by M. V. Kallai
“What if I dismiss all of the engineers and scientists? It will only be me, Aldretti, Colonel Ganesh, and Sergeant Quinn; a very familiar group.”
Rhys was walking around his small room, unbound, clapping his hands on the walls with no expression on his face. Terry looked up from the book he was reading and shook his head as Rhys walked by him.
“Oh, let him go, Rita. It’s obvious he is feeling a bit trapped. Just bind his wrists and bring a strong sedative for safe measure,” Terry said, clearly needing a break from this room as well.
Camden smiled at Terry. He wanted Rhys’s input, however obscure, before the prototype build continued any further.
“I’ll come back in an hour for you and Rhys, after I warn the colonel and clear the room,” Camden said to Rita.
“I guess we’ll be ready,” Rita replied.
In the old interrogation wing, Luke was working on three things at once. He was re-writing his self-destruct program, encoding a message to Charisa to let her know he was in the TRU Building, and carelessly taking care of his normal programming duties. He was so tired that he could barely see out of his irritated eyes and his hands were shaky from the excessive amount of caffeine in his body. Luke rushed through his three tasks and saved his sloppy work for Mace to take to Charisa. It was only 10:00 in the morning when Luke finished and went to bed, not caring about the consequence if Mace came to check on him.
Mace was not thinking about Luke today, though. He was in General Pike’s office planning the surprise attack on Tyrine. They would set out tonight with two handlers and the two biomachines handpicked by Sergeant Bearden Leitner. So, little did Luke know, he would also be getting the next two nights off, as well as the day he was now stealing. This would put them behind on transferring the seventy-five biomachines to their secret holding area, but General Pike and Major Magner felt so confident that their attack would be a triumph that it didn’t matter. At this time tomorrow, they would be in position to unleash their marvels on an unsuspecting enemy.
When Camden and Aldretti returned to the thirteenth floor with Ganesh and Quinn, Rhys was staring out of the triangle window audibly solving equations that only he could see. Rita opened the door and squeezed by him. Rhys’s wrists were bound together but he was holding a pencil in one hand and a pad of paper in the other.
“Does he know where he’s going?” Ganesh asked.
“Well, I told him, but there’s really no way to be sure. He did want the paper though, so that’s a good sign,” Rita said.
Quinn poked his head in the door and looked around the room. “Where’s Terry?” he asked.
“He took a few hours off,” Rita said. “Fine by me, he was starting to drive me nuts. Too much time in close quarters.”
“Understandable,” Camden said.
The group made it to the space travel division without any trouble from Rhys. Rita stayed right by his side with a syringe in her hand…just in case, and Aldretti walked beside her. Camden brought him first to the drawing board. Rhys seemed interested and started mumbling to himself. After ten minutes of this, Quinn went over to the conference table and took out his notebook. The rest of the group continued over to the prototype. Rhys dropped his pencil and paper and his eyes grew wide. He reached out and touched the model machine, examining it all over.
“This is wrong,” he said slapping a piece of metal over and over. “This doesn’t come until later. Crossbeams, red and blue, they come first. This is wrong. It goes on top!” His voice was growing louder and Rita became tense. Camden was frantically drawing and making notes. Rhys was quiet for a moment, then started looking around the room with sharp head motions. He locked his eyes on Camden.
“I’ve had this dream before,” he said. Camden stayed calm and just agreed with him, having heard this statement several times by now. “You’re the killer.”
Then, he leaned down and picked his pencil back up. He rolled it over and over in his fingers.
“Rhys, are you okay? Do you want to go back to your room now?” Rita asked in a gentle voice.
“You’re the killer,” he repeated under his breath.
Just then, the door to the space travel wing opened and General Pike walked in. Seeing Rhys Krell out of his cell was unexpected and a strange look appeared on his face. Rhys turned frantic at the sight of the general. His hands shook and he started yelling,
“It’s you…you and me…at the end. I’ve had this dream before.”
“I’ll come back later,” Pike said as he abruptly turned around and left, leaving Camden and Ganesh extremely confused by his odd behavior. But, before they had time to process the strangeness of General Pike’s quick exit, Rhys, with a sudden movement, turned and charged at Quinn with the pencil raised in two hands. Quinn, who heard the attack coming behind him, made a snap decision to not fight back, for fear of blowing his cover. He held his breath and braced himself. Ganesh and Rita ran after Rhys, who was inches away from Quinn and had started screaming,
“You are a bad, bad man!” He jammed the pencil into Quinn’s neck and at the same time, Ganesh pounced on him and tackled him to the ground before he could put his full force behind the stab. Rita jumped over Ganesh and plunged the sedative filled syringe into Rhys’s arm. Ganesh held onto him until he was still. In the meantime, Camden had rushed over to Quinn and yelled for Aldretti to find a towel. Aldretti, a little stunned by all of the action, was taking too long, so Camden pulled his suit jacket off and pulled his shirt over his head. He pressed the shirt hard on Quinn’s neck, which was bleeding pretty badly. Rita, armed with her basic medical kit came over to help Camden as he lifted Quinn onto the conference table.
“I don’t think he hit the artery,” she said, examining the wound.
“Get it out, it really hurts,” Quinn said.
“Shut up, Quinn and lay still,” Ganesh said. He was now also standing beside the table with his hand on Quinn’s arm in a fatherly way. Aldretti, feeling useless, wandered over and stood by Rhys, ready to grab him if he got up again.
“Ok, keep pressure on, I’m going to pull it out,” Rita said to Camden.
“I’m ready,” Camden said and Quinn squeezed his eyes shut. Rita yanked the pencil out of his neck and quickly replaced Camden’s shirt with sterile cotton gauze. She pressed hard and secured the wound with bandages and tape.
“Colonel, please take him to the medical wing. That will need to be examined and stitched. Camden, I’ll need your help getting Rhys back up to his room.”
“Of course,” he said, feeling guilty about Quinn.
“Quinn, you ok to walk?” Ganesh asked with real concern in his eyes. “You’ve lost fair amount of blood.”
“I think so. I didn’t realize a secretary’s job was so dangerous,” he said and sat up slowly. Ganesh helped him off the table and put his arm around his back, so Quinn could lean on him if he needed to.
Halfway to the medical wing, Quinn got weak in the knees and fainted. Ganesh lifted him up and carried him the rest of the way. When he came to, he looked up at Ganesh.
“Thank you, Colonel…for saving my life,” Quinn said and closed his eyes again.
The doctor in the medical wing insisted that Quinn stay for the rest of the day and the night, so he could recover his blood loss. The doctor also wanted watch for infection at the wound site. Ganesh stayed by his side for the rest of the day.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Solace
Dana looked at Bearden over the top of the lab equipment. She didn’t say a word but he knew exactly what she was thinking, because he was thinking it, too. A moral line was being crossed and they both, along with Lee, were crossing it. What had they become? And would there be redemption or justification? These thoughts and others were running through their minds. What they were doing was monstrous and unnatural, yet they proceeded anyway.
Dana took a deep breath as she lifted up a large glass tube in her right hand and a dropper filled with mixture 266 in her left. She looked with wide, concer
ned eyes at Bear before she dropped the “Life Bringer” into the tube with Ari’s cells. The mixture took effect right away. Cells became animated and a lifelike color started to take over them. Bearden suddenly felt an urge to hold Dana in his arms as the reality of the experiment hit him. It was strange to him, this sudden need to protect her and keep her safe from this blasphemy, but he did nothing…except stare back with the same wide-eyed, nervous expression.
Dana moved the tube to a microscope where she could observe the horrific effect up close. Cells were dividing at an accelerated rate, just as Lee said they would. In a couple of hours, they would have to be moved to incubation and combined with the cell types they would ultimately become, given direction every step of the way, then transplanted into a biomer womb.
“We have just harnessed immortality,” Dana said, as the color drained from her face.
The next several hours were surreal as Lee explained in detail every little thing he was doing to ensure that this tube of throbbing flesh would become Ari, not just someone with identical genes. Dana took notes with a trembling hand and Bearden felt like he was not even a part of his body. Those couldn’t be his hands that were administering proteins and firing artificial synapses to this newly alive brain blob. Lee, as always, was focused and tireless. He didn’t seem at all conflicted by what he was doing. That impressed Dana a little more than it scared her, even though she couldn’t stop the terrifying thoughts that kept passing through her mind.
What if he does remember and is angry or no longer at peace. What if he gains awareness before his body is complete? What if he has no soul and is an evil thing with the memories of a life that isn’t his.
Dana glanced at Bearden and his expression told her that he might be thinking very similar thoughts. She turned her back for a moment to collect herself, trying hard to block out the disturbing questions from her mind. “I’m stronger than this,” she whispered and turned back around to help finish perfecting the abomination. When almost half the night was gone, the new Ari brain blob was incubating and stable. Dana excused herself to get some rest and Bearden stayed in the main lab to help Lee clean up.
Dana stood in the shower and let the scorching water run over her body. It felt good, like some of the sick things she, Lee, and Bearden had done that day were rolling off of her in the droplets of water and finding their way down the drain. She stood there for so long that her body started to sweat in the heat. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she turned the water off and wrapped herself in a towel. She walked out of the shower and was startled when she saw Bearden standing there with his shirt unbuttoned exposing his plain white undershirt.
“Lee went home,” he said and looked intently at her, moving his gaze from her face to her exposed shoulders, then down to her dripping, wet legs.
He took his shirt off, then his undershirt as he moved toward her. He wrapped one arm around her waist and pushed her back into the shower. With his free hand he turned the water back on and for a moment they stood in a crucial embrace breathing heavily and staring deeply into each other’s eyes, sharing their souls. Then, with a hunger fueled by guilt and adrenaline that no one else on the planet could understand, they fell into a deep kiss and then ravenously moved their hands over each other’s bodies. It was like redemption for a crime they hadn’t meant to commit. The towel Dana was wrapped in quickly absorbed the water and fell to the floor. When the steam was thick enough that they could barely breath, Bearden picked her up and carried her out of the shower and through the kitchen to Camden’s office. She wrapped her legs around his waist, still kissing him and wove her hands through his hair, grabbing fistfuls then releasing. He laid her down on the couch and she arched like a cat beneath him. For the rest of the night, Dana and Bearden shut the lab, TRU, and their crimes out of their minds and set free their confusion, frustrations, and pent up emotions. Taking it out on each other. When their bodies were exhausted and they finally fell asleep, they were wrapped in a blanket, pressed against each other with their arms and legs intertwined. Dana’s cheeks were tearstained and Bearden slept soundly for the first time in weeks.
When Bearden awoke, he saw Dana sitting at Camden’s desk writing a letter. She was wearing nothing but his undershirt and her hair was messy. He sat up, yawned, and stretched.
“Hi,” Dana said. “I wasn’t sure if you would ever get up.”
“I forgot what it was like to feel rested,” he said. “What time is it?”
“Late. You’ll have some explaining to do when you get to work,” she answered.
Bearden shrugged. Somehow his government work didn’t seem important today. Dana sealed her letter and walked over to Bearden. He reached up and grabbed her around her hips pulling her down on his lap so that she straddled him. He started kissing her with some of the same intensity left over from the night before. For a moment she returned the passion, but then pulled away.
“Lee’s here,” she said. “He’s already working and I need to go help him now.”
“Really? Right now?” he asked as he traced his fingertips up her thighs. Dana let her head fall back and he kissed her neck. He moved his hands under her shirt and slid them up her body. Dana let a soft moan escape her lips and gave into Bearden’s touch. He began gently massaging her breasts, and then they heard one of the lab doors slam shut. They both immediately snapped out of it and Dana stood up.
“It really is late, Bear, you should get ready for work.”
“Yeah, I guess I have to.”
“I made tea. It’s in the kitchen. I’m going to get changed,” she said and ruffled his hair with her fingers.
When she left, Mace Magner’s face popped into Bearden’s head and he shifted gears. Here he was in Camden Riles’ office…alone. He couldn’t show up to see Mace Magner late and empty handed. He hurried over to Camden’s desk and started rummaging through drawers and files until he found what he was looking for, a security access card. He put on his pants and shoved it into his pocket and walked through the kitchen to the washroom to find his button down shirt folded neatly beside the sink.
“Thanks,” he said to Dana who was now walking toward him in her gray lab coat with her hair pulled back.
“Sure,” she smiled. “Bearden, please deliver this letter for me. It’s to my parents. They need to know it’s my choice to be here. They probably think that I’ve been locked up for murder. I called them once, but they said they’d been questioned about me, so I hung up. I didn’t want to put Lee in danger. I mean, he’s been so great, keeping me safe. But, now I think it’s okay to let them know where I am. No one can get in here anyway and I’m sure they wouldn’t turn me in.”
“Yeah, I’ll take it for you. I’ll go after work today.”
“Will you come back here after?” Dana asked.
“Only if we can do what we did last night,” he said with a sly grin.
“What, raise the dead?” Dana joked.
“Right…” Bearden leaned over so that his lips were right at her ear. “I’ll see you later,” he whispered then ran out to get to TRU.
Dana felt a shiver down her spine and hurried out of the washroom to check in with Lee.
She found him working with the memory gene from the biomer and Ari’s DNA in Lab C, where the new Ari was growing. He did not acknowledge her when she came in.
“Good morning, Lee.”
“Indeed. I needed you here two hours ago,” he scoffed.
“I’m sorry. I just…”
“Yes, I know. I’ll be finished here in approximately seven minutes. Then we must put the embryos into their frozen stasis. It’s time.”
Dana was red from embarrassment and hurt with how cold Lee was toward her. She walked out to the main lab to say goodbye to the little creatures that she both loved and hated. She felt sorry for them and wondered if they would feel the cold before their little world stood still. Dana placed her hand on one of the gray, opaque wombs and felt it’s warmth for the last time.
Chapter Fi
fty-Three
Out of Control
General Pike and Mace Magner were standing outside of their military transport in the thick of a very dense forest. They were watching the small recruiting village, Maile, just on the other side of the Tyrine border on a computer screen projected from a spy camera. The two biomachines assigned to this real world test were chained up inside the transport with a divider between them. Their very nervous handlers were standing by. They were just about ready to move them into position.
Less than a mile away, Maeve Daire stood on the top floor of a dome shaped building in the same village of Maile. She was watching and filming General Pike and Major Magner’s operation through a telescopic lens. Beside her was a man named Davi Veere. He was one of the Tyrinian rebellion leaders who she had provided with vital information, since Naja introduced them months ago. He had a stocky, muscular build and an authoritative face. His dirty blonde hair was shoulder length and wavy and he was roughly the same height as Maeve, but a few years younger. Davi held in his hand a gun with hollow bullets that had recently been filled with a bluish liquid, supplied by Maeve. It was not luck that they were prepared for the surprise attack.
After receiving her newest assignment from Ganesh earlier, Maeve found Mace Magner’s address in her spy database. She’d broken into his home on her way out of Daxia, before coming here. She had gone in the middle of the day, to ensure he wouldn’t be home, and planted tracking devices in the soles of his three pair of field boots. That way, if he went anywhere other than the TRU Building, where he would need them, she could easily follow. It had been a complete surprise that the signal kicked on so soon. So, she followed him here, to this border town, much further south than her intended Tyrinian destination.
Weapons were sometimes made here in Maile and it had been Davi’s idea to put a portion of the virus code into hollow bullets. Not wanting to deplete the sample too much, only four bullets were made. Maeve had the remainder of the contents of the stolen vial locked in her safe, ready to hand over to a small team of Tyrinian scientists and doctors to try and replicate. And now, it appeared she would get to witness first hand if it truly was successful at stopping the powerful biomachines. Davi was fervent about being the one to test the virus code in battle against the humanoid weapons that were now beginning to make their advance.
