In the closest tank there was a shoal of blank yellow eyes, each in a wire cradle trailing thin optical nerves; another sported a shrunken humanoid arm, the turquoise skin pale and decayed; a grinning skull, half of it still coated with burnt blue-black flesh bobbed in a third. The worst sight was in the middle of the tubes, in the largest of the storage tanks. It was a corpse, missing its right leg in a stump of sheared bone and meat, drifting with its hands pressed against the glass as if attempting to communicate a last dying message. The body was the exact twin to Rogue, from the rough aspect of its face to the cue of white hair on its head. The GI gave the dead man a name. "Zero..."
"Where...?" Ferris managed. "Where did these come from?"
"The Quartz Zone." There was a menace in Rogue's voice that Ferris had never heard before and it made him afraid of the soldier. "They couldn't even let us die in peace. Those Kashar filth, they must have picked the ambush clean. Gathered up the corpses like skevving hyenas. That bitch is nothing but a grave robber!" Rogue stabbed a finger at the display. "The Nort clones have a high mortality rate. Schrader's ripping DNA from dead GIs to solve the problem."
Ferris felt a chill as the weight of their discovery hit him. "And now... she's got a live one."
TWELVE
GODS AND MONSTERS
Ferris followed Rogue through the darkened camp as closely as he could, his head bobbing as his heart jumped at every shadow they passed. The Genetic Infantryman's composed, static face had changed with the sights they'd seen in the laboratory and the pilot could see a smouldering anger building up behind those blank yellow eyes.
"We have to get out of here," Ferris insisted for the third time in as many minutes. "Rogue, come on! You can't take on a dome full of Norts on your own!"
"Wasn't planning on it," the trooper replied. "I've got to warn the others. If they know, maybe they'll see all that Schrader is offering them is a lie."
Ferris grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. The GI's stormy expression gave him a second's pause, but he swallowed hard and pressed on. "Look, you're a soldier. You understand all about acceptable losses and all, right? If we stay in this madhouse one second longer than we have to, we'll both wind up like your buddy in the tank back there! Your pals have thrown in with Schrader! Cut them loose and we can make a run for it."
"Acceptable losses." Rogue said the words like they left a sour taste in his mouth. "There's no such thing. If I believed in acceptable losses, I would have left that surgical droid to cut you up and use your organs for spare parts." Ferris blinked, for once at a loss for words. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, but you're right about one thing. I am a soldier and I will not leave my comrades behind. Not Zero and not Gunnar, Helm or Bagman."
The pilot found his voice again. "Even if it could get you killed?"
"Every second we're still breathin', there's a chance we'll find a way to shut this place down." He turned away. "You want to keep running, then you go right ahead. I'm not leaving until the job is done."
"Guess I'm with you, then," Ferris gave a heavy, resigned sigh and nodded. "I'm going to regret this."
"Look on the bright side," the GI said dryly. "With the odds stacked against us, you probably won't regret if for long."
Volks felt a chill on his shoulders and turned over under the bed sheets, instantly returning to wakefulness with the trained rapidity of a seasoned warrior. A wistful smile crossed his lips as his hand snaked across bed in search of warm flesh, but the expression faded when he found nothing but a cold emptiness next to him. He propped himself up and found Schrader standing over a nearby console, working at a display. Once more, she wore her lab coat over her naked form.
Johann slid out of bed and padded over to her, navigating by the light of the flickering screen. He brought a hand around her waist and allowed the other to travel up the coat to her breasts. Schrader brushed him away with the same indifference she might have shown a bothersome insect. "Don't touch me," she said with icy disinterest.
Volks withdrew, his face tightening as if she'd slapped him. "Of course, Kolonel-Doktor." His hands drew into fists of their own accord.
Schrader gave him an arch look of slight amusement. It was plain as day on her face; she enjoyed the little humiliations she forced Volks to endure, almost as if she were more excited by the possibility that he would turn violent towards her than by their mechanical, passionless lovemaking. "Are you growing weary of your duties, Johann?" she asked, masking the moment. "Perhaps you would prefer to remain in your own quarters?"
"I am your loyal subordinate," he replied, heavy with irritation.
She gave a hollow chuckle and studied him with contempt. "Of course you are."
Volks watched her return to the screen, where images of the Rogue Trooper scrolled by, along with biometric readouts and DNA scans. Schrader absently licked her lips as she paged through the files, a desire apparent in her eyes that the kapten had never seen directed at anything else.
An abrupt electronic chirp sounded and the officer crossed to the discarded pile of his uniform clothing. He recovered his communicator and spoke into it. "Volks."
"This is the officer of the watch, sir. Four men are late for check-in and security sensors have registered an unauthorised access in laboratory nine. One of the overdue troopers was guarding the Genetik Infantryman's quarters."
Volks gave Schrader a sharp look. "Mobilise a sweep team and lock down the base perimeter! If that blue freak escapes, I'll have your head!" He angrily snapped off the transmitter and began to dress. "Your new pet seems to have slipped his leash again, Lisle. Perhaps this time I may be forced to damage him before he can be recovered."
"You will do no such thing!" the woman snapped. "Your jealousy disgusts me, Kapten! Show some backbone. You could learn much from the GI."
"Your... attraction to that blue-skin is repellent," Volks said. "Every moment he lives, he is a danger to us!"
Schrader's mood shifted, melting from cold and unyielding to an icy allure. Volks hated himself for it, but he couldn't take his eyes from her. She took Volks's head in her hands and kissed him. "My dear Johann," she breathed, "you must trust me. Rogue's value is incalculable. With him, I will be able to accelerate my plans and achieve my objective in days, not months!" The scientist nodded at the computer screens. "These initial test results are the most promising I have ever had. Just promise me your patience and the project will be complete!"
"You always speak of 'the project', always your secret design..." The officer's anger drained away at her touch. "I have done much for you, Lisle. I have betrayed my oath to the party and crossed lines beyond my own morality. I have never asked anything of you, but now I must. I am not sure I can go any further without knowing where this course will lead us."
"Morality is for the weak, Johann, not the concern of the bold." Schrader looked at him with a clear, steady gaze. "You have given me your faith and perhaps it is time I rewarded it with the truth." She discarded her coat and began to put on her clothes. "Come, then. I will show you."
"But I must recover the GI-"
"Do not trouble yourself," she smiled. "I know where he is. He's like you, Johann. The Rogue Trooper is a slave to fixations that he cannot overcome."
The need for sleep was one of the first things the genetic engineers targeted when the technology to manipulate clone DNA matured; the tissues that produced the fatigue poisons to stifle the muscles and the organs of a man were reconfigured and altered to increase the waking functionality of the gene-soldiers. Nort and Souther scientists both found ways to allow their creations to operate for days on end with only minimal downtime for deep REM sleep. On the open dais of the training deck, Bagman, Helm and Gunnar were testing the limits of their new bodies. They had been sparring non-stop for hours, each one tackling the other two in a three-way unarmed combat. None of them felt sluggish or exhausted.
Gunnar had slipped into his new organic sleeve like he had been born in it, working out the kinks and quirks of t
he G-Soldat body as if it were a finely tuned machine. He stepped into a judo move, one of a million hand-to-hand tactics drilled into him as a tube trainee and tossed Bagman to the mat. "Ah!" he said. "Just like riding a grav-bike. You never forget how to do it."
Gunnar expected a dour comeback, but Bagman's attention was elsewhere, as was Helm's. The other two troopers had dropped their guard. Gunnar turned and felt mild surprise. "Rogue?"
The GI approached, with Ferris tagging close behind. Gunnar saw the fierce look in Rogue's eyes and instantly knew that trouble was brewing.
Bagman got to his feet; he missed the subtle cue in his comrade's expression. "So, Rogue. You decided then?" He pointed at the GI's chest. "Gonna turn that blue model in for a green machine?"
"Schrader's been lying to you," Rogue said without preamble. "Nort or not, she's using you."
Helm frowned, his hand straying to the back of his neck. "Now, hold on, buddy. Whatever gripes you got against her, she-"
"Damn it, Helm!" Rogue snapped. "All of you, can't you see what's going on here? You think she decanted you new flesh just out of the goodness of her heart?"
Gunnar curled his lip in a sneer. "I'm sure you got an explanation, right?"
"Tell them what we saw," Ferris broke in.
"You keep out of this, pinky," Gunnar growled at the pilot. "Go ahead, Rogue. Tell us."
"I found Zero," he said flatly.
Bagman's face wrinkled in confusion. "Zero's dead, we saw it happen. You vented the corpse over the swamps."
Rogue shook his head. "Not that Zero. I'm talking about the original. The one who died in the Quartz Zone, or at least what's left of him. He's floating in a tank like some cut of preserved freezemeat! Schrader's hoarding GI body parts down in the bio-lab levels, pieces of our dead buddies laid out for her to cut up and screw around with!" His outburst hung in the air, poisoning the room.
"I don't understand..." said Helm.
"Then let me explain it to you," Rogue replied with disdain. "Your new girlfriend, Kolonel-Doktor Schrader, is using the bodies of men we fought with for her little science project!" He stabbed a finger into Gunnar's bare torso. "We all know those Nort G-Soldats are a poor imitation of us... But now these NexGen come out of nowhere and they're faster, stronger. It doesn't take a Genie to figure it out, Schrader's cut up our dead to make those meat bags you're wearing!" Rogue met Gunnar's hard-edged gaze. "For all you know, she could have shreds of skin from your blue hide down there in a tank of formaldehyde!"
"You've gone section eight!" Gunnar replied. "There was nothing left after the zone wiped us out!"
Helm sat heavily, massaging his neck. "But what about the Kashar Legion?" He was sweating and his brow was knotted with tension. "There were always rumours that they looted the battlefields..."
"You can bet your dog-chips that the Nort Bio-Directorate wanted every last scrap of GI meat for salvage!" said Rogue. "Schrader's got it all down there and she's using it to breed a better Nort Soldat!"
"Or worse," murmured Ferris. "She's experimenting on the prisoners here, as well."
"You expect us to buy that?" Gunnar shook his head. "Man, I didn't want to believe it, but she was right about you. Schrader warned us that you'd go against us once we were regened. It makes me ill to see you turn on your own kind."
"What the hell?" Rogue demanded. "My own kind? Gunnar, it's me, Rogue! You know me! All of you do, we fought together, we-"
"Died together?" Bagman broke in, frowning. "All of us except you, Rogue. I always thought it was weird that only you made it out of the zone alive."
Gunnar prodded Rogue with a thick finger, menacing him. "None of us ever had a chance to make our own choices before now and the moment we do you're bucking to get us back in a chip slot again! No way, Rogue. No more of that 'skin outranks silicon' skev!"
"No," Rogue said, "that's not it-"
"We never had a vote when we were chipped, but that's changed." Bagman rubbed a hand over his neck. "You were the one who sent us off on that wild goose chase across Nu Earth, Rogue. You made all the decisions for us. All I ever wanted was my life back. You don't know what it is like living like that! Having your soul sucked into a piece of plastic, never resting, reliving the blood and the pain of dying over and over. That ain't a life, its hell! I'm not going back to that!"
Rogue saw Bagman's face tense as he stroked at his neck again; he glanced at Helm, who had fallen silent. Both of them kept reaching for the same spot, as if they were rubbing at an ache. "Bagman, your neck-" Rogue extended a hand, but the other man knocked it away.
"Don't touch me!" Bagman hissed. "Just back off!"
Gunnar unconsciously mimicked the motion as well; each of them was probing the skin above the bio-implant below their skulls.
The GI felt control of the situation slipping away from him. "Guys, focus! Schrader is the enemy here, not me. She just wants you for her experiments." Rogue heard the hatch sliding open even as he spoke and like the starring actress coming on stage as her cue was uttered, the scientist entered with a grim-faced Kapten Volks and a group of Nort troopers at her flanks.
Schrader shook her head sadly. "Oh, Rogue. How little you understand my work. I'm distressed by your suspicion. There was no need for you to kill my men or break into my labs. You only had to ask and I would have given you access. It is important that we have trust in our relationship."
"You're nothing but a Nort quack with delusions of grandeur," Rogue retorted. "You're a jackal preying on the bodies of dead men."
She pouted. "I see we still have a long way to go." From the corner of her eye, the scientist saw Ferris's hand dart toward the stolen pistol in his belt. She gave Gunnar a sharp nod and the soldier struck him with a hard cross that knocked the pilot to the floor. The weapon skittered away across the deck. "Thank you, Gunnar," she added. "Perhaps you can return Mister Ferris to the cell block for me?"
"Sure," said the G-Soldat, eyeing Rogue.
Helm spoke in a quiet, tight voice. "Is what Rogue said true? Have you really got the corpses of our brothers on ice?"
Rogue expected a lie to leap from her lips, but instead Schrader gave a hollow sigh. "Yes, it is true. But I want you all to understand why." She took a breath to steady herself, and Rogue watched her performance with a cold eye. "I used my connections at Nort High Command to have the... the material transferred to Domain Delta where I knew it would be safe. If the Norts kept hold of the bodies, there would be no telling what they could do with them. I know they were trying to develop a pathogen that would destroy GI bio-engrams, based on a fungal form discovered in the Polar Zone. I knew I had to stop them before they wiped out the last of you. Without you, my research will count for nothing."
Rogue covered his surprise at Schrader's last words; at least she was speaking the truth. His suspicions were confirmed; she needed him alive.
She looked directly at him for the first time since she entered the room. "I won't keep anything from you anymore, Rogue. Come with me, and I'll show you the future of Nu Earth."
Rogue watched as Schrader removed a key card from a pocket on her tunic; it was similar in size and shape to the one he had stolen from the guard, but the thin slab of plastic was a featureless black all over. The elevator hissed open and she punched in a code. "No one has visited the heart of my operation before," she told Volks and the GI as they followed her in. "Every aspect of my work is conducted by a crew of auto-teks directly under my control."
"But there are other scientists working here, other geneticists," Volks noted.
She nodded. "Only on the higher tiers. The tasks I give them are low priority, the unimportant matters involving the NexGen development program."
Rogue watched her carefully. "You're not just breeding a new strain of G-Soldats here, are you? I was right."
"Yes," the scientist admitted. "I was foolish to think I could conceal anything from you." Schrader pressed a button and the lift began to sink. It descended past the level Rogue and Ferris had visited,
past the highest security lockouts and at last into the deepest core of Domain Delta. The elevator halted and with a chime the doors opened. "Welcome to my vision," Schrader said.
The layout differed little from the upper tiers - Nort military design was hardly the most innovative in the galaxy - with a central corridor extending out to a series of branching laboratory chambers and holding cells. The woman paused at a security door where the deadly glitter of a laser web prevented any access.
"Recognise: Schrader, Lisle," she said to the air. "Password: Prometheus." The net of energy dissipated and the hatch irised open.
Volks was on edge, his right hand never more than a fingertip away from the heavy calibre pistol on his belt. "This level does not appear on any of the dome's security grids," he said carefully.
"Of course not," said the scientist. "I made sure of that. After the base was constructed, I had all record of this tier deleted from every plan and schematic of Domain Delta. The facility's central computer was programmed to conceal the power and atmosphere usage. Like a thirteenth floor, it doesn't exist."
They passed by compartments that resembled zoo cages more than laboratory spaces and Rogue's breath caught in his throat as he saw the misshapen forms that moved within them. Behind thick shields of clear plastisteel there were things that shuffled on malformed limbs, creatures that perhaps had started out as men but now were little more than living organic mutations. Rogue heard Volks curse softly under his breath as some of the man-shapes came out of the depths of the chambers to look at them. In the cells, the GI saw grossly distended forms, warped flesh that might once have been human distorted into death-grey abnormality; mutated grotesques studied him with milky eyes and broken spirits.
"What are these... things?" Volks asked.
"Errors," said Schrader. "I keep them alive to remind me of how far I have come."
"They almost look human," said the officer.
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