by Jake Bible
Shane held up his hands. “Back off, angry lady. Same side.”
“I’m not angry,” Darby sighed. “I’m tired. I want to get this mission over with and move on.”
“What is our mission?” Darren asked. “Vincent?”
Thorne looked at Darby, but she only shrugged.
“Clean up Ballantine’s mess, as usual,” Thorne said.
“This is a pretty fucking big mess,” Max said.
He was about to say more, but they had come to the double doors with the machine sounds. Darby pressed a lever and the doors slid right open, no groaning or protesting. What they saw inside stopped all words from coming out of everyone’s mouths.
The room beyond was cavernous and filled with hundreds and hundreds of vats of semi-clear liquid. Inside each vat was some type of creature, from strange-looking dinosaurs to plants of questionable origin. None of the vats were larger than a microwave and they were stacked one upon the other, row after row for as far as they could see.
But what held their attention weren’t the prehistoric creatures or tentacled plants, it was the line of fifty vats towards the front that held miniature versions of the croanderthals. And those vats were systematically emptying their contents onto a conveyer belt that moved the seemingly sleeping figures towards a row of shower heads that rinsed them off before dropping them onto a large, bright grey mat.
Once the mat was filled, the vats stopped dumping and the conveyer belt stopped moving. The cavernous room was filled with the scent of ozone and the mat began to crackle and spark with electricity. The miniature croanderthals shuddered and bounced on the mat until the sparks stopped.
Then they grew. They grew to their full size, opened their eyes, and all turned towards the double doors. Which was exactly where Team Grendel still stood.
“We should go,” Max said quietly. “Like now.”
Team Grendel spun about and were ready to get the hell out of there, but they found their exit blocked by fifty croanderthals.
“Son of a bitch,” Thorne grumbled. He sighed and looked at Darby. “Light them up.”
Darby smiled and put her plasma rifle to her shoulder. Then she lit them up.
***
Kinsey was impressed with how responsive the mini-sub was, which she and Ingrid had dubbed the Barracuda because of its long shape. Kinsey knew that it looked nothing like a barracuda, but fuck it, she was the one sweating her tits off in the thing, so she was going to name it Barracuda.
Plus, she got to hum the Heart song over and over while she worked the controls, which was cool.
“We’ve been pinged,” Ingrid said.
“That’s not good,” Kinsey said. “The ship knows we’re coming.”
“Maybe not,” Ingrid said. “Moshi worked her magic on the hull. If what she said would happen does happen then the ship only sees us as a tenth our size. We look like a tarpon or something similar, not like a mini-sub.”
“This thing barely looks like a mini-sub,” Kinsey said. “Even full size it would be confusing.”
“Maybe act more fish like, just in case,” Ingrid said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Kinsey asked.
“I don’t know,” Ingrid replied. “Swim around in circles or dive down then come up. Do what fish do.”
“Okay,” Kinsey said and started to weave the Barracuda back and forth, hoping she looked like an imitation of a fish swimming through the water.
After a few minutes with no response or apparent reaction from the ship, Kinsey relaxed slightly and got into the rhythm of piloting like a fish. It was somewhat soothing.
Until an alarm rang out in the mini-sub and Ingrid gasped.
“It didn’t work!” she cried. “It didn’t work! They are opening torpedo bays!”
“Wait, what?” Kinsey shouted. “They have torpedo bays? What kind of fucking ship is this?”
“A really well-armed one!” Ingrid cried. “Ten torpedo bays, six cannons on deck, more than a few machine gun nests, as well as what look like a couple racks of depth charges.”
“Holy shit,” Kinsey said. “This ship is coming to kill us all, isn’t it?”
“Looks like it,” Ingrid said.
“How do we evade the torpedoes?” Kinsey asked. “We can’t outrun them in this thing.”
“We don’t need to,” Ingrid said. “Keep your current course. I’ll handle the torpedoes. But whatever you do, please stay on course. I haven’t quite figured out the nuances of the EMP cannon.”
“EMP cannon? What the fuck, Ingrid?” Kinsey snapped. “Won’t that hurt us too?”
“Shouldn’t,” Ingrid said as a loud whining filled the mini-sub. “Not in theory.”
“Great,” Kinsey said. “I love relying on theory.”
“Stay the course,” Ingrid said.
“Can you see my middle finger?” Kinsey asked.
“Thankfully, no,” Ingrid said. “But I’ve seen it before, so I can picture it in my mind.”
“Picture it up your ass if this goes south,” Kinsey said.
“Really?” Ingrid laughed.
“Okay, don’t picture that,” Kinsey laughed as well. “I was trying to sound like my cousins. They always say shit like that.”
“I know,” Ingrid said. “It’s cute. Especially the way Shane says things.”
“Don’t even go there,” Kinsey said. “You do not want to get involved with my cousins. Darby with Max is one thing, but you will find nothing but heartbreak getting with an operator.”
“I’m not looking for long term,” Ingrid said. “Just a long orgasm. God, I haven’t had one of those in a while.”
Kinsey shivered. “Okay, okay, enough with the orgasm talk about my cousin,” Kinsey said. “You so do not want me to throw up in this thing.”
“Sorry,” Ingrid said. “But do you think he’d—”
“Nope,” Kinsey said. “Just nope. Talk to Lucy or Darby about this, not me.”
“Sorry,” Ingrid said again. “Three seconds until the torpedoes are in range.”
“We disable those and they’ll know for sure we aren’t a fish,” Kinsey said.
“I believe it’s too late for that,” Ingrid replied. “Here we go.”
The whining grew louder and there was a clang, like two pots being smacked together. Kinsey winced at the sound and waited.
“Torpedoes are disabled,” Ingrid said. “They are sinking below us.”
“Right on,” Kinsey said.
Then their world was rocked and everything started to roll.
“What happened?” Kinsey shouted as the Barracuda turned and twisted in the water, all the systems blinking on and off over and over again. “Did we EMP ourselves? Goddammit, Ingrid! I knew this shit would fuck us up!”
“No, it wasn’t the EMP!” Ingrid yelled. “It was the torpedoes! We shut down their motors, but didn’t disarm them! They went off below us and the concussions have hurt us bad!”
“How bad?” Kinsey shouted as she struggled to get control of the mini-sub. “Ingrid? How bad?”
“Bad,” Ingrid said. “We’ll sink in about five minutes!”
“Shit,” Kinsey said and reached over to her side where a rebreather sat nestled into a small nook. “Get your mustache on.”
“My what?” Ingrid asked.
“Your mustache,” Kinsey repeated. “And make sure your compression suit is ready.”
“Uh…”
“Ingrid? You are wearing a compression suit, right?” Kinsey asked.
“I sort of forgot,” Ingrid said. “This is just a regular wet suit. I don’t have a compression suit on.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” Kinsey said. “These are tropical waters and we aren’t that deep. You’ll be fine.”
The Barracuda shuddered several times then everything went dark except for the faint light that filtered in through the window in front of Kinsey.
“Mustache now!” Kinsey yelled. “We are getting the fuck out of this thing!”
; Kinsey twisted around and watched as Ingrid fit the small rebreather unit under her nose. The woman gagged and choked as black tendrils worked their way up her nostrils and down her throat. Kinsey couldn’t help but smile as she knew exactly how uncomfortable that feeling was before the tendrils thickened in position in a person’s trachea, sealing off the airway so that no water could get in.
“That really sucks,” Ingrid said.
“Welcome to my world,” Kinsey said. “Now open the hatch and get us out of here.”
Ingrid reached up and hit the emergency release on the hatch above her and the Barracuda was suddenly filling with sea water. Kinsey saw Ingrid panic and she pushed up from her seat and grabbed onto the woman, making sure she didn’t thrash about and hurt herself.
“Stay calm!” Kinsey barked, her mustache rebreather converting the vibrations in her voice box to the com system in their ears. “Let the sub fill with water and the pressure will equalize! Then you can just swim right out!”
Ingrid’s eyes were huge, but she nodded and stopped thrashing. She looked far from relaxed, but at least she wouldn’t hurt herself. Or Kinsey.
Once the Barracuda had filled completely, Kinsey gave Ingrid a hard shove in the small of her back. The tech hesitated, but then moved out of the mini-sub before Kinsey had to shove again. Kinsey was out in seconds then panicked as she realized Ingrid wasn’t anywhere around her.
Then she looked up and wanted to scream.
Ingrid was stroking to the surface, swimming as fast as she could to get to the open air above.
“Dammit!” Kinsey yelled into the com. “What the hell are you thinking?”
Kinsey kicked her legs and pumped her arms, hoping to catch up to the woman, but she was too late. Ingrid broke the surface and Kinsey had no choice but to follow.
“You moron!” Kinsey yelled once her head was above water. “They’ll be looking for us! With the Barracuda sinking, at least we had a chance of them thinking we went down with it!”
“The Barracuda didn’t sink,” Ingrid said. She yanked the mustache free and gasped. “Ow. That is really, really uncomfortable.”
Kinsey yanked hers out as well and glared at Ingrid.
“What the hell do you mean it isn’t sinking?” Kinsey shouted.
“Look,” Ingrid said, nodding away from them.
Kinsey turned her body to see where Ingrid had nodded. She saw the top of the Barracuda, hatch wide open, surface and start to spew water. Then the hatch closed as a metal panel slid into place. The mini-sub submerged once again and was lost from sight.
“Where the hell did it go?” Kinsey asked.
“It’s going back to the B3,” Ingrid said. “Moshi came up with everything. This was really her baby. It self-purges and automatically returns home when damaged. There is a shielded back-up battery that has enough power to get the mini-sub about six miles before it has to stop and wait to recharge.”
“Recharge? How?” Kinsey asked.
“Look around,” Ingrid said. “The Earth’s most powerful engine is all about us. It will let a current push through several small turbines, sort of like power gills, and that will charge the battery enough for another six mile journey until it reaches the B3.”
“So why didn’t we just stay inside?” Kinsey asked.
“Oh, well, it doesn’t work if there are people in it,” Ingrid said. “Too heavy and also the whole point of the mini-sub returning is to know what went wrong and salvage any data collected.”
“Of course,” Kinsey sighed. “Leave it to techs to care about data more than human lives.”
“You guys are pretty good at taking care of yourselves,” Ingrid said, a little bitterly. “But you suck at taking care of equipment. We were only trying to minimize the constant waste of our creations.”
Kinsey was about to argue, but shut up as she realized just how little credit Team Grendel gave the elves. They gave them plenty of shit, but very little credit for the weapons and equipment they made all to keep the Team alive.
“Come on,” Kinsey said, pulling at Ingrid’s shoulder. “We can’t tread here forever.”
“Where are we going?” Ingrid asked.
“You want data? Then let’s go right to the source,” Kinsey said.
She fiddled with her rebreather then strapped it to her belt under the water. She turned and started to swim towards the ship that was getting closer and closer.
“Wait! You want to go towards that ship?” Ingrid cried.
“They’re coming for us anyway,” Kinsey said. “And what better place to get data than straight from the source?”
“They’ll kill us,” Ingrid whimpered.
“I doubt that,” Kinsey said. Or she hoped.
***
“Clones?” Dr. Morganton asked.
“Clones,” the man wearing a copy of Dr. Logan’s body replied. “All of them. There are four male variants and three female variants.”
“And you’re a clone too?” Boris asked. “A living clone? Of Dr. Logan?”
“I am,” Dr. Harris said. “That’s a long story.”
“We’d appreciate hearing it,” Boris said.
“Later,” Ballantine said. “It has nothing to do with the science and everything to do with Dr. Harris’s survival. We’ll leave that to later. Doctor? Tell them why you created the clones.”
“You were having issues stabilizing the specimens,” Boris said before Dr. Harris could speak. “And since each embryo and specimen was slightly different, despite coming from the same original genetic material, you couldn’t isolate the problem. So you created clones of the exact same embryo, hoping to be able to focus on one genetic sample and find the problem.”
“Uh, yes, exactly,” Dr. Harris said.
“That seems like a good solution,” Dr. Morganton said. “So what went wrong?”
“In order to keep up the schedule we needed, we may have forced the growth process slightly,” Dr. Harris said.
“That is why we rejected cloning as a viable option. The instability of rapid growth presented too many of its own problems,” Boris said. “Which I warned against in my notes that I gave to Ballantine and Ballantine should have given to you.”
Ballantine nodded. “I did. I passed them on directly to Dr. Logan as well as Dr. Liu.” He rubbed at his head. “The rapid growth process is why the biospheres have taken over the island, right?”
“Right,” Dr. Harris nodded. “It spread everywhere when Omega exploded.”
“But the rapid growth should not have been viable,” Boris said, shaking his head. “I was clear on that. The cells degenerate too quickly for accurate analysis.”
“Dr. Logan and Dr. Liu thought they could overcome the issues you faced when you attempted cloning,” Dr. Harris said to Boris. “Which they did. To a certain extent.”
“They did?” Boris asked. “How? Because I can hardly believe that. I am an accomplished scientist and have perfected more than my share of procedures. To think that they—”
“By shortening the lifespan of the subjects,” Dr. Harris interrupted. He waited until everyone in the room understood the implications of his statement.
“Oh,” Boris said. “Does that include you?”
“It does,” Dr. Harris said. “As well as the creatures Dr. Liu and her people have become. Except they think they have found a way around it. They haven’t, but that hasn’t stopped the woman from going forward with her butchery.”
“Cannibalism,” Ballantine said. “She thinks if they consume others’ life forces she will extend her lifespan.”
“Yes,” Dr. Harris nodded.
“But that is insane,” Boris said.
“Exactly,” Dr. Harris said. “And that is what you have to understand. The woman is completely insane. So are her people. Shoving their minds into bodies that are not human warped them. It wasn’t easy for me, going from my cerebral structure to Dr. Logan’s. Their cerebral structure isn’t even human. It’s a mix of many species. She thought she c
ould fix all the problems by creating something new. She just made more.”
“Oh, dear,” Boris said. “How many more?”
“What?” Dr. Harris asked.
“How many more clones did she create?” Boris asked.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Dr. Harris said.
“Oh, I know what you mean,” Boris said. “I certainly do. That didn’t get past me. No, sir. What I want to know is how many human clones she created? Dr. Liu is a smart woman, I have read her work, and insane or not, she would know that eventually she’d run out of a food source. So she must have created more human clones. It would be the only sensible solution. Well, not sensible in that it makes sense from its very concept, but sensible from the viewpoint of a crazy person. True humans would be ideal, but clones may work in a pinch. If you are crazy to think along those lines.”
“Yes, Boris, we have established that she is crazy,” Ballantine said. Ballantine looked at Dr. Harris. “But Omega was destroyed, so she wouldn’t have that option, would she?”
Dr. Harris shifted uncomfortably.
“Doctor?” Ballantine pushed. “Omega was destroyed completely, yes? That is what happened in the explosion. It destroyed the entire facility, right? Changing Dr. Liu and her people into the things they have become. She wouldn’t be able to create human clones, correct?”
“You saw it yourself,” Dr. Morganton said to Ballantine. “You said it was in ruins.”
“I only saw the surface buildings,” Ballantine said. “I didn’t get a chance to see the sub-level. That was going to be Grendel’s next mission once they finished their initial recon and then secured the Alpha facility.”
“Oh, dear,” Boris said. “If the sub-level is still intact then Dr. Liu could not only be creating her own food source, but also an army of creatures like her. Not to mention whatever else her cuckoo brain can think up. It is quite a brain, I must say. Have I mentioned I’ve read her work?”
“Yes, Boris,” Ballantine sighed. He focused all of his attention on Dr. Harris. “Spill it.”
“We tried,” Dr. Harris said. “We truly tried. After I was transferred into this body, and Dr. Logan was gone for good, we knew we couldn’t let the technology fall into Dr. Liu’s hands. I destroyed the transference matrix. Which was much easier to recreate than you would think. It was all a simple matter of—”
