Michael was right, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the pregnant women as we hurried through the room. They looked to be in their teens and early twenties. Good healthy specimens. What were they doing down here? What kind of babies were they carrying?
Silently, they watched us, and I finally saw the leather straps on their legs. The women were secured to their beds, tied down, bound. They couldn’t get up and leave.
“We’ll get help for them,” Kit whispered at my side. “Let’s go, Frannie.”
“We’ll bring help. I promise,” I told the women. There was no way we could bring them with us now.
Michael was pulling me forward, toward another steel door in the rear. “We’ll come back for you,” I promised a pregnant woman who couldn’t have been more than eighteen.
“I think I’m going into labor,” she said fearfully.
Human experiments.
Chapter 115
MOST HUMANS are like stones along the ground, useless to themselves and others, waiting for the next sixty seconds to reveal itself,” Gillian said in soft, confident tones. “Fortunately, that depressing description doesn’t fit any of us. Welcome to all of you. This small, very select group is incredibly important to mankind. We are ushering in a new era today. I promise you that, and I shall deliver on the promise.”
Gillian and Dr. Anthony Peyser stared out at the audience from a long work table positioned at the front of the conference room.
Dr. Peyser spoke without rising from his chair. “It’s just eight o’clock in the morning, and everything is proceeding on schedule. Everything is going just about perfectly, I would have to say. Clearly, what we have assembled here are the shining stars of genetic engineering.
“As you can see, news of my departure from our planet is a bit premature. As you can also see from my ‘tremble,’ I had a stroke. I’m healthy now. Actually, I’ve found a way to add ten, maybe even a dozen years to my miserable life span. More on that later in the proceedings. Believe me, it’s a mere footnote compared to what else we have in store for you this morning.”
There were nods and faint smiles from the seventeen men and women who had been invited to the inspections and now… the most important auction of all time.
An auction.
Each of the seventeen represented a major biotech company, or, in some cases, a country. One wealthy individual had come prepared to finance a major new corporation, based on the morning’s results. These “stars of genetic engineering” seemed reluctant to look into each other’s eyes. They were there to bid competitively on the most spectacular scientific discoveries in history and appeared afraid or ashamed to reveal their common lust. Truman Capote had once called J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn “killer fruit.” If so, these were “killer nerds.”
Dr. Peyser continued to address the group. “You’ve all read the dossiers and previewed the lots. Each experiment, each miraculous child is unique and valuable beyond measure. All the documents and data relating to the ‘provenance of the lots’ will be provided to the actual buyers. We have established a reserve or minimum figure at which we will sell each lot. This is also known as an ‘upset price,’ probably because we will be upset if we have to sell at it. Anyway—if there are no further questions, we’ll start the bidding process now.”
Gillian rose from her seat. She offered a polite smile, then placed a sheaf of papers before her on the table. She adjusted the wire-rimmed glasses that helped give her the look of a successful woman CEO. The world was changing, after all. Oh yes, the world was changing faster than any of these self-important executives could ever guess.
She finally announced, “The auction is officially begun. From this moment, no one else will be allowed to enter the bidding. There will be no telephone bids, no sealed bids. The winner shall be indicated by the simple fall of the gavel.”
One of the competitors, a slope-shouldered, balding man in a dark pinstriped suit, leaned forward. He had a sharp, upturned nose and a pugnacious lower lip. He was from New Jersey, a wealthy suburb near AT&T headquarters. “Can we take possession of the lots right away?” he asked. “And the scientific papers?”
“Yes, of course you can. Do you wish to open the bidding, Dr. Warner?”
“What about the increments?” came another voice, an impressive-looking man with a sandy-brown Dutch boy haircut. “What are the bid increments?”
“The bids, Dr. Muller, shall be in multiples of one hundred million dollars,” Gillian announced.
There was a flurry of discussion, mild protests, fear that one competitor or another might have just gained some advantage.
“Gentlemen, ladies.” Gillian banged her gavel once. “These proceedings will be civilized.”
The bidders settled down. They were well-mannered, polite. Good citizens, one and all.
Gillian ran her eyes down the list of lots and back up to the spellbound audience again. The room remained silent, the competitors poised as if at an unseen starting gate. She paused briefly, as if she were considering something that she’d forgotten to tell them.
Actually, she was playing with their heads, toying with their overinflated egos. She thought that this must be how Prometheus felt right after he had stolen fire from the gods.
The atmosphere in the conference room was charged with tension, excitement, even fear. It was possible that man was about to leap forward, rather than crawl, as he always had in the past.
Gillian finally spoke again. “The reserve is eight hundred million dollars cash on Item One, AGE243, also known as ‘Peter.’ Peter is four years of age. He has very high intelligence. He’s in excellent health. He can fly.”
“Do I hear eight hundred million?”
A stentorian voice rose in the back, one of the German bidders. “One billion dollars for AGE243, little Peter, and his precious scientific papers.”
Chapter 116
MATTHEW WAS ALIVE, and he looked very well under the extreme circumstances he’d suffered during the past few days.
I had never seen Max’s younger brother before, but there was no mistaking who the boy was. He had the same blond hair as Max, though he was broader around the chest and shoulders. He had white wings with silver and blue markings. This was definitely Max’s brother, and he was impressive in his own way.
“I’m Matthew,” he said. His smile was a lot like Max’s. We had entered another room, where the children were being held. The only way in was through the “maternity ward.” The other doors were locked up tight.
“You must be Frannie and Kit. And look who else? Adam’s back from the dead.”
Gillian’s little boy shook his head sadly. “They call me Michael now.”
“Yeah, well screw Them. Right guys? Right, Adam?”
Oz, Icarus, and the twins were being kept in the smallish room. They loudly cheered and whooped. “Screw Them!”
“We’re moving out of here.” Kit interrupted the celebration. He had definitely taken charge. “We have to go right now, kids.”
There was no argument from any of us. We followed little Michael, scurrying down a couple of long underground tunnels. He seemed to know his way, and he certainly was smart as a whip. We climbed a narrow stairway leading to a heavy double door. I prayed this was a way out.
Kit pushed the door and it opened. A deafening alarm sounded over our heads. The good news—we were outside the house.
“Go! Go! Go!” I pushed and shouted behind the kids. “Scatter. Get away from the house.”
“Keep going!” Kit urged. “Don’t stare. Don’t look around. Go!”
“Going, going, gone!” Icarus called back.
“The great escape!” Oz yelled.
The kids thought this was a big adventure, and I guess that was a good thing. We were on the run again and headed toward the safety of the woods. But something was going on at the house.
We had to cross a large, graveled parking area. There were a dozen vehicles waiting in the lot. Town Cars, Range Rovers, Jeeps, minivan
s. Drivers were posted beside several of the cars. I’m sure they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Who could?
Five kids with wings! Two deranged-looking adult chaperones. Everybody running!
Suddenly, I saw others emerging from the house. I recognized some doctors from Boulder, but there were men and women I didn’t know. They all wore business attire. They looked like business people. What business did they have here?
They were leaving the house in an awful hurry. Alarms were sounding loudly everywhere. Someone on the porch saw us and pointed. Then they all looked our way.
Guards began to rush out from a couple of doors. They were heavily armed. They had already spotted us. I gauged that we were too far from the woods to get away.
“Fly!” I yelled at the kids. “Fly away right now!”
And that’s exactly what Oz, Ic, Peter and Wendy, and Matthew did. It was really something to see. The flock took off as if they’d been practicing together for years. Even Matthew fit right in.
“That’s it—fly! Get away!” I kept shouting.
“Up and away!” Kit was at my side, calling to the kids, too. “Get to the woods! Hurry!”
I saw Gillian and my heart froze. She was in a blue suit and she was running from the house. What kind of meeting had we interrupted? She screamed at the guards to shoot. What are friends for?
She was heading right toward me, shrieking her head off, when I suddenly took off and went straight for her. I zoned in on her. We were on a collision course.
That confused her for a couple of seconds. I could see it on her face. Maybe she wasn’t so smart, after all.
“Fly away!” I kept yelling encouragement to the kids. “Get out of here. Go, go. The woods!”
I looked at Gillian. She was still coming for me, even picking up speed.
Collision course.
All right, then. You’ll be sorry, lady. You’ll regret this.
I hit her head-on.
I tackled that awful bitch the same way I used to do with my brothers, about fifteen years ago when we played no-helmet, tackle football on the family farm in Wisconsin. I drove my shoulder into her pillow-soft stomach, no holding back. It was shades of Paul Hornung, Jimmy Taylor, Ray Nitschke, and the world champion Green Bay Packers. I used to worship the Packers as a little kid, as a cheesehead up in Wisconsin.
Gillian groaned and actually said, “Ooff!” It was an unbelievable, indescribable pleasure to give her some physical pain. I hoped I’d broken a few of her bones. I gave Gillian an extra kick while she was down, and I felt really good about that, too.
Then ohmygoodGod, I saw Max flying over the roof and chimney of the house.
Chapter 117
ABALDING, RUGGED-LOOKING MAN named Eddy Friedfeld was piloting the KCNC Live News 4 chopper. He was in charge, and he was used to making fast, reasonably smart decisions. He usually could think over the hammering noise of the Bell Jet Ranger’s blades.
Suddenly it wasn’t possible for him to think in straight lines, though. Not now. Not anymore. His mind had been short-circuited.
He grabbed the cyclic central control that steered the chopper. He held on tight as he could. He glanced down at his primary instruments: airspeed indicator, vertical velocity indicator, compass control, radio. All the controls looked okay. There was nothing wrong inside the cockpit.
He was doing about 105 mph. Everything normal, right?
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! There was nothing even close to normal about what was happening to him this morning.
He had spotted the girl at about a hundred and fifty yards off the chopper’s right side. He almost had a coronary, almost lost his cookies in the cockpit.
He blinked his eyes shut and open a few times. She was still there.
The little girl was flying!
It wasn’t possible! But there she was!
She had the most beautiful white and silver-blue wings.
It sure looked like she had wings!
And she sure as shit looked as if she were flying under her own power. As if she were the biggest, proudest hawk or American eagle he had ever seen.
“Randi?” he whispered into his mike.
His twenty-two-year-old camerawoman Randi Wittenauer’s voice was in his headset: “Are you seeing what I think I see? Please tell me I’m hallucinating, Eddy.”
“We’re both hallucinating, pal. That must be the explanation. Has to be.”
The “UFO,” whatever was out there, was at about five hundred feet now and closing on the helicopter fast.
Eddy Friedfeld was getting a prickle up and down his neck. His shoulders were tensed so tight they hurt. Like just before combat. Like Desert Storm. Jesus! She was flying right at him.
He touched the collective gently, slightly changed the angle of pitch. The thing he loved about flying helicopters was that it was a constant test of dexterity and sensory perception. That had never been any truer than right now.
He keyed the intercom. “Randi, she’s coming at us at three o’clock. I’m gonna rudder pedal around so you can get a better look.” Of course, he knew Randi was already shooting film. If this was real, she was getting it for the morning news.
So he slammed the cyclic hard right and the copter slid thirty degrees of bank. He slowed the Jet Ranger back around so he could see the UFO again himself. There she was. She was pulling ahead of him now. Jesus, she was a pretty little girl. With wings. Beautiful goddamn wings.
This had to be a prank. But what the hell? Who could pull this son of a bitch off?
“We’re rolling tape! Lots of tape!” Randi let him know. “I’m getting all of it, every amazing flap of her mind-blowing wings. Feeding it to home base. This should wake everybody up this morning! Wake Denver the hell up! Isn’t she beautiful?”
Yes, she certainly was beautiful. She was a mindblower.
Friedfeld was literally afraid to blink his eyes. The little bird-girl with the golden-yellow hair did a few pretty amazing turns and rolls.
She almost looked as if she were writing in the air. Was she writing? Was it some kind of message? What message, though?
He thumbed the toggle that patched him into production at the studio. “Shadow Nine to studio. You getting this? Come back to me right now, Stephanie. Do you see this amazing shit? Or am I dead and on my way to heaven. Am I looking at an angel?”
He heard a voice in his earphones. “What is this, Eddy? Is this a joke? What the hell are these pictures you’re sending us?” Stephanie Apt’s voice crackled loudly in his headset. Steph was usually a realist, a cynical, no-nonsense newswoman. Friedfeld figured her mind was already blown to smithereens. Join the party. His mind certainly was gone.
“You’re lookin’ at exactly what I’m lookin’ at,” he said. “Get the state troopers and EMS, and anybody else you can think of…. We’re maybe three miles north of the Hoover Road cutoff. I repeat—what you see is what we see. She’s heading due north now. We’re following her lead! She is definitely flying!”
“I make her out to be eleven or twelve years of age. Looks like a regular Denver or Boulder or Pueblo grade-schooler—but with wings. And she is flying.
“On the soul of my dear deceased grandmother, this is really happening. The girl has beautiful white and silver-blue wings. Believe me. She’s leading us somewhere, and frankly, I’d follow her anywhere. This is a News Four Special Report. And this is history. A girl is flying!”
Chapter 118
MAX BELIEVED in the thinking-feeling place in her heart that she was about to crash and burn and die, that she had to die soon. Too bad, but it was her assigned fate in life. It was the way the universe wanted it. She had known it since the day she escaped. Matthew had probably known it, too.
The keepers couldn’t allow her to live. She was a witness to everything they had done, all of the terrible murders and other crimes. She was Tinkerbell, “Stinky Tinky.” Just another lab specimen. They were the stinky ones, though. She knew all of their dirty little secrets.
&
nbsp; At least she had seen what the real world was like—some nasty, ugly things, but so much that was unbelievably beautiful, too. The outside world was way beyond her ability to imagine it at the School. It was a hundred times better than in books, or on TV, or even in the movies.
So here goes nothing! Or here goes everything! Same thing, right?
She was getting closer and closer to the big house, Gillian’s place. She saw lots of people way down there, running around like tiny stick figures.
Max lowered her head and dived toward the men with guns. She realized she had no choice in the matter. This was her fate. They were trying to shoot at Oz and Icarus, who were flying away so beautifully and bravely. The other kids were flying to safety. God bless them.
Some of the guards were threatening Frannie near the main house. Frannie seemed to be doing okay by herself. She was kicking a little butt. So was Kit.
Then somebody shot Kit. He was hit. Kit fell to the ground and Max remembered how horrible it was to be struck by a bullet. She felt it, experienced Kit’s pain. The wound was in his neck, and he wasn’t moving, wasn’t saying anything. Max felt as if she’d been shot again herself.
“Kit!” she screamed from the sky. “Kit, get up. Please get up.”
She power-dived at one of the gunmen. Forty miles an hour—at least that. She hit him hard with the sweep of one wing. He went down and she was glad. Not glad that she’d hurt the man, but that she’d stopped him from hurting anyone else. She still couldn’t conceive of hurting somebody without a good reason. It wasn’t in her nature. She wasn’t like “them,” the keepers, maybe the whole human race.
Max was suddenly aware of more choppers following her, arriving from the east. More “good guys.” There were three of them now approaching the house at high speeds.
They shuddered and thundered, whipping up the air terribly, rippling the leaves and branches of trees, and even the tall grass. At first there had only been one news helicopter, but then the others had seen the news and joined in pursuit. The helicopters she had brought, the “good guys,” were filming everything. The names were brightly emblazoned on their sides. KCNC-News 4. KDVR-News 31 Fox. KMGH-News 7. KTVJ-News 20.
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