Jer nodded. “When it was owned by the city, there were multiple attempts to turn the abandoned location into a homeless shelter, a prison, and a dumpsite. Eventually, the city declared the island unsafe for public residency. That was when GenAdvance stepped in and purchased the entire island as a dumping ground for anyone possessing the Transhumana Monstrare gene.”
“I’m glad they did,” Pike replied. She stared out the window again.
“There are over a hundred monster containment centers worldwide, but North Brother Island and South Brother Island are where everything important happens. There’s also an urban myth going around that the two islands were the epicenter of some ancient conflict between humans and monsters, but no one’s ever been able to prove that or find any archeological evidence to support it.”
Pike sucked on her teeth. “Here’s an idea. Burn the whole fucking place to the ground. Just…Light a match and walk away.”
Jer shook his head. “You’ve got some serious anger issues, Pike.”
“Fuck off,” Pike spat, anger burning up inside just as Jer perceived.
Jer fought against a knowing smile. “See what I mean.”
The hydra vehicle passed by the waterfront cottage where Typhoid Mary had been held. The cottage was adjacent to a church, and mostly buried under kudzu and ivy. The vehicle motored past the darkened shells of old hospital wards and residences.
Similar to the time when contagious patients were confined here, the island again had its own morgue, dormitory housing, and makeshift hospital facilities. The facilities weren’t controlled by the permanent residents, however. GenAdvance used them to analyze and study monsters for potential commercial use and genetic advancement.
In 1946, the former male dorm was temporarily used to house returning soldiers, and the Island Nursery School housed their children. The former housing units, dating from as early as 1885, had been converted into slums.
Shortly after buying the island, GenAdvance built a serviceable dock connected to a bridge just under the lighthouse at the southern tip of the isle. The lighthouse utilized occulting light and stood at forty-seven feet above the water.
The bridge led to South Brother Island. It was only six acres in size, but the location of GenAdvance Headquarters. There was a second bridge that spanned the distance from South Brother Island to New York City. North Brother Island, and the barrier bridge, were well out of sight of that connecting bridge. To add insult to injury, North Brother Island was not only separated by a river from the rest of the world: GenAdvance had erected a massive fence around the perimeter, making the water just out of reach. If the inhabitants climbed high enough on the ruinous buildings, they could glimpse the city they weren’t allowed to visit.
The car continued on, the rough roads making enough noise in the cabin for a few minutes of semi-privacy. Dakota leaned over to Jer. “What’s going on?”
Jer whispered, “My friend, Jasper, —he’s a geneticist. Or, he was a geneticist. I think he made a breakthrough, and the Pharma Brass is scared. Apparently, somebody believed him, or he’d be alive right now,” Jer frowned. “Considering all the trouble already, I’ll understand if your first day interning for me is also your last.”
Dakota shook her head and ignored Jer’s offer.
“What the hell was he working on?” Dakota whispered back. “How could he have pulled it off? They’ve got A.I. and hundreds of scientists working day and night.”
Even though he appreciated her eagerness to learn, Jer shrugged. “Not a clue, but they must think I do... or they think I killed him.”
“Impossible,” Dakota said.
“Which?” Jer asked. “That I could murder my own friend, or that I have a clue?”
“Murder,” she replied. “You’re not the type. Even I can see that. You’re kind of sweet actually.”
They passed other robotic cars, hydra-cabs, and hydra-cycles skittering on the streets. They passed liquor stores, pawn shops, and tents that sprang up along the sidewalks. The streets here teemed with younger monsters who bartered for basic needs along the route, ignoring the hydra police car rumbling by.
Ritter gestured to the monsters. “Our tax dollars at work.”
“Do you ever think that if we didn’t engage in congenital discrimination, they’d be able to get jobs in the ‘real’ world?” Jer asked, challenging Ritter’s loaded remark.
Ritter’s eyes drifted to the rearview mirror.
“That’s some bullshit, pal,” Ritter said. “They ain’t born in shitty situations. They choose to live a lifestyle without responsibility. It’s in their nature. Monsters are monsters.”
“The only way I’m letting those fuckers do important work is with a restraint around their necks to keep ‘em in line,” Pike added.
“Do you really think somebody would choose a lifestyle that makes them an outcast?” Dakota asked.
Ritter and Pike shared a look, but didn’t respond with words. They glared at Jer and Dakota as the hydra slowed and crested onto Purgatory Bridge, approaching the checkpoint.
Pike flipped open her laminated badge.
The guards waved them forward, and the hydra picked up speed again as it crossed the bridge. As they entered South Brother Island, Dakota noticed a sign she hadn’t seen before. It read ‘Welcome To A Better World!’
Shiny new glass-windowed condos and commercial buildings that looked straight out of a utopian neo-noir futuristic city lined the horizon of the island officially called Harbinger Heights.
At the cusp of a hill was the police precinct, a tall, vault-like structure that loomed over the small city and bridge. Jer saw the precinct for what it really was: a beacon of repression and security with cutting-edge defensive assets and A.I.-controlled weaponry. It meant to serve as a warning to anyone courageous or stupid enough to trespass.
The hydra descended into a barricaded underground garage and parked on its own. Jer and the others disembarked and made their way to an elevator that Ritter accessed by pressing his hand to a biometric scanner.
The four of them rode the elevator to the ground floor of the police precinct.
Ritter and Pike flanked Jer and Dakota as they led them down a narrow corridor full of law enforcement Pharma Synths and corporate goons. General-purpose Pharma cops manhandled monster suspects, corralling them into overcrowded holding pens.
“Can I say something?” Dakota asked.
“Absolutely not,” Ritter shot back.
“The conditions here are so unbelievably inhumane that—”
Pike chuckled, interrupting her. “Yeah, that’s the point.”
Ritter nodded. “The suspects aren’t human, after all.”
Jer bit his tongue, knowing better than to speak his mind when the enemy held all the cards.
As the group continued through the corridor, Jer caught the eyes of a tall, dapper black man in his late 40s, Alderman Max Ray.
The alderman nodded as the four of them shuffled past. Jer swapped a look and a wink with the alderman. They went back, way back, through good times and bad.
Pike stopped and gestured at Dakota. “She stays in the romper room until we’re done,” she said.
Dakota looked at Jer with concern.
Jer shrugged helplessly as Ritter and Pike separated them.
Ritter stuffed Dakota into the ‘romper room.’ It w was an oval room with padded walls. A propaganda holographic feed ran along the walls, and several monsters of various shapes and sizes sat or stood around the room.
She forced a smile at an eight-foot tall monster with oversized incisors, but the monster didn’t reciprocate.
Ritter and Pike shoved Jer into the Police Chief’s office. One of them forced the doctor into an uncomfortable folding chair in front of a mahogany desk. Ritter then pulled out a piece of equipment, a virtual reality headset.
“Time to take a stroll down memory lane,” Ritter said.
“I’d rather not,” Jer replied.
Pike’s gaze narrowed. �
��We insist.”
Jer knew he didn’t have a choice. They slid the headset over his hair and the lights dimmed. “I’m only allowing this because I’m curious how far your invasive BDSM torture fetishes have come, so I can post about them on an online forum. If either of you tries any funny business, I’m gonna have to report you to the police.”
“Hit the square button on the side, smartass,” Ritter hissed.
Jer did as instructed, reluctantly. A cone of green light beamed out of the headset and overlaid the center of the Police Chief’s office.
“These are your memories and statements, doc,” Pike said. “The ones you gave to GenAdvance when you were authorized to open your little clinic.”
Images flickered and flashed until Jer was fully immersed in a virtual recreation of his father’s research lab. Jer’s father, the renowned scientist William Bennington, pointed at different spots on a DNA helix while speaking.
“’Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster,’” Jer’s father said. “Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. He was right then, and his words ring true today. We face monsters every day, and we are ill-prepared.”
The images changed, whipping forward. Jer was being forced to watch a video of his younger self. He was giving a lengthy statement during an exhaustive vetting process at GenAdvance corporate headquarters. He hoped to receive a permit to build a private clinic in the monster borough.
“What’s a monster?” the younger Jer asked, staring at the row of people he had to impress. “That’s a question my father used to pose to me. Over and over, never satisfied with my answers.”
The images flashed forward to the well-trodden streets of North Brother Island where an even younger Jer, about fourteen years of age, walked closely next to his father as they crossed the street with the sounds of hydra horns honking. Holographic advertisement bulletin boards hovered overhead.
Male and female monsters catcalled, looking for customers.
Jer’s recorded voice echoed over the image of his young self and his father as they walked to a secret meeting shortly after William’s discovery had changed the world.
“Scientists like my father identified a genetic fissure that differentiated monsters from humans. ‘Transhumana Monstrare’ they called it. This small piece of genetic code was the root cause of monster traits and development, the monsters of our wildest fantasies, daydreams, and nightmares. Unlike every other doctor and scientist in the world, my father was convinced that humans and monsters had a common ancestor. At some point, he thought, the family tree had branched. The DNA is different but not that different, so he got approval and funding. He was absolutely certain that the split meant different types of medication and surgical procedures would be more effective if they were tailored specifically to each individual monster.”
Jer had enough of this forced memory recall. When he tried to reach up to pull the headset off, his hands wouldn’t budge. He struggled, but couldn’t get loose. Pike and Ritter had restrained him while he was jacked in.
“Goddammit, stop this!” Jer shouted.
No one responded. Instead, the three-dimensional images continued the cruel memory trip.
William led a young Jer down a sidewalk clotted with monsters. Men, women, and children of various ethnicities, ages, and backgrounds glanced at them but didn’t bother them as they would on the main street.
Some of them appeared downright frightening. They didn’t hide their fangs, horns, or fur. They had claws that could rip a person to shreds. Another part of Jer was fascinated. He wanted to know more about them, to understand them. He wanted to be like his father and even had thoughts of helping them one day.
Others appeared friendly and harmless, with little more than tiny horns, splotches of fur, and oddly shaped bodies that resembled wildlife.
Several others oozed with sensuality, their supple breasts busting at the seams of tight brassieres, chiseled muscles visible through their clothes, and smooth skin that drew attention.
“And with the recognition of this fissure, those that had lived so long as second-class citizens became non-citizens,” Jer continued. “Most accepted the changes at first. That didn’t last long.”
The images changed to a side street where laboring monsters hauled garbage, shoveled shit, and collected litter.
The images morphed to a street corner at a busy intersection where William waited for a pedestrian light to turn as young Jer watched a political rally in the distance.
“Others fought back, which turned ugly in a hurry. By the time I was a teenager,” Jer’s recorded voice continued, “the monsters had begun to organize.”
A breathtaking human could be seen in the images, standing against the backdrop of posters demanding ‘Equal Rights For All’ as her fist pumped the air. Several monsters in the crowd focused on her luscious breasts, as if they were only at the rally to catch a glimpse of the attractive activist and monster advocate named Elizabeth Lavenza. Her skin was delicate, but her eyes were fierce. Her bright red hair was pulled up in a bun, exposing her supple neckline.
Jer remembered her, and how she’d adopted the moniker of Lavenza when she gained a public following.
The memories continued to play out, mixed with videos that had been on the news at some point and footage from various security cameras. Soldiers massed on a cross street in black uniforms with completely concealed faces. They paced in front of armored vehicles. They watched with indifference, their minds on their next paychecks, as Lavenza went about her protest.
‘GenAdvance’ and their corporate logo was emblazoned on the side of the vehicles.
“And of course, this didn’t sit well with the ruling class,” Jer said. “Why would it?”
The masked soldiers broke their silence and waded into the center of the rally, breaking it up, using batons and brute force. Some of the soldiers had more brutal weapons, and began to use them.
“When riots and protests were put down with extreme violence, we treated them as less than second-class citizens. They were harnessed like cattle to clean up our trash and slop up our shit. ’Why the fuck not,’ everyone said. ‘They should be grateful we don’t slaughter them,’ others said.”
It was a bloodbath.
Human journalists covering the protests turned away, averted their eyes. Passersby ran off for fear of being seen as sympathizers. No one helped the monsters.
“The giant pharmaceutical companies that ran amok during the privatization years were responsible for the carnage,” Jer continued. “The ones who took control over the military and the government. The ones who bought and sold elected officials and civil servants…”
On a street corner, a monster exited a drug store, a bag in his hand. He was a small creature with an emaciated face and veiny arms. His skin was pallid and scaly. He looked like a cross between a lizard and a zombie.
“…the very same companies that ran a multi-billion-dollar legalized drug empire on the backs of monsters…”
In an alleyway, the lizard-zombie shuffled into a dark corner where he downed a single pill from the bag and handed the remainder to a beastnik.
The beastnik’s face was a snout away from being that of a bear. His whole body was covered in fur. He was exactly the kind of monster that criminal syndicates wanted as the face of their franchise. No one stole from this guy.
Ignoring the cameras that lined the streets, the beastnik drug pusher slipped the lizard-zombie a wad of cash, spun around, and descended into a back alleyway, where he opened a metal door that led into the underground.
“…and a trillion-dollar illegal black-market drug ring on the backs of everyone…”
Inside a dimly-lit basement, the beastnik cut the pills. He mixed them with liquid and poured the resulting contents into asthma inhalers.
A few moments later, he was back up above ground, and handing out the new drug, T-Light to those who gathered around. This wasn’t free, though. The addicted monsters threw cash
at the beastnik dealer.
The pushers started the monsters off by giving them free samples, called cherries. T-Light didn’t just give them a high. It relieved the pain caused by their horns growing through the skin, the way teething hurt. It also eased the searing ache of sharp claws pushing out of cuticles and breaking the flesh, drawing blood. It was found to be not just common, but almost always the case that the drug dealers were on GenAdvance’s payroll.
“But my father didn’t share the sentiments of those who wanted to exploit the monsters.”
Jer could see the interior of his father’s laboratory in the middle of the day. His younger self swiveled on a stool while he watched his father examine a monster laid out on a metal slab.
“And they called him a freak and a turncoat because he operated a clinic. To study them. To help them. He actually loved them. After his discovery resulted in monsters being pushed even further down the food chain, Doctor William Bennington put all his energy into trying to correct what he saw as his gravest mistake. But it was his undoing.”
Another image appeared: the city sidewalk where he and his father strolled away from the street lamps and into a dimly lit area.
Without either of them realizing it, an enormous shadow followed.
Once no one else was around, the cloaked creature cornered them. Father and son turned in horror a second too late.
The creature glided in close and pounced.
“They told me that my father’s last words were, ‘The scorpion will always sting the frog’s back.’”
Jer saw himself staring down at his father’s flower-covered grave. After making the sign of the cross, he pulled his father’s stethoscope out of his back pocket and slipped it around his neck.
Then a teenage Jer was staring at a teacher who gestured to a scientific formula on a plasma screen. The other students were busy playing on their smartphones.
“After that, I was declared a ward of the state and provided an education.” The walls in the schoolroom were covered with promotional posters for GenAdvance.
‘Stop disease before it happens!’ was across the top of one of the posters. A ferocious beastnik wolf with exaggerated features snarled in a frightening pose. At the bottom, the words read, ‘Report any signs of Transhumana Monstrare before it infects your family!’
Monster M.D.: A Monster Girl Harem Mystery Thriller (Monster M.D. ) Page 4
