters.”
The van made a right turn and sped up. Simpson turned around and asked the driver how long until they arrived at their destination. He got the reply of “soon” and turned back again.
“In a way, we’re lucky you happened along. We were searching for the girl, but you happened to be with her and we figured on getting all of you in one fell swoop.” He snapped his fingers. “It’s as simple as that.”
“You want what’s yours.”
Simpson leaned forward as if to impart some confidential information. “It’s all about property. We’re just reclaiming it. Bolson’s gone, but now that we have his knowledge in our hands, we’re going to create our own private army. This is something no country will ever be able to match. Even if one of our own gets killed, we can always make another. That’s the beauty of the program. Unlimited soldiers and unlimited potential—think about it, kid.”
“You’ve got killers at your fingertips.”
Simpson’s eyes started to shine with the zeal of a true nut. “Welcome to the twenty-first century. This isn’t myth anymore. It’s not science-fiction or fantasy novel time. It’s science.”
Paul caught the look. “And you think the government is going to let you get away with it? They’ll—”
“They’ll…what?” Simpson interrupted. “They’ll stop us?” As he leaned back, he spit out a giggle which sounded somewhat incongruous, considering his size. “They paid for it. They’ll never admit it and it’s all off the books—plausible deniability and all that—but they knew damn well what we were doing and they allowed it. So don’t try any morality games on me, kid. There are no morals here, only business.”
Money and big business, they worked together. “Business,” Paul said, “You mean business like your guys contacting the Bangers.”
In a split second, the gleam in Simpson’s eyes changed to a dead-fish glaze. Practicality had to be this man’s middle name. “The Bangers serve a purpose. They’re target practice. They’re just too stupid to notice. So we made a deal with them. They stir up the people and then the nightmare group practices taking the thugs down.”
The dead-fish glaze disappeared as the zealous gleam resurfaced. “And it’s worked perfectly. We’ve been watching you through our operatives. We could have picked you up at any time, but we let you run free because you were helping us in the long run.”
Paul gasped when he heard that. “But your guys—Hand and Finger—they attacked me—”
“They did it under orders,” Simpson interrupted in a flat, businesslike tone. “I told them to whack you around and see if the vampire girl and the zombie would help out. They did. It usually sucks for someone to grow a conscience, but in their case, we made an exception once. It was nothing personal.”
Paul still remembered the skinny operative kicking him and grinning while he did so. If the chance ever arose, there would be payback.
Simpson snapped his fingers again and pointed at his chest. “Pay attention, boy. Your mind must be wandering. I’m about to give you a compliment. You’ve done great things with the group. You’ve helped to train them in urban pacification, whether you know it or not.”
The notion that he’d done their dirty work made Paul feel ill, but Simpson seemed to relish uttering every word. “Once we get them reconditi
oned—a little torture here, a little mind-reprogramming there—they’ll be fit for combat,” he said. “Somalia, Afghanistan, the Middle East… Anyone messes with us, we send in our team and make their nightmares real, but they won’t last. Our enemies will be history.”
The way the compliments were piled on in an insincere and smarmy voice made Paul want to heave. Instead, he turned the kiss-butt session in another direction. “How did you manage to solve the decay factor?” he asked. “I read about that in one of the files.”
As he spoke, remorse hit him hard. CF wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was decent and he’d done nothing but good. He didn’t even know that he was going to expire.
He also deliberately left out the idea of the cell decay in Angela, for the thought made him sick with worry. How would a person feel if they knew they might fall apart at any moment? That had to be the cruelest joke of all.
Simpson rubbed his fleshy jaw as if decided whether to impart the information or not. Finally, he offered a shrug. “We knew about it, but only insofar that Bolson built in certain stopgaps, just in case the experiments decided to rebel. Those stopgaps make the creatures controllable.”
He ticked off the points on his fingers. “See, they all have weaknesses. The water guy, all you have to do is to burn or freeze him. Then he’s history. Same deal with the sand thing. Just spray enough glue in the air and pfft”—he made a spitting noise—“he’s history, too.
“As for the zombie, it’ll take the hits. If it gets shot enough times, it dies and its body instantly decays, so there’s no chance the enemy will ever be able to clone it. I don’t know if Bolson ever managed to resolve that problem, but even if he didn’t, it’s of no consequence. The best thing about zombies is their expendability. Even if those things don’t get blown up in combat, they’ve got a life span of only a month at best.”
Paul focused his attention on the floor. He’d heard the words, but they hadn’t registered, and he only looked up when he felt a sharp smack on his cheek. Simpson stared at him, his eyes like green stones of death. “You’re zoning out on me again, kid. I was talking. The least that you could do is to listen.
“Like I was saying, as for the girl, the only thing capable of killing her is electricity. That’s it. She can take enough punishment to kill a thousand soldiers and still keep moving forward. A girl like her will live forever.”
“What about the decay factor?” Paul repeated as he rubbed the soreness from his face.
Simpson shook his head. “What about it?” he retorted. “It applies only to zombies—or didn’t you get the memo?”
Cutting though the reply was, it sent a shock through Paul and only in the most positive way. She’d live. She would live…
As if reading his thoughts, Simpson let out another giggle as if amused by the idea of a human and a stem-cell creation finding romance. A second later, his good humor disappeared. “So you like the girl after all,” he remarked in a matter-of-fact tone. “Well, lucky you, kid, you got to be with the frontline soldier of the future.” This time, wonder mixed with sarcasm laced every word.
“And because she’s going to be the frontline soldier of the future, we can’t have our best killers dying on us, now can we? That’s why she was engineered to live a long time. It’s just amazing, and we’ve got her. Soon, we’ll have fifty more like her.”
“Sir,” the voice came from the front. “We’re about twenty minutes away.”
“Good,” Simpson said as he took out his pistol. He checked the load, but kept the safety on. “Sorry about this, but lights out, kid.”
Paul never saw the blow coming.
Minutes or hours later, he swam up from a sea of pain into consciousness and consciousness hurt. He found himself lying on the front walk of the Bolson home. Simpson stood in front of him. The area was empty and where were the neighbors when you needed them?
“We’re he-e-e-re,” Simpson sang out with terrible glee. “Oh, and just in case you’re wondering what happened to everyone, we already told them this is a matter of national security. They’ve been confined to their homes. We told them you were a runaway and that you’re leaving today, so if you think anyone’s going to help you, then you can forget about it.”
Vicious thoughts ran through Paul’s mind, but all he came out with was, “Screw you.”
The fat man chuckled. “Yeah, I figured you’d say something like that. My men are searching the place now. We have the zombie in one of the vans. Electricity is also his weakness, and he’s so stupid he couldn’t figure out why we were there. He just asked us to feed him.” A chuckle escaped his lips, nasty and cutting. There was absolutely nothing likeable about this man at all.
A shout came their way as two men ran out of the house and over to their position. “What is it?” Simpson wanted to know. “Did you find the water guy or the sand thing?”
“No, sir,” answered one of the men. He held up a containment suit. “When we entered the premises and subdued the zombie, the water-man ran upstairs to the bathroom. He disappeared, and we couldn’t find the sand creature, either.”
Upon hearing that news, Paul inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. At least Ooze and Sandstorm had escaped. As for Simpson, he took the news without moving a muscle in his face. Finally, he gave a brief nod. “Did you secure the lab?”
“Yes, sir,” the second agent said. “We have the computer. The chambers don’t look operable, though. What do we do?”
The fat man rubbed his hands together. “Torch the place. Leave no traces. By the time the fire trucks get here, there won’t be anything left to examine.”
“But what do we do about the water guy or the sand thing?”
Simpson laughed and his belly shook. “Nothing, do nothing. Neither of those creatures can stop us. Without his containment suit, the water-man is powerless. If he does manage to turn up, we’ll freeze or fry him. And we have aerosol glue to stop the other monster. Now hop to it, men.”
The agents left, and a few minutes later, Paul heard a whoosh and the house exploded into flames. He stared at the conflagration and cursed the fat man who was now grinning like a cat that had swallowed ten canaries. “You’re a real jerk, you know that?” he ground out.
Simpson stared at him with a bland expression. “You’ve been out of school for too long, kid. Your friends must be missing you.”
He took out a small T-shaped device from his pocket and before Paul could react, Simpson jabbed him with it.
Taser, it’s a Taser. Paul convulsed as the electrical current ran through him and he fell to the ground, every nerve ending on fire. He still heard the man’s oily voice, though.
Simpson knelt down next to him. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste, so I’m going to do you a favor. I’m bringing you back to that jail you call a home. You won’t tell anyone what happened because there’s no evidence. No one will believe you. So I’d suggest you get over it and move on with your useless little life.”
Paul felt another charge run through him then blackness swallowed him up.
* * * *
The voice cut through the darkness. “Paul, are you okay?”
With an effort, Paul forced his eyes open. Gray walls, cracked floorboards…this was St. Joe’s. He looked up into the eyes of Brother Max. The large man helped him to stand up.
“We were very worried about you,” the big man said. “You were gone almost two weeks, and we thought something bad had happened. Thank goodness you’re all right.”
Paul said nothing. When there wasn’t anything to say, what was the point? Simpson had him right where he wanted him. Angela was gone. There was no way of knowing where she was. He had no superpowers, no friends, and right now he was in a hellhole that he hated.
The big man shepherded him down the hallway and back to his room. There, he sat Paul down on one bed and took a seat on a chair. The look on his face was kindly. “Son, I know this isn’t the ideal place for you. I know you’ve had a hard time here. Many of the
boys have. But you have to realize that running away won’t solve your problems.”
When there was nothing to say, say nothing. Paul remained mute, ran through all the options in his mind, and right now he couldn’t think of a thing. “Sorry,” he finally managed.
“That’s it?” Max’s face wore a disappointed look. “You’ve run away twice, we’ve gotten the police to look for you, and all you can say is you’re sorry?”
There was a time to keep it and a time to let it all out. Paul decided this was the time to let it all out and he shouted, “Yeah, that’s all I got. I took off because this place stinks, because I got tired of being beat on and because no one cared if I lived or died. You know what happens here. You know when someone ages out they have to leave. Who cared about me before? No one did. So you caught me. Fine…do whatever you want.”
Explosion over, he sat back and waited for the inevitable scolding. For a change, though, it didn’t come. Instead, the older man simply looked disconcerted. He rubbed his chin in a slow, measured fashion and said, “I want to help you, Paul. This is what I volunteered for. Where were you?”
Taken aback at this sudden burst of decency, it was time to improvise. “I stayed with some friends, but, uh, they moved on and…I’m here now.”
From the dubious expression on the older man’s face, clearly he didn’t believe the story, but he nodded, anyway. “They must have been good people to have taken care of you so well. You’re wearing good clothes and you look healthy.”
Paul wanted to tell him they were they best people he’d ever known. He wanted to tell him that for the first time in his life he felt he’d been part of something. He wanted to say those things and more…but couldn’t. Instead, he choked out, “I guess I’ll do some studying or something. Sorry I yelled at you.”
Max offered a tiny smile. “It’s understandable.” He blew out a deep breath. “I’m glad you’re back. In your absence, Social Services contacted us. We have a family coming in the day after tomorrow and you’re going to meet with them. I’d call that good news, wouldn’t you?”
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