“Going to the Clean Room?” asked the man.
Walter nodded, pulling down his face mask. “After I deal with these,” he said, glancing at the cart.
“I still don’t understand why you insist on tossing them yourself,” said the man. “You’ve got lackeys for that, you know.” The man waved him off before Walter could respond. “I know. I know. You respect your subjects for giving their life to science.”
“What’s the latest?” asked Walter, nodding toward the volcano.
The man removed his earmuffs, resting them around his neck. “Well, we set off the explosion in the right quadrant, just like you directed. Given the uncertainty of the volcanic plug, we used only a small amount of explosives, but it was enough to open things up.”
“Anything?”
The man shrugged. “Just more petrified stone—no live magma.” He nodded at the rock formation. “This thing’s as dead as those rats, Doctor. The stone’s much darker, though, if that means anything.”
“If we find active magma, the mineral deposits will be far more potent—the darker stone is a good sign. It should be much easier to isolate the mineral now,” said Walter, patting the man’s shoulder. “Think of the bonus we’ll all get if we’re successful. Can you imagine? None of us will ever have to work again.”
The man laughed. “My grandchildren and their children’s children will never have to work again either. You make a good point.” He started up the ramp. “I guess that’s why you make the big bucks, huh, Doc?”
Walter didn’t answer. He simply nodded with a closed-lip smile and continued down the ramp.
They passed several other men, all dressed in the same hard hats and blue jumpsuits. They were digging at the base of the rock. It was obvious where the explosion had taken place; large chunks of gray earth had been blasted away, revealing lustrous black rock beneath. The men were chipping away at the black rock, dumping it into wheelbarrows and moving down a corridor with them. They returned with empty barrows and then repeated the process.
“Victor, you said the needles, they were filled with a black substance?”
“Black as night,” said Victor.
Billycan looked down at the bats again, struck by their youthful faces. What must it be like to die so young? “What do you notice about these bats . . . other than the obvious, of course?” he asked Victor.
Victor swallowed hard, steeling himself. He looked down at the still row of bats. After a moment he cocked his head in thought. “They . . . they’re all children,” he said.
“And large children at that,” added Billycan. “Where are they coming from? The colony’s children are a fine size, but these pups are as large as full-grown bats.”
Walter wheeled the cart the rest of the way down the ramp and onto a stone walkway about the width of a city sidewalk. After circling halfway around the tower of rock, they came to a heavy iron door.
Walter entered the security code. The bolt inside the door clicked and the door popped open just a crack. Letting go of the cart, Walter pulled open the weighty door and rolled the cart inside, locking the door behind him.
The room was empty except for a large steel contraption in the center. The silver machine consisted of a long metal box with a barrel protruding from its side. Giant metal tubes shot out from the barrel like a man-made tree, leading all the way up to the cavernous ceiling.
The machine vibrated with sound. Heat radiated from it, making the air ripple. Walter wiped his brow, put on a pair of protective goggles, and wheeled the cart toward the machine.
“C’mon,” said Billycan, “we must get off the cart—now!”
Billycan jumped off the back of the cart between Walter’s legs, and Victor followed, just grazing a trouser leg. Walter looked down for a moment, then continued toward the machine.
“What’s happening?” asked Victor as they dashed behind a steel beam.
“I don’t think you want to know,” said Billycan.
Victor heard a rush of sound, and a gust of hot air swirled around the beam. “No, I need to watch this.”
In silence the two rats stood on either side of the beam and watched as twenty rats and seven bats were picked up one by one with a pair of rusty pincers and tossed into the fire-breathing coffer, their bodies quickly turning to ash, every trace of them incinerated.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Clean Room
WALTER LEFT THE CART BEHIND, so Victor and Billycan followed him on foot. Other than the well-lit area where the men were digging, the cave was drenched in shadows and full of outcroppings, making it easy for them to stay unseen.
Walter made his way back to the stone walkway and followed it around the other side of the rock formation. He stared up at it for a moment, sighed wistfully, and headed down another corridor.
The corridor led to a small glass room lined with metal cubbyholes and hooks. As the doors opened, the rats sprinted into one of the cubbyholes nearest the floor and watched as Walter took off his lab coat and hung it on a hook. He then emptied his pockets and placed their contents in an empty cubby.
Walter took something from inside a wide metal box attached to the wall. He sat down on a long bench below it. At first it looked like he was holding two crumpled tissues, but then he stretched them out, crossed one leg over the other, grunting as he did so, and placed one of the stretched tissues over his shoe—a protective covering of some sort. After covering both shoes, he slowly stood up and walked over to a long steel rack where several paper-thin white garments hung. He took one and put it on. It was similar to the blue jumpsuits the other men had on, only it was exceptionally clean—not even a lone piece of lint. He zipped the suit up to his chin, then reached into a plastic bag attached to the hanger and took out a white mask and matching hat. The mask covered his nose and mouth, and the hat covered his entire forehead with a flap in the back that covered his neck and curled around either side of his head all the way to his ears. Once everything was snapped in place, only Walter’s blue eyes were visible. Last but not least, he put on a pair of latex gloves and plastic goggles.
He walked to a set of glass doors on the other side of the room. He didn’t press a keypad this time; instead he pressed a red button and said his name, “Walter Lee Harris.” A loud buzzer sounded, and then there was the decisive snap of doors unlocking.
“Hurry!” hissed Billycan as Walter reached for a handle. “We can’t lose him now.” The rats dashed from the cubby and skittered across the tile in a panic. Walter pulled open the heavy doors and stepped inside the next chamber. As the doors began to close, Billycan hurled his body toward the opening. He slid on his back through the doors, quickly turning in time to see Victor skidding across the tile and through the small opening. He looked to be safely through, but his tail caught under one of the doors. His face flooded with terror, Victor yanked on his tail, but it would not break free. Swiftly Billycan grabbed him around the neck and jerked his body back as hard as he could, just before the doors slammed shut.
Victor winced in pain, grimacing at his freshly skinned tail, as he and Billycan picked themselves off the floor. They scanned the small room, looking for a place to hide. The room was brightly lit, with nothing in it except the white tile floor. Suddenly Billycan pointed to the wall. Round silver containers lined it symmetrically, each one about the size of a coffee can. They dashed into one of the lowest containers and waited for Walter to make his next move. The container was made of slick metal, and the back was dotted with long thin holes all the same size. Billycan peered around the lip of the container, only to see Walter standing in place.
“What’s he doing?” whispered Victor.
“I don’t know . . . he’s just standing there.”
All of a sudden a deafening buzzer sounded, followed by an explosive torrent of air bursting from the holes in the back of the container. “Grab hold!” shouted Victor as Billycan frantically pulled himself back inside.
They sank their claws into the holes, bracing their
bodies as best they could as the air rushed past them. Not having enough time to get a solid hold, Billycan began to lose his grip. His left paw broke free and he was blown out into the room, his right paw desperately clinging to the lip of the container.
“Hang on!” shouted Victor over the noise. He shoved his claws farther into the metal holes, causing the beds of his nails to bleed. With his right paw he reached for Billycan, just able to grab hold of his paw that still gripped the container. Forcing his body to move against the air, Victor slowly turned around, planting his heels against the lip of the container. He held onto Billycan, determined to pull him back inside.
All at once the flood of air stopped. With Victor still pulling him, Billycan tumbled back into the container, slamming into the back of it. He groaned for a moment, his head ringing with pain. “Walter . . . we must follow him. . . . ,” he finally said.
Victor poked his head out of the container and saw Walter pushing through another set of doors. Without thinking, Victor seized Billycan under his arms and yanked him out of the hole, heaving him to the ground.
They landed in a heap on the tile. His wits returning, Billycan stumbled to his feet. “Go!” he screamed.
They were in a sort of glass box. Everything was silver or white, and gleaming, not even a fingerprint marring a surface. “This must be the Clean Room,” said Billycan, “the place the other man mentioned.”
“What was the other room?” whispered Victor, examining a bleeding claw. “I thought my skin would be ripped from my bones!”
Billycan shrugged. “I suppose that’s how they get you clean.”
They hid with little difficulty, ducking under steel desks, chairs, and droning machinery, remaining unseen as they chased after Walter.
Every few steps he’d check in with someone, presumably his team of scientists, all dressed in the same white outfits, making them look like ghosts—every one of them bent over a microscope or running a vial through one machine and then placing it inside another, all busy at work.
Toward the end of the chamber was a metal counter, which ran around a tall glass dome. Walter stopped in front of it and looked inside. He tilted his head and looked down into the dome.
A female scientist walked up to him. “Dr. Harris, the new stone, it’s everything we thought it would be and more! It was just like you said. The mineral deposits are richer, much easier to isolate. In only two days, the results are astounding.”
“I can see that,” said Walter, looking down into the dome. “Quite an amazing discovery. Dr. Sheppard, tell me—with our new findings, do we have any chance of meeting Prince’s expectations?”
“Oh, Dr. Harris, you mean no one’s told you?” She giggled, thrilled to have such an honor. “The deeper the miners get into the rock, the higher the mineral count. Not only will we meet their expectations, we’ll far exceed them! Our findings will change the world as we know it.” She sighed with satisfaction. “Your idea—the explosion—was genius, Doctor.” She stared up at him, her eyes filled with admiration.
“Thank you, Dr. Sheppard,” he said.
“Of course, sir,” she replied.
Walter continued to stare into the dome, his eyes flat.
Victor looked around. All the scientists were busy with their work. “Billycan, c’mon, let’s find out what he’s looking at.”
“Are you insane?” said Billycan. “It’s not safe, there are humans everywhere.”
Victor tilted his head. “Since when are you scared of humans . . . or anyone, for that matter?”
Exhaling, Billycan looked up at the looming dome. Even in the sterile Clean Room, the smell of rats was all around him, but something about the scent was off. “Truth be told, I don’t want to find out what lurks inside that dome.” He turned his face away from Victor. “I don’t want to see the perversions of our species that they’ve created. For the life of me, I cannot stomach it.” His paws started to tremble. His head throbbed, the rage inside him pounding, ready to burst. Walter might have been nice to him in the lab, but at that moment all he wanted to do was dig his claws into his fleshy skin, climb up his sagging body, and rip his eyes out. “I’m afraid”—he took a deep breath—“I’m afraid I’ll do something . . . unkind.”
“Let me see your face!” said Victor.
Billycan turned his gaze toward Victor, his eyes a cruel, radiant red.
“I knew it!” said Victor. “The night of Vincent and Clover’s wedding, when you screamed at me in the morgue . . . your eyes . . . they changed. They looked like they do now.”
“I didn’t want to react like that,” said Billycan. “Sometimes a feeling comes over me, a feeling I cannot explain. Rats like Hecate bring it out in me. Or humans like him . . .” His eyes shifted up toward Walter. “Looking at him, it’s hard to feel anything but hatred. It eats away at me.”
“It’s the same feeling you always felt before Juniper gave you the cure, isn’t it—bloodlust?”
Billycan nodded. “It was you, wasn’t it? Back in Nightshade, that night after my episode in the morgue. It was you at the top of the stairs. I smelled you. I was sure of it.”
“I followed you.”
“So you saw what I’d done in the corridor. I didn’t remember any of it, but still I knew I had done the damage.”
“I didn’t see you do it, but I saw the end result. So you can’t control it?”
“At first, after the cure, I thought I could . . . but lately it seems to be controlling me.” He looked at his yellow claws, wondering about the exact number of lives they’d taken. “The Cortexa, the cure I was given, I don’t think it’s permanent. Sometimes . . . I want to hurt someone. I want them to feel pain. I dream about killing. If Texi hadn’t got to Hecate first, I would have found a way to do it myself. I was already plotting her demise. He shuddered. “I fear I might change back to the way I was before at any moment. I’m worried I might kill someone . . . with no way to stop myself.”
“Maybe it’s time to face your fears.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the man burned those rats’ bodies to ashes, I forced myself to watch because I knew if I did, I could never turn my back on them. Maybe if you see what’s in that dome you’ll realize that ending this once and for all is more important than slashing some chubby old scientist’s throat.”
Billycan smiled. “You’re awfully smart for a rat your age. Did Juniper teach you to think like that?”
“No,” said Victor, “my brother did.”
Walter had left the dome and gone to one of the many workstations, where he was poring over his team’s new findings. The two rats crept around the dome to the area farthest away from the scientists. They jumped onto the circular table, the noise from the many machines drowning out the sound of their claws scraping metal.
They stood up on their hind legs and stretched their bodies as far as they would go, trying to see over the steel base surrounding the dome.
What they saw was perplexing—rats of every conceivable color, all of brute size, as big as Billycan, and they were all young. Some wrestled playfully in the shavings on the bottom of the dome. Some curled together, crawling on top of each other as juvenile rats tended to do. They were running in and out of plastic tubes and filling plastic boxes with wood shavings, climbing up and down little staircases.
“Where did they all come from?” asked Victor.
“I suppose they were created here in the lab, just as I was.”
“Look,” said Victor, pointing down to a group off by themselves. They were quarreling, two sides arguing over one of the plastic boxes. A brown rat pushed another to the ground, cuffing him in the snout. An albino flared his claws, swiping the brown in the ear. Drops of blood spotted the white shavings. A gray rat lunged at the brown, biting down on his ankle, making him fall to the ground, where the albino mercilessly kicked him in the ribs.
Victor banged softly on the glass, trying to get their attention. They looked up at him, all with vacant stares, an
d went back to their business, not the least bit concerned that two rats stood outside the dome. They seemed to forget about their fight, and left the brown rat crumpled and bleeding in the shavings as though they didn’t know him.
“That’s not normal,” said Victor. “Juveniles don’t behave like that. Juniper said even Killdeer acted normal back when he was a child. It wasn’t until he was nearing adulthood that he began to change.”
“It’s the drugs,” said Billycan. “These rats don’t seem to comprehend what they’re doing . . . or perhaps they don’t care.” He thought of Topher—the wild look in his eyes, his illogical ramblings, and his unnatural strength for a rat who hadn’t eaten in days.
“Duck!” barked Victor.
Walter and the female scientist, Dr. Sheppard, approached the dome. She was carrying something in a plastic cage. Their snouts just over the edge of the metal base, Billycan and Victor watched as she set the cage down and pulled a vial of black liquid from her pocket along with a syringe. “Doctor,” she said, “the results are truly amazing. Not only is there a great improvement in the effects, but the time it takes for the effects to manifest themselves—it’s been cut down to nothing!” Turning the vial upside down, she stuck the syringe into it and filled it with the black fluid.
“That’s what I saw in the lab,” said Victor.
“Doctor, would you?” she asked, nodding down at the cage.
“Oh, certainly,” said Walter. Clumsily he reached into the plastic cage, nearly knocking it to the ground, and pulled out an immobile gray rat. He chuckled awkwardly. “This fellow’s out cold, isn’t he?”
“We feel it’s far more humane this way,” she said. “The rats seem to be in great pain after the injections.”
“We must always look after our test subjects’ welfare,” said Walter.
His paws clenching into tight fists, Billycan leered across the dome. “The only welfare he’s truly looked after is his own. If he had any sort of a backbone he would have tried to stop Prince years ago!” he whispered. “Instead, he’s grown fat off them.”
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