“I never said anything about you spying for us,” Farrell countered with a totally innocent air. He put on what Harry thought was a very bad performance at acting the injured party in this whole affair.
She offered a throaty laugh. “You also never said anything about Harry creating programs for you to game on, but he did.”
Harry chuckled at that last thought. Farrell had asked him to redo a video game he liked—Justice Served, Version 2.0—and Harry obliged him. Farrell played the game in his spare time, but he never figured that anyone knew about it outside of Harry. He was wrong.
This time, Anastasia joined in the laughter and it didn’t stop until the agent strode angrily from the room, spewing curses as he went. Once the door slammed shut, though, Harry sobered up and wondered if the agency would really take away his program. A shudder of fear ran through him. His girlfriend didn’t seem to be overly concerned as she lay down to take a nap. She didn’t have to worry—much.
As luck would have it, the agent came through for them the next day. Striding into the room with another man, Farrell introduced him as “New York FBI Bureau Director, Andrew Merton.”
Merton was a very tall, massively built man in his sixties, craggy-faced and with cold, calculating blue eyes. With a head of snowy white hair, he resembled a Yeti. “I see we have a talking cat,” he stated without a hint of emotion in his voice, and Harry wondered why all agents had to give the public the robot routine. Maybe it was part of basic training.
Anastasia noiselessly jumped up on the table to regard him with curiosity. “I wasn’t always a cat,” she said. “I was human once. I want to be again.”
Merton’s expression, one of blandness, never shifted. “I’ll have to talk this over with the proper people,” he said and exited the room.
Talking this over with the proper people meant meetings, round-the-clock ones at times, and getting used to the way the government operated. How it operated was that Harry drew up plans and gave them to Farrell. In turn, Farrell handed them over to his superior.
While all the paperwork was necessary, the real work lay in actually figuring out how the transformation could be achieved. In his notes, the late Doctor Nurmelev had mentioned something about a chamber that would rapidly transform the subject from human to animal or vice-versa. To anyone else, it would have seemed like sheer fantasy. However, Harry read over the notes, got the gist, and knew that it could be done.
Nurmelev’s notes were incomplete, and that meant Harry had to rely on his own intelligence and intuition. He drew up computer models, and the specifications got passed on to a team of engineers. They built a small-scale chamber and Harry tested it. It ran, and on a computer simulation, it showed that it could indeed, reverse the transformation. Still, he wasn’t quite sure if it was worthwhile testing it on a human being.
Science could not be held back, though, and about three months after he’d started working for the FBI, he got the call to attend a meeting. “This is where you get your chance, kid,” Farrell said, and Harry stifled the urge to roll his eyes.
In a room upstairs, everyone took their seats around a large wooden table, pitchers of ice water and glasses at the ready. Merton, Farrell, and Harry sat at one end, with Anastasia perched in Harry’s lap. Three men sat in the middle. Harry nudged Farrell’s arm. “Who are those guys?”
“They’re the engineers,” Farrell whispered.
Harry had never met them before. He also hadn’t seen the other man who sat at the far end of the table. Forty-ish, short and rotund, with a pale porcine face, he fidgeted with some notes. Merton made the preliminary introductions and laid out his instructions to his team of engineers.
That left the chubby man, who introduced himself as Doctor Halsey. He remained quiet throughout the presentation. However, when the topic of transgenic research and application came up, he raised his eyebrows when Merton announced that Harry would be in charge of the whole thing.
“And I’m not?” he queried in a high-pitched voice. “Sir,” he said to Merton, “I’m one of the top transgenic researchers in North America. I deserve to be given the chance at experimenting on the cat.”
Poor choice of words, as Anastasia jumped onto the table, quickly padded across it, squatted down on her haunches, and spat in Halsey’s face. “I’m not a lab rat,” she said.
While the engineers didn’t say anything except to murmur a collective “What in the hell” comment, Halsey almost had a stroke. His face turned white, his mouth began to quiver in disbelief, and he looked helplessly at his boss. “It talks?”
Anastasia underscored her point by slashing his hand and he screamed in pain. “Don’t ever call me it, you moron,” she stated. “I’m a girl. I was before, and with Harry’s help, I will be again.”
Merton lost his temper at that point and slammed his fist on the table, startling everyone. “Goldman’s in charge,” he stated in no uncertain terms. “Do I make myself clear?”
Only Farrell seemed unperturbed and gazed unconcernedly at all the action going on. Merton impatiently waved the scientist out. Halsey, bleeding hand and all, hastily left the room. The door slammed shut and the man in charge turned to Harry. “That means I want results, young man.”
Well, at least he didn’t call me kid, Harry thought. He then articulated what needed to be done. “Sir, I have the specs. I explained everything in this,” he held up his findings, “what the engineers have to do.”
He handed over a sheet of paper, and Merton studied it intently, finally passing it over to the engineers. One of them said, “We’ve already built a smaller model.”
“And it works, at least the prototype does—on paper,” Harry added.
One of the engineers smiled confidently. “We can build this.”
Merton turned back to Harry. “I’ll be honest with you, Goldman. I’m not a scientist. This is something that’s over my head. Anyway, we’re not alone in this project, not anymore. A special sub-division attached to the government has taken over. It’s not my call, I don’t like working under another government agency’s direction, but I don’t have a choice. We’re now working for Applied Scientific Research, ASR for short, and they want to know what to do.”
Harry felt a bit snowed by everything, but his girlfriend, anger now spent, decided to pad back to his position and settled herself into his lap. Just holding Anastasia comforted him.
Merton continued his speech and reiterated his earlier point. He wanted results. “It’s a private laboratory. We made a contract with them, and since they’re handling the funding, they want a finished product.”
“And that would be...?” Harry asked, already having a pretty good idea of what they wanted.
Rubbing his chin, he added, “And what they want is simple. They want to know how the process began and what it takes to reverse it.”
This was a little difficult for Harry to swallow. The Russians involved with their transgenic experiments were trying to create the perfect spy, so why wouldn’t the America government do the same? Wisely, though, he kept his mouth shut. Merton’s gaze met everyone else’s in the room, and then he tapped the paper with a meaty forefinger. “Are you sure this will work?”
“It should,” answered Harry, hoping that he sounded confident enough. In reality, it was all guesswork. Bright as he was, there were only so many things he knew. However, he didn’t want to admit weakness in front of the man who controlled his destiny as well as Anastasia’s.
The Director hemmed and hawed, read over the paper again, and finally, gave the go-ahead to build a larger version of the prototype that would ostensibly shift Anastasia’s form from feline to human. “This is on you, son,” he warned, and with that, he dismissed everyone.
Back in the lab, Harry, his girlfriend, and Farrell, sat around the table discussing the matter quietly. “I don’t trust them,” Anastasia said. “The Russian scientist made me, so who’s to say that your people won’t do the same to someone else?”
Farrell, who’d sa
id not a word during the meeting, tapped the computer. He had a thoughtful look on his face. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “All I know is that I’ve been tasked to watch over you and help you out if I can. I haven’t heard anything about creating superspies from the Director or anyone else.”
“If you did, would you tell us?” Harry probed. His BS-O-Meter had gone off during the meeting when ASR was mentioned, and now it was working overtime. “You didn’t tell us that we were going to be working with another agency.”
The agent spread his hands wide in a gesture of innocence. “I’m on a need-to-know basis, kid, and you didn’t need to know. Even I didn’t know at first. Merton only told me about this sub-division when you agreed to work for us. I didn’t see the need to break silence about it.”
Uh-huh, and now he tells us. Harry’s first thought was to tell the whole agency to take a huge sock and cram it in a very dark place, but he caught the pleading look in Anastasia’s eyes. She wanted to be human, or at the very least as she once was, half and half. Love could make a person do things they wouldn’t do under ordinary circumstances. So he swallowed his misgivings and said, “I’ll get to work.”
Harry’s mind snapped back to the present and he turned his attention to his computer. After going over the figures time and time again, now...now he thought that it would work. Farrell walked over to the chamber, touched it here and there, and then turned around. “Is this thing ready?”
Harry had already set some calculations in motion and was waiting for the download. The computer gave a faint beep and the readout came. Probability of success—97 percent.
Anastasia came over to stare at the screen and bobbed her head a few times. “I’m ready.”
Harry wasn’t sure, but his percentages had never been higher. Licking his lips, he said, “Let’s try it.”
Farrell whipped out his cellphone. “Bring down the serum.”
The serum was what would ostensibly begin the transformation. Its function was to turn on the human DNA and deactivate the animal genes. Once again, Nurmelev’s notes had proved invaluable, incomplete as they were, and Harry had done the rest. A knock on the door came, Farrell opened it, and another agent handed him a vial of clear liquid along with a syringe.
Immediately, he took it over to Harry. “This is from ASR. They handled all the chemistry involved. It’s magic time.”
Preparing the injection, Harry whispered to his girlfriend, “This might hurt a little—”
“Get on with it,” Anastasia cut him off. “I’m not backing down now.”
Quickly he injected her, she gave a faint moan, and her body started to shake. “I can feel it tingling all over,” she said, and her voice sounded unsteady.
The tingling meant that something was happening, and hopefully, it was a positive reaction. He picked her up under one arm, went to the chamber and switched it on, and a faint humming noise began.
Cradling her in his arms, he gave her a tiny kiss on her mouth. Weird though it might have seemed to anyone else, he loved his girlfriend more than anything and didn’t care who saw. Placing her gently inside, he said, “Lie down.”
After she lay down, he closed the lid, locked it into place, and tapped a computer key. “Now or never,” he said, feeling his heart jump with trepidation.
Farrell glanced at the chamber and back at him. “Do it.”
Harry pressed the Enter button. If everything worked, the entire process would take only five minutes. The humming rose to a sharp whine, the lights dimmed, and the chamber began to shake. Smoke poured out from the top, obscuring the view. A few seconds later, he heard her begin to scream. The agent yelled “Cut the power!”
He was about to, but Anastasia’s voice knifed through the din and she screamed back in a voice human and yet not, “I can do this!”
And so he waited...waited...and four minutes and thirty interminable seconds later, sparks showering the floor, he killed the power. Running over to the chamber, he waved the smoke away. He carefully lifted the lid and found Anastasia lying there, back in half-cat, half-human form, and unconscious.
“Is she breathing?” Harry asked, anxious that he’d failed. Losing Anastasia...no, he couldn’t bear the thought of it.
Farrell bent over and put his ear to her mouth. “Yeah, she’s still breathing. Let me move her.”
The agent took off his jacket and placed it over her nude form. Taking her in his arms, he carried her over to the cot and gently placed her on it. Straightening up, he asked, “When will we know if it worked? I mean, her memory could be messed up or her brain...”
His voice trailed off, but Harry knew what he meant. Brain damage was a very real possibility and he didn’t want to contemplate the alternative to total success. “We’ll know when she wakes up.”
Chapter Two: A Matter Of Life And...
As Anastasia slept, Harry watched her closely, wondering if he’d done the right thing and hoping for the best. Sitting at the computer, he leaned back in the chair, kept his eyes on his girlfriend, but the stress of the experiment caught up to him and he nodded off.
The early days, they’d been good. Days with his parents in his hometown of Portland, days of happiness, he remembered them well. Talks with his parents, experiments at home and then in a university lab, the joys of learning and discovering and creating, those happy memories swirled in his subconscious.
Other memories competed, though, and these were not happy ones. Shy, withdrawn, weak and mild in temperament, he’d made the perfect target for bullies to use as a punching bag. And he hated himself for it.
The only reason he persevered was due to an above average intelligence, which had been classified at the genius level, and the willingness to apply it. Since he proved to be too bright for regular school, he was allowed to study at home and experiment as well. It didn’t solve the problem of being weak and nerdy, but he felt grateful for the opportunity of academic freedom.
His parents also served as his bedrock. They were both researchers, quiet and good people who only wanted the best for him. Unfortunately, DNA proved to win out over life. In what would have been Harry’s senior year in high school, his father died from pancreatic cancer and his mother followed him into death a short time later.
Alone now, truly alone, Harry had only his wits and intelligence to carry him through it all. He’d started his research in order to perfect a cure for cancer, and had almost achieved the impossible when he was arrested. Farrell had taken him in and had broken him out of prison a short time later. “You’re working for us, kid,” he’d said at the time.
Taken to New York, he’d met Anastasia, and through a series of adventures too impossible for the average person to believe, they’d met creatures. The first enemy was a bear creature—Ivan—who was a monster and a killer. They’d also met Doug, a transgenic dog who’d sacrificed himself to save both him and Anastasia, and the biggest monster of them all, Nurmelev, a warped genius and scientist.
It had been Nurmelev’s doing all along. He’d willingly explained everything he knew about Anastasia. A prostitute, dying from AIDS, she’d made her way to a hospital in Kiev. Nurmelev had found her there, and taken her away. He’d experimented on her, and had turned her into something not quite human, yet better than human in her own way. Nurmelev’s research was the reason Harry was trying to undo the damage that the Russian scientist had caused.
And he had done so much damage. Along with the damage, there’d been a lot of deaths, inflicted mainly by Ivan, the bear-monster. He’d trailed Harry to New York, attacked and murdered numerous people, and had done so willingly.
Barely escaping with their lives, Harry, Doug, and Anastasia had made their way to the Catskill Mountains. There, Nurmelev had told him tales of the fantastic, tales that involved mass experimentation subsidized by powerful members of Russian society.
Harry had seen firsthand the successes of the program—Anastasia, for one and Doug, for another—and he’d also seen the failures. They were horribl
e mutations that didn’t live very long once their forms had been altered.
It was all part of the plan, Nurmelev said, the plan to build the perfect spy. “The plan itself is not original,” the scientist had said at the time. “It is because it is so unoriginal that it will work.”
The plan consisted of creating the perfect spy, a cat or dog that would infiltrate the enemies’ military or computer installations, steal secrets, and deliver them to their handlers. Intelligence would remain human, but the form would be that of an animal’s, and no one would be the wiser. As silly as it sounded, when Harry heard the scientist lay out the details, he knew it would work.
It had been an almost foolproof plan, except for one thing—the subjects didn’t want to cooperate. Anastasia had wanted her freedom and had escaped. The authorities had captured her. Harry had been taken from prison to do the necessary calculations. After that, fate had played its hand.
Thrown together by circumstance, they found in each other qualities they liked. Harry, for the first time in his life, found himself wanting someone so badly he’d risked death in order to stay with her. Deep in the Catskill Mountains, Nurmelev and his creation, Ivan, had died during a fateful battle, and the crazed scientist had taken a lot of secrets to his grave.
The one good thing was that he’d given Harry the clues he’d been searching for, the potential for reversing the process. It all came down to stabilizing the human DNA matrix with the animal one.
It was a fine balancing act, and one false move could irrevocably tip the balance one way or the other. Even worse, one error would cause death, and that was something Harry couldn’t bear to think about.
In another shift, the sound of the Genesis Chamber vibrating, the smoke and sparks, Anastasia’s screams, and his thudding heart all came to the forefront of his mind in living color. He was trying to reshape evolution. Who cared if the chamber was probably damaged beyond repair? They could build another one, but there was only one Anastasia, and he wanted to be reunited with her in the worst possible way, and...
Rise of the Transgenics Page 3
