05 - Changeling

by Chris Kubasik - (ebook by Undead)

  Peter hesitated because he didn’t want to upset Thomas. “Can you help me?” he asked finally. “Do you know where Dr. Landsgate is?”

  “Peter, I don’t want to help you do this…”

  “Please, Thomas.”

  “If you want to find him so bad, then you will find him without my help. You need only wait here a few moments longer, and I promise you that you will come face to face with Dr. Landsgate.” Peter didn’t like the tone of Thomas’ voice. It carried a portent of doom and a weary sadness. But before Peter could examine the issue further, Thomas continued. “Peter, do you remember when we spoke many, many years ago… There was a girl…”

  “Denise,” Peter said, remembering the day he realized he’d never called her back.

  “Do you recall I wanted to tell you something, that day when you remembered?”

  “But I was angry. And I cut you off.”

  Thomas seemed relieved, and the dark mood left him. “Good. You can see that. Good. Peter, there was something I wanted to tell you. There are two kinds of women. The kind that will go out with a troll and the kind that won’t.”

  Peter thought about that. “I guess. But my problems are way past that now.”

  “Yes. And what about now?”

  “I want to be human.”

  “Do you see any connection between the two issues?”

  “Why do you talk this way? Why don’t you tell me what you want to say?”

  “Life’s like that Peter. Some things you must simply live through.”

  Peter only had time to hear the words, and then whirled as the ghouls came up behind him. They threw heavy rocks into his chest and smashed them against his head. He tried to get out of the way, but there were too many of them, and they attacked from too many places. They threw rocks from the ground ahead of him. They dropped them from concrete pillars towering high overhead.

  As the blows overwhelmed him, Peter looked back to call for help from Thomas, but when he turned, all he saw was Thomas shaking his head sadly. “Good luck,” Thomas said, but Peter was already falling into a deep blackness.

  It took him time to open his eyes, and a while longer to realize he was hanging upside down. When he moved, he swayed back and forth.

  Holding Peter by the ankles were heavy chains looped down from an I-beam that straddled the roofless remains of a basement. Chains bound his hands behind his back. Dried blood caked his face.

  The snow had stopped, the clouds had cleared, and soft blue moonlight lit the roofless basement. Scraps of metal covered the ground. Around the basement, ghouls gathered in groups of three or five. They sat on the floor, hunched over, feasting on corpses. His stomach clenching at the sight, Peter turned his gaze away. He searched around for something safer—something that might provide a means of escape, something to fend off his feeling of helplessness.

  Eventually he recognized Landsgate sitting some ten meters off, the ghoul ensconced in a large throne made of welded metal and bones. Garbage cans roaring with fire stood on either side of the throne, the flames turning his decayed features into those of the devil himself.

  Landsgate seemed lost in thought, but when he noticed that Peter was awake, he smiled, stood up, and walked over.

  The feasting ghouls looked up, but when they saw that Landsgate was going to deal with the troll, they returned to their feasting. The troll was alive, and thus not very interesting.

  Landsgate stepped up to Peter, and they met eye to eye. But Peter turned his face away from the ghoul, repelled by the rank smell that clung to his rotting form.

  “Hello,” said Landsgate, his voice thick with malice. “People usually get tossed in here by former loved ones. What are you doing here under your own juice? Are you a bounty hunter?”

  Peter didn’t know exactly how to begin. He had expected their reunion to be a bit more heartfelt.

  He thought it best to get the improbable out in open.

  “Dr. Landsgate. I’m Peter Clarris.”

  Landsgate looked puzzled for a moment, then he exclaimed, “Good Lord!” A smile bloomed on the ghoul’s face. Deep cracks lined his lips. “I… I don’t know what to say. I really don’t. How have you been?”

  Landsgate’s callous humor stunned Peter. “Better,” he said dryly.

  “I haven’t seen your father… in years. How is he?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for years either.”

  Landsgate leaned in and mocked concern. “Trouble at home?” he said and laughed. “Still shuffling hopelessly after your father’s love?”

  Peter decided to change the subject. “I came here because I need to know who has a lead on nanotechnology.”

  Landsgate suddenly looked kinder. “And you came to me.”

  “Yes.”

  He put his hand on Peter’s cheek. The other man’s flesh festered from countless cuts, but Peter held back his disgust. “You came to me like you always used to come to me.”

  “Yes.”

  Landsgate pulled his hand back and slapped Peter’s face. “Why should I help you, you idiot?”

  Despite himself, Peter felt betrayed. “I’m looking for him. I need your help.”

  “Listen, why don’t you stay for dinner before you take off on the quest?”

  “Dr. Landsgate… I’m… I think someone is working on a way to rebuild DNA sequences in living organisms.”

  “What?”

  “I think someone is combining magic and nanotechnology to make… to rewrite a cell, all the cells of a body. I could be pure human again. So could you.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “No.”

  “No. I suppose not. I’m a ghoul. The word ‘impossible’ has lost its weight in the past few decades.”

  “I don’t understand the magic part…. I really don’t know if it can be done, but I think somebody is trying to do it. And if they are, they need nanotech. It’s the only way to get to all the cells. The magic couldn’t handle all the work. No corp would ever put the money into it.”

  “A corporation is working on this?”

  “I… think so. Yes.”

  “Most of the genetic-manipulation work dried up after the fiasco in London.”

  “They’re being very quiet about it.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “If someone is doing the work, they need the nanotech. I need a lead on anyone who might have prototypes to hand out.”

  “What makes you dunk anyone has nanotech ready? That whole line of research went down years ago.”

  Peter did not respond.

  “All right. Some people, mostly Germans and Japanese, have been after it. But they’re keeping a tight lid on it. So many bodies ruined by research just in the twenties and thirties…” Landsgate smiled up at Peter. “And even today. Do you know how many people from the Elevated pay to have deformed relatives brought to the Shattergraves? It’s all very nasty stuff.”

  Landsgate turned from Peter and walked a few steps.

  “God, what I would give to be human again.”

  “I’ve been working on it. Ten years now I’ve been trying to figure out a way. And I think I’ve got it.”

  “I haven’t seen my children in two years.”

  Peter said nothing.

  “You know, being a… ghoul… At first. It didn’t seem as if it was something that had to drive me from my family and my profession. I was hospitalized, of course. Everyone knew I was transforming. And almost everyone stuck it out with me. There were the wishes. They… my wife… others…didn’t say them out loud. But in those times when I regained consciousness during the… wishes hung in the air. ‘If he must change, let him become something I can love.’ But my eyes became painfully sensitive to sunlight. And the craving for meat. There was this thing inside my body, a new desire, and it said, ‘Human flesh is what you want to eat.’ It’s a craving, Peter, a desire just like some people have a sweet tooth. I want me flesh of someone who was sentient. I knew what was happening b
efore anyone else did, and I got out. There’s a price on my head, you know. Just because of my genes. Just because of what I am.

  “Oh, I know. I’m making it sound light. Comparing cannibalism to a taste for sweets. But I swear, that’s what it feels like. It’s what my body wants. I crave it. It seems immoral to you, but to me it’s just what I need to feel content.”

  Landsgate leaned closer, his noxious breath spilling over Peter’s face.

  “Why must I be the way I am, Peter?”

  Peter turned away slightly, but spoke firmly. “Genetics. Some of us have ‘magic’ genes, genes passed on through the centuries, but active only now. My genes were for those of a troll. Yours for a ghoul.”

  “So this condition is natural?”

  Peter stopped for a moment, confused. “I…”

  Landsgate leaned in again, his voice soft, as if he did not want the other ghouls to hear.

  “I am not an aberration. The universe dictated that there should be ghouls, and I am one. The fact that I am a ghoul is not even a condition layered onto me. It is me.”

  “Yes. That’s one way to look at it.”

  The ghoul’s eyes filled with tears. “How else can I look at it? I don’t kill, Peter. I eat those who have died. Society says that’s evil, and they shun me for it. But it is what I am. So now I kill to survive. Do I have a choice? I love surviving, Peter. You’re a survivor, aren’t you? You know what I mean. Here we are, thrown by the universe outside the normal bounds—and we’re still alive. We’re extraordinary.

  “I am the way I am. If you were to succeed in finding a means to take my magic genes out of my body, I’d really be dead. You’d be killing the way the universe built my body. Countless generations of humanity carried these genes safely through the centuries and deposited them in me upon my conception. That’s a hell of a responsibility to take upon yourself, Peter. To give people the decision to alter all that history, to erase it, with a decision made within a single lifetime.”

  “It’s my life. I’ll do as I please.”

  “I doubt it.” Landsgate turned away, walking back to his throne, his head bent down. Speaking loudly, but to no one in particular, he said, “Take the troll. He is yours.”

  19

  All around the roofless basement the ghouls slowly rose from their feasting, and grinned at Peter.

  Peter’s head still ached, but it had cleared somewhat during the conversation; he could handle the pain now. Landsgate had gone back to sit in his throne. He held his hands up over his eyes as if very weary.

  The ghouls closed in around Peter.

  His immediate reaction was to try to free himself with frantic motion, but his better judgment kicked in.

  “Hold it,” he told himself. “Don’t panic. Let’s do this carefully. What do I have?” He paused to calculate his assets. Strength was all he could think of.

  Peter calmed his breathing as best he could, then focused on the chains that bound his wrists. He gave a slow, steady pull and discovered that the links were very strong.

  The ghouls moved closer.

  He drew in a long breath and pulled on the chains again. He strained, pulling and pulling. The links began to stretch, but they also dug deep into his flesh. An ache spread into his wrists.

  Soon he had to stop. Gasping for breath, he looked around to see the ghouls, about thirty of them, still encircling him. They cocked their heads, curious that he was still trying to escape. Knowing that he had loosened his chains somewhat, Peter shook them a bit, but still couldn’t free his hands.

  “Remember to breathe this time,” Peter told himself. He pulled on the chains again. The links bit into his hands. Maybe they even drew blood, but he couldn’t be sure.

  A single link began to stretch and gave out a soft, grating scream. Peter, his eyes closed, didn’t dare stop pulling. It seemed the chain would never break. Finally, intensely curious about the ghouls, he opened his eyes.

  One was peering into his face, a mix of saliva and dark gruel dripping from the cannibal’s mouth.

  Peter screamed, and with the scream he gave one, last tremendous tug on the chains. The link snapped and released the bonds holding his right hand. He doubled over and grabbed the chain holding his ankles. Without pause he swung me chain still wrapped around his left wrist in a wide circle. The chain slammed, one after another, into me faces of the ghouls closest to him, and drops of blood splattered Peter’s skin and clothes. The other ghouls instinctively jumped back.

  The goriness of the situation drove Peter into a frenzy. All he wanted was to get out of the basement, out of the Shattergraves, out of the Noose. He brought his left hand up to the chain leading to the I-beam and pulled himself up hand over hand. In seconds his feet were under his head and his pace had increased. He knew, though, that, as he climbed, he would have to lift more and more of the weight of the chain still attached to his ankles and the problem nearly panicked him. What if he got stuck halfway up, unable to proceed because of the increasing weight? He shot a glance at the ghouls below and decided that he had no other choice but to keep on going.

  The chain shook and Peter looked down again to see one of the ghouls hanging onto the U-shaped length of chain close to the ground. The ghoul, a still-handsome man in a business suit, was looking up at Peter with an expression of fierce determination. Placing one hand over another, he began to climb. A quake ran through Peter’s back and he increased his pace.

  Below, some of the ghouls cheered and howled while others ran for the stairs up to the street level. Peter saw that they’d be able to cut him off if he didn’t hurry.

  He threw his left hand up over his right, then his right over his left, one hand after the other. He went as fast as he could, but slowed as he neared the I-beam; between his own weight, the weight of the ghoul, and the increasing weight of the chains he carried, it was all he could do to keep his grip.

  The ghoul’s hand reached up to Peter’s ankle. As fear took over, Peter began to kick frantically. The ghoul swung a bit on the chain, but kept his grip, moving from the chain leading to Peter’s ankles to the chain leading to the I-beam. The load lightened, and Peter felt an incredible relief. He continued up the chain and saw he was only a meter or so from the I-beam.

  But the ghoul on the chain was no longer stuck beneath Peter’s feet. He raced quickly up the other half of the chain and wrapped his arms around Peter’s waist. As the two of them swayed wildly, Peter’s hands slid a few links down the chain. The ghoul cocked his head back and tried to bite Peter, but his teeth ended up digging into Peter’s lined duster instead.

  Peter knew he had to put everything he had into reaching the beam. He desperately wanted to be on something. With three more hand-over-hands, he reached the I-beam and swung his arm over it.

  Now the ghoul came in from a different angle, biting into Peter’s abdomen. He ripped through Peter’s shirt and pressed his teeth deep into Peter’s thick flesh; the bite sent a sharp sting through Peter’s body.

  Peter reached down to the ghoul with his left hand and grabbed the man by the neck. The ghoul’s arms flailed wildly, desperately, the rotted hands pounding at Peter’s face again and again. In a quick motion he slipped his large thumb under the ghoul’s chin, forced the cannibal’s head up, and snapped the neck. The ghoul’s body went limp, and Peter let it tumble to the basement floor below.

  He allowed himself two gulping breaths, then pulled himself up onto the I-beam.

  Down below, standing in front of his throne, Lands-gate screamed, “Get him. Don’t let him get the chains off. Get him now.” But the ghouls at either end of the I-beam waited. They moved about with small steps, uncertain what to do.

  Peter slipped the knots that bound his ankles and freed himself. He could try to make a break for it by charging past the ghouls, but he was certain that Landsgate had the information he wanted. He hesitated, but realized he wanted the information more than freedom.

  He looked about for a way to get to Landsgate. Then he saw it.
He held on to the end of the chain and stood up, balancing himself carefully on the I-beam. The ghouls at either end of the beam braced themselves. Then he turned away from Landsgate and jumped.

  He sailed through the air, his duster flapping madly behind him. When the length of chain ran out, he snapped back and down toward the ground. The I-beam buckled, but held its precarious balance on the basement foundations.

  Peter swung quickly down to the ground in a wide arc. The ghouls that had remained in the basement, directly under where Peter had climbed up, now stared in amazement as one hundred and fifty kilos of troll rushed at them, swinging on a length of a chain. Before they could recover from their surprise, Peter was plowing through them, heavy boots out before him, shattering the legs of several ghouls.

  When his momentum slowed, he released his grip and flew off the chain toward Landsgate. He tucked and rolled through the air, then tumbled across the floor, coming to a stop only when he slammed into a garbage can roaring with fire. Jumping up, he saw Landsgate run for the stairs.

  The ghouls still on the basement floor charged after him. The ghouls at street level ran for the stairs.

  Peter bolted after Landsgate, taking the stairs three at a time. Getting close enough for a tackle, he threw himself bodily onto the ghoul and they rolled down the stairs. Then Peter slammed Landsgate against the wall, one arm pressed hard against his windpipe.

  “Tell them to back off or you die.”

  “I’m no good to you dead,” Landsgate wheezed.

  “You’re no good to me if I’m dead. Tell them to back off.”

  Landsgate hesitated, then slammed his elbow into Peter’s gut. The blow caught Peter off guard, but didn’t hurt.

  “I don’t think you understand. I’m a troll. Whatever else I am, I’m really tough. Now tell them to back off or I’ll rip off your head.”

  Landsgate pushed again. “All right.”

  Peter released his choke-hold so the ghoul could be heard.

  “Stop,” Landsgate ordered, but the ghouls continued moving forward. “STOP!” Landsgate shouted, fear in his voice. That finally stopped them. “All right. I’ll tell you. Microtech, a Swiss company. Last I heard—and this is more than a year old—they’re the company into heavy nano research.”