New World Alpha: Book Three (A Harem Fantasy)

by Nick Storming

  “I know it’s difficult to speak about,” the doctor said, reaching out to rest a hand on the man’s clasped hands. Before she could, he snatched his hands away as if her touch might scald him. “But we need to know everything you experienced to know what traits were triggered and if it’s an issue of metabolization, or something more endemic to our study.” The man frowned at her, and she went on in a softer tone, “Dr. Wagner and I want to make sure what happened to you, never happens to a test subject again. Please tell me everything you can about that week. You never experienced hunger or thirst, correct? Only the overwhelming senses and lust?”

  “Yes,” the man said, and after a deep breath he went on. “I never was hungry. Not until you gave me the serum. Then I was ravenous and… disgusted with myself… The things I wanted to do… I would have killed any man that stood between me and your nurses, or even yourself.” His haggard expression turned on the doctor. “I would have raped every woman here. To death perhaps. Then headed down to town and continued on.”

  “Fascinating,” the woman said, her hand jotting down notes quickly. “How do you feel now? Since receiving the antidote?”

  “Tired… sad.” The video ended in static.

  Chapter 13

  SCENE THREE

  The scene opened up on a broad park, the landscape dotted in oak trees and crisscrossed with concrete paths. On the far end of the field was a ball diamond, and near at hand a group of picnic tables covered in red and white tablecloths.

  Bowls of food covered one table, and another held metal tubs filled with ice and drinks while a couple dozen people milled around talking and laughing easily with one another. Dean, his back bowed by age and stress, stood before a grill flipping burger patties and hot dogs while a gorgeous brunette stood at his side chatting.

  The family picnic was odd only because of the disproportionally large number of beautiful women and young girls running around. Everywhere one looked, there seemed to be another bright-eyed face gazing upward at the adults. A pair of silver-haired girls, just entering their teenage years, stood off to one side, staring fixedly at a group of young men and especially at the tall redheaded young man who was holding court.

  “Master won’t let his daughters marry just any man. Emma and that annoying Donatella told me. Emma even promised she would marry me when she’s old enough,” Matthew said to the eagerly grinning boys around him.

  “But what about the rules?” Shen said, the dark-eyed boy cast a surreptitious glance at the tallest blonde teen, watching with keen interest as the young teen giggled with one of her friends. “Master Williams wants us to form covens from our own nations.”

  “You see they have a new crew coming on board?” Sasha grumbled in his thick Russian accent. “Wonder if they going to have more than simple ‘hello’ with angel-girls.”

  Three young women walked past the boys, headed toward the grill to grab food. The three were clearly sisters, tall, slender, and shockingly well-endowed for their ages. The boys stared after the three with hungry looks, and Matthew took note.

  “The new boys are weak, but we’ll help Master Williams train them up right. We’ll be everything he needs us to be, and I promise, we will all marry his daughters and carry on the tradition.”

  “A pact then?” asked a sharp-eyed ebony-skinned boy as short as Shen. “We swear to be brothers in all things.”

  “Brothers.” Matthew grinned, putting his hand in the center.

  “Brothers,” Fredrick said in his German accent, grinning as he laid his hand atop the others.

  The rest put their hands in. Sasha with his pale blond hair and hungry stare, Shen with his fierce pride, Morty with a crooked sneer as he sized himself up against the rest, and finally the ebony-skinned boy and a slender dark-eyed boy with dark tan skin.

  “We will rule the world one day,” the dark tan-skinned boy said with a fierce grin. “The Magnificent Seven.”

  “Shut up, Adesh,” Matthew hissed as an older blonde drew near.

  “The food’s ready boys, if you want to come eat,” the blonde said in a musical voice. The woman had a profound effect on the group, earning blushes and shuffling steps all around as they failed to meet her gloriously blue eyes. “Well… don’t take too long gossiping over here. Dean wanted to show you off to some visiting dignitaries.”

  “We’ll be right there, Diana,” Matthew said, his voice oozing obsequiousness.

  The woman’s eyes flicked across the group, and she turned with an amused smile working onto her lips.

  “Don’t take too long, boys.”

  The group couldn’t take their eyes off the woman’s perfect backside as it swayed back to the picnic tables, but none stared as intensely as Shen. The short boy was still staring when the others began whispering quickly to one another. He licked his lips as an idea formed in his head.

  “I want her,” the boy said, poking at Matthew but still staring after the tall blonde. “She will rule my pride.”

  “That’s Master William’s wife!” the redhead said, cuffing the shorter boy on the back of the head.

  “To break another Alpha’s covenant…” the Black boy said with a frown.

  “Adonis is right,” Matthew said. “Get your head out of your ass, Shen, and focus. We need to make sure these dignitaries see us as their greatest hope for peace and alliance with the USA. Focus up, this is important.”

  The scene faded as Matthew began speaking in earnest, the others listening with growing interest as he laid out his plans.

  I wanted to see more of what happened to the man but couldn’t find any more tapes in the lockers with him on them. My mind went right to the mutants filling the world, and I remembered the torn-up bodies I’d seen. I realized that they all might have been saved after the bombs dropped and the Enkyos gas changed them. What could be done for them now?

  Can’t lose hope, I thought to myself, not in the same second I find out there might be a cure. This has to mean something. I have to make it mean something.

  Shandra was bent over a lab table, scanning the display of a machine when I walked into the lab. She had multiple systems running now and a pile of printed-out papers beside her in a stack.

  “Find anything interesting?” I asked.

  Shandra rose and rubbed the bridge of her nose before settling her glasses back into place.

  “Not really. Or rather, I can’t learn enough without Brianna here to perform some tests. I’d love to get her brain scanned, but the toxicology reports and tests I’ve run show pretty much what I suspected. I can’t be sure what the drug is they’re giving the women, but Brianna shows withdrawal symptoms, as well as spikes in emotion-regulating chemicals. It’s a mess. What took you so long?”

  “You have to come see this,” I said, leading her to the small video room.

  When I started the first video, Shandra had a look of confusion on her face that faded into mild curiosity.

  “We suspected much of this, but what a discovery, to be able to hear it from the source of this research. Play the next one, quick.”

  I played the second video, and Shandra watched with rapt attention. She made me rewind at the part where the woman dropped to her knees, and again when the pheromones struck the women. She watched the video a second time in silence, and I could see the gears of her mind working.

  “The third video is even more disturbing.”

  I put it in, and she watched without rewinding as the first subject recounted his experience. When the doctor mentioned the antidote, she turned and met my eyes with a wide stare.

  “This changes everything, CT,” Shandra said when it ended. “You realize what this means?”

  “I do,” I said. “How long would it take for you to test those vials I found? We need to know for certain they’ll be efficacious.”

  “Give me six hours.” Dr. Gupta popped to her feet, her scent having lost most of its fear from earlier and now filled with hope and excitement.

  We were two steps down the short h
allway, heading back to the lab, when a dreadful roar sounded from above, followed by the pounding of heavy footsteps and a high-pitched scream of fear that cut off abruptly.

  Fear and adrenaline coursed through my body, but I forced my feet forward, dragging Shandra with me. I shoved the woman toward her workstation when we got into the lab, barely able to register the mixture of determination and fear wrapped into one that filled her as I stalked toward the small room and staircase.

  The beast within me whimpered and pulled on my thoughts, willing me to turn around, but Dee’s scream made that impossible. With limbs enervated by adrenaline, I pulled the filing cabinets away, unworried about noise with the crashing and roaring still going on above.

  That first step took every ounce of willpower I had, and I was only able to do so by ignoring the fear. I blocked it out of my thoughts the best I could and tried to forget my clammy palms and the rattle of my teeth.

  The staircase was still humid and reeked of the monster. I couldn’t escape the smell, and halfway up, a hacking cough rose up in me, my throat convulsing as I retched. The coughs grew harsher until I was dry heaving.

  The beast within me was attacking my body in its fear of the monster stalking above, and for one dreadful second, I almost let it. Nothing seemed easier than giving in to the fear and giving up, but the image of a beautiful, silver-haired face flashed in my mind, and with it came a wave of rage.

  Rage at the loss of control. Rage at what had been done to me, to my stepmom and Madge and all the others. Mostly rage that this mutated horror would seek to control me and mine.

  “DDDAAANNNMMM YYYOOOUUU!!!!!!!!”

  I didn’t even recognize the roar as my own voice, but the angry sounds from above grew silent for a second. The heavy steps stilled. Then an answering roar greeted mine and energy rushed into my legs.

  The beast within was gone, as if it had never been, but I thought with the same clarity as if I’d just spent hours frolicking with my pride. My legs propelled me with frightening speed as I reached the top of the stairs and raced down the first floor's long hall to one of the back offices. The building shook and walls rattled as the monster barreled down the stairs to find me, but I slipped into a small closet just behind a vent, guessing the multiple air currents would disrupt the thing's sense of smell.

  It must have worked because I heard the thing crash past my closet, the walls swaying, and tear into the room behind mine. I popped out of the closet, my feet carrying me into another office as my hand threw a heavy stapler up to the front doors. I was in the office before the stapler crashed into the glass doors and to the floor.

  The noise alerted the monster, and it was back down the hall, roaring in frustration when it didn’t find anything. I was off again before it could finish its roar, skipping into another office after dropping a pool of spit on the floor of the room I was in.

  Again the monster chased back after me, tearing through the office and floor with awkward claws, its great maw chomping at empty air.

  The air reeked of the thing, but underlying the reek was a scent I’d hoped to smell. Grinning in triumph, I raced off again, leading the monster on a merry chase all through the first floor. What parts of the offices and cubicles that hadn’t been destroyed before were completely trashed after twenty minutes of this, and I could hear the monster huffing and puffing from exertion.

  When the thing finally lumbered away upstairs, the building rattling with its heavy steps, I breathed a sigh of relief but didn’t let my guard down. Waiting long minutes until the sounds of its passage faded, I slipped up the wide staircase and onto the third floor, wishing I could be anywhere else.

  Moving with deliberate slowness, I crept my way through the large conference rooms and offices, searching for Dee. I caught whiffs of the female Alpha’s complex scent everywhere, but as I grew closer and closer to the monster’s lair, my anxiety ramped up when I didn’t find her.

  Nearly three hours had passed by the time I hunkered down outside of the torn hole that led through a wall into the refuse-filled den of the monster. I could see it shifting around in the pitch-black hole, my eyes gathering every last scrap of light and ears attuned to any sound.

  It wasn’t my sense of smell, sight, or sound that alerted me to Dee’s location, but touch.

  My fingers rested against one of the solid steel support beams that held up the floor and roof. Through the beam, I felt the briefest tremor. At first, I brushed it off as imagination, but then it started up again.

  Glancing up, I followed the beam to where it connected to another heavy beam that ran straight through the ceiling above the monster’s den.

  My brilliant plan to tire out the monster had sent it right back to where Dee had hidden. I could see the cracked section of ceiling tile where she’d jumped up, and the slight depression her weight made on the ceiling.

  I couldn’t hear the young woman’s breathing, nor catch a whiff of her scent over the reek of the den, but I could feel her hands, feet, and knees slowly, ever so slowly making their way back out of that dark space.

  Chapter 14

  Hunkering down in the shadows, I heard the monster huff and grunt in anger, getting my first clear breath of its scent. The reek of old sweat and decaying meat had masked the creature’s primal aroma, and a fresh wave of fear rose up, but I ignored it as I had before. Instead, I focused on what it was that so triggered my terror.

  There was a tight knot of feelings and sensations underlying the rancid aroma that triggered our fears. As I sat in the dark, surrounded by collapsing, decades-old infrastructure, I found layers and layers of pain and trauma. So much torment turned inward, it was a miracle the creature could find the strength to stand and move.

  That pain had turned into a warding of sorts, I decided after a time. Pain so acute it triggered such primal fear and revulsion in those who encountered it.

  A light scrape of a boot on steel sounded from above, and three things happened at once.

  The monster woke, rising with a roar and smashing its fat, flat head up against the ceiling. At the same moment the monster rose, the ceiling tile buckled and gave out, dropping Donatella onto the ground, curled up in the fetal position.

  The last thing that happened was that I hurled myself out of the shadows, the world slowing down as the battle juices rushed through me. The monster spotted Dee, and its giant eyes widened in pleasure as it went to drop down on her, massive maw chomping at empty air like a pair of “chattering teeth.”

  Dee cowered into an even tighter ball, her scent one of absolute terror as a scream rose from her lips. The monster’s slavering jaws were a mere foot from tearing into her torso when I whipped the curved blade from her back, and stabbed up into that horrific maw with all of my might, feeling the blade punch through thick bone and plunge into the thing’s brain.

  Hot, wet air blasted me in the face, but it was nothing to the rancid, black blood and viscous fluids that rushed down to coat my arms and head. Retching and heaving up the last of what was in my stomach, I shrugged off the heavy mass and stumbled back.

  “Courtney… how did you… where did you… oh, God!”

  The young woman’s strong arms grabbed me right before I was about to stumble into a desk, clutching me close as she gazed at the dead monster and back at me.

  “How did you get past the fear? I couldn’t think… could barely move.”

  “Don’t let emotions rule you,” I said as I pulled her away from that place, the two of us stumbling back toward the stairs and down to the first floor.

  “Is Dr. Gupta…”

  “She’s alive and well,” I said, feeling at my shoulder where one of the monster's canines had punched a hole in the flesh.

  “We need to clean these wounds out fast,” Dee said with a frown of concern.

  “We need to get back to Ava and Madge,” I said, feeling a sharp ache of loss when I thought of the women. “Shandra! We’re coming down!”

  “Oh, thank God you’re both still alive!�
�� the woman shouted back, her voice thick with relief. “I’m almost done, and you were right, CT!” The woman was bouncing on her toes when we staggered in and her expression of excitement faded as she hurried over to a first aid cabinet.

  I fell into a chair and let the woman see to my wounds. They were far more extensive than I’d first assumed. The monster’s upper jaw had slammed into my shoulder and back when I stabbed it, and I’d barely registered the impact at the time. Dr. Gupta wiped stinging antiseptic across a dozen cuts while she explained what we’d found to Dee.

  “I need to see these tapes,” Dee said, her expression fixed as she marched out of the lab.

  “I tested the antidote against your blood,” Shandra whispered, worry creeping up in her scent. “CT, I’m sorry but unlike with the other Alpha samples I tested, there was no change to yours.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The antidote works to revert Alphas. But I think there is a threshold of metabolization that reduces its efficacy to nil. We can cure the Balphas, assuming they aren’t too damaged to survive. And we might also be able to revert many of the Alphas. The process looks… painful, but it might be possible.”

  “Excellent work Shandra,” I said, offering the woman a smile with all of my pride for her in it. She beamed back, cheeks blushing faintly at the praise.

  “Well, it’s just some tests so far. The real test will be if we can find another Alpha to test it on. One without near-total assimilation of the Catalyst. C, they have a system here that tests for Alpha compatibility—”

  “Grandfather never told me about a cure for Balphas!” Dee said, her voice heated with emotion, eyes still a little wild from her earlier experience, and I could scent that she was unsettled and fragile.

  “I don’t think he knew,” I said. “They told him he was their first subject, but obviously they lied. We could stay here another day or two and make sure we learn everything we can, but I won’t leave Ava, Madge, and Brianna alone any longer than necessary. Shandra, take what data you can from the servers, and let’s get the fuck out of here. I don’t want to be in this place a minute longer than we have to.”