by Farley Dunn
Farley L. Dunn
THE MIRROR CRACKS
Copyright © 2021 by Farley L. Dunn
1st ed.
Book 3 in the Series:
THE HUMAN-HYBRID PROJECT
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by electronic process or any other means, without written permission of the publisher.
All Rights Reserved
Published in Fort Worth, Texas
www.ThreeSkilletPublishing.com
Three Skillet Publishing
PO Box 162194
Fort Worth, Texas 76161
― Book 3 ―
The Human-Hybrid Project
Contents
― 1 ―
― 2 ―
― 3 ―
― 4 ―
― 5 ―
― 6 ―
― 7 ―
― 8 ―
― 9 ―
― 10 ―
― 11 ―
― 12 ―
Arriving October 2021
― 1 ―
GARIK SHAYK pressed his shoulders into the iron bar, his leg muscles quivering, uncertain now if the extra weight his spotter had added at the ends was wise.
“I’ve got you.” The shadows of his spotter’s arms danced across the floor.
“Are you—” Garik strained, groaning with the effort of lifting the bar, and he yelped, “—sure?”
“Yes, sure. Don’t be soft. You can do this. What’s 205 pounds? Such a tiny increase. Up, softie! Success is yours.” The spotter tapped the undersides of Garik’s arms, then harder when he failed to get an adequate response.
“So you say.” Garik gave a final push, felt the bar slip into the forks on the top of the stand, and he leaned over, his hands on his knees, his legs quivering and barely able to breathe. Sweat coated his face and burned his eyes.
“Your towel.” The towel appeared in front of him.
Garik opened it, pressed it to his face, and almost immediately jerked it away, spitting. “Aw, Christian, you’ve been shedding all over my towel again. Gross! What did you say your gene splice was with? Llama?”
“Wolfhound. I’m sorry. We shed.”
To Garik’s way of thinking, the man didn’t sound sorry at all. He thought back four weeks to the reason he was working out with Christian at all.
“LEAH, GOOD morning. May I come in?” Garik was at the hospital on Basement Level 4. He was here to see Dr. Jimenez.
His passkey only allowed him access to the cafeteria on Level 1, his quarters on Level 2, and the training center on Level 3. Van Hermoso, his occupational therapist, had been doubtful about his request to visit the hospital.
“You do know I was tested yesterday, right?” Garik was very polite, making sure he appealed to Van’s compassionate side. He was also very sore, but he didn’t mention that. He certainly didn’t want to offend him. If he did, his plan would be scorched before it had time to rise in the oven.
“Of course. I was there.” Garik had caught Van at breakfast, and the pock-faced fitness nut was spooning shredded wheat into his mouth, a substantial spoonful at a time. He talked around his food. “What does that have to do with visiting the hospital? The emergency clinic can be accessed by your key. Go there to get what you need.”
Ouch! After the tests he had been put through the day before—and his supreme failure—Garik knew he was beneath anyone’s notice. This was proof.
“I, um, well—” and Garik put a quiver into his bottom lip, “—see, I lied to Dr. Jamie. I’m sorry, Van. I couldn’t help myself, and I want to apologize.”
“You lied to him?” Van grinned. “You freakin’ lied to the man? That’s rich. He’s gonna roast you. What did you lie to him about?” He took another wheat biscuit and began to shred it into his bowl.
“I said I was doing my best, and really, I was just tired and wanted to go back to my room.” Garik tried a half smile, the sort that sometimes worked as an apology at school when he didn’t have his homework. “You know how it is.”
“No, I don’t know.” He took his spoon and dipped up another chunk of shredded wheat and pushed the entire thing in his mouth. Over the food, he said, “I don’t get tired. I get fit. But I want to see you get ripped apart by the doctor.”
That had gotten Garik to Level 4, and now he had Nurse Ratchett, his nickname for Leah Fortimier, Dr. Jimenez’s personal nurse, to navigate.
“Yes, Garik, come in. I see your hair is improving. Yesterday, well, that was a shame. We all had such high hopes for you. I’m sure the research center will find a good place for you.” She smiled, as bright and sunshiny as ever, even as she told him she now knew he was a loser, and she was disappointed, but not too much to continue with her everyday life bringing new human hybrids into existence, either with or without their consent.
“That’s just it, Leah. You see, I need to apologize to Dr. Jamie.” He smiled his apologetic smile. “I know I let him down, and it didn’t have to happen that way. I know he expected more of me, and I failed to give it to him. I can be so much better. I was certain I could fool everyone into going easy on me, and now I know you saw through me. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ll give a hundred percent if you’ll let me try again.”
“Oh, this is a change of attitude.” Leah smiled, very pleased. “I’m sure Dr. Jamie would like to hear what you have to say. Please wait right over there.” She pointed to a set of two chairs with vinyl seats and backs, the sort that were sticky to sit on and worse to stand out of.
Garik smiled, said, “Thank you, Leah. I appreciate your help,” and he gently lowered himself into the chair farthest from the door, so that anyone else who came in could have the best seat.
“SO, MR., UM—” Dr. Jimenez paused, undecided on the proper form of Garik’s name to use. He looked up with a half-hearted smile and chose to use neither his first name nor his last. “Yes, my boy. What can I help you with?”
Leah had been very insistent over the intercom that the young man from yesterday was here to apologize to you, Dr. Jamie. Now, he didn’t seem to know if he should call him Mr. Out-the-Door Shayk or good-friend Garik. Garik was amused, but not enough to risk his plan.
First, he repeated his apology, using his most contrite face, the one most apt to get him out of sticky situations in the past, and then he moved on to the heart of his proposal.
“See, Dr. Jamie—” he knew the man would warm up to Garik using his first name, “—I know if I trained more, really put my best effort into being all you want me to be, I can be a success. I want to make you proud of your efforts with me. The thing is, I’ve never done this. I’ve been going it alone, and I feel like I’m flailing around. I’m hopeless at this sort of thing.”
“Hopeless, huh?” Dr. Jimenez leaned back in his chair. “Flailing, you say? Do you have any ideas on how you plan to change that?”
“I’m glad you asked, Dr. Jamie, because I’ve been thinking about that. I need a trainer—”
“You already have Van and that, um, Devon boy. Have you asked them?”
“Here’s how I see it, Dr. Jamie.” Garik saw the man’s expression warm up every time he used his first name. “I need someone like me, someone who’s had the same thing done to them that you guys are trying with me.”
“I don’t see how—” The doctor leaned forward, frowning, and Garik interrupted him.
“That’s just it, Dr. Jamie.” Bingo! The man smiled. “If there was someone who was DNA adjusted for exactly what you’re looking for in me, then they would know exactly how to train me.”
“I, um, think I see what you mean.”
“Is
there someone, Dr. Jamie? I hope so. I so want to be everything you hope I can be.” Garik put his desperate face on.
“Well, there is one man, but he’s scheduled to be reassigned. I don’t know if it’s too late—”
“Will you try, please?” He was talking about Christian. He had to be, because that was Garik’s plan, to save Christian from being reassigned to Basement Level 5 where he would be genetically harvested for research. There was no reason to grovel like this, otherwise.
And that was why Garik Shayk was lifting weights he didn’t want to lift, to give the research team a reason to value Christian Maguire’s presence in the human-hybrid project and keep him on until Jantzen Hefferly could concoct a plan to rescue the failed hybrid from being terminated.
In the meantime, Christian knelt by the pool with a whistle in his mouth. Garik could now do far more than twelve laps fully clothed with a loaded pack, but they were working on underwater breathing skills. The pool was a full fifty meters, and Garik was on his fifth lap without coming up for air. With four weeks of practice, he was amazed how easy it had become. At the end of his fifth lap, he heard Christian blow the whistle, and he paused, looked up at his workout trainer, waved at the wavering image he could see motioning him to the surface. He smiled, pushed gently off the bottom, and let his face break the surface of the pool. Only then did he let out the breath he’d been holding.
It hadn’t even been hard.
“How did I do?” Garik moved his arms back and forth, treading water.
“Don’t start. You know you broke every record set on every leaderboard here.”
“I know.” Garik swam to the side, and he pulled himself up on his elbows, with his forearms overlapping on the coping. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
“Now’s the real test. You’re going up against Justin Kurtew. Are you sure you want to do this?” Christian was a kind soul, the reason the military didn’t appreciate his skills. His DNA recombined with that of a wolfhound had been eminently successful at one thing, however, precognition. The only way to harvest that was to harvest the man. Only pulling him in to train Garik was postponing the inevitable, that was, unless Jantzen Hefferly, the number two man in charge of the human-hybrid program, could effect his escape.
They hadn’t yet figured out how to work that out.
“I don’t have a choice, Christian.” Garik dropped back into the water, then with his hands on the side, he vaulted forward, surging out of the water and bringing about a quarter of the pool with him. “You’ve seen the outcome, though. Right?”
Precog. Christian had a twelve-hour window of events that centered directly around him. The military overlords had hoped for more, and that’s why Garik’s DNA was intermingled with that of a timber wolf. He was to be the success to Christian’s failure.
“Not without injury.”
“Grr. That’s not the future I wanted you to imagine for me.” Garik’s precog ability was zilch. Nada. No such thing. Today, Colonel Brace and Senior Airman Vang had scheduled a second round of tests for Garik, to see if he had improved from his first. Garik had failed that one miserably. This one had to be successful. Otherwise, both he and Christian were likely to be written off.
“I’ve explained,” Christian said, as he handed Garik a towel. “I don’t imagine the futures I see. They are just there.”
“I know.” Garik toweled his hair. Another four weeks had given him at least enough to hide his scalp. He still couldn’t believe they had cut it off when they inducted him—kidnapped him—into the human-hybrid project. Of all the things they had done to him, that had been the cruelest.
At times, he wished his girlfriend, Marisa, had never hit that button on the elevator that took them down into the bowels of the Corona Tower basements. He could be enjoying his senior year at Bay City High, instead of swimming laps in this pool and preparing to fight a killer with extra joints in his arms and the ability to sling knives faster than the eye could see.
He could only pray he would survive.
Well, that and trust Christian’s precog. He didn’t look forward to his injuries. He did notice one thing Christian hadn’t shared with him.
What damage would Justin inflict? Garik hadn’t asked, because if he knew, he might not show up for the fight at all.
“MOVE INTO the ring, if you will.”
Garik took a deep breath and caught Justin’s aroma. Anger flowed from the oddly jointed man in brown soil and green plants, dead leaves and growing things. Justin Kurtew scowled at him, for once not wearing the leather duster that seemed to be his standard item of clothing. Garik glanced around the gaming center to see who had spoken. Sitting in a row of chairs, a posse of evaluators, including Weston Rodheimer, Colonel Brace, Airman Vang, and Dr. Jimenez, was poised to critique the competition, to judge whether Garik could continue in the program or be thumped aside like a noisome insect that had buzzed the inside of the screen far too long.
“Now, please.” This time, the “please” punched the air a little harder, its impatience showing its face.
Garik realized they were talking to him, seventeen-year-old Garik Shayk, who should be a senior at Bay City High and living with his aunt Irina and her boyfriend, Arik Oblonsky, not here preparing to battle a deadly opponent. He should be getting ready for a skateboard competition, doing his homework, or spending the evening with his girlfriend, Marisa, not trying to save the life of a friend by fighting a deadly assassin.
Garik’s first visit to the gaming center surged into his thoughts, reminding him how deadly today might be. Justin Kurtew had been in the ring against Alyna Lindberg, who was modified with a Komodo dragon, giving her retractable claws that were more steel knives than bony keratin. Justin had bested her, and she had walked away with minimal injuries only because Jantzen Hefferly had restrained him, forcing him to call the battle a draw.
Today, only Garik and Justin were present, both in boxing robes, although this was less boxing than bare knuckle fighting. Well, on Justin’s side, bare knife fighting. It was Garik who was restricted to his knuckles.
Justin had come alone. Garik was accompanied by Christian. Justin’s motivation today was validation. He wanted to prove his position in the hierarchy of the project—and perhaps eat Garik if he bested him. That was the mantis in him. Justin had already been thumped aside as a hybrid failure. He had nothing to lose. Garik was the one with his future on the line. His and Christian’s, making his showing in the upcoming foray a vital link to his continued existence.
The two contestants dropped their robes, revealing very different fighting stances. Justin, mated with the DNA of a praying mantis, had a long, almost segmented body, and his forearms had extra joints, allowing him phenomenal fighting speed. Garik’s was the tight body of a honed seventeen-year-old. His four weeks under Christian’s tutelage had changed him from casual skateboarder to hardened athlete.
Garik’s trump card would be the endurance that was a byproduct of his DNA infusion, timber wolf, which Christian had assured him would turn the tide in this battle against his very formidable foe.
At the starting signal, Garik didn’t even see Justin’s hands move when he felt something bite into his right arm. A gash opened in his skin from the wrist nearly to his elbow, and a volcano of blood welled up, spewing anger like molten rock. Garik stood frozen in shock for a moment, chanting to himself, “Anger gets me nothing. I must use my hands, my mind, my desire to achieve.” Then Justin drew his arms back for another strike, sank the tip of a blade in Garik’s shoulder, and Garik said, “Forget using my mind.” He whipped around and smashed a foot into Justin’s ribcage. As his opponent doubled over, he leaped on his back, repeating what he’d watched Jantzen Hefferly do. Justin seemed frozen in a rainbow haze as Garik wrapped his arms under Justin’s and pulled them upward, holding the man tight, letting his opponent’s arms beat the air, his knives useless against someone he couldn’t reach.
There was no bell. No one called time. The rainbows faded as the
observers let the moment go on, and on, and on, until Justin, quivering with exhaustion, dropped his knives and bled the words, “I give.”
Garik was drained and his muscles burned. He dropped Justin and offered him a hand to stand. Justin glared, but he took Garik’s hand before limping away, rubbing his shoulders.
Garik’s arm and shoulder? Pound for pound, blood for blood, the price was one he was glad to pay.
― 2 ―
COLONEL BRACE, with the solid, white-haired grace of a Southern gentleman, stood and took a firm step toward Dr. Jimenez. He took his hand and pulled him in close and whispered, “Any evidence of the precognition we saw in the other one?”
Garik felt his knees cut from under him. Didn’t they see anything? He had taken down Justin, one of the deadliest hybridized humans in the complex, well, except for Laura, with her hydrogen cyanide breath, but he’d never seen her actually use it, so he supposed that it didn’t count, yet.
He also had never faced her in combat, and he crossed his fingers he never would.
Still—
Christian took his injured arm, lifted it, and pressed a damp cloth against it. Garik turned to him, “Can you believe that man?”
“Justin? It’s what I predicted—”
“No.” Garik pulled his arm away and pointed to the men across the room who had come to evaluate his progress. “That one.”
Colonel Brace had his back to them in an intense discussion with Weston Rodheimer, the director and head researcher at the Corona Tower research complex. Neither man seemed to be aware of Garik’s fury.
“Your arm, please.” Christian grasped his wrist, worked the cloth over the red area, and pulled it back, perplexed. “I do have the correct arm, yes?”
“Of course, you do. I’m sorry I pulled it away. I get angry, and I don’t think. Thank you for helping me.” Garik was sorry if he had offended Christian, but still, how inconsiderate and pig-headed could a person be?