Rise of the Transgenics

by J. S. Frankel

  “Go to hell.”

  That seemed like a decent sound bite. The reporter didn’t look overly shocked. Instead, he uttered a series of expletives.

  Another policeman trundled over, shoved the reporter away, and pulled on Harry’s arm. “Picture time, son,” he said while steering him in the direction of the stairs.

  One level down, he was taken to another room to have his mug shot taken. He waited while six other men went ahead, and when it was his turn, he stood against the wall’s height chart, held out his number, and the photographer snapped away.

  “Turn to your right,” the photographer intoned. Move completed, the photographer asked him to face front. Once that procedure was over—and by now he was beginning to think he’d never make it out of here alive and he hadn’t even been charged yet—another officer escorted him to another room.

  “I’m taking you to the holding cell now,” the police officer said. “You don’t have a lawyer, do you?”

  “No sir, I don’t.” Harry wondered if giving Farrell’s name would work, but decided not to say anything. For all he knew, the agent wouldn’t back him, and right now all he felt was numb.

  “Did the officers who arrested you read you your rights?”

  “Yes sir, they did,” Harry answered truthfully.

  “Too bad,” the answer came. “Killers like you don’t deserve any rights.”

  They marched along a narrow hallway for another few paces and stopped outside a room. Harry’s escort said, “Here we are.”

  Entering the room, the police officer nodded at another guard who took out a key and opened up the holding cell. “Move inside,” the first police officer ordered, and pushed him through the door.

  Filthy was the operative word here. A lone toilet sat in the far right corner, broken and overflowing, and a thin, yellow river of pee slowly spread over the floor. Nine men occupied the small space. Some of them didn’t bother to move their feet while three others jostled for space on the lone bench.

  In an effort to find a measure of peace, Harry stood well away from the pack and wondered if he’d get whacked here, in a cell, or somewhere in between if Piotr and Lyudmila showed up. A sense of despair threatened to overwhelm him, but he did his best to fight it down.

  After thinking it over, he decided that it didn’t matter. He’d been locked in a tiny room along with robbers and drug addicts, possible rapists and murderers, and every single one of them towered over him and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. Here, size did matter.

  The stench of the human waste coupled with body odor and the occasional fart didn’t help much, either. So to take his mind off his unfortunate incarceration, he thought back to his earlier days.

  Oh, wait, they’d sucked, too. Bad idea, but once started, the memories wouldn’t stop...

  “Punk.”

  One word, it was just one word, but it could be used in some many ways. As a noun, it meant a weakling or someone who ran afoul of the law. In Harry’s case, it meant the former.

  As a verb, it denoted making someone feel inferior by abusing them physically or verbally or both. Once again, in Harry’s case, he was always on the end of the punking, always the punked and never the punker, if such a word existed. Somewhere in the depths of his mind, he knew that such a word did, in fact, exist, and he hated it.

  He also hated being weak. Traveling back to junior high school days, he remembered getting back at his tormenters through science. After coming home with a split lip plus a bruised face and body one day, his father, also small and spare, kindly gave him the facts of life while patching him up. They’d sat in the kitchen, just the two of them, as Harry’s mother had gone out to buy food for the evening—and more bandages.

  “It’s okay to be afraid, son,” the elder Goldman said, dabbing iodine on Harry’s cuts. “Everyone is, even the biggest and toughest men in the world. Being afraid is only natural, but they’ve learned to hit back. Hitting back isn’t against the law, not last I heard.”

  “But I always lose, Dad,” Harry wailed, hating himself even more for being weak. The teachers didn’t stop the punking jobs, no other kids would stand up for him and what was wrong with this picture?

  His father stopped the patch job and straightened up, and this time his voice didn’t sound as soothing as it usually did. “Losing happens, son. But if you don’t hit back, they’ll keep doing it. Hitting back will make them think twice.”

  Sage advice given, he left the kitchen.

  As he sat there, nursing his wounds, Harry realized that no one was ever going to help him. He had to do it on his own, and eventually he’d found the strength to hit back. Cornered animals always did, and he did, as well. A feeling of pride surfaced, and even though he got his ass kicked yet again, he did manage to exact some revenge against one bully by using itching powder...and subsequently got suspended.

  The suspension came as a blessing in disguise, as his parents allowed their gifted son to study at home. “Just do the school homework, Harry,” his mother counseled. “Then do what you want.”

  It was the best order he could have been given. Homework took all of ten minutes, and then it was off to experiment city. Following in his father’s footsteps led to more research, breakthroughs and setbacks. Additionally, more revelations about the riddle of a person’s DNA surfaced. Then he recalled his first incarceration, working with the FBI, and his first meeting with Anastasia. All of those thoughts circulated through his mind in a flash.

  He didn’t think he’d ever be allowed to work on his own, but Farrell had given him an amazing amount of leeway. To work on problems solving gene mutations which led to a whole host of diseases, enhancing strength, telomere analysis and more—it was like a dream come true to a young kid with no family.

  Luxuries had never interested him. On his first day at the lab, Anastasia held in his arms, Farrell had given him the guided tour, which took all of five minutes. “The Director doesn’t want you out on your own in the big city,” he started off by saying. “There are too many possibilities of someone kidnapping you, so you’re going to be our guest. We can’t spare the manpower to guard you, anyway.”

  “Nice to know you think so highly of me,” Harry had remarked, doing his best to rein in his sarcasm.

  If Farrell heard the sarcasm, he didn’t bother responding to it. Instead, he ticked off the amenities on his fingers. “You got your comfy bed in the corner, your toilet, and a fridge,” he intoned, but in a light voice, a change from his usual hard-ass attitude. “You also got your computer, your analyzing machines, and if you need any extra towels or clothes or books to read, just ask and we’ll get them for you, within reason.”

  Harry took his time examining the machines. State of the art and brand new, they gleamed, shining out the possibilities of using them to their fullest extent. The whole concept of being able to use what he knew excited him.

  Anastasia wriggled in his grasp and then jumped out of his arms onto the floor, purring, and went off to examine the room. Finally, acting as any cat would, she gazed disinterestedly at the machinery and then found a comfortable spot on the bed to curl up on. “What do you think, kid?” Farrell asked.

  “Uh, these are great,” Harry blurted out, waving his hand at the array. “Am I on a time schedule or something?”

  The older man shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “We just want results, and you’re the person to deliver them. You wanted Anastasia with you. I pulled the strings to make that happen, so you have to make your brand of magic happen. You’re all set, so get to work.”

  He left the room. Once the door closed, his girlfriend, who’d been lying on the bed but not sleeping, picked her head up and said in a soft voice, “Yeah, get to work.” A hint of a smile played around her lips.

  With the exception of Anastasia, he really didn’t know many people. Jason had always been his best—and only—friend. Yet rules and regs applied here, and a few days into his job, he received the word of the law. There was to be n
o outside contact unless first authorized. “It’s against the law or something?” he asked.

  “Loose lips, kid,” Farrell invariably replied, putting an end to the possibility of all communication with sentient life in the big city. “No calls, and the ones we allow you to make will be monitored, so that’s that. It’s a short leash, but you’ll get to run around—within reason.”

  Within reason meant being accompanied by an agent on the rare times he was allowed to go outside to sample a decent meal, buy some clothes or just breathe non-filtered air. Anastasia always went with him. As they walked through the lobby, his girlfriend padded softly beside him. As always, an agent trailed behind. Harry heard a few laughs and comments of “nanny time” and in the streets, he received the usual stares.

  Anastasia went willingly, but she balked at having a leash put on her. “Sometimes you have to put your paw down,” she said when they were alone, slowly extending her claws as a warning. “This is one of those Hell no Kitty moments. No leash.”

  When the minder questioned the possibility of her running off, Harry offered the excuse of, “She’s trained, sir. She won’t leave.”

  Anastasia acted as any cat would by rubbing her head around his legs and the agent’s legs. She purred loudly and gave them a winsome look as she sat on her haunches and practically begged to be petted.

  “Fine,” Farrell said in a sour voice. “As long as she’s trained, she can go with you.”

  The same agent always went with them. Large, built like a brick wall, he had a square, pockmarked visage and thin brown hair. He never laughed, never joked, and never said anything much with the exception of, “Just do what you have to do, kid, and let’s get it over with. I’ve got a real job waiting for me, not playing nursemaid.”

  Anastasia growled her disapproval, but keeping up the act of being an ordinary housecat, she didn’t speak.

  One time, though, she came close. Harry had taken her with him to a pizza shop down the street from headquarters. His minder had stopped to make a phone call and waved Harry on ahead. “Go inside and wait for me,” he said. “This is official business.”

  As they walked along, a man in his thirties, large and solidly built, with a mean looking face and a large mixed-breed dog, strolled in their direction. Immediately, the dog started to bark, and Harry picked Anastasia up in his arms as a protective measure. The dog’s owner smirked. “Nice kitty you got there, boy. Are you afraid of the big bad dog? Big dogs bite.”

  Right away, Harry experienced that old familiar fear, fear of being punked by someone larger and meaner. Growing up the underdog in every situation hadn’t helped much, and right then his minder had his back turned to the action, still talking on his phone. Harry despised bullies, but fought down his own inner quakes and said, “My cat doesn’t like moronic dog owners. Keep on walking.”

  Anastasia hissed and bared her teeth, and the dog kept barking. The owner lost his smirk. “Boy, you got a mouth on you,” and grabbed Harry by his collar. “You know who you’re messing with?”

  “An idiot,” Anastasia said, and sank her teeth into the man’s hand.

  Mr. Dog Owner let out a shocked howl and his dog leapt up, fangs bared. Anastasia didn’t hesitate and slashed at the dog’s eye, tearing the skin open just above the eyelid. Blood spurted out, and the man quickly backed off, yanking hard on his dog’s leash.

  “What’s going on here?”

  The agent had finally come to the rescue and stood behind Harry, hand on his gun. “We got a problem, mister?”

  No problem, as the man was already in the process of backing up. “That cat...it talked,” he said in a voice filled with awe...and fear.

  A second later, he ran off, pulling his yowling mutt behind him. The agent chuckled. “You got a talking cat?” he asked.

  “Meow,” Anastasia said, and Harry swore that she was grinning.

  Later on, just the two of them back in the lab, Harry sat at his computer, brooding. Once again he’d failed to act, and chickening out shamed him. Anastasia jumped on his lap, purring loudly. The purrs soon stopped, though, and she looked at him, her yellow eyes mesmerizing. “I know you were scared back there,” she said quietly. “But you have to act sometimes.”

  Harry didn’t say anything at first. “Yeah, I was scared,” he finally mumbled out.

  She got up and put her paws around his neck. “Learn not to be,” she said. “This is for you—and for us,” she added before giving him a tiny kiss on his mouth. “Think about it, okay?”

  They never discussed the matter again, but Harry resolved to do what was necessary the next time trouble happened...if it happened, and he only hoped that it wouldn’t.

  Life continued on, and he and Anastasia had stayed in their semi-ivory tower. He sought counsel only from her and did for her, because that had become his mission in life, to restore what had been taken. Love also had a lot to do with it, and he worked diligently and tirelessly in his quest for knowledge.

  At times, though, he spoke to Farrell about things, but only rarely, as the older man was also a workaholic, preoccupied with his job, and lived only for his work and not much else.

  “You don’t need to know about me, kid,” the older man had always answered. “All you need to know is that I work for this organization. I’ve been with them for over twenty years, I do my job the best I can, give it my all, and my superiors let me know on a need to know basis.” He always gave the same stare, cold and unyielding, and then uttered the familiar refrain. “And you don’t need to know.”

  Awareness or not, Harry eventually found some details about his handler. Farrell was divorced, had a daughter, liked playing video games in what free time he had, and lived alone. Harry knew these details because Anastasia often slipped out and listened in on conversations between the personnel, and who would ever suspect that a common house cat would relay this information?

  No one ever did, of course, but Anastasia wasn’t just any old house cat—she transcended the ordinary.

  This situation was also not very common, and being on the run from creatures that defied belief—not to mention being arrested twice in the last six months—also transcended the ordinary. It seemed as though he’d never live a normal kind of life...

  “Hey man, what you in here for?”

  A nudge on his shoulder, and then a harder smack to the same area, brought Harry out of his reverie and into reality. Blinking, he focused on the voice, and a massive man, black, with a face full of scars and a pair of cold, dark eyes, stared at him. “Man, what you in here for?” the man repeated.

  “Supposedly for killing two federal agents,” Harry replied.

  The other prisoners overheard the comment and started to laugh. “Yeah,” one man called out, “Who you trying to kid, kid?”

  Some more comments came Harry’s way, and then one of the biker dudes he’d seen upstairs, a heavily muscled man in his thirties with a dirty blond ponytail and even dirtier jeans and jean jacket, sauntered over to examine Harry more closely. “Hey, this kid might be sayin’ something. I saw your face once on the news. Is your name Goldman?”

  “Yeah,” Harry answered, still feeling outsized and totally outnumbered. Glancing quickly around the cell, he saw that every man there sported tattoos and scars, and outsized and outweighed him by a lot. The sheer fact that nine on one did not for good odds make didn’t improve his outlook. “What’s it to you?”

  Biker Guy chuckled as he leaned in closer. His breath stank of wine and cigarettes, and he poked Harry on the shoulder with each sentence he uttered. “Yeah, I seen the news on you. I remember you! You were supposed to have killed a few people half a year back, right?”

  The man turned to face the rest of the inmates and a gap-toothed grin started to form on his face. “The news flashes, guys, you remember? Reporters said that he broke into the headquarters of the FBI and wasted about fifty people. Then I heard some crap about him doin’ something nasty up in the Catskills.”

  A throaty laugh foll
owed his commentary and he pivoted around to face Harry again, shoving his face in close, and every word he uttered was laced with snark. “You ain’t no killer. You may have robbed a store or stolen some other punk’s lunch money, but you ain’t a killer. This is my second go-around, and I’ve hung out with tough dudes in my time. You ain’t no stone cold killer.”

  With that proclamation, the other residents chimed in, each one claiming they were tougher than shoe leather, could whip ten Marines with one hand, and knew more about street brawling than any MMA fighter around.

  The list of bragging rights grew, and a couple of the prisoners started pushing and shoving each other, as if to prove who the baddest dude was. Their wrath soon extended over to Harry. Biker Dude seemed to take an especial dislike to Harry, kneed him in the gut, and he fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

  Right...and where was the law when you needed it? It was waiting outside with a sardonic smile on its face. A policeman, large, with a face as round as a melon and as red as a tomato, watched the abuse happening without saying a word. Only after Harry received a few more kicks to his ribs did the cop smack his nightstick against the bars. The clanging sound startled everyone into silence for a second.

  “All right, back off,” he told Biker Dude. “Cut the chatter! And you, kid, get on your feet! This is a jail cell, not a friggin’ social club!”

  “I never said I was a killer,” Harry replied, grunting out his answer and holding his stomach.

  Biker Dude aimed another knee at his gut, but this time Harry blocked it and shoved the man away. “Back off, jerk,” he said.

  The other man started in, but a clang on the bar from the guard’s nightstick stopped further fisticuffs from happening. “I said knock it off!” he warned. “You hear me, Morrison?”

  So the biker guy had a name. He offered a false grin at the officer. “I hear you...sir,” he muttered and gave Harry the evil eye, whispering, “Your butt is mine, pal.”