Mutation Genesis

by George Willson

  “You slaughtered all those people,” David said.

  “I did nothing,” Abraham replied.

  David was growing tired of this game. He grabbed Abraham by the collar and lifted him off the ground. Abraham made no effort to resist. He calmly hung limp in David’s grasp and looked into his eyes.

  “Why shouldn’t I kill you?” David asked. He had not expected to have any desire to kill Abraham. Only a few hours ago, he thought that Abraham was happily settled in Hauginstown with Mary Dillinger, but learning that Abraham had joined the Tepish and wiped out a town of innocent people changed everything.

  “You’ve certainly succeeded in killing everyone else who has come close to you,” Abraham pointed out. “Zechariah. Beth.” David knew where Abraham was going with this, but he could not allow his concentration to be broken again.

  “I did not kill them,” David insisted.

  “No?” Abraham asked. “You were the catalyst. If it weren’t for you, they would both be alive. Do you wish to add me to your list?”

  They stared angrily into each others’ eyes – old friends both in pain over the loss of someone they held dear to them. Abraham’s reason penetrated David’s anger, and David knew that Abraham was right. In all these years, Abraham had learned from Vladimir about David’s first few days as a Fempiror, and he knew David’s place in the canon of Fempiror history.

  David’s grip softened, and he lowered Abraham to the ground. “No,” David said. He knew in his heart that he did not want to kill Abraham. Abraham was a pawn like the majority of the Tepish army. They lived on revenge and fear. He could not do it.

  David turned back to Beth and dropped to his knees to be close to her.

  “You’re right,” David said, looking at Beth’s body. “I am a blight. Those closest to me have died. Perhaps you were right to want to kill me.”

  “I have not forgotten my promise,” Abraham said. “And I intend to make good on it.” Abraham knelt next to David and looked into his face. “However, I think we can help each other for the moment.”

  David scoffed. “Why should I?” he asked.

  “Because you owe it to me,” Abraham said angrily. “It is because of you that I am a Fempiror and in the employ of the Tepish.”

  David shook his head. “You choose your sides.”

  “That may be the Rastem way,” Abraham said, “but with the Tepish, you do as you’re told or you die. I had no choice. You know that.”

  “What did you do for them?” David asked.

  “You know how the difference between a Fempiror and the vampire myth is so pronounced?” Abraham asked him.

  David thought this was a bizarre question under the circumstances, but he shrugged and nodded. “What of it?” David asked.

  “I helped them mutate our blood into a serum to create real vampires,” Abraham said quickly. “They feed on blood.”

  David stared at Abraham in shock. If David had not been living the impossible for ten years, he would have scoffed at Abraham’s statement. He wanted it to be a ploy to throw him off. He looked into Abraham’s face for any hint of deception, but instead of deception, he saw that Abraham looked afraid. David’s eyes widened as the gravity of the statement hit him. His mouth dropped open as he searched for words for the second time in only a few minutes.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I had to,” Abraham said, “but I wish I hadn’t. I will spend my life trying to undo it. I helped them to create monsters. When they are hungry, they think of nothing but the hunt. They’re just as fast as we are, and just as strong. They can survive in sunlight, and they are able to cling to walls and ceilings. They are further removed from humanity than we are. We call them the Mutation.”

  If David were standing, he knew he would have just lost all sense of balance and collapsed. This was impossible. This was idiotic. He could not fathom a reason why anyone, Tepish or not, would wish to do such a thing.

  “Dear God,” David breathed out, unable to think of anything to say.

  “It’s worse,” Abraham continued as if using David’s response as a queue to do so. “Their blood will change a human to a Mutation as ours changes them into a Fempiror, but our blood has no effect on them.”

  David nodded. He was not sure how this was worse. “And theirs has none on us?” he assumed.

  “Wrong,” Abraham replied. “It takes Mutation blood ten days to change a human, but only ten seconds to change a Fempiror.”

  David stared at Abraham, speechless. To spare his own life, Abraham had helped the Tepish create monsters who hunt mindlessly for blood when they need it, who can move in sunlight where the Rastem cannot help, and who can change a Fempiror into one of its own kind almost instantly. This was beyond stupid; in David’s opinion, it was unconscionable.

  “You fool!” David said angrily.

  “I admit it,” Abraham replied coolly.

  “Then let’s go to the source and destroy it,” David said. He needed something to live for after tonight’s nightmare. David stood and walked toward the edge of town. Abraham remained where he was.

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” Abraham asked him as he walked away.

  “I don’t care,” David said. Now that Beth was gone, he had nothing else to live for, so concern for his life was far from his mind. He wanted a chance to take this creature out, and if he died doing it, they would be doing him a favor.

  “David, you can’t do it on your own,” Abraham called after him. “You need me.”

  “You would betray me to my death,” David said. The last thing he wanted was for Abraham to be gratified by killing him. He thought morbidly that while he did not care about his life any longer, he still had standards for how he preferred to die.

  “Just as I promise to avenge Beth through your death,” Abraham stated, “I also promise that I will do nothing to you until we have succeeded in this.”

  David stopped, realizing that since Abraham created this thing, he would have a far easier time reaching its source than David would. David also noted that he really had no idea where he was going.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?” David asked rhetorically.

  “No, you don’t,” Abraham stated.

  David sighed and walked back toward Abraham. Abraham turned to walk inside the town hall, but David paused and looked at Beth’s body. He could not leave her here.

  “I want to take her home,” David said.

  Abraham looked at him briefly and then shook his head. “Haven’t you been warned about that before?” he asked.

  “Not to see anyone,” David said. “Just to give her a proper burial. The three of us have headstones there already, you know.”

  “We do?” Abraham asked in surprise.

  David nodded. “I just thought that placing her there would be the most appropriate,” he said.

  “Well,” Abraham said with an uncomfortable pause, “let’s get through tonight, or someone might have to fill all three of them.”

  David nodded and with a final glance to Beth’s body, he followed Abraham into the town hall past Obadiah’s former office to a blank space on the wall. Abraham pressed a button, which unlocked a secret passage into the back of the building. It reminded David a lot of Urufdiam and even modern Erim. He shook off the nostalgia and followed Abraham into a small room to their immediate right after entering the back of the building.

  Clearly, this was Abraham’s laboratory with all the glass containers, papers, pens, and even several nilrof on a wide counter that dominated three of the room’s walls. Abraham’s attention was focused on the table in the center of the room containing stacks of papers and a couple of vials containing what David assumed to be more of the Mutation serum.

  “What are we doing here?” David asked.

  “I’m going to burn all of my papers and research on the Mutation,” Abraham said as he gathered the papers scattered across the counters.

  “So burn down the town hall,” David said. “You’ve already
wiped out the town. What does it matter?”

  Abraham shot him an angry look. He opened his mouth to speak, but finally said nothing. He walked back to the center table and stacked the papers into a single stack. David folded his arms and watched him, impatiently.

  “So, what do you suggest?” David asked.

  “The task before us is as easy as it is hard,” Abraham said. “The Tepish Fortress is situated over the site of the original Body Hall, and they both used the same type of waste system, if you want to call it a system. They never connected it to the rest of Erim’s sewer system because they didn’t want anyone to be able to get into the fortress by crawling through it.”

  Abraham placed a sheet of paper on the table and used a charcoal pencil to sketch a picture of the Tepish fortress. He drew seven progressively smaller boxes representing the layers of the fortress. Under the layers, he drew a jagged curved line, representing a hole. He drew a small picture of a cistern on one of the floors.

  “Every cistern in the place has a tube beneath it that leads to this underground cavern,” Abraham continued, drawing a line from the bottom of the pot to the large hole beneath the fortress. “Each tube has a door at the top and a door at the bottom to help contain the smell. All the waste just sits down there in dark pools of some kind of thick, slick liquid. Although there is a way into that room, believe me, you don’t want to go there. The smell will knock you flat.”

  David looked at the rough drawing and shrugged. “Why does this matter?” he asked impatiently.

  “Human waste, if contained, contains so much phlogiston that even a spark will ignite it,” Abraham explained. “Left to stagnate with that dark, combustible fluid, and you have a situation that would … well … let’s just say it’s what we need.”

  David just stared at Abraham. He had very little idea what Abraham just said, or how this helped. “Phlo-what?” David asked.

  “Phlogiston,” Abraham said. “You know, it’s what makes things burn.”

  David stared for a moment longer until he finally just closed his eyes and shook his head. “So what does all this mean to me?” he asked. His tailor roots were showing through in that he had no idea what Abraham was talking about. It was clear that after leaving Hauginstown, Abraham had learned much more about his alchemy profession than he had ever known before.

  “It means,” Abraham continued with the utmost patience, “that if you drop something like a torch down one of the cisterns, it’ll set that whole level on fire. Once it goes, the whole tower will collapse on itself.”

  David nodded. “That sounds easy,” he remarked. Too easy, he thought to himself.

  “That part is,” Abraham said. “The problem is that the flames will spread so quickly into the first level that you’ll need to do it from pretty high up. And if you go very high, a torch would never make the journey into the basement. You’ll need something else. And since the first floor won’t be available for escape, you’d have to go out a window or something from there.”

  “Oh,” David said. He was right about it sounding too easy. He would have to get to a high level and jump out a window to escape before the tower fell down on itself. However, he thought that as long as he succeeded in destroying the fortress, it would be a good way to die. “What do we have to work with?” he asked.

  “I can get you in the door masquerading as a prisoner,” Abraham replied. “From there, I can say you overpowered me, and you’re on your own. I will head to the laboratory and destroy what I can. You can figure out how you can drop something the tubes and make it out in one piece.”

  “From very high up, what are the chances that whatever I drop gets stuck?” asked David.

  “Very slim, actually,” Abraham replied. “The tubes are all set as vertically as possible so that waste doesn’t get trapped in them. If we ran any of the tubes horizontally, waste could get trapped because while we do run water through the cisterns, there isn’t enough pressure to clear waste from a horizontal tube. By running them vertically, it all falls into this cavern.”

  David nodded thoughtfully, and then considered something else Abraham had said. “If I’m going to destroy the place,” David said, a bit confused, “then why do you need to go to the laboratory, first?”

  “Two reasons,” Abraham explained. “First, you might not succeed, so at least I will have to; second, if you do succeed, there’s a chance that some information from the laboratory could survive. Either way, I want to destroy that information first.”

  “Fine,” David said. “Let’s go.”

  “I have to do one more thing,” Abraham said, handing the stack of papers to David and walking out of the room.

  David rolled his eyes and wondered what else he could possibly need to do before they left. David glanced at the papers briefly. He gathered that Abraham intended to destroy them, so he took a few sheets from the top and tucked them into his shirt. He had an idea of what he would use to get a fire into the basement Abraham described, but he needed more than just the paper. He picked up the rest and followed Abraham down the passage to another room deeper into the back of the building.

  “Where are we going?” David asked, dutifully carrying the papers.

  “I need to destroy the subjects here,” Abraham said. “None can survive if we are to eradicate the mutation.”

  He entered the room at the end of the hall on the left. David followed him and found Abraham standing just inside the door, his mouth open in surprise. David looked at the room. There was a glass wall immediately inside the room with a door leading into the other part of the room. On the east side of the room was a large window that David recognized as where he, Beth, and Frinyar had all been surprised by a Mutation jumping against the window. However, at this time, the room was empty. The outside glass had been smashed.

  He looked at Abraham. “I think I saw two in here yesterday. You’re not going to tell me there were more, are you?” David asked calmly, preparing himself for a fight against these things.

  “No, there were only two,” Abraham said. “One was human subject and the other a Tepish guard, originally. And now, they’re gone.”

  “I need to get my sword,” David said. He could fight with the longswords that littered the ground from the earlier battle, but he could handle his much better.

  “Right,” Abraham agreed.

  They made their way out of the town hall quickly. As they exited the hall, David folded the stack of papers under his arm and snatched one of the self-lighting torches from the wall. He extinguished it and hung it on his belt. He was grateful the metal end that put out the flame kept the end of the torch cool as it hung against his leg. Thunder rolled as they entered the night air.

  “Looks like rain,” Abraham noted.

  David nodded. “Let’s just hope it holds off long enough for us to take care of your little problems. Do you see them?”

  Abraham shook his head. David carried the remainder of the papers that Abraham had given him and dropped them onto the smoldering fire where Abraham had intended David to meet his end. Abraham ran up behind him and watched as his research slowly caught fire and turned to ashes, destined to be forever washed away once the rain started. Abraham sighed deeply as he watched.

  Without a word, David turned and ran toward the Kelïrum Inn. He thought he spotted movement on the wall above the door to the Inn, but he could not be certain. It made little difference to him at this time since he could not stand against it without his sword. He needed to get back to his room. He charged through the door with Abraham right behind him.

  They passed the desk where Fiona had once greeted them. Now, Fiona either was dead or had fled the town after the Tepish had overrun them. David ran up the stairs and kicked in the door to room 202. His rucksack rested undisturbed in the corner of the room with his sword still tucked into its custom redesigned interior.

  With no time to change his clothes, David quickly put on his wrist and ankle gauntlets over his shirtsleeves and woolen stockings. T
he ankle gauntlets, however, were made to fit over long trousers and boots, so they did not fit him as he was dressed. He returned the ankle gauntlets to his rucksack and settled for the wrist gauntlets along with his sword, which he strapped to his back, and hoped he would have time to change into his proper Rastem attire before they left.

  He turned to Abraham. “I wish I had something you could use,” he said apologetically. “Well, better than the swords littering the street.” Abraham pulled back his overcoat and unsheathed a dagger from a small scabbard on his belt.

  “I trained as a Tepish for two years,” Abraham said. “I’m no fighter, but I can protect myself.”

  David nodded. That would have to do. “Let’s go.”

  They turned to the door to leave, but the person he and Beth had seen in the room with the window stood in the doorway, blocking it. Presumably, this was the human subject Abraham referenced, meaning that the guard was out there somewhere too.

  The subject snarled at them, revealing his elongated teeth, like the fangs of a snake in the darkened room. It shrank to the floor onto all fours as if preparing to spring. Abraham and David slowly backed away from him. David moved his hand to draw his sword. The subject locked onto the movement and leapt across the room for David, clearing the entire distance in a single movement. David anticipated the subject’s landing, rolled, and kicked the subject through the wall of the room.

  The wood splintered as the subject flew outside, but as he sailed through the air, the subject righted himself and rolled to a gentle stop on the ground below. David watched the subject’s dexterity in awe. The subject looked up to David and just smiled. David wondered with concern if he were smiling at anything in particular.

  “David, look out!” Abraham yelled.

  David spun as the second Mutation slammed into him sending him gliding through the air before he crashed hard to the ground. Though winded, David knew he had no time for as much as a breath. The guard had him pinned to the ground. His only salvation rested in the animalistic nature of his attackers. The subject moved in, but the guard batted at him like two animals fighting over a meal. David took the chance to kick the guard off him.