Selene laughed. “You guys learn quickly. We normally have to make examples of someone before the rest realize I mean what I say. And yes, I know it’s a highly experimental procedure that’s never been tried before, but we’re going to do it anyway and we’re going to make it work.”
“Actually, it has been tried. We transferred a diplodocus mind to a nothosaur. Unfortunately, the diplodocus drowned. We still have the nothosaur somewhere, but it isn’t doing well. The stupid thing insists on trying to eat plants. So you can even say it’s been successfully done.”
“Good. Have you ever tried it with human minds?”
In his face, she saw the huge objections and the struggle to keep them contained. The woman also looked like she was about to jump in and earn a bullet to the temple. But they managed to stay quiet. “Not yet.”
“Good. Then you’ll be doing something new today. Exciting, huh?” She turned to the third man. “Now why should I keep you around?”
The other man said nothing.
“Can you open the doors?” Selene asked.
“I think so.”
“Good. And once you do that, I need you to sedate the dinosaurs so your actually useful friends can work on them. I don’t want to send them in there unless you get killed.”
The guy swallowed and set about the task. Ten minutes later, after much sweating and cursing, a set of doors on the other side of the foot-thick plexiglass wall opened to reveal five dinosaurs that looked like a ridiculous mix between an ostrich and a tyrannosaur. She knew they were Deinonychus, and that they were one of the nastiest creatures ever to roam the cretaceous, but she still giggled every time she saw one. Of course, being behind a thick partition made it easier to laugh.
“Interesting technique,” Selene mused. “I would have thought it would be smarter to sedate them one at a time to avoid the rest tearing you to pieces… but I guess you’re the expert. Now do it before they start damaging one another.”
He swallowed but didn’t protest, and grabbed five separate dart guns. It seemed like a silly way to tranquilize dinosaurs, but she supposed these guys actually did know what they were about.
The man opened a steel door in the partition. Through the glass, Selene could see that the steel door opened onto a steel box, kind of like an airlock. The second door opened just a fraction and the muzzle of one of the dart guns poked through.
It was impossible to miss at that range, and the dinosaurs didn’t even realize what was happening to them as the researcher got them plugged one at a time without being seen or being in any real danger. He returned, pale, and lay the spent dispensers on the table.
Selene gave him a smile. “I’m impressed. And don’t worry. I don’t shoot people for no reason. If this works, you will all be well rewarded.”
They didn’t look like they believed her, but she didn’t care. For once she was telling the truth. These scientists already knew what was happening here, and news of Park’s defection would be common knowledge in a few hours. There was no advantage to killing them and many advantages to keeping them alive. After all, they were now Russia’s foremost experts in the field of creating dinosaurs from the genetic material of a nothosaur. Not a skillset that could be easily replaced, and not one whose loss she was eager to explain to her superiors.
“All right. I have the mind I want to transfer right here. How do we hook them up?”
“That’s the device right there,” the woman said, indicating a small wheeled table full of white and grey electronic equipment. “We have to do them one at a time because the output wires need to plug in here.”
“I imagined the machine would be bigger. How long will this take?”
“It’s normally nearly instantaneous, but a human brain is something like…” she turned to the man who’d tranquilized the dinosaurs. “What? Three petabytes?”
“A little less than that, but yeah, thereabouts.”
She thought for a moment. “Each one will take fifteen minutes.”
That wasn’t too bad. But they didn’t look comfortable. “What aren’t you telling me?” she said.
“I…”
“I won’t shoot you for answering questions.”
“All right,” the woman replied. “I’m not sure if we can put that much into a brain the size of a dinosaur’s.”
She shrugged. “Then put in as much as you can. I just need them to be able to follow basic instructions.”
They exchanged glances. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll be back in one hour and fifteen minutes. I expect you to be done by then.”
***
Five deinonychus dinosaurs staggered to and fro like drunken sailors.
“Was the transfer successful?” Selene asked the scientists.
The woman stepped forward. “We… we think so.”
“Why aren’t you certain?”
“Because it’s never been done before. We won’t know for sure until we see how they react. We don’t even know if what we did is viable. Sun-Lee wanted to run some tests in Central America, transferring human minds into animal hosts… but that program was scrapped.”
Selene knew what the woman was talking about. The main thrust of the program had been something very different, including getting hold of samples of another researcher’s labors… and Park had never mentioned his intention of testing the mind transfer. He’d gone on and on about wanting to capture some colossal monster that the other researcher had created combining DNA in ways that Russia was still years away from being able to attempt… and that no one else in the world even dreamed possible.
“Understood. How long until I can speak to them?”
“If it worked, a few more minutes for the first one.”
After a while, the dinosaurs began to stand more firmly. One of them looked around and, realizing what kind of creatures it was locked in with, attempted to run. But the doorknob defeated its claws.
“Looks like at least one of them is alert. I’m going in.”
“You can talk to them from here…”
“I’m going in. You’ve done the best I could ask. Go home.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Come in again tomorrow, and we’ll see about reorganizing YekLab now that Sun-Lee is out. Your help today will not be forgotten.”
They filed out, looking behind them with the expression of death row prisoners who couldn’t quite believe that they had been reprieved. Good. Working with people smart enough to be afraid of her was always easier.
She looked at the man who’d accompanied her and grinned. “I’m going in alone. If this didn’t work, at least my death will be legendary.”
The man said nothing. He knew better than to argue.
Selene opened the outer door of the airlock-like entrance, and then the inner one. These doors were quite thick, but they had no sophisticated locks. After all, they weren’t meant to stop humans but beasts who couldn’t work a doorknob.
Inside, the smell of the animals was nearly overpowering. Pools of excrement, wet like bird droppings, decorated the concrete floor. All five heads turned to track her as she entered, but none of them approached.
“Hello,” she said in English.
Her audience flinched.
“Can you hear me?”
The dinosaurs—or at least whatever part of the human mind that the scientists had been able to transfer into the dinosaurs—tried to answer, and the results were pathetic. A series of squawks and hisses came back to her.
“Oh. Right. You don’t have vocal cords. Just nod your heads if you can understand me.”
The creatures, one by one, nodded.
“Good. Do you feel all right?”
She waited for them to nod.
“All right then. I’m going to explain what’s happening here, and what I expect from you.”
She looked around the room. Five monsters watched her in rapt attention.
“Good. My name is Selene, and you, I’ve been told, are called Luca Pairetti
. Is that right?”
They all nodded. Then they all seemed to look around in confusion as if wondering why all the rest were nodding.
“Yes. You’re all Luca Pairetti.” She shrugged. “It was the only mind I had. Now listen up. You’ve been transferred to your current bodies—they’re quite ugly dinosaur bodies, in fact—for two reasons. The first is to complete a mission. The second is to pay us back for your transgression. If you succeed, we both win. I will have captured a man and a woman that I need to control, and you will be transferred to healthy bodies. Human bodies.”
She didn’t know what Pairetti had done to earn his transformation into an involuntary research subject. That had been run by an entirely different organization, with closer ties to the Mafiya than to the government. All she knew was that, one day, Park had appeared with a hard drive and a smile.
“Can you see well, with those eyes? You,” she pointed at one of the dinosaurs. “How many fingers am I holding up? Nod once for each finger you see.”
She held up three fingers. The creature nodded three times.
“Good enough, I guess. Now, do you agree with the terms? If not, I’ll just leave you here until you have no choice but to start eating each other.” She gave them her best smile.
The creatures nodded.
“Good. Come on. Let’s see if you can squeeze out through the door and save me the hassle of having to open the main entrance. I’ll brief you on the way.”
***
It took nearly thirty minutes to herd the dinosaurs around the simulated biosphere and into the tunnel.
The way the creatures moved didn’t inspire confidence: they were clumsy and slow. Considering the fearsome reputation that preceded Deinonychus, she hoped the walk would help her monsters learn to control their bodies.
She was also happy that she’d brought three of her men along as backup. Armed with AK-15s, they should be able to deal with a lot of what the dinosaurs couldn’t. The creatures were mainly there to scare off the smaller stuff and make the big stuff think twice so she could concentrate on the main objective, which was to bring back Max and Marianne. Max and Marianne. Corny names that sounded alike. It was fitting that they should die together, echoing each other’s screams as they did.
Also, if all else failed, the dinosaurs should be able to absorb a lot of ammunition before dropping dead.
Sounded like something that should be in a bad American song. Little ditty ‘bout Max and Marianne…
The tunnel stretched out ahead when her phone rang. It was the guy she’d left at the facility. She had him listed on her contacts as Number 3.
“Boss?”
“Yes, what’s up?”
“Helicopters just landed in the test site.”
That meant they were inside the valley with all the dinosaurs.
“What? Military?”
Had the military sent in its own strike force? She wouldn’t put it past the GRU to interfere, of course. Internecine warfare among Russian security agencies was a long-standing and honored tradition.
But Orlov was supposed to be one of the good guys which, in her profession meant that he stayed bribed once you bought him. An open assault, visible from space, didn’t seem like something he’d do.
“Not military. But not exactly civilian, either. They come up as helicopters with defensive ability owned by Tarsos.”
Tarsos. Military contractors who worked for… well, they worked for anyone with hard currency and a problem that could be solved by the judicious application of ammunition. They were bottom-feeders, but generally effective as such organizations went.
“So who hired them?”
“Sending you a picture. You’re not going to believe this.”
The image downloaded quickly and she chuckled. Luck was not something she ever counted on but, when it happened to be on your side, one had to thank the universe.
Park Sun-Lee didn’t know he was a bird, much less that he was one of two.
But Selene did, and she was coming with a stone.
***
Park addressed the grouped journalists. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I brought you here.”
Heads nodded.
“I wanted to show you something, something so awful that it could bring down the Russian government itself. Failing that, I’m convinced that at least a few heads high up the food chain will roll.”
“And how do you know about all of this?” one of the reporters asked, as if on cue.
“Because I’m going to reveal a project that I was once a part of.”
“So you got fired and are out for revenge?”
“Quite the contrary. My departure will be a huge blow to this project, as I am the director and also the lead scientist. But I can’t be a part of this any longer. My conscience just won’t allow it.”
“Why?”
“Look around. Do you see the mountains? This is an old impact crater, a few tens of thousands of years old. But the top of the crater has been molded to create a sheer cliff. It’s impossible to climb without ropes and equipment. The only way in or out is through a tunnel in the cliffside, over there.” He waved in the general direction of the YekLab complex. “Or, of course, by air.”
“So, it’s a fortress. What is it supposed to keep out? And what’s so valuable that you need something this size to store it?”
“Well, back in the Soviet era, this spot was a launch site for missiles. You could drive them in here and fire them directly from the mouth of the tunnel, out of sight from observers. But now… now, no one is trying to keep people out. No. They’re using this place to keep people in.”
“You mean, like a prison?”
“No. I mean like farmers. This area has been split into farms. Each was given to a person who had no other way of contributing to society. Many were refugees, or political malcontents unsuited to the old Soviet way of life. They probably suspected they were being used as camouflage for the missile site, but they didn’t care. There weren’t many options for people like that back then.”
“But that all ended thirty years ago.”
“Yes, but the missiles only went away a few years ago… and after that, YekLab built a facility near here. Yes, the same YekLab you almost got eaten at. This place is much bigger and it holds many, many more lines of research.”
“And the farmers?” the Brazilian, Tatiana asked. She obviously didn’t want to lose sight of the humanitarian angle.
He gave her a smile. “Thanks for keeping me on track. There’s so much to tell, you see. Yes, the farmers were allowed to stay. The powers that be considered their presence here valuable.”
“As camouflage?”
“Oh, no. There’s no more need for camouflage. No. They’re being kept here for an entirely different purpose. They’re test subjects.”
“Wait. I heard there was a biological weapons factory here once. They’re testing them on humans? On your own people?”
“Oh, they’re testing biological weapons on humans, all right. But you’re thinking of the wrong kind. The weapons they test here aren’t germs or bacteria. They’re much, much bigger than that. In fact, you already saw one on the day of the conference.”
Stunned silence greeted him as the reporters processed what he’d just said.
“I brought you here today because there’s a full-scale test in progress. Right now.”
One of the reporters raised her hand. “Do you mean that they’ve released a monster into this place to see if it… if it kills someone?”
“No. I mean that they released dozens of dinosaurs into this place, with the objective of seeing how quickly they kill everyone.”
“Oh God. How many people live in this zone?”
“About fifty.”
“That’s monstrous.”
“Yes. Now you understand why my conscience wouldn’t let me stay at work for these people, even though I have fifteen years of research tied up here.”
Tatiana, since her one question, had remaine
d silent. Now she spoke again. “But why us? We’re just fashion magazine reporters for the most part. Why didn’t you call in the international press, the heavy hitters? And people experienced in battlefield conditions?”
Park smiled. He could get to like this one. She knew all the tricks and had asked exactly what he wanted her to. “That’s an excellent question,” he replied. “The answer is that if I’d called on the international press, certain people in Moscow would have become extremely nervous, and I would have had to answer a lot of questions.” He was proud of that answer. Every single word of it was true. “But don’t worry about your inexperience on the battlefield. You won’t be in any danger. My men are well-equipped to face anything that we might encounter. They’re armed with both high-powered automatic rifles and with sonic weaponry. The creatures we’re here to see are very sensitive to sound blasts because they have highly developed hearing. We left those characteristics in them so that we could control them during development. The plan is to remove them once they’re fully deployed.”
“Fully deployed? What are people going to use these things for?”
“As terror weapons. With suitable modifications, they can be given higher intelligence for missions where the terrain makes sending humans difficult, or for situations in which troop risk might be too great.”
“You mean suicide missions?”
“Precisely.” And now came the important part. He faced the journalists squarely and enunciated clearly. English was one of his six languages, and he knew that most of the reporters weren’t native speakers. Clarity would be paramount. “Fortunately, I am the only one who knows how to make the next round of modifications… and I won’t be making them for the Russians.”
“And what will stop them from coming after you?”
“Nothing at all. But by the time they realize that I’ve left, I will be somewhere they can’t reach me. We won’t be here more than an hour. Now, would you like to see the true horror of what’s happening here?”
“No,” said one of the reporters.
But when he set off towards the village, they followed him.
Chapter 6
Tatiana followed Sun-Lee down a rocky path that led from the cracked, ancient concrete lot where the helicopters had set down towards a cluster of tall trees beyond which the roof of a house could be seen.
Test Site Horror Page 9