by M. D. Massey
She had a point, but this issue was bigger than just me and her. “Kid, I’ll admit that you appear absolutely five by five to me, but who knows what effect the witch doctor’s brew is going to have on you five or ten years down the road?” I looked at the doc. “And what about her kids? What’s going to happen when she grows up and starts a family—not that there are many people doing that these days—but hypothetically, what then? Will they be deformed? Psychologically imbalanced? Feral?”
The captain shook her head. “The possibilities of something like that happening are infinitesimal. The chance that a gene therapy recipient will pass on those traits is almost zero. It’s a nonissue. But if we do nothing—well, there may not be a human race left at all.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Okay, so let’s say that what you’re telling me is true. Why me?”
They looked at each other. “Because, we’re talking about potentially creating a whole new classification of enhanced humans. That’s a lot of power to give someone, and it can’t just be trusted to anyone. If the wrong people were enhanced, or if they got their hands on the means—it could be disastrous.”
“So, I’m one of the few people you can trust.”
“Exactly.” The captain sat back down again. “Besides that, one person won’t be enough. We’d need the first candidates to travel and recruit people who are mentally and emotionally stable, and who are absolutely trustworthy. We cannot get this wrong.”
It was still just a little too much to process. “I need to think on this, and I also need to get back to my people.”
The doc raised her hands in a gesture of supplication. “I understand, but just remember that we don’t have a lot of time to waste. The ‘thropes in the Corridor have been gathering up humans from the settlements, and for what I have not a clue. But they’re up to something, something big. I have a feeling that if we don’t act quickly, we’ll end up wishing we hadn’t waited to act.”
Gabby was looking at me with those big brown eyes, laying the guilt trip on me. I wasn’t having it. “I’m going to go check on Bobby—do not, under any circumstances, drug him again. If you do, there’s absolutely no chance I’ll even consider this—plan of yours. Am I understood?”
Captain Perez simply nodded. “Sure, whatever you say. But just don’t take too long to decide. There’s a lot more at stake than your friends in the safe zone.”
I stormed back to the room where we’d left Bobby, and he was breathing nice and steady when I walked in. I sat down in a chair, propped my weapon up against the wall, and ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I didn’t know what I was going to do about everything the doc had just told me, but I at least I could think about it on my way back to the settlement.
Then, Bobby cracked an eye at me and whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Is that bitch going to shoot me again?”
Despite myself I had to chuckle. “Figured you were still out.” I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so, but just in case be on your guard around her. I don’t think they call her ‘The Spider’ for nothing.”
He nodded and sat up. “In that case, I’ve been awake for a while. She must’ve underestimated how fast my metabolism is or something.”
“Naw, she was just planning on locking you up while you were still groggy. I think she wanted us to split while you were out.”
“That’s coldhearted, man—just cold-blooded.” He paused. “Are spiders cold-blooded?”
“I think this one is. You hear what we were talking about?”
“Most of it. That’s some heavy-duty shit. What’re you gonna do?”
“I don’t know, but I’m leaning toward not having my genetic makeup permanently altered by a mad scientist with a hard-on for destruction. What do you think?”
He cocked his head like a dog listening to something only he can hear. “Shhh—she’s coming.” Bobby plopped back down on the table and feigned incapacitation, snoring overdramatically in the attempt.
The captain walked into the room with Gabby on her heels. She looked at Bobby like he was roadkill gone rotten. “I see that the mutt is up.”
Bobby cracked an eye and stuck his tongue out at her, and then he sat up. “I don’t know what you shot me up with, Doc, but that’s the best nap I’ve had in a long time.” He turned and whispered to me behind his hand, pointing at the doc. “I think someone needs a Pamprin.”
She glared daggers at him. “If you keep it up, I will shoot you again.”
I cleared my throat to interrupt. “I guess I should make introductions all the way around. Bobby, meet Captain Perez, lately itinerant mad scientist employed by the US Army Veterinary Corps, and Gabby, my—well, my friend. Gabby and Doc, meet Bobby the friendly neighborhood lycanthrope.”
The doc rolled her eyes, but Gabby bounced up to him and stuck out her hand. Bobby gave her a 1,000-watt smile and shook it enthusiastically, then winked at her. “Finally, someone I can talk to who isn’t an antique.” Gabby actually cracked a smile at that. I was pretty sure she was going to have a crush on Bobby.
The captain cleared her throat. “Before you head back out west, I want you to know what a small window of opportunity we have here.”
“Captain Perez, I honestly am not all that hot on the idea of being your Frankenstein in the first place.” I looked at Gabby. “Sorry, kid, no offense.”
Gabby waved her hands in the air over her head and made her eyes cross. “Oh, yeah—I’m going to freak out and eat your brains any second. Watch out for the crazy eleven-year-old with werewolf DNA—she’ll eat your face off!” She continued to rant as she stomped off down the hall, and I could still hear her from the other side of the clinic.
Bobby gave her a pitying look as she left. “Boy, she sure is sensitive about her race. I mean, can’t we all just get along?” Then he leaned out of the room and hollered at her down the hall, pumping his fist like a Black Panther. “We monsters gotta stick together—viva la raza del monstruo!” He turned and looked at me. “I mean, the good ones—you get that, right?”
The captain gave me a quizzical look. “Just ignore him,” I replied.
The doc shook it off and continued. “So anyway, as I was saying—we only have a very brief window of opportunity here. The wolf pack has been ranging further and further away from the Corridor, and it’s only a matter of time before they find the facility. Once that happens, there’s no telling when we’ll be able to sneak in and start the treatments on you.”
“If that’s the case, then what are we going to do about the rest of the people you want me to find? I can’t very well go out and recruit an entire platoon of volunteers for your super-soldier experiment in just a few days. It’d take weeks just to round up a half dozen good people from the settlements.”
She smirked at me. “Oh, I figured you’d have the Corridor pack all wrapped up and gone by then.”
I furrowed my brow at her and shook my head with menace. “You have got to be freaking kidding me. You’re expecting me to take out the entire pack—by myself?”
She gave a small shrug. “Not exactly. Gabby would be there to help you, and from the looks of it, wolf boy here might be willing to lend a hand.”
At that, Bobby looked up from a promotional poster he was intently studying on the wall. “Doc, do you think I’m at risk for heartworms? It says here that Texas is a hot spot for heartworms in canines.”
She frowned at Bobby. “Well, at least he seems loyal, if a little dumb. Anyway, you’re already a highly trained soldier. With the right enhancements, I’m not saying you could take out the entire pack all at once. But, you could definitely divide and conquer.”
“Look, doc, I really want to help—honest, I do—but I learned back in my Army days not to volunteer for shit. Especially not for any experiments the military is cooking up.”
“So, you’re headed west then? Back to the settlements? To do what�
�warn them about a threat they have no way to protect themselves from?”
About this time I noticed that Bobby was standing off to the side with his hand raised in the air, like a kid in grade school who wanted to get a hall pass. I sighed in exasperation. “Yes, Bobby, the bathroom is right down the hall, out the door and back up in the woods about fifty feet.”
He looked at me in confusion with his hand still up in the air. “What—huh? Oh, no—it’s not that. I went already while you guys thought I was out cold.” Shocker. “No, what I was going to ask is, you guys keep saying something about heading out west. Are you, like, talking about heading out to the settlements?”
Unbelievable. I was starting to think that I didn’t rescue Teen Wolf after all, but Forrest Gump. “Yes, Bobby—that’s what I’ve been saying all day long, that I need to get back to my people in the safe zone and warn them about all the wolf activity here in the Corridor.”
He nodded, and then his hand crept up again. He waited for a look of acknowledgement from me to speak. “Um, that’s what I thought you said.” He winced and shrunk back in on himself just a bit. “See, before you helped me get away, I overheard those punters talking about how Van was planning a big raid on the settlements west of here.”
I lunged over to him and grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt. “When—how soon?” I was practically yelling, and he shied away from me because of it.
“Well, tonight.” He winced visibly from me as he said it.
“Shit!” I let him go and started gathering all my gear. “Is that horse still out there?”
Captain Perez nodded. “Yes, I kept him locked up so no zombies could get to him. But listen—you can’t help these people now, not without the treatments. I’m telling you, I studied these creatures.” She paused and spared Bobby a look of contempt, then continued in almost a whisper. “You won’t stand a chance.”
“I can’t wait. It may already be too late. Gabby!”
She came down the hall at a trot. “I’m coming with you.”
Bobby raised a hand again, this time with much more enthusiasm. “Me too!”
“No, you’re not.” Bobby looked hurt. “No, I meant her, not you.” I pointed at Bobby. “You—you can come with me, and you owe me anyway.”
He immediately perked up. “Hell yes—road trip!”
Gabby gave me a steely look. “I’m coming with you, no matter what you say. Look, you’ll need me, trust me on this. I was sandbagging on you, after the trailer. I’m a lot more useful than you think.”
Bobby nodded like a bobblehead riding a roller coaster. “I think you should let her go, chief.”
She looked me dead in the eye. “You can’t stop me.”
Captain Perez put a hand on my arm. “Scratch, you’re going to need her with you anyway. I’m going to have to head back to the research facility and lock it down. Gabby knows where it is—she can take you there, once you warn the settlement.”
“Is it secure?”
“Well, yes—I mean, secure once we’re locked in. There are security protocols that will lock the place down in an emergency, but they have to be activated from inside.”
“Will it hold all my people—say, fifty souls?”
I could see the conflict, all over the doc’s face. She was torn between earning my trust, and potentially endangering her research by exposing unknown elements to her secrets. “Yes—yes it can house them. But you absolutely, under no circumstances, should tell anyone what the facility is for or what we’re doing there.”
I leaned in and grabbed her on both sides of her face and kissed her on top of the head. “I knew you weren’t a complete coldhearted bitch.”
As I pulled back, she smiled, and then punched me right across the chest. It was aimed for my face, but I leaned away in time to make her miss, just barely. Still, it was going to leave a hell of a bruise.
She squinted at me and pursed her lips in anger. “Call me a bitch again, and you’re going to find out why they call me La Araña.” She turned to Gabby. “After he’s warned the settlers in the safe zone, make sure they know how to get to the facility.” Gabby nodded and ran off to gather her gear.
The captain was walking off down the hall before I could reply. I yelled at her back, “I didn’t mean ‘bitch’—I just meant that you aren’t completely bitchy!” She turned and threw a metal emesis pan at me that whizzed right past my head. I hardly noticed, because I was already headed out the door at a run. It was going to be a long, hard ride back to the safe zone.
NINE
HUSHED
I LEFT THE CLINIC ON HORSEBACK with Bobby and Gabby running pace with me on either shoulder of the road. As I watched Gabby keep up with Bobby, a full-blown ‘thrope, I wondered whether what the doc was saying about those treatments was on the up and up. By all indications to this point, Gabby was a completely normal preteen kid. However, as I watched her match the ‘thrope step for step through rough terrain, keeping up with a horse that was galloping at a good twenty to thirty miles an hour, I had to consider that she might be telling the truth.
The thing was, her truth might not take into account what the long-term effects of such a treatment could bring. Not just for Gabby, or whoever else opted to become her guinea pig, but for the entire human race. I couldn’t see how a scientist could be so reckless as to let something like that out into the population, without any idea of what the long-term repercussions would be. Then again, if she was telling the truth about her background then she knew these creatures well, perhaps better than anyone. Her willingness to subject a few dozen people to these treatments might just be a sign of how desperate our situation was as a species.
After a few miles, I slowed the horse down to a canter so as not to tire it too soon. It was a good-looking dun mustang, and I knew it could run all day if necessary. However, I had no idea how well it had been treated by the previous owners, and decided to play it safe rather than kill the horse or cripple it trying to get to the settlements in record time. By following the roads and keeping up a reasonable pace, we could make it to the safe zone by the time night fell. That would have to be good enough.
Still, I pushed the little mustang as hard as I could while still taking frequent rests along the way. The Hill Country was dotted with streams and creeks, and this time of year most were running fairly strong due to the early rains that always came with the first push of cold air from the north. At each stop, I asked Bobby and Gabby if they needed more time to rest. Neither one seemed particularly tired, and I got the feeling that they could both outrun the feisty little horse. So, we pushed on through the afternoon.
About five miles out from the settlement, Bobby and Gabby both pulled up and signaled me to halt. Bobby was sniffing the air, and it looked like Gabby was listening to something off in the distance. A look between them must have confirmed their suspicions, because they each looked up at me and silently mouthed “punters” almost in unison. I turned the horse around and off the road, trotting a hundred meters back the way we came, using the grassy shoulder to mask the sounds of the horse’s hooves.
Once we were at a safe distance, I dismounted and asked them what was up. Bobby spoke first. “Punters, maybe a quarter mile up the road. Can’t mistake the scent.”
“How do you mean?” All I could smell was horse, the faint scent of cedar trees, my own nervous fear, and that crisp-air smell that says fall is coming on soon.
Bobby hesitated, so Gabby filled me in. “They’re cannibals, Scratch. You can smell it in their scent.”
I tried to avoid thinking about the potential repercussions and just focused on the task at hand. “How many?”
Gabby tilted her head. “Hard to say. At least a half dozen, from what I could hear.”
Bobby scratched his head, and then stifled a belch. “Sorry, wild hog always screws up my stomach.” He smiled at Gabby, who apparently was still of an age that scatological and digestive humo
r was amusing. Then he turned back to me, all humor gone from his young face. “So, boss, what’s the play?”
“Our main concern right now is warning the settlers, so we need to get past them without letting them know we’re here. Bobby, you carrying any weapons on you?”
He flashed a somber grin. “Only these.” His hand came up in front of his face, and like a magician flourishing a deck of cards, he spread his fingers wide. In a matter of seconds, his nails thickened and elongated, becoming wicked-looking inch-and-a-half-long spikes.
I nodded in respect. “Manicures must be a bitch with those things.” I looked at Gabby. “You hiding any super-powers, sweetheart?”
“I’m not a shifter, but don’t worry about me. What do you need us to do?”
“Silent sentry takeout only. We’re going to head 200 meters out to the north and south, take out any picket sentries we find, and meet 400 meters beyond their ambush point. If we do this right, they won’t know we got past them until we’re in the settlement and raising the alarm.”
Both kids nodded, and I motioned to the girl. “Gabby, you’re with me.”
She shook her head. “Seriously? That horse is going to be too loud for you to sneak up on anyone, and you know you’ll need it after we’re past. You should just let me go ahead and clear a path.”
I considered the ethical ramifications of sending an eleven-year-old ahead to do a man’s work, and realized it might be the most logical choice, if not the most moral. “You sure you can handle it?”
She pulled out her Kabar, and her eyes were hard as stone. “Don’t worry, I got this.” Then she and Bobby took off through the trees like silent death. I briefly reflected on the insanity of a world that could turn kids into killers so young, then shrugged off the thought and began walking the horse off the road on Gabby’s trail. Her sign was hard to spot, but she was moving fast so I could still see where she’d come through. About the time I came parallel to the suspected ambush point, I saw a bare arm poking out from behind a tree. I tied off the horse on a low-hanging limb, and stalked up to the spot.