"Do you have a better idea, Doctor?"
Sebbins bit her lip. "No."
"Then we proceed," Krantz gave the forklift driver a signal and the forklift moved forward. Several soldiers had to slide thick, corded ropes under Andy's neck and arms, and then a dozen of them pulled on the ropes to roll Andy to his side. The forklift crept forward slowly until the tines touched Andy's back. The soldiers let go of the ropes and Andy crashed down on the forklift tines. The driver started to lift Andy and the hydraulics groaned and protested. A few soldiers leapt onto the back of the forklift to keep it from tipping forward. The tines were able to lift Andy a few inches off the floor, but the balance point of the forklift was close to being compromised.
"Get him down the hall; get the doctor to the infirmary," shouted Krantz. "Doctor? Will you be accompanying the subject?"
"I will accompany Andrew, yes," Sebbins spat. "He's a human being! Treat him like one!"
Krantz ignored her completely. He turned to two of the corpsmen standing by. "McCloskey, DeWitt---get the subject into a hyper-womb immediately. Get the tank filled and start monitoring his vitals. According to the doctor's records, this one may be capable of extreme strength. Use extra sedation in the tank. I don't need him punching his way out."
Andy gave Sebbins as much of a smile as he could muster. "They better knock me the hell out, because if I can swing my arm in that tank, I'm going to blast out of it."
"I know you will," Sebbins said. She patted his arm and the forklift started crawling out of the lab, straining and slipping with Andy's weight.
Dr. Sebbins bit her lip. She felt like the whole experience was too surreal, too chaotic to be actually happening. Combined with smoky haze from the explosions that took out the doors, the lab felt more dream-like than real, as if she could pinch herself and wake up safe in her own bed. The acrid smoke in her nose and the noise and the diesel smell of the forklift told her that it was all too valid.
The corpsmen were preparing to move Dr. Cormair out of the lab. "Give me a minute with him, please!" Sebbins said. She knelt down next to the gurney. "In private, please, Doctor-Patient confidentiality. I am his personal physician, I have to ask him some relevant medical questions. A patient is entitled to a private conference in this matter."
Cormair arched an eyebrow at Sebbins and Sebbins winked back. The corpsmen exchanged confused glances and shrugs and reluctantly moved back several paces. Sebbins lowered her lips to Cormair's ears. "Where did they go?"
Cormair wheezed and coughed. He whispered as quietly as he could. "The...hidden entrance. The tunnel."
"Do you know where they're heading?"
Cormair shook his head. He tried to speak, but a cough stopped him short.
"Will they leave without Andy?" asked Sebbins.
Cormair coughed and shook his head. "I don't...think so."
"So they'll be on the property."
Cormair nodded.
"How do I stabilize Andy so he can get out of here? I want to find them and take them to the Safe House."
The Safe House was a hidden lab just over a hundred miles away. Cormair had set it up in case of an emergency. He had quietly funneled money to the creation of the Safe House from the incoming grants. The investors didn't know it even existed. Cormair had the foresight to hire several independent contractors to build the lab in sections. It was completely off the grid, supplied with energy by a hydroelectric generator and a geothermal steam vent.
Cormair nodded. Sebbins hoped he knew it was for the best. "The serum," Cormair croaked. "It's the only thing that can help him...but, Andy...he might be able to take the pain. Posey cannot; her transformation is the most extreme. She must be placed back in a hyper-womb. You might...be able to get Andy out--" Cormair was wracked by a cough that made him wince in pain and brought a trickle of blood to the corner of his mouth. "Inject him with a massive dose of serum straight into his bloodstream, preferably in his carotid artery. He may be able to get enough use of his body. He will need the serum consistently until he...finishes his change." Cormair gasped for air, and then his head lolled to one side.
"Corpsmen!" Sebbins called out. The soldiers rushed to the gurney and began administering oxygen. "Is he going to be all right? I think he might be bleeding internally."
"He just passed out," said one of the men feeling for a pulse. "We need to get him into surgery fast, though. We have a surgeon on the way. He should be at the base in twenty minutes."
Sebbins bit her lip. She walked over to a refrigerator in the corner of the lab where Cormair kept his supply of medicines. There were several IV bottles of serum and a few hypos of sedatives and steroids. She pocketed them all, whispering a prayer of thanks for the oversized pockets of her lab coat.
The soldiers had unceremoniously dumped Andy's body onto the base plate of one of the hyper-wombs. Sebbins could see him struggling to deal with pain. The soldiers were lowering the glass encasement over Andy's body.
"Wait!" Sebbins walked in and injected Andy with two hypos of serum. She lowered her voice and whispered in his ear, "When this takes hold, you should be able to move. Whatever happens happens, okay?"
Andy smiled at her with gritted teeth. "If I start, find a place to hide, Doc. I'm going to trash this place like a Led Zeppelin hotel room."
Sebbins walked over to the life support monitor for the tank and instructed the soldiers to continue lowering the tank. Andy's bulk took up nearly the entire base plate, but tank locked securely into place. The vacuum seal on the base engaged and the tank became water-tight. The serum began to pour down into the tank around Andy, splashing him and covering him with viscous orange syrup. The serum filled the tank quickly.
Sebbins could see the look of peace on his face; she could tell the serum had removed his pain. She leaned over the microphone on the control board. "Andy? Can you hear me in there?" Andy nodded.
"We didn't have time to wholly sedate you. In a few moments, the serum will be up to the top of the tank. You will not be able to breathe air anymore." Andy's face jerked out of its passive look. His eyes focused hard on Sebbins.
"Don't worry," she said. "You will not die. You will panic, however. The serum is oxygenated. It will keep you alive. You need to trust me on this. Swallow as much as you can so your stomach gets full. Then, when the serum is over your head, you have to breathe it in. You have to suck it into your lungs. Big, deep breaths. You will panic. Your body is going to try to fight it. It's a natural instinct. It's your body wanting to keep you alive."
The soldiers came over behind Sebbins to watch the monitors with her. She slipped a hand into her lab pocket and lightly fingered a sedative hypo.
Andy began to suck down big mouthfuls of the serum, grimacing as he swallowed it. He gagged slightly and coughed. The last foot of room in the tank filled quickly and Andy was submerged.
He was holding his breath; Sebbins could see it. "Andy, if you don't try to breathe normally, you're going to have a tougher time adapting to this tank!"
Andy closed his eyes and his mouth opened. His eyes popped open and his body went into spasm as the survival instinct took over. He began to seize.
"Blow the air out of your lungs, Andy. The inhalation will feel more natural. Don't worry! This will only last a few seconds!"
Andy shook and twitched. His arms began to tremble.
"Andy! This is normal! Listen to my voice: You will be okay, Andy! You will be okay."
Andy suddenly uncurled, flinging out his arms and legs. His fists and feet slammed into the glass of the tank and shattered the thick glass. The serum poured out of the tank in a glossy orange wave.
Sebbins pulled the hypo from her pocket and jabbed the nearest security guard in the neck. His eyes closed and he fell over almost immediately. Andy stepped out of the tank and took two steps that shook the room. He reached out and grabbed the two-way radio that the other soldier was fumbling. Andy squeezed his oversized hand around it and crushed it. He extended a finger and poked the soldier in t
he head. The man's eyes rolled up into his head and he fell to the ground in a heap.
"How do you feel?" Sebbins asked. She started pulling dull blue surgical gowns out of a drawer and tying them together to make some makeshift clothes for someone Andy's size.
Andy was sputtering and coughing up serum. "I feel okay," he grunted. His voice was thick and hoarse. It was a stark contrast to the mellifluous tenor voice he had before the change. "Let's get out of here."
Dr. Sebbins started draping him with the gowns. "I don't know that we're going to be able to hide you. I think we have to make a break for the hidden corridor in the lab."
"Soldiers won't be there?"
Sebbins frowned. "I don't know. Stay behind me and I'll go check." She opened the door to the auxiliary lab and glanced down the hall. A guard in gray camouflage holding a Kalashnikov rifle was pacing the intersection of the main corridor and the hall to Cormair's living quarters just outside the door to the lab.
"Everything all right, Doctor?" he called.
"Everything is fine. I could use a hand, though." The soldier slung his rifle over his shoulder and walked down the hall, moving quickly. Before he could turn the corner into the lab, Sebbins had injected him with a sedative in the upper shoulder. He had just enough time to see Andy, comprehend what was happened, and start to draw his weapon before he passed out. Andy took the end of the rifle in his hands and bent the end like it was rubber.
"I'm strong," said Andy.
"Very much so," said Dr. Sebbins. "You were engineered to be a human tank."
"Are we going to escape?"
"We're going to try."
"How strong am I?"
"I don't know. I couldn't tell you. You might be able to bench-press a Greyhound bus. Follow me."
Sebbins moved quickly and quietly down the hall, each step with the light touch and grace of a trained dancer. In contrast, Andy took earth-shaking, thundering steps behind her. Each time his foot fell, she could feel the vibration through the floor. Sebbins knew that Cormair had compensated for his mass by giving him a squat, powerful, unbreakable skeleton, but Sebbins worried about the boy's joints. How could his knees continue to hold up?
"Doc?"
"What, Andy?"
"I think we're going to have a problem."
"What's that?"
"I saw the escape door when they opened it earlier."
"And?"
"I'm not going to fit."
The door had been made to fit a normal human being. The tunnel behind it was not much larger than the door. Andy's body, wider and thicker than any human, would never make it to the end of the tunnel. Sebbins began cursing silently and searching her mind for an alternative escape route.
"The only other way is the front door, isn't it?" said Andy. "This lab is below ground. There are no fire escapes. We can't jump out any windows."
"Andy, how fast do you think you can run?"
"Doc, have you looked at me? 'Run' just ain't in my vocabulary anymore. 'Stagger' maybe. How about 'Galumph?' 'Trudge?' 'Lumber?'"
"Will you be able to lumber, then?"
"Not very fast. I was never very fast. I'm probably ridiculously slow now."
"Did I ever tell you I ran track in high school?"
"Nope."
"State Champ in the four hundred meters. Let's go through the front door."
"It's probably going to be difficult. If there are soldiers here, they will probably want to stop us. I don't think I can hide behind a tree."
"Walk while we talk. I'll tell you what I know about your abilities. You are exceptionally powerful. Your musculature has been artificially enhanced making you incredibly strong. Your muscles are so tightly corded that they can stop bullets Your bones are unbreakable. Your skin will still bleed, you will still feel every bit of pain that comes from skin damage, but you will heal at a slightly higher rate than anyone else."
"I like this so far."
"I have no idea how strong or powerful you will be. Dr. Cormair was anticipating you would be able to exert maybe twenty thousand PSI in a punch, maybe more. We won't know until we test you. To put it in perspective, a heavyweight prize fighter only punches in the high three thousand range."
"Whoa."
"Of course, Cormair was being conservative in his estimates. You may be able to produce much more than that. One thing you have to know, Andy: If you hit a person full-force, you will kill them. The human skeleton will not be able to take it. You will shatter their bones into rubble and rupture all of their internal organs. They will be dead before they hit the ground." Sebbins glanced over her shoulder to make sure Andy knew she was serious.
"Sounds like I'm a beast, then."
"You were built to be a tank, Andy. They are vehicles of destruction, and so are you now. You are no longer going to be capable of being lax in your actions. Everything you do is going to have consequence because of your strength. You can't even flip a pencil at someone without making sure you check yourself because if you don't, you could turn that pencil into a dart."
"I'll be careful," said Andy. His face was somber. He was looking at his cartoon fists, each inflated and unreal. One of his fists was almost the size of Sebbins' torso. His forearms were as big as her waist.
The elevator was unoccupied and a few Luna moths were still clinging to surfaces. "Holly's work?" Sebbins asked brushing a moth away from her lapel.
"Of course."
Getting into the elevator was a tight squeeze. Andy had to go in sideways and Sebbins squeezed into the corner by the buttons. The doors closed and the elevator began the upward journey.
"Is this going to hold me?"
"It's a freight elevator. Dr. Cormair requested that it be able to move ten tons."
"Will it hold me?"
"If it doesn't, we'll know how much you weigh."
The cables strained, but the elevator moved normally. "I'm less than ten tons, I guess." His breath began to get labored. "The pain is coming back, Doc."
"You need more serum. Cormair said it's the only thing that will help you get through the change. I have to keep you injected with massive quantities of serum."
"So do it," Andy's fists suddenly tightened into boulders. "I'm starting to not feel my arms or legs."
The door opened and they were suddenly face-to-face with several soldiers. Andy shoved Sebbins behind him and blocked her body with his own. No one moved. Sebbins reached into her pocket and slowly withdrew another heroic dose of serum. She reached up and pressed the end into Andy's neck and injected it. "Don't punch them, but you can still throw them, as long as you're careful."
A slow smile spread across Andy's broad chin. "Done."
The soldiers reached for their guns, but the one nearest to the door was lifted off the ground like a child's toy and thrown into the rest sidelong toppling them like bowling pins. Andy thundered out of the elevator. He grabbed a handgun from the soldier on top, ripping it away from him and dwarfing the pistol in his massive hand. He squeezed and opened his hand, dropping a lump of useless metal onto the ground.
Dr. Sebbins rushed for the front door. "Andy! Let's go!" She flung open the front door and froze in her tracks.
An armored personnel carrier and a large, off-road truck with a mounted machine gun in the back were parked on the lawn. A few dozen soldiers, holding various rifles and assault guns were milling around the vehicles. A helicopter buzzed overhead, sweeping a painfully bright searchlight across the ground. Two soldiers, each leading a barking and excited Belgian Malinois at the end of a leash, were making a sweep down the road leading to the front door of the Home. From the sounds in the distance, there were more vehicles and soldiers surrounding the Home.
Andy looked at the fiasco over Dr. Sebbins' shoulder. "I guess this wasn't supposed to be that easy."
"Let's go back."
"No," said Andy, his blue surgical gown kilt flapping in the wind. "Let's test out these bulletproof muscles of mine. Just get behind me, Doc. Hit me with another spray of s
erum and keep low. I have a feeling this will be ugly."
John snuck out of the tunnel when he was sure the helicopter wasn't overhead. He hunched in the darkness by the trunk of a rotting oak, staring down at the Home. From his vantage point he could count at least fifty soldiers and four vehicles; there were probably more that he couldn't see, more crawling through the darkness, looking for them. Every soldier was armed of course, and three of the vehicles had visible guns.
It was a deathtrap. They would not be able to rescue Andy. John couldn't see how it would even be possible, yet something in his brain was thinking independently of his common sense. Something in his mind was putting angles together, highlighting points of weakness and places where he could get through them undetected. His mind was calculating probabilities and looking for things that could be used as weapons. He noticed a good, sharp stick, straight and thick, with a nice heft. The programming in his brain told him that stick would make a weapon if he had no other choices. He could calculate in his head exactly how long he would have to make a break for the Home from the relative safety of the forest tree line. He could look at the soldiers posted around the perimeter and knew how fast they would react, what angle they would have to shoot from, and he could mentally project the telemetry of the bullets, so he would know how to jump, turn his body, and avoid them all together. These were calculations that no human should be able to make, yet his mind was putting it together as fast as his eyes could take it in. Was he always able to do this? It didn't feel like it was a new experience. His mind wasn't rebelling against the information. He wasn't shrieking in pain. Instead, it felt like he was actually living for the first time in his life, tingling threads of excitement crackled along his brainstem as this information brimmed in his skull.
A cracking stick behind him brought him out of his trance. In the dim light of the forest, John could see Sarah's golden hair poking out of the tunnel.
"I just gave Posey another sedative. She was starting to moan in her sleep."
"How many more do we have left?"
"Only two."
"Well, let's hope it holds out long enough."
The Seven Page 8
