by Mina Carter
“That was cruel,” Wilson said beside her. “Funny as fuck, but cruel.”
She shrugged. “They’ve got to learn. Better they learn from me than a rabid wolf who really will rip their heads off and shit down their necks.”
She turned her head, and shot a glance at the shorter soldier as Blevins and his pale colleague pushed the unconscious Foster toward the labs. She steeled herself not to look, even though she wanted to. She’d done her part. What happened to him now was none of her business.
“You get that back to the motor pool,” she ordered, straightening her uniform and grimacing. Grubby and bloodstained. Perfect. She’d piss the boss off just by being there. He hated anyone not in perfect uniform. “Then hit the racks, and I’ll go and deal with Fitzgerald.”
A de-brief was in full swing by the time Toni slipped through the door and took a seat at the back. The room was the same as many the world over—drab walls and ceiling, populated by rows of plastic chairs and battered tables. Floor and baseboards were wipeable, but bore the scars and scuff marks of many sets of boots. If rooms could talk, she had no doubt that this one would tell many tales.
Today, though, it was just half full. Men sat scattered among the tables, new faces mixed in with the ones she was expecting. She knew most of the squad commanders on base but some were missing, replaced by corporals who looked ill at ease to be shoved into the limelight of Fitzgerald’s ire. She didn’t blame them. If she had a choice she wouldn’t be here either.
She slid a glance around the room. They were all injured—either that or field dressings over combats had just become the new fashion and no one had seen fit to tell her. The scent of blood and death hung in the room so thick she wanted to roll in it like a cat in catnip.
“You mean to tell me that one squad did all this? Took you all out?”
The demand came from the front of the room. The Colonel sat slouched in his chair like some kind of sulky teenager as he click-click-clicked his pen against the table. The flush on his skin a good indicator of his mood. From the color, red deepening into purple, an explosion of epic proportions wasn’t far off. God, she hoped so—one less asshole in the world to deal with—but not until he’d given her the cure he’d promised.
“W-well, not all of us,” a soldier near the front of the room stammered, holding a field book and trying to flip the pages with his left hand in an awkward motion.
His right arm was bandaged up close to his body, the white dressing already starting to darken with blood. Toni’s mood took a nose dive. Half these men should be in the infirmary, not forced in here to perform like monkeys for a jumped-up fucktard like Fitzgerald.
“We’ve recovered all personal weaponry, and the two stolen vehicles. Both are in the motor pool for repair now. The g…” The man paused for a second, his dry swallow like the rasp of sandpaper in the silent room, before he forged on at breakneck speed. It was as if he were trying to get the words out before he was interrupted or his nerve failed him. “The gunships are a total loss and we lost seventy percent of the personnel we sent out. Of the remainder, we have twenty men in critical condition. Infirmary isn’t sure that they’ll survive the night and most of the rest are walking wounded.”
All eyes turned to Fitzgerald. He nodded, his expression thoughtful as the speed of the pen slowed. Toni held her breath. Those were some huge losses and casualties. Perhaps this would be the catalyst to kick Fitz’s humanity into gear. Surely no man could be that hardhearted? Could be unmoved when told so many of his men had lost their lives?
“So, I send the cream of our forces out…for what? So you can get your asses kicked by a bunch of fucking animals?
Hope died a swift death.
The Colonel surged to his feet, thickset body straining the buttons on his pressed and clean uniform. No blood and sweat for him. She doubted he’d even had so much as a fucking paper cut, sitting in his pretty office or armored car while good men and women went to their deaths.
“Got your fucking asses kicked good and proper. Loss of equipment… Do you idiots have any idea how much it costs to train you? Feed you? And for fucking what? So you can make a goddamn fool of me when you get out in the field?” he ranted, his voice rising and skin flushing deeper with each sentence. “I sent you out to put eight dogs down, now you tell me that fucking Fido and his pals handed it to you?”
He shook his head, pausing his tirade to run his hands through his short hair. The room still, the soldiers caught like rabbits in a headlight. No one dared move, or breathe, in case they brought down the Colonel’s ire on themselves. Toni didn’t blame them. Half looked dead on their feet, the other half bled into heavy dressings. This wasn’t fair on them in any way, shape or form.
Fitzgerald dropped his hands. “At least tell me some of the bodies can be used for the RA program.”
The sergeant who’d given the loss report flinched, looking away and refusing to meet the Colonel’s eyes. “No sir. The techs say they’re all too damaged.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Fitzgerald lost it, slamming his hand into the nearest table, his yell reverberating off the walls. “That at least would have recovered some of the losses of this clusterfuck. Who do you think is going to pay for those fucking gunships? Yeah, that’s right…my fucking budget. Next year you’ll be guards the mutts with pointy sticks. How’d you like that, huh?”
He stalked between the tables, bellowing into the faces of the soldiers still sitting down and she realized that she’d never hated anyone so much. Finally he reached her. Perhaps some instinct of self preservation warned him that the likely reaction to yelling in her face was decapitation, because he stopped, straightened and looked at her with a sneer.
“I suppose you’re just as useless as the rest of this lot. Should have known never to send a woman to do a man’s job. I knew should have sent McCoy…this never would have happened then.”
She lifted an eyebrow, no longer caring it counted as minor insubordination. At least his attention was on her now, giving the rest of the room a reprieve.
“No sir, perhaps not. But I also doubt that you’d have one of Alpha Three locked down nice and tight in the LY labs.”
“What?” Surprise flashed across his features, and then he smiled. Just for a second. Pity he was such a dickhead. Without the stick up his ass and the “the world owes me” attitude, he might not be that bad looking. After a couple of drinks of course. Then he ruined the moment, casting a glance to the room over his shoulder. “The rest of you, dismissed. That means fuck off. Now.”
He turned back to her and leaned forward, resting his steepled fingertips on the table. “You brought one in? Who? Harper?”
She shook her head. “Nope, couldn’t get him. He was too deep in with the rest.”
There it was—the warning pout as Fitzgerald’s expression darkened. Crap, the room wasn’t clear yet. She had to get his attention back before he started to beat on a man who should be lying in bed recovering, not walking around playing soldier to appease this jerk-off. Opening her mouth, she forced the words out past her guilt, as though naming the man she’d brought in was somehow worse than locking him down with silver and delivering him here.
“We got his second instead. Foster.”
Chapter Six
Armed with the news Foster was in custody, Colonel Fitzgerald hustled off toward the Lycan labs in a happy mood. With a sense of unease, Toni watched him go. Even if she’d wanted to follow him, she couldn’t. Not into the Lycan labs. They wouldn’t let her because of the risk of cross-infection. A minute danger, but possible all the same. Perhaps more. Although she’d told the two med-techs earlier Hybrids were an urban myth, she wasn’t entirely convinced herself.
There had been a rumor, way back when, about a Hybrid. An accident in the labs with the serums or something, a drop of the wrong virus in a vial, or someone making a mistake and reusing a needle. The stories were all different. The end result was the same. One of the subjects had gotten a mixed dose of the Blood
and Lycan viruses and it had created a Hybrid—a creature so powerful the Project had freaked out.
According to some stories, the Hybrid had killed the entire medical staff on duty before tearing through the camp, only to be put down by the machine gun towers. And in others it had been cornered by four humvees and taken out with heavy weaponry. In all of the stories, the body count was high and the Hybrid had taken massive damage before being killed.
Shaking her head at her own foolishness for considering the story, she put the thought to the back of her mind and walked down the corridor in the opposite direction of the Lycan labs. She grimaced, rubbing a hand over her stomach and trying to smooth away the uneasiness. There was nothing she could do to help Foster, and with the amount of sedative she’d shoved into his system, he’d be out for at least another couple of hours. That’s if he were sensible and didn’t try and sweat the stuff out. If he were sensible, he’d play dead. There was no point torturing a man who couldn’t answer questions. Even Fitz wasn’t that sadistic.
Her long strides ate up the distance through the maze of corridors in the base’s main building as she made her way to the RA labs. Like with the Lycan labs, strictly speaking she shouldn’t have been anywhere near them. Useless rules and regulations regarding cross-infection. She shuddered at the thought, glad there was no chance of RA cross-infection on any Blood or Lycan. The virus already in their bodies shielded them from its effects.
She turned the last corner and the main double doors to the lab came into view. A swing shutter affair, the opaque plastic material obscured what was going on within, but she could just make out technicians moving around inside. For a top secret lab, the security was a joke. No guard on the door, no keypad or card swipe locking system, but the virus itself was the security system. One splash transferring it and it was all she wrote. No second chances. No one with an ounce of sense in their heads would break in and try to steal the damn stuff.
Her steps faltered as she shot a glance up to the corners of the ceiling. Cameras covered the door from both directions, the monitors in the main security office. If she was unlucky, someone would be watching them but she doubted it. There were more important things to watch than a lab no one would dare steal anything from.
Judging the distance and overlapping arcs of view of the two cameras, she took a few more steps then ducked out of sight. The slight recess in the wall housing a fire extinguisher and a fire axe provided enough of a gap for her to tuck herself into. Then she froze—stilled all movement until anyone looking at her would think she was nothing more than a lifelike mannequin.
Not a moment too soon. The double doors swung open to disgorge three med-techs into the corridor. She didn’t move a muscle—didn’t even blink, just in case. They walked down the corridor, chattering away about some reality show. One looked her way and time slowed, adrenaline and something else—a strange high pitched buzzing—poured through her veins, energizing every part of her body. Tension coiled in her legs, her body preparing to leap. Her fingertips throbbed, the retractable claws hidden beneath her fingernails aching to punch free. She could have them in his throat in half a second…
He didn’t bat an eyelid, his gaze sliding over her. Like she wasn’t there. Turning back to his companions, he chuckled at a joke and they carried on down the corridor before turning the corner. Then they were out of sight and Toni slumped against the wall, leaning her forehead against the ancient plasterboard to drag a deep breath into her lungs. She had been sure the last guy had seen her. He’d looked directly at her, for fuck’s sake. Most times she could fool a passing glance, but direct attention or electronics like the cameras were beyond her. Or so she’d thought, but the tech had looked right through her and carried on. Then there was the weird buzzy feeling, like she’d injected boiling champagne right into her veins. Even now she felt antsy, as though she couldn’t keep still. Apart from the fact she hadn’t moved a muscle since she’d slid into the gap between the wall and the extinguisher.
What the fuck was going on?
She didn’t get time to think on it. Seconds after the techs rounded the corner, the doors were pushed open again from inside the lab. Without moving, she opened her eyes, using her peripheral vision to watch the figure that emerged.
There was nothing remarkable about the lead scientist on base, Doctor Bruce Jacobs. Of average height and build, he wore a white doctor’s coat over a white shirt, cream sweater and pale slacks. With gray hair and beard, pale skin and washed out blue eyes, the only other splashes of color about his person were the red of his tie and the polished chestnut of his shoes. He had a distracted air about him, like his mind was always somewhere else, mulling on a problem outside the comprehension of normal mortals. A weight, a gravity that made his staff treat him with respect and deference.
But Toni didn’t give a shit about deference. And respect? It was this man and those like him who had developed the three viruses. If it were up to her, they’d have been locked up months ago for crimes against humanity.
Sliding out of her hiding place, she blocked his path. Her sudden movement from unnoticeable statue to living, breathing being didn’t get a reaction because he didn’t look up, his attention focused on the notes in his hand as he muttered to himself.
“Uptake is slow… It has to be linked to the cellular regen—”
“Doctor Jacobs, do you have a moment?”
“Huh?” The doctor’s head snapped up and he blinked at her. The round glasses he wore gave him the look of a confused owl. “Oh, yes…Subj…err, Major Fielding, isn’t it? What can I do for you?”
Anger welled at the fact he had to stop himself calling her a subject, or using her case number, but she ignored it. She needed information from the guy, so pissing him off or threatening to rip his throat out wasn’t going to help her cause.
“It is.” Plastering a smile she didn’t feel on her face, she nodded. “I wanted to talk to you about the RAs we’ve been using on the cleanup operations.”
The doctor’s attention, which had been wandering back to his notes, transferred completely, the pale eyes behind the glasses fixed on her. She suppressed a shudder. Now she knew what a bug under a microscope felt like. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation at all.
“What about them?”
“Well…” She paused for a moment and considered how to phrase her request. “Have you ever noticed anything strange about the latest batches? Say…intelligence?”
“Hmm…” Jacobs pressed his lips together, his long white beard wiggling as he did. She wondered if he had to wear a hair and beard net in the sterile areas. “You mean traces of, or full-on intelligence? Sometimes we have one or two with vestigial traces of intelligence but it seems to be more of a knee-jerk reaction. Once advanced decay sets in, those traces disappear. We think it might have something to do with medication the subjects took in the months beforehand. We’ve never noticed any traces in known drug-users for example, yet those on certain brands of SSRIs…” He paused at her blank look and elaborated. “They’re a type of anti-depressant.”
“Ah, okay. Thank you,” she said but he had started talking again, enthusiasm written into every line of his expression.
“So those on SSRIs seem to display the most vestigial intelligence, which is perhaps something to do with the action of the medication within the brain. We definitely need further study on the subject…” He stopped and blinked. “I’m sorry. Did that answer your question, Major?”
She frowned and shook her head. “Yes and no. Have you ever had a subject display real intelligence and show evidence of retention of memory?”
Another blink, but she didn’t miss the sudden flash of interest. The notes hung ignored in his hand.
“Memory? Why?” His voice was sharp. “Have you seen any with intelligence? Out in the field? Oh my lord, naturally occurring self-awareness. We’d theorized it was possible…we need tox tests, dissection of the brain to isolate any structural abnormalities. For this to happen with the standar
d—” He stopped, visibly reining in his excitement. “Did you bring the body back?”
“The standard what?” Toni’s eyes narrowed. “No, we didn’t bring it back. You know the operating procedures, Doctor. All RAs are terminated on site.”
Jacobs tutted, annoyance and frustration washing over his face. “Yes, yes…I know. But when one of them exhibits unusual behavior, you should bring them back to me for further study. You shouldn’t destroy important scientific evidence. I can’t stress the importance of that enough.”
She shrugged. “Tell it to the Colonel, Doctor. You want ’em back, I’ll bring ’em back.”
“Hmmm, okay. That’ll have to do, I suppose. Do you know which subject it was? Perhaps I can pull the medical records from the pris—”
“It was Garry Stephens.”
The name dropped into the sudden silence between them like a brick down a well.
“Oh…” Jacobs blinked again, his dry eyelids sweeping over his eyes with an audible “snick” and looked away. A slight flush hit his cheeks—a pale pink which seemed, like the rest of him, to be a washed out version compared to his bright red tie. “Yes, I heard about that. A most…regrettable incident.”
Toni’s temper snapped.
“Regrettable. Is that it? That’s all you have to say after one of your staff was deliberately infected? You’re a freaking scientist, Doctor. You know what the virus does. And it was no secret Garry was terrified of RA infection.” She took a step forward, managing to loom over the older man despite the differences in their height. “Can you imagine what he went through, waking up to find he’d become his worst nightmare?”
“I—I…” He refused to meet her gaze, the flush on his cheeks deepening. “I should be getting back. Test results, you understand.”
“Of course, Doctor.” Toni stepped back. She wasn’t going to get anymore out of him. “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back to your work.”
