by The Behrg
So, they’re going to play it this way. He let his gaze sweep past them, feigning a lack of concern. There was only one man in the room he knew he could trust.
Oso, the mute native, wore a dark leather vest, his thick arms showing scrapes and stitches from his trip from the helicopter to the ground. Dugan wouldn’t have been surprised if the native had done the stitching himself. His long black hair was tied off into a ponytail, bands wrapping it all the way down to his lower back.
Dugan felt the tip of Oso’s black blade slip into his chest —
Dugan’s pulse raced. He rubbed at the tender flesh on his bare torso where the slugs had entered him. Three rounds, two of which Oso had needed to dig out. The skin had miraculously knit back together, only the indentation and bubbled scar tissue revealing Dugan had ever been shot.
When we eliminate death, are we no longer living?
He noticed Oso’s belt was empty — not a single knife or machete on him.
Something was wrong.
“So? Am I fit for duty?” he asked.
The men and women in lab coats deferred to Morley. “You bastard,” he said.
“What, am I no longer human?”
“Just because you’re healed doesn’t mean you’re not a dipshit.” Morley groaned, turning his upper body, then settled back into the raised bed. “I really hate you right now.”
“Hate’s a strong word.”
“An appropriate word. Have you had a smoke since your … recovery?”
Dugan paused, realizing for the first time he hadn’t. “I don’t … I don’t even crave one.”
“The long faces you see on my colleagues are their collective disbelief at what your scan revealed. Your cancer, Dugan. It’s gone.”
Dugan instinctively reached up to his throat. He knew the Shaman had healed him from the fall, had somehow enabled him to survive being shot at point blank range, but his cancer? It was something he hadn’t even considered. The implications alone would be enough to transform Umner Corp into the global leading bio-pharmaceutical company of this millennium. He couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
Shannon smiled back at him, though her eyes were frozen glaciers. “This is it,” she said. “Everything we dreamed of.”
“You can identify it? So soon?”
“Of course not,” Shannon said, jumping in before Morley could reply. “It may take years, decades, before we can understand and harvest the full potential of your discovery. But we all know that discovering the specimen is only the beginning. The real work lies ahead.”
“And I’m the … specimen?”
In Morley’s face Dugan found the answer.
“I’ll be honest. We’re going to need your cooperation. That means staying put for a while so we can run more tests,” Shannon said.
“While we let the Shaman slip through our hands?”
“Not we; you. But what’s done is done, and in truth, he’s given us everything we need. Dr. Morley has already declared you ‘patient zero.’ The first human trial was a success!”
“It’s only a success if it can be replicated. Otherwise it’s an anomaly,” Dugan said.
“Exactly why we need you under constant observation. And this is coming from Marcus himself. It’s non-negotiable.”
One of the four men with her stepped forward, his hand resting on the gun at his side.
Shannon continued, addressing now the scientists and doctors rather than Dugan. “Now, no one outside of this room has any knowledge of Dugan’s … recovery. It’s imperative it remains that way. These men are not here as a threat, but, as I’m sure you can all appreciate, the clearance level of this discovery goes straight to the top. Each of you will remain in a fully functioning quarantined section of the Facility and will assist in all of the laboratory work involved until better arrangements can be made. Know that you weren’t chosen at random. You’re Umner’s best and brightest and as such, you should know that your tiers are being increased not one, but two steps, in both pay and priority.”
“So you’re not just locking me up, you’re locking them up as well?” Dugan asked.
Morley finally spoke. “Dugan, there’s a lot of unknowns here, but Shannon’s right. You’re our best chance at figuring this out.”
“And you’d rather study me than the man who did this to me? The man we know has the ability to change the world? He’s right here! Within our grasp!”
“We can’t afford to wait,” Morley said. “We don’t know what’s in you or, frankly, whether it’s still in you.”
Shannon turned to glare at him. “What do you mean whether it’s still in him?”
“His arm,” a dark Middle-Eastern woman in a lab coat said, moving from Morley’s bed over toward Dugan. She turned his arm face up, then ripped off the tape and gauze from where his blood had been recently drawn. A small red blot began to grow.
Dugan looked up. “It’s not healing.”
The woman grabbed his hand, turning his arm around to face back down. “No, not like you were.”
“Why was there no mention of this?” Shannon asked. “I want you to go in, find out why his condition was temporary, and then how to make it ... permanent.”
“This isn’t just some x-ray we can look at and see what’s broken,” Morley said. “We’re mucking through uncharted territory here.”
Dugan felt the thin metal instrument the Middle-Eastern woman slipped into his grasp before stepping away from him. He slid it further back, its sharp edge nicking one of his inner knuckles.
A scalpel.
“Just … get it done,” Shannon said.
Dugan looked back at Morley as the woman doctor returned, felt more than saw the almost imperceptible tilt of his head.
“You know what you signed when you agreed to be a part of this operation. Every discovery you make, even those by accident, are the property of Umner. In this case, Dugan, you would be considered our property. Our accident, you’ve been for a long time.” Shannon turned to the four guards with her. “Robles, take him to his new quarters. And make sure the Indian doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Verse VII.
As soon as Shannon exited the room, all four of the security men drew their arms, spreading in a semicircle around Dugan. Most of the doctors and scientists tried to push farther back against the walls. The security guard on Dugan’s right had his weapon aimed squarely on Oso.
Dugan stood slowly, his arms held to his side, enabling him to conceal the scalpel without drawing attention to it. The way the guards had spread out all but guaranteed they would hit an unintended target should things go awry. It was probably what Shannon wanted.
Dugan’s notebook of names was no secret. Within that leather-bound journal he carried the name of every man, woman, and child that had given their life — willingly or unwillingly — on behalf of his search. What always surprised him, however, was how many people believed they could use this knowledge to their advantage, seeing his need as a weakness, suspecting, just as Shannon was in this very moment, that he would avoid any action that might lead to more casualties. They thought that with each name he added the weight of those lives to his own.
If a single one of them knew how many names were truly recorded in his notebook, they would never have questioned his resolve to get things done. No matter the cost.
The man Shannon had referred to as Robles had a trimmed black goatee, sprinkled with white, despite his youthful countenance. His face was lean, hair already receding. His left ear folded downward at its height, as if it had been clipped by shrapnel. He addressed the group, though his focus was clearly on Dugan. “No one needs to get hurt here. Once we transfer our … patient to his living quarters we’ll be back for each of you.”
The slip-up was so slight Dugan wondered if anyone else had caught it, but Robles had almost said ‘prisoner’ rather than ‘patient.’
“Sorry, Dugan,” Morley said. “Not my idea.”
Dugan nodded. “I doubt it was Stanton’s, eit
her. And it’s okay, we all want the same thing.” Dugan stepped forward, keeping his body language calm. “Where’d you serve, Robles?”
“Afghanistan. Special Forces.” The man was smooth. Practiced. With a little time and the proper training — real training — Dugan probably could have used him. The guard on the right circled farther back, bringing his gun to Oso’s head and motioning him forward.
“There’s no need to treat my friend like that.”
Robles gave a quick shake of his head, the man next to Oso keeping his gun in place. They certainly weren’t taking chances.
“You see a lot of men die in the field, Robles? Friends?”
“Not near as many as I killed.”
“Well, I don’t want to hurt you or your pals. But I’m not staying here. Dr. Morley and his staff have taken all the samples from me they’re going to get.”
Robles exchanged a quick glance with one of the other men.
“Dugan?” Morley said, hesitantly. “Don’t piss where you eat, huh?”
Robles brought his other arm up, cupping his hand holding the Beretta, his feet planted. Decision made. “Sir, get down on your knees, hands behind your head.”
“You always speak so politely to someone you’re holding a gun to?”
“Alright. Make a move and my man spreads your Indian’s brains all over the room. Better?”
“He’s not my Indian.”
Before Robles could reply, Dugan heard the snapping of bones. The guard behind him cried out in pain, followed by the clatter of his gun striking the ground.
Two shots echoed in the small room, both fired from the man closest to the tomography scanner. The fliffp – fliffp of the bullets entering flesh almost had Dugan concerned. Until he saw the eyes of the man who had fired.
Oso held the body of the guard he had disarmed in front of him, two inkblots of blood growing on the back of his human shield. He kicked the dropped gun across the ground toward Dugan.
“Don’t!” Robles shouted.
As the men and women doctors in the corner screamed almost on cue, Dugan lunged forward rather than for the gun. It wasn’t what Robles had been expecting. Dugan slapped the soldier’s hands away just as the man pulled the trigger. Robles recovered, but not in time to deflect the scalpel which Dugan buried in the man’s throat.
Warm blood rushed over his fist as Dugan swung the Special Forces agent around, anticipating more gunfire. With the movement, Roble’s throat opened deeper, blood spurting now in a wide spray. The man’s body convulsed, his throat opening and closing like a fish unable to find air. Within seconds Dugan was holding all of the man’s weight, Robles’ legs giving out beneath him.
The third guard between Dugan and Oso was on the ground. He had landed on his side, skidding toward the wall. The back of his head was cratered open, blood, bone, and cranial tissue dripping out from the wound like a runny nose. A victim to friendly fire with Robles’ wild shot, the man hadn’t even had a chance to cry out.
Dugan bent down, keeping Robles’ inert body in front of him, to retrieve the man’s Beretta.
The guard who had fired the first shots looked about with a panicked intensity, both of his targets hiding behind the corpses of men he had known. He leapt over toward the doctors and scientists huddled beside Morley’s hospital bed and snatched the petite Middle Eastern woman. He ignored her cries, bringing her in front of him and placing his gun to her temple.
“Drop it,” the man said.
Dugan shot the woman twice, her body slipping out of the guard’s hands. The man barely had time to register his surprise before Dugan pulled the trigger. Gore splattered several of the other scientists behind the man, his lifeless body dropping atop the woman’s.
An odd silence hung in the room, men and women staring at Dugan as if he might shoot them next. No one spoke. No one moved. He let Robles’ body fall to the floor.
“What was her name?” he asked, as he gathered up the arms of the other guards, expelling their clips and pocketing them.
“You didn’t have to kill her,” Morley said.
“I need the names of the other guards, too.”
“You were supposed to wait until you were at least out of the room!” Morley’s face had turned a beet red.
“I must have missed the instructions.”
“She helped save your life,” one of the tall male scientists said.
Dugan looked at him sharply. “I wouldn’t have needed the scalpel.”
Morley told him the woman’s name; no one knew the other security men so Dugan had Oso pull their badges and ID’s.
“Don’t do what I think you’re going to do,” Morley said.
“Marcus hired his own security detail without letting either of us know. Think about it. He wasn’t planning on just flashing the Freezer.” The implication took a moment to settle in. “None of us were meant to leave here alive.”
“That’s …” Morley shook his head. “He doesn’t shit sitting down unless someone tells him to. You think Umner was washing their hands?”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone else got in his head. Either way, you’re all in danger.”
“I heard an announcement, earlier. All non-essential personnel were being ordered down to the cafeteria,” the tall male scientist said. Blood was sprayed across the front of his shirt and lapel. “Do you think —”
“You don’t?” Dugan turned to Morley. “Still want me not to do what you think I’m going to do?”
Morley scratched at his beard, not meeting Dugan’s gaze. “We had such a good thing here.”
“Had.” Dugan flicked the safety on Robles’ Beretta, handing it to the tall scientist. “In case they come back.”
“How many do you think they have?” the man asked, holding the gun as if handling a toxic chemical.
“A lot more than we do.”
“What about the Shaman?” Morley asked.
“One fire at a time.”
Oso opened the door and leaned out. He glanced back at Dugan. All clear.
“You’re not immortal, Dugan! Whatever the Shaman did to you, it’s gone. Your body won’t recover from another bullet wound.”
“Never stopped me before,” Dugan said, following Oso out.
Verse VIII.
“I’m not getting anything. No service, no internet; it’s like we entered the friggin’ Twilight Zone.”
Donavon Hughes sat on one of the many couches in Sir William’s front living room, a room which felt devoid of life with only Kenny and him in it. Unless, of course, you counted the spider monkey. It didn’t help that they had been forced to shutter the windows and door after whatever strange light had appeared this morning. The place felt like a sick room or hospice, a place people went to die.
Kenny tossed the satellite phone onto the coffee table, both Donavon’s and his laptop open side by side. The heavy-duty antennae sticking out from a USB port blinked without ever turning a solid color.
“When I was a kid I was in this one rip-off of the Twilight Zone, a show called Monsters. My mom in the episode was a witch or something, and conjured this doppelganger of herself, only it wanted to kill her and take her place. We filmed this one scene in an attic; it was like the final showdown or climax, or whatever. Pentagrams drawn on the floor in lipstick and candles lit all around, and this creature they created had to grab my shoe and try to pull me from the circle. This was before CGI — back when they made all that shit for real. I had nightmares for weeks.”
“Musta missed that one,” Kenny said.
“Yeah, you and everyone else.” Donavon shifted in the sofa, pulling one leg under the other. “Thing is, it wasn’t the monster that scared me, or any of that Satanic bullshit. It was just being trapped in that circle on the floor, you know? Imagining that boundary, that barrier, was real, and that I’d never be able to leave.”
Kenny glanced over at one of the shuttered windows. His long hair was frizzed out in tangles, fresh white acne pimples crawling up his splotched lower
neck.
“Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time settling down. Why I turned down a series regular on Daytona even. I just don’t want to be trapped.”
“Man, I chose the wrong profession in life,” Kenny said.
“Hey, being an actor ain’t always sunshine and riches.”
“No, I meant I should’ve been a psychiatrist. At least then I’d be getting paid to listen to this crap.”
Donovan glared at Kenny. Was he really being insulted by this fat slob?
“You and Faye make a good couple. Or did.” Kenny’s face went slack. “I mean — oh, dude, I’m a freaking idiot. Don’t listen to me, I’m a little tossed.”
They both were, an empty bottle of bourbon resting on the table next to the laptops.
“She’s gonna be okay,” Donavon said.
“Yeah, of course she is.”
The realization that Faye had been taken still hadn’t fully settled in. Donavon had agreed to come down to this country on a whim, a last ditch effort at redemption. Or maybe escape.
Okay, definitely escape.
It had been his best opportunity to provide an alternate headline to the manslaughter-charge that awaited him upon his return.
Actor, Donavon Hughes, risks his life to save the rainforest.
Project Green-Whatever finds success in Venezuela due to actor Donavon Hughes’ charitable time and resources.
Hell, he wasn’t a writer; someone else could come up with the headlines. But now what would he be going back home with? Besides a parasite or two.
“How’s your wrist?” Kenny asked.
Donavon retracted his arm, holding it closer to his body. It was still wrapped in gauze though the swelling had gone down; if it had ever been there. It certainly wasn’t broken like he had at first thought. Sprained, though. Probably.
“You’re kind of an asshole,” Donavon said.
“Yeah, I hear that from my mom about every day.”
“Any weed left?”
“Be right back.” Kenny rose from his chair, climbing the spiral metal staircase, its iron lattices groaning with each step.