Catalyst: A Red Dog Thriller (The Altered Book 1)

by Blou Bryant

  Sandra patted him on the back, and he was proud that he didn’t flinch, at least not much. “That’s better,” she said, “Honesty gets easier with practice. To answer the question, we’re a group of people with stuff in common, who’ve chosen to be together because it’s better than the alternative.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Being alone,” she said with brutal honesty. “We’re people who don’t want to be normal. Most of us are altered in one way or another.”

  “Altered?”

  “Tats. Piercings. Drugs, you name it, we’ve tried it. The world wasn’t made for us, so we’re remaking ourselves for the world. We wouldn’t want to be normal and couldn’t be even if we tried. Here, we feel like we belong. We don’t want to waste our lives rotting away, staring at TV or computer screens while taking government charity, so we find ways to make money. Together, we get by as best we can.”

  Wyatt had a lot of questions he wanted to ask, about the club, the business of helping people escape the law, but decided it was time to get back to what mattered most, the Doc. This was the guy who could help him understand what was happening and Wyatt had to find out if he could trust him. “The Doc seems different.”

  “He’s different all right, even by our standards. He’s the smartest guy I’ve ever met; he may be the smartest guy in the city.”

  “What’s he do for your… group?”

  “We’re the Red Dogs, not a ‘group.’ Like all of us, he does a bit of this and a bit of that, whatever it takes to get by. Most of us can’t afford a doctor, so he takes care of us. He also brings in money from people who don’t want to go to regular doctors for one reason or another,” she said.

  “Criminals?”

  “Don’t judge, not all criminals have committed crimes.”

  Wyatt grimaced, that was clearly true, he’d learned that today. “But, he doesn’t have a license. What happened?”

  Sandra stared at him for a few seconds, evaluating if she could or should share. Eventually, she shrugged her shoulders, “It’s not a secret, you could Google it. He was helping people end their lives, he was killing them.”

  “So, that’s not illegal,” said Wyatt, assisted suicide wasn’t murder.

  “No, it’s not usually, but he wasn’t following guidelines on who can kill themselves and even worse, to the public at least, he kept the bodies alive for weeks or months afterward, to harvest organ’s and sell them to the highest bidders, that is.”

  “Oh, ugh.”

  “When they caught him,” she said, “he had a whole lab full of bodies. He called them his kids, and many of them had been altered. He was testing new drugs and gene therapies on them while waiting for all their organs to sell.”

  “Altered?” asked Wyatt.

  “Some like tats and drugs. Some go for wholesale change. Implants, that sorta thing.”

  “You mean like the nerds with brain implants?” asked Wyatt. There was a teacher at school with wires that came out of the back of his head. Or there had been until an infection resulted in his permanent institutionalization.

  “That’s one type of Altered. They’re Tech-Altered. He did some of that with his ‘kids’, as he called them, but mostly he focused on Bio-Altered’s. He worked on jump-starting inactive genes or creating new ones. The way Esaf figured, why use tech implants when our own DNA already has the instructions and can do it better?”

  “You mean genetic engineering. Big deal, that’s common enough now.” That wasn’t special, there were always one or two kids at competitions who had crazy speed or strength. They were freaks, though, there was always a wrongness to them, their special skills balanced by something else that was broken.

  “No, this isn’t your run of the mill genetic engineering. Lots of parents do that today with their kids, making people stronger, faster or smarter, that’s common,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “It’s crappy too as it usually has ugly side effects,” she said, tapping Wyatt on the knee, all the while keeping her eyes on the Doctor.

  “I mean real mods, not just for kids, but for adults too, changing skin or eye color at will. Imagine, if you could see in the dark or add an extra limb? How about having the ability to smell as well as a dog or shoot electricity? It’s all in the DNA. No need to strap on tech, we just need to activate the tech God gave us.”

  “Esaf did that?”

  “He was one of the best. He still is. Two of his ‘kids’ had tentacles growing out of their chests, I’ve seen the pictures online. It’s freaky,” she said with clear awe.

  Wyatt wasn’t as thrilled. He’d had seen mice growing human ears on their back and had been disgusted at the pictures. The thought of a tentacle on his chest made his stomach turn. “How’s he not in jail?” he asked.

  Sandra leaned in, “I told you he was smart, it was all technically legal. He had everyone sign long consent forms. Cops suspected he didn’t tell people what he was going to do with them after death, the forms were longer than iTunes agreements, nobody read them.”

  She leaned in, close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. “Still… dead people can’t testify, so the prosecutor dropped the charges. In the end, the Medical Association found a way to kick him out anyway. The publicity was just too awful. It was over ten years ago, you probably didn’t see it on TV, but I hear it was a big thing.”

  “That’s gross,” said Wyatt, as he imagined a room full of bodies on life support systems, Esaf wandering around in his strange way, poking, prodding and playing with the corpses as his own little medical toys.

  “Doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Those organs saved a lot of lives and the tests he did… well, I’d rather he tested on them than me. The bodies weren’t going anywhere and nobody got hurt.” Sandra put up a finger to him and asked him to wait a moment, with the far off look of someone taking a call.

  Two large sections of the wall lit up with a display that revealed a blond man in a room of computer machinery. “Hi Wyatt,” he said, although Wyatt was sure he’d never seen him before. He would have remembered; this was the best-looking guy he’d ever seen.

  The guy on the monitor addressed Esaf and Sandra, “Ms. Beaker and Mr. Rutbridge, my name is Joe. You need to leave the compound. The police are on their way.”

  Wyatt stared at the screen. This was not at all what he expected of Joe, he was shocked to see him.

  Sandra tapped on her ear twice. “Call Vasca.” She paused and then said, “We’ve been hacked.”

  Joe smiled, “I’ve already told him. He’s on his way back from the club.”

  Sandra listened for a moment to her earpiece. “Sure, got it.” She said, loudly, “Esaf, we need to clear out, we have incoming.”

  Esaf stood up, angry at the interruption. “I’m busy and not done. We’re secure down here.”

  The image of Joe said, “Mr. Rutbridge, they know about your lab, you aren’t safe.”

  Esaf hadn’t seem surprised at a video intrusion by a man he’d never met, but this got his attention. “How did you get this information?”

  “You hack people, I hack systems. They sent orders on the police system. Encrypted, but that doesn’t matter to me. I anticipate the arrival of the SWAT team in twenty-three minutes. They’ll use the front entrance; you can get out through the underground hallway.”

  Esaf looked stunned. “How do you know? The people who built it were brought in from somewhere else.”

  “Croatians use email too,” replied Joe.

  “Impressive,” said Esaf, his tone clinical. He was already disconnecting Hannah from the equipment.

  Sandra joined the discussion, “Vasca agreed, it’s time to leave. He’ll be here in five minutes; you need to decide what to do with these two.”

  Wyatt interrupted, “There isn’t any decision to make, you’ll take us out of Detroit, we’re together in this now.” He was pleased to see Joe nod, it was the barest of motions, but enough to confirm his suspicions.

  Chapter 14

  Esaf ignor
ed the comment and continued to unhook Hannah from the machinery he’d used to test her. It wasn’t until Wyatt walked across the room and stood over him that he bothered to respond. Without glancing at him, Esaf said, “Why would I do that?”

  Wyatt made sure to stand close enough to make the other man uncomfortable, and asked, “You’ve not found the virus in her have you?”

  The older man shook his head and said, “We’ve found traces but it isn’t active and what I’ve seen in her isn’t the blank V32 you described, it’s already encoded with DNA. We have no use for either of you.”

  “That’s right, she isn’t infected with the virus. I am,” Wyatt said.

  Esaf grunted, finishing unhooking the equipment, picked up a bag and started putting files in it, “Look at you, you’re limping, black and blue and you’re still bleeding. You’re not infected.”

  Wyatt got in front of him and held up his hand, “It’s bleeding because I smashed the vial containing the virus with it. As for Hannah, I healed her this morning. You saw how quick she recovered, Doc, you have to know that’s not natural. The virus is encoded with DNA because I activated it.”

  Esaf ignored him and continued to pack items, getting ready to leave. Wyatt blocked him as he attempted to open a drawer, and said, “Come on Doc, it’s what you’ve been searching for. A way to transform without side-effects. It’s in my blood and only my blood. I’m the vial now, I’m your only source.”

  The door ground open and Vasca entered at a run, “Doc, let’s get out of here before the police arrive.” He pointed at Wyatt and Hannah and asked, “Do you have results, what do you want to do with these two?”

  Sandra followed him, a gun in her hand, no smile on her face now.

  Vasca noticed the face on the screens on the wall and pointed at the monitor. “Who is this?”

  “My name is Joe,” said Joe.

  “You’re the guy from the phone?” asked Vasca.

  “I am, I hacked into here to tell them to get ready.”

  The bald man stared at the screen and said, “I don’t trust you and don’t know why you warned me,” he said. “And now I show up to find you’ve hacked us? How about you tell me why you’ve put yourself in the middle of our business?”

  Wyatt said, “He’s with me, well, sorta with me.”

  “With you? We can discuss that later if there is a later,” he said.

  Joe said, “You need to bring them with you, help them escape, that’s why I warned you, you can come to me, I have a lab at the Bluegrass Army Depot, you can use that.” Vasca shook his head at that option and otherwise ignored him.

  Esaf had finished packing and now carried a bag on his shoulder. He looked at his shoes. “The girl is no use. The boy claims he’s infected, that he healed her. If he actually healed the girl like he says he did, it’s possible that he could heal Teri.” He paused, briefly uncertain and then said, “We should take them.”

  Vasca looked to everyone in the room, thought for a moment before launching into action. “If there’s even a possibility it can help Teri, we need to take it. Sandra, get Rocky down here, we need another driver and some muscle.” Sandra left the room and Vasca turned to one of the armed men behind him, “Frankie, get Teri and put her in Esaf’s van, bring them around to the safe house.” The man left at a run.

  Sandra returned with a square block of a man, whose face had the appearance of having taken one too many punches. “Rocky,” Sandra said. “You got the girl, I’ve got the boy, we’re taking them for a ride.” The man smiled, revealing broken and missing teeth, tossed her a helmet, and handed the other to Hannah.

  “Joe,” Vasca said to the screen. “I need to see outside the compound. Give me control of my surveillance and computer systems.”

  Joe said, “Will you bring Wyatt to me?”

  Vasca said, “Right, a computer screen is trying to negotiate with me? Don’t bother. Give me access back to my system or I’ll shoot him.” Vasca put a hand out and Sandra gave him her gun, which he pointed at Wyatt. “You have three seconds.”

  Joe didn’t wait even one second. His image shrunk to half of one screen, replaced with images of the gate, the parking area and the grounds outside the two buildings that Wyatt had seen when they’d arrived. “It’s yours now. I’ll contact you with directions to my facility when you’re on the road.”

  Vasca directed his system, “Activate voice.”

  It responded, “Voice active.”

  He said, “Red Dogs, this is Vasca. We’re about to be breached by PD. You know the drill. Open all doors inside, move the kids to the housing area, open the gates, put your weapons on the ground, and don’t resist. Everything’s being recorded, you’re safe if you don’t do anything dumb. If you get questions about two kids being walked through earlier today, keep your mouths shut. OK everybody, get to it.”

  Wyatt only had moments to see the compound burst into action on the two monitors. Where there hadn’t been anyone, people suddenly appeared, running back and forth. The big gates of the compound opened and a police van sped in followed by several cruisers. He was yanked by Sandra out of his reverie. “Let’s go!” she shouted at him and shoved the helmet into his hands. He turned and sprinted after Rocky and Hannah who had already disappeared down the hidden hallway at a full run.

  As he followed them down the roughly cut, curving hallway, he resolved to stop over-thinking what was next, stop over-planning and perhaps even stop worrying. As he stretched his legs out in a run, his brain calmed. He was disappointed when, less than a minute later, they came to a thin ladder leading upwards. Hannah and Rocky waited at the top in a musty kitchen, clearly abandoned as evidenced by the gathered dust on every surface.

  Sandra joined them moments later. “Helmets on, everybody. Rocky, I’ll lead, follow me, we will go through the old steel plant, then up Hemingway to the I75. We’ll keep an open three-way line with Vasca, he’ll come behind, we’ll figure out where we’re meeting up later.”

  “Got it,” said Rocky, “But if I hear anyone touches Teri, I’m kicking the girl off the back and coming back for them.” He smiled at Hannah, “No offense.” The lack of teeth, scars on his face and the strange twist to his nose made this somewhat less than comforting.

  Hannah looked exhausted, but still had a smile on her face. “Skip the tossing me off the back part, and I’ll not take any offense.” She stepped up and gave Wyatt a quick kiss, whispering in his ear, “If what you said earlier is true, be careful, and trust no one.” She poked him in the side, “Understand?”

  Wyatt didn’t need reminding, he fully understood his situation. Everybody wanted something from him, and for most of them, what he wanted was irrelevant. He remembered Esaf and his room of living corpses and nodded. “It is and I won’t,” he replied. He hesitated and asked, “Why’d you kiss me?”

  Hannah looked at Sandra with a wide grin. “I won’t let Sandra have all the fun, us girls are competitive, aren’t we?”

  Sandra put out her fist and Hannah gave it a bump. “Yes we are,” she said, turned and walked to the front door. She glanced left and right, checking for police, and finding none, she said, “The bikes are here. Let’s roll.”

  As he left and ran to the bike, Wyatt didn’t see a soul in any direction, the house across the road a burnt-out shell and the neighbor’s houses obscured by tall shrubs. A perfect escape route, he thought.

  They climbed on the bikes and roared off down the street, taking a quick turn on a road that raced past an abandoned industrial site. Halfway down the block, they turned off the road and raced over the concrete slab that was all that was left of a factory or plant.

  The area was one of the Abandoned Zones, areas that the government and country had collectively given up on in a massive exercise over a decade before, to concentrate people and work in ‘useful’ areas. The plan had been to remove all buildings and roads, and let the areas return to nature, but when funds dried up, they were simply left to rot.

  On the other side of t
he site, they came to a small side road which was bumpy no matter how many times Sandra swerved to avoid potholes and occasional small trees that were growing up in broken areas. Where humans had given up, nature had taken over again.

  Sandra found an on-ramp to the highway, and the group exited Detroit twenty minutes later without incident. Wyatt heard Sandra talking occasionally, likely keeping in touch with Vasca and with Rocky, who was close behind them.

  The time on the back of the bike was good for him and gave him a chance to consider the last day and what he needed. Was the virus in him, was it still in him? He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to see if he could feel it coursing through his blood. He couldn’t, he needed the Dogs or Joe to help him understand what was happening inside him and to protect him from Jessica. None of this made him happy, he wanted nothing more than to be alone, and to be able to fix this, alone. Life wasn’t a team sport.

  Pushing the thoughts away, Wyatt tightened his grip on Sandra and watched the highway and scenery as they weaved around slower cars and trucks. Tall power transmission towers flew by, surrounded by fields of corn, hay, and wheat. Lake Erie was occasionally visible over a hill, and bright blue water merged with blue sky in the distance. Mansions dotted the landscape, most built on waterfront years before and now stranded on the edge of a hundred-yard beach as global warming dried up the once great lake.

  It was twenty minutes later when they stopped at a Taco Bell a few minutes outside of Toledo, Ohio for food. Wyatt considered escape, he could outrun any Red Dog that tried to catch him, and he knew that he’d have no problem going places that the motorcycles couldn’t. Despite this, he decided to stay with the group and see where the whole adventure went. With no phone, no money and no plan, they were his best bet, at least for the moment.

  Rocky brought a smorgasbord of food to the table, easily enough for twice their number. Wyatt quietly ate while sipping on a large ice-water, and listened to the three of them chat. He didn’t understand how they were so animated and excited. It wasn’t until he’d finished a third taco that Esaf arrived and joined them at the table. Vasca followed with a young girl holding onto one of his fingers. They walked slowly and Wyatt noticed the child was tentative in each step. The girl’s upper lip curled upwards, connecting with her nose, and one of her eyes was half closed. Wyatt looked away quickly.