Recombinant

by Shannon Mayer

Repeatedly.

  I carefully opened the door, scenting the air. The blood of an animal of some sort, layered with a trace of human blood. A red light flicked off and on above our heads. Glancing back at Rachel, I blew out a sharp breath. “What do you want to bet the monsters they’ve been making got the better of them?”

  “Oh, that can’t be good,” she muttered.

  “My gut tells me we need to hurry.” The hallway in front of us was narrow and painted gray from top to bottom, but there were a couple of bare bulbs burning bright enough that we no longer needed the flashlight.

  There was another door to our right. Rachel opened it and stepped in before I could say anything.

  “Look at this,” she called out softly.

  The room was twelve by twelve and loaded with filing cabinets. Rachel held a piece of paper out to me.

  Two holding facilities, one on the thirteenth floor for the blood recipients. One on the fourth level for the blood donors. I handed the paper back to her. “Want to guess who the recipients are?”

  She snorted. “I’ll find the donors, you deal with your friends.” We had brought Sean’s walkie-talkies with us, and Rachel handed one to me. “Channel four.”

  I didn’t like that we were splitting up, but there was no way around it. I flicked my walkie-talkie to channel four. “Be careful. If you see anything that looks like it was human once, don’t wait to have a chat. Run.”

  “Always.”

  I started out of the room.

  “And Lea?”

  Stopping, I looked back. “Yeah?”

  “You be careful, too. I know you’re a vampire and can kick some serious ass and all...but...”

  “I’ll be careful.” And I would be.

  Unless Rachel’s life was on the line. Then all bets were off.

  CHAPTER 32

  RACHEL

  Lea left the room and I hooked the walkie-talkie to my jeans, trying to decide whether I should head straight to the fourth floor or investigate these file cabinets. Despite the time crunch, my curiosity won out. That was part of the reason I was a journalist. I couldn’t stop asking questions, even though it often got me into trouble.

  But less than a minute of riffling through files told me there was nothing here to interest me. It was mostly supply requisitions and personnel files dated from the 1920s to the 1960s. If something was here, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. I needed more current information.

  I headed down the hall, slipped into the stairwell, and descended the stairs. Though I was worried about running into one of the staff, it was late, which was on our side. As I made my way down the dark stairwell, my thoughts drifted to Sean. I knew I should have felt more remorse over leaving him out there like that, but I couldn’t find it in me. Not after everything he’d done. Did that make me like the monsters Lea hunted?

  I couldn’t let my mind go there. At least not yet. There’d be plenty of time to think about it later.

  When I reached the fourth floor, I peered through the small window and checked out the hallway. It was empty and late enough that the lights had been dimmed. I left the stairwell, then tried to figure out which way to go. I stood in the middle of the hallway, studying the numbers on placards next to the doors. Directly in front of me was 416, Supply Closet. I grinned. The signs would be helpful. I tested the doorknob. Locked, which meant the others would be, too. Thank God for Sean’s key card.

  I needed room 452, so I turned left, following the rising numbers and staying close to the wall. When I came to room 429, Records Room, I sucked in my breath. This certainly deserved a detour, but as I reached for the handle, something else caught my eye. About twenty feet down the hall was a large six-foot-wide window, its glass laced with wire. A heavy-duty window meant they either wanted to keep something out or keep it in.

  Color me intrigued.

  I stalked toward it, stopping just next to it, and carefully peeked around the corner to look inside.

  It was a lab. Two people in lab coats sat at a table, their backs to me—a man and a woman. They were packing things into plastic crates, pausing now and again to make notes on the tablets next to them. Centrifuges and test tube racks covered most of the counters extending from the peripheral walls, and two rows of long worktables filled the center of the room, covered with microscopes and computers.

  There were chairs for six lab technicians, but I only saw the two employees. Whiteboards covered the walls. I was too far away to make out all the writing, but the word diabetes was legible on one of the closer boards.

  Sean had told me so many lies, I had no idea what was going on, but there was usually a nugget of truth to every deceit. Someone was creating bioterrorism weapons, and Sean said they were using vampire blood to create medical cures. Was it happening in this room? From the scientists’ lack of safety equipment—no protective suits or even latex gloves—I suspected something else entirely was going on here.

  I needed to get inside.

  The man and woman appeared so intent on their work, I suspected I could slip in without them noticing.

  I was considering how to get in when a buzzer went off. The woman groaned. “You’re not going to get that, are you?” I could just barely make out her words.

  “I’m the senior-ranking scientist,” he said in a flippant tone. “The grunt work falls to you.”

  She got up and walked over to the corner. I decided to use the moment to my advantage. I opened the door, thankful it didn’t squeak, and slipped into the room, making sure the door closed quietly behind me. As soon as I was inside, I hunched behind a worktable.

  The woman turned off the buzzer, then opened a centrifuge and pulled out some tubes.

  “We’re down to less than an hour. Step it up,” the man said.

  His partner sighed. “We need more totes for our stuff. I’ll set up these test tubes, then head to the supply room. You want me to grab you a coffee?”

  “You know we’re not allowed to have food or drink in here.”

  “And you’re not allowed to make personal phones calls, yet we both know you’re going to call your girlfriend as soon as I leave.”

  He laughed. “Are you saying I have secrets?”

  “Says the man who works in a secret lab,” she said, pipetting what looked like blood from a large test tube into smaller ones. “Why are we packing everything up anyway? I thought they said it was just a drill.”

  “McPherson says we’ve got to play by the rules. And the rules say when the red light starts blinking, everybody clears out.” He pointed at the ominously blinking red light over the door. “Besides, we’re close enough, they’re thinking about going public. The powers that be are threatening to kill our funding, so they need proof we’re onto something. Which means we need to get it all out.”

  “Public with all of it?” she asked in disbelief.

  “What do you think?” he snorted. “Of course not. Just the cure.”

  “Which one?”

  He shrugged. “Good point. But I hear they’re only releasing the one for acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. No sense giving it all away.”

  “It seems so wrong, though.” She sighed again. “We have the cure for every cancer. Why not release it all at once? Why tweak the blood to pretend each form of it requires a specific, targeted cure?”

  “The reason is as old as time, Lillian. Money.”

  I pulled out my phone, made sure it was on silent, then started to take photos of the whiteboards lining the walls.

  They weren’t just curing cancer. They were curing everything. Diabetes. Arthritis. Lupus. This was unbelievable. I needed to get my hands on one of those test tubes and get it to Tom.

  “All done,” Lillian said. “Can I get you anything in the kitchen?”

  “See if they have any pastries. The cream-filled ones.”

  “I’ll check.” The worktables each featured a stack of drawers and enough space for three chairs. I ducked into one of these spaces and waited for Lillian to leave.


  Maybe Lea was wrong about the monsters breaking out; these two scientists sure didn’t seem worried, red alarm or not.

  It only took a few seconds after Lillian left for lover boy to call his girlfriend. “Yeah, she’s gone,” he said. “What did you do tonight?”

  I hoped I didn’t have to suffer through a litany of his night, too.

  Then, to my surprise, he got up and walked toward a door labeled closet. He went inside, shutting the door behind him.

  Did I dare risk it? I had to.

  I got up and started taking photos of everything. The work tables, the trays of microscope slides. The whiteboards I hadn’t been able to photograph from my hiding place. The screen of the guy’s tablet. I considered taking it with me, but I couldn’t risk it. The tablet would be missed and the whole place would end up in lockdown. But maybe I could grab the woman’s. It had been turned off and shoved to the side. They might think she’d misplaced it.

  I started grabbing tubes, one from each rack. They were labeled with names like Lyme Disease, Patient B2, Donor 32. I didn’t have my bag, so I found a quart-sized Ziploc bag and crammed them inside it. There was a messenger bag resting on a chair. It did not, as far as I could tell, belong to one of the two scientists, so I commandeered it and put the plastic bag and the swiped tablet in it.

  Time to get the blood donors and get the hell out of here.

  I ran down the hall to room 452, scanned Sean’s card, and popped the door open.

  What I saw made me gasp in surprise. The room was dim, but there was enough light for me to see it was large and full of cages that reminded me of small prison cells. Inside those cells were people.

  Several men lay on cots, but those who were awake turned to look at me.

  “What is going on here?” I asked, advancing toward them.

  A man in one of the closer cages stood and grabbed the bars. “We ain’t going. No more tests.” His shirt was open and I could see a medical port on his chest.

  “I’m not here to conduct any tests. I’m here to get you out.” There was an electronic pad near his cage. I tried scanning Sean’s card, and the door popped open.

  The man’s eyes widened. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “No. We need to get everyone out and quickly. I don’t know how much time we have left. What’s your name?”

  “Rowland.”

  I opened the first two cells, but there were dozens more. There had to be close to fifty people in the room.

  “Don’t leave yet,” I told Rowland, who seemed to be taking charge of the released victims. “We need to leave together in small groups.” I figured there was safety in numbers. Besides, if they all started wandering off, it might alert security sooner.

  The walkie-talkie attached to my pants let out a shrill sound.

  God, I’d forgotten all about the stupid thing. I was lucky it hadn’t gone off while I was waiting for the lab coats to leave.

  “Rachel.” Lea’s voice squawked out of the box.

  I braced myself for the worst.

  CHAPTER 33

  LEA

  I jogged down the hallway, then paused when I came to a T. To the left was a stairwell. Peering in and down, it looked like it would take me to the sixth floor at the best. I stepped back and glanced in the other direction. An elevator with “Out of Service” plastered on it all but beckoned.

  Perfect. I jogged to it and pulled a knife from a sheath on my leg. Sliding the blade between the two doors, I pried them open enough to slip in a hand. From there, the doors only offered a few minor protests. The twisted cables hung silently in front of me and I reached for one, gripping onto it as I stepped into open space, the elevator doors sliding closed behind me.

  Seemed like me and old elevators were having a serious love affair lately.

  Using the cables, I shimmied down, counting the floors as I went. I assumed we started on the first floor. But that would be easy enough to check. I could always pry another of the doors open and—

  The click-clack of nails skittering above stopped me in my downward movement. I looked up, and while the light in the shaft nearly pitch black, I could still see.

  And what I saw was not good. Three pairs of glowing neon-green eyes stared down at me. “Mierda,” I muttered under my breath as an image of the bat creature I’d killed outside Victor’s underground hideout flickered through my brain. How many monsters had these idiots created?

  The scurrying of feet on metal, the snap of teeth, and a low hiss got me moving again. I could fight them—whatever they were—but not while I hung suspended from cables. I slid down to the next floor and swung hard, gripping my toes on the edge of the elevator doors’ lip.

  A furry, screaming body slammed into me from above. There wasn’t time to escape through the doors, as I’d hoped, but I managed to wrap my legs around the cable. At least my hands were free. It was the best I could do.

  The light from under the elevator door gave me a glimpse of dark red fur, a long whip-like tail, and claws that extended farther than they should. But the head was the real freak show. The creature’s eyes were human, wide and terrified even as its alligator-like snout snapped at me. I got a protective arm up just in time and the creature bit down right to the bone. I snarled, wrapped my free hand around its neck, and jerked its throat out. The teeth gave way and the body fell down the shaft.

  The creature’s buddies scampered closer, hanging upside down as they clung to the walls with their claws and tails.

  “What in God’s name are you?” I whispered, horror flickering through me. I wasn’t afraid. I could kill them with ease. But I was struck by absolute revulsion that anyone could do this to another living creature. It was like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster all over again.

  And yes, that is a story for another time.

  I swung toward the doors again, hooking my toes once more on the ledge, and worked my knife in between the doors. I managed to slip through the doors before the remaining creatures could drop down on me, hissing and snapping their teeth. Pushing the doors back together, I turned to see just where I’d ended up.

  A sign pointed away from me. “Rooms 1075-1045.” The tenth floor. Not exactly where I had wanted to end up, but at least it was closer. I lifted my head and scented the air. A heavy overlay of cleaners and detergents, but under that was a darker smell. Formaldehyde. Embalming fluid.

  Another deep breath brought traces of decomposing bodies. I was in the morgue.

  I took the walkie-talkie from my hip and pressed the call button.

  “Rachel.”

  There was a pause and I wondered if she’d gotten into trouble. Who was I kidding? She seemed to have a knack for it.

  “I’m here,” she answered, and I turned the radio’s volume down.

  “Did you find them?”

  Another short pause. “Yeah, but I got detained.”

  In other words, she had been snooping for evidence. Or maybe someone had seen her, and she’d had no choice but to take care of them. “Trouble?”

  “No, the opposite, but there’s over fifty people in here, Lea. We’re never going to sneak this many out.”

  “Just get them upstairs,” I said. “With whatever is going on here, the security is seriously lacking. This might work.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on the tenth floor,” I said, the sound of distant people talking getting my attention. “Let me know if you get into trouble.”

  “You, too.”

  I slipped the walkie-talkie back onto the waistband of my jeans. Settling into a stalking crouch, I moved down the hallways, looking for cameras, or anything that might have set off an alarm. Maybe more of the rats from the elevator shaft. But there was nothing except the red flashing lights above every door. A silent alarm system that someone—or something—had set off.

  I turned the corner and the voices went silent. Narrowing my eyes, I stopped moving and listened. Nothing. Ahead of me, a door on the right was open a crack. Moving
swiftly, I jogged over to it and slipped inside.

  The room would have made Rachel light up with glee. It was full of paperwork on the dead bodies that had come through the morgue. I picked up one of the top sheets.

  To whom it may concern,

  Please be sure to give appropriate reasons on the death certificates that are plausible causes of death except in the case of the Rikers Island patients.

  Anything less will be reason for immediate termination.

  Dr. Stravinsky

  Well, that was interesting. So, no one was supposed to know how these people were really dying? Like having their bodies pulled apart and reattached in weird ways to animals? And there was yet another mention of Rikers Island. Inmates being used for experiments...the thought pinged through my mind and I couldn’t push it away. It fit all too fucking well.

  “And they call me the monster,” I snorted softly to myself, spreading the papers around. I took a few, knowing Rachel would want them for evidence.

  The sound of voices again, low and melodic. Almost like someone was singing under their breath. Two someones, to be exact.

  Back in the hallway, I followed the singing to a closed door with a single word painted on it.

  Morgue.

  Frowning at the door as if it would answer my questions, I wrapped my hand around the doorknob and turned. While it stuck, it wasn’t locked, and I pushed the door open, fully expecting to see a human I could interrogate.

  But there was no one. Or at least, no one alive. Three bodies covered in long white sheets lay splayed out on the tables in front of me. Their chests were still, but I knew from experience that didn’t mean shit.

  I stopped at the foot of the closest body and grabbed the sheet, yanking it off with a flourish. A woman in her late fifties lay on the slab, her long dark curly hair pulled back from her face in a tight ponytail. I did the same to each of the bodies. Each one was female, and each seemed to be around the same age. They even looked alike. Though they looked very human, the smell in the room told me they were anything but.