“He told me.”
Apparently, the Russian secret service had spies in the facility where Harry’s father had worked. The spies had also hacked into the senior Goldman’s computer and stolen the data they needed.
“Your knowledge came from my father,” Harry stated, growing more pissed off as he spoke. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the exit, and just as quickly squelched the idea of escaping. First off, he had nowhere to go, no passport, and no means of getting back. He only hoped that Farrell would find some kind of rapprochement with the Russian government, but there was no guarantee.
A second later, the massive form of Piotr appeared in the doorway, grinning. Blood dripped from his mouth, and since it was obvious that he wasn’t a vegetarian, the escape idea got shelved, at least temporarily.
“Of course it did,” Grushenko agreed, nodding his head. “We also had the same idea, but your father was further ahead in his research, so we saw no reason not to benefit from it. I am just sorry that I never met with him. It would have been good to exchange scientific views.”
Grushenko offered another cold smile. He reached for another cigarette, seemed to change his mind, hesitated, and then withdrew his hand. Instead, he propped his elbows on the desk and continued his lecture.
“However, your father was unwilling to take the next necessary steps. You were, at least in computer simulations. However, you were in the United States and we were here, so we had to rely on our own people. Nurmelev was a brilliant scientist, but he never managed to solve the secret of the animal genes overwhelming the human ones. I have managed to do so, up to a point. You have met my creations, have you not?”
“If you mean the monster twins, yeah, I have.” Harry decided to let out the sarcasm full strength, but reined in his temper. He had to find out something. “Have you managed to reverse the process, bring them back to human form?”
A dark cloud swept over Grushenko’s face. “No, I have not.” He uttered a weary sigh. “This is the only drawback of the plan. It seems that when one combines human and animal DNA, eventually the animal genes overwhelm the human ones, and the subject devolves.
“However, when one combines two different animal types with the human subject, the three types of DNA fuse, and there is no way to separate them. Not only that, the subject’s life is shortened considerably. I imagine you have run into the same problem?”
Actually, Harry had never tried combining two different species with a human, even in computer simulations. The idea of doing that seemed too bizarre.
Using one type of animal DNA, though, he’d done the research. Even though he’d managed to overcome the problem with Anastasia, he wasn’t about to give away his secrets so easily. Therefore, what he told the scientist was something he figured Grushenko already knew. “I tried using a protein sheath to cover the animal DNA. I tried recombinant DNA infused with a retrovirus to suppress the same genes. It didn’t work.”
While he spoke, Grushenko nodded, lips pursed, and his eyes gleamed with excitement. He had to be really into this, Harry thought, into playing God in the laboratory, using people as guinea pigs, and not caring about having a conscience. It appeared that Grushenko wasn’t concerned with human feelings.
True to form, when the scientist spoke, it was with fervor. “You are indeed your father’s son, and everything Nurmelev spoke of,” he declared. “I am honored to know you.”
The more he spoke, the more he seemed to go into ranting mode, and Harry figured that insanity was at play in this scenario. Yet, he had to know more. “So if you’ve run into the same problems, then what’s the use of all this?”
In a flash, the passionate gleam in the scientist’s eyes faded, replaced by one of ice. “Nurmelev only thought of money,” he said, waving his hand like a horse flicking its tail. “He wanted to sell his ideas to the highest bidder. I am thinking of something more. It is...” he paused for dramatic effect, “something of my own design.”
Now the old mad scientist trope came into play, Harry thought. He wanted to rule the world, rule humanity...or rule his own country. Start small, yeah, that was the plan, and work up. “So you want to rule the world?”
A tired laugh greeted his question. Grushenko’s answer indicated that he wanted the fourth option, something Harry hadn’t considered. “No, nothing as grand as that, I’m afraid. I wish to extend my life. I am in my late fifties, and not long for this earth.”
He waved his hands around, and a grimace crossed his face. “Due to the lingering radiation here, Chernobyl has an incredibly high rate of bladder and thyroid cancer. I was born not so far from here, Pripyat to be exact. When the accident happened, my parents thought that the radiation would not extend to our house. They were wrong, as I have developed both types.
“I have also been a heavy smoker, as you can see.” He pointed to the ashtray. “I imagine that also has something to do with it as well. But all the same, it is always the genes which act as filters and defendants of your body. As your father died from that same disease, I suppose that you can appreciate that fact.”
Harry’s mind flashed back to his father’s last days. Never a large man, the pancreatic tumor inside his father’s body had stripped him of any muscle he had and reduced his bodyweight from around one-sixty to half that amount. Treatment had extended his life by only a couple of weeks. In the end, the verdict came swiftly and with finality.
At the very end, he resembled a mummy’s dried and desiccated corpse. “I do,” he said, recalling with sadness his father’s final days, his mother’s grief, and her eventual passage into the eternal void. He tried to keep the tears from coming, couldn’t, and hastily brushed his eyes with his hands in an attempt to man up before this human monster.
“I can see that your father’s passage grieves you,” Grushenko remarked in an unemotional voice. “My parents died from the same disease as I suffer.”
He stopped to light another cigarette. “My preliminary experiments have managed to keep the growths at bay, but only for a short time, perhaps a few months at best. With your help, I will be able to perfect the process. So far, only the young can tolerate the stress of the procedure, those under the age of twenty. I wish to perfect the process to the point where it can work on someone older—me.”
“What about your disciples?” Harry asked. “Do they share your vision?”
With a short, confident nod, Grushenko leaned forward to explain his ideas in a tumble of words. “They will, they most assuredly will. They are the first step. Their regenerative powers are almost off the scale. Once I have achieved my dream, I will share it with them. They will then be free to go wherever they wish.”
“Who were they?”
Grushenko shrugged. “Is it that important to know?”
“Yeah, it is.”
The Russian scientist proceeded to repeat almost verbatim what Lyudmila had told him earlier on. “Piotr was a private in the army, working in communications. He came from Leningrad. Lyudmila also worked in the same army division. Outside of those facts, I know nothing of their earlier lives. What I do know is that they are not much older than you or your girlfriend, and they willingly participated in my glorious vision.”
There was so much wrong with this idiot’s plan that the fail in it was not strong enough. “Your creatures are killers,” Harry stated, the disgust heavy in his voice. “They love killing. Even if everyone around us accepts them for how they look, they’ll never fit in. They’re psychotic.”
Grushenko shrugged. Apparently, he didn’t think insanity was such a bad thing. A smile began to form at his lips, but a sudden coughing fit erased it, and he bent over, hacking up his lungs with a horribly wet and nasty sound. “Excuse me, please,” he said between gasps.
Eventually, he got his breathing under control, and with an effort, he arose, his eyes gleaming once more. “Think of it, young man, just think of it! Human beings living for as long as they like, unencumbered by disease or even death, and we have the ability, the po
wer to achieve that and it all lies at our fingertips!”
Speech over, another series of racking coughs overtook him and he bent at the waist, heaving in great gulps of air. “I am sorry. My condition is...not good, but,” he straightened up, “this should not concern you.” Straightening up and pointing to the door, he said, “Come with me.”
Leading the way out, Harry trailed behind him, and as he passed through the door, Piotr stood upright and barred the way with his massive arm. “You listen to doctor, da? Lyudmila tell me not to hit head, but I am not so careful all time.”
He then grinned, showing his bloody teeth, and put his arm down. “Go, little man.”
Allowing the doctor to play leader, Harry followed him down the corridor. Along the way, he saw numerous rooms, the windows painted black. “What’s in there?” he asked.
“The dead,” Grushenko answered in an even tone. “There were those who made it through the procedure, but they escaped, unfortunately.”
“How many got out of here?” Harry wanted to know.
The doctor shook his head. “Not all of them came from this lab. There were others located around our country, and in other countries. I had heard of other labs being constructed and used, but I was not a part of them and I do not know how much progress they have made, if any.”
Harry thought about it. There were others, alive, and maybe sane or not. Reports of animal attacks on humans...maybe they weren’t exactly animals, after all.
Averting his gaze from the doctor and turning it in the direction of the blackened window, a small hole caught his eye. Peering through it, he saw well over a hundred bodies stacked on top of one another, arms and legs twisted, warped and stunted, bodies that had been deliberately perverted, all in the name of science.
“We must experiment until we get it right,” Grushenko whispered into his ear.
Suddenly, a wave of nausea formed in the pit of Harry’s stomach, and the thought of all those dead people made him double over and vomit. He retched out bitter yellowish bile. Once done, he found Grushenko staring at him, face totally devoid of emotion. “It may sicken you, young Goldman, but cancer sickens one even more. Consider that. There are always tradeoffs in life. This is one of them.” He turned away, looking weary and spent.
Harry followed him into a small room and stopped. There, inside a cell, Anastasia lay strapped down securely. “She is asleep, a heavy sedative,” Grushenko said in a calm, analytical manner. “She had to be restrained, as I did not wish her to interfere with the process.”
With a languid wave of his hand, he indicated another object in the corner of the room. A genesis chamber sat there with a computer on top of it. It looked almost identical to the one the FBI engineers had constructed, only older. “That is what Nurmelev designed but never built years ago. Before this, it took months in order to achieve the desired effect, but now it can be achieved in less than five minutes.”
For a second, Harry wondered why Grushenko didn’t mention the Genesis Chamber in the FBI labs. The only thing he could think of was that Piotr had destroyed it, but hadn’t realized what it was. Therefore, he didn’t bother to mention it to anyone. Reaching, yes, but that was the only possibility.
Grushenko walked over and patted the machine fondly as a parent would pat an obedient child on the head. “This is the only one of its kind, and it works,” he said with a great deal of pride. “It is what I used to create Lyudmila and Piotr. It is what I will eventually use on myself when the process is complete.”
He whistled sharply, and the form of Piotr appeared in the doorway. They conversed in Russian and the doctor made for the door. “Familiarize your mind with the equipment, Goldman,” the doctor said. “Learn, for we shall begin our experiments very shortly. I must...take my treatment. Do not try to escape, or else Piotr will dissuade you.”
His slender frame disappeared around a corner, and the massive rhino-boar parked his butt in the doorway. He did not speak, but the grin on his face indicated that he’d relish an attempt at escape. With no possibility of getting out for the moment, Harry went over to sit next to the cell and hoped that he would be able to figure a way out of this.
Tick-tock went the clock, thirty minutes passed, and Anastasia remained asleep. Harry got up and went over to a table holding racks of chemical vials. From there, he checked out the various types of machines, and it didn’t take him very long to familiarize himself with the equipment. From his standpoint, it didn’t look much different from what he’d used, although the names of some of the chemicals and serums were in Russian. Still, he knew what he had on hand, and after thinking the matter over, also knew what he had to do.
He stole a look at Piotr—the massive rhino-boar creature hadn’t budged. He sat like a mini-monolith and occasionally reached behind his head to scratch at something. When he turned around to check the hallway, the red mark that Lyudmila had mentioned at the warehouse in New York stood out. Round and oozing clear fluid, Harry recalled something about Piotr not healing as rapidly as she did...
He turned his attention to the genesis chamber and walked over to it. He turned it on, and immediately Piotr’s voice came from the doorway.
“Hey, what you do?”
“Doctor Grushenko told me to look at all the equipment here,” Harry said in a pseudo-friendly voice, keeping his tone as polite as possible. “If I’m going to help you, I have to know how this works.”
The creature grunted and walked over, and with a lightning fast move, grabbed him around the throat, throttling him. “I do not like you, little man,” he growled. “You are small, weak, and nothing to me!”
He spit out the words, his breath foul and heavy. Harry started to lose consciousness, but managed to wheeze out, “Kill me, and your master is...screwed. So are you.”
Piotr’s eyes turned blood red. “I will not kill you yet. I will make you want to die.”
The beating began. Piotr had a heavy paw, and he slapped Harry across the face numerous times. The rhino-boar man hit very hard and with purpose. Harry felt something break in his face, maybe a cheekbone, and probably his nose.
Then Piotr lifted him and bashed him into the ground like a pro wrestler delivering a body-slam to his opponent. Harry spit out a mouthful of blood. His entire body felt as if a train had run over him. Breathing heavily, he managed to say, “Is that all you’ve got?”
His taunt spurred Piotr to pick him up again and start punching him in the gut. Three hard shots to the ribs followed, and Harry heard something snap. Immediately, he coughed out more blood. Broken rib, maybe two, he thought, and the pain turned into an inferno.
“This is just warmup,” Piotr said dropped Harry on his back. He raised his massive leg to stomp Harry in the chest, but then Grushenko called out, “Piotr” followed by more Russian.
The monster grunted, slowly lowered his leg, and offered a grin. He strolled through the door, leaving Harry writhing in pain on the floor.
“God, that hurts,” Harry moaned. Crawling on his belly, he reached the door and locked it. Stupid move, he thought, as nothing seemed able to stop the monsters from getting in. With agony digging into every muscle and nerve in his body, he made the return trip to the table where all the vials were. Taking a few shallow breaths, with a tremendous effort, he got to his feet and searched through the various formulas.
There...he found what he was looking for and took one vial. Grabbing a sterile needle, he jabbed it through the covering, filled it, and plunged it into his arm. Injection over, he pulled out the needle, tossed it away, and waited for something to happen. His consciousness began to fade, and with it, his hopes.
A second later, he slumped to the ground, feeling and seeing nothing. “I thought it would work,” he whispered.
Then a tingling sensation filled him, a sense of well-being. A second later, a series of spasms hit. His body shook violently, and he grabbed onto the leg of the table for support. I don’t have much time, he thought, and crawled over to the chamber. Getting to h
is feet, he typed in the numbers on the computer. The top slid open and he hauled his body inside.
More internal tremors hit as the serum started to work its magic. A second later, the chamber lit up and unseen rays hit every atom of his body, accelerating the process. He felt a scream building in his gut, but he didn’t cry out as that would alert the authorities...
Abruptly, the sound of the machine died and Harry wondered if that was the end of the process.
A second later, Piotr’s massive paw smashed through the top and Harry rolled aside just in time. “You, little man, I have come to finish you off!” Piotr cried.
He tore off the covering to the chamber, picked Harry up by his throat, and hurled him at the far wall. Harry smashed face first into it, but the impact didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would.
In fact, with a sense of astonishment, nothing hurt. After getting to his feet, he asked, “Do you want to try that again?”
Piotr bellowed and charged, and his head collided with Harry’s shoulder. Piotr began to club him with his massive paws, but Harry barely felt the blows.
What he did feel was...strength. Along with strength came the sensation of speed, power, and being able to kick major butt.
Piotr backed up and charged again, and this time Harry stepped aside a split second just before impact. His reflexes had become lightning quick, and Piotr ran headfirst into the wall and smashed right through it.
“I will kill you!” Piotr screamed. He hammered his fists against the wall, but couldn’t pull free.
“Like it?” asked Harry, and kicked the massive man-thing squarely in the gut. Piotr bellowed in pain and Harry kicked him again. “Yeah, glad you like it.”
With Piotr still trapped, Harry ran to the cell. Anastasia had woken up and was blinking the confusion out of her eyes. “Harry?” she asked. “You’re different.”
Rise of the Transgenics Page 20
