by Amy Star
All animals who had engaged in combat did so with a latent fear of getting hurt. Any battle could be your last, and so most fights in the wild tended to be mostly posturing. No predator could afford to get injured, because it would spell death in the wilderness. These things were different. Those same instincts for self-preservation had been overwritten. In their place was just a fanaticism, a madness of the blood that boiled down to a primal rage.
Her lips tightened as the two Wolves approached her at their master’s command, one of them snapping at her, but keeping his distance. It was hard to believe they had been humans. Golding had found the perfect soldier – not fully Wolf but not fully human. They’d been drugged into something in between.
“You’re a monster,” she said to him, and checked her watch again.
“Again, matter of perspective. In the eye of the beholder,” he shrugged, and snapped his fingers again. “Now, are you going to come quietly, or do I snap these fingers again?”
“What you’re doing is wrong. These aren’t animals. They’re people…”
“They’re whatever nature decided for them to be, and as we all know, nature is a cruel mistress. I do not limit myself according to nature. I defy nature. You will become one of mine. Who knows, maybe there’s something in that cute body of yours that will finally help me bridge the ribosomal flux and make it feasible for normal humans.”
“You won’t succeed,” she said, taking another step backward until her butt touched the door.
“Tchh, tchh,” he said, shaking his finger. The dogs snarled and leapt toward her and she pulled back, feeling the hot breath of them on her. It was damp, and seemed to soak through her shirt, touch her skin, and she cringed.
“Take her to a holding cell for now,” Golding said turning.
Sarah buttoned up her shirt and was pushed through the door by a big muzzle of a head. She took one last glance at Golding who turned and leaned over his desk. He looked tired, and she wondered what could have driven a man as brilliant as him to something so tragic. It didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t do anything but pity him.
She checked her watch again. The second hand passed over the twelve and she flinched, expecting something. Nothing happened immediately, but several seconds later there was a flickering of the lights and something that sounded like an explosion. The whole hallway shook and both Wolves stared fixedly at the lights, clearly alarmed.
One of them half-clucked, half-groaned something unintelligible and the other’s ears bristled as it turned and ran back down the corridor. The remaining Wolf snarled and nudged her forward again.
“Guess I’m not that lucky, huh?” she said.
Up ahead, she could see a sort of prison cell and a giant blue touch panel on the floor. The Wolf instinctively touched it and the gates opened. Clever, she thought. He’d made the whole facility operable by his pets. He nudged her again and she dragged her leg. In her right sleeve, she could feel something cold and smooth.
Golding had been too busy gloating to notice that she’d pushed one of the vials of Laudacite up her sleeve before she’d gotten out of the Cadillac. She lowered her arms and turned her back deftly, pretending to comply. The vial fell into her palm and she held it fast like a dagger. A small bronze syringe protruded from one end – probably as a delivery system.
As she was about to walk over the barrier of the prison she let her leg fall out from under her, as if she were fainting. The Wolf’s ears pricked as she toppled backward, and at the last moment swiveled on her heel. She brought down the vial hard on the Wolf’s neck and saw it inject immediately. The Wolf’s eyes turned on, instinct overtaking, and yelped, bucking his head, which caught her in the stomach and threw her against the far wall.
She coughed, face-down, and rolled onto her side. Stars were spinning around her head as she rolled to one side and narrowly missed the swinging end of the Wolf’s tail, which laid into the concrete foundation, indenting it.
Beside her, its huge body twisted in a spasm as the drug took effect; she made a mental note. Stab them in the throat with a sedative, and took off at a run. By this time Laura and the others should have breached the main fence, in which case she needed to find Golding before he could unleash more of his horde.
She reached his office and burst in, but there was no sign of him. She swore. Of course not. She tried to think, recalling the layout of the basement as she had seen it. There had to be another entrance off the main atrium, which led to the actual holding cells for other mind-controlled theriomorphs. She kept running, feeling her blood rising as she neared the double doors to the big circular room. She could smell the circuit boards and hear the humming of electrical cables before she barged through.
The area was deserted. In the main container in the center of the room, the Wolf under observation was twisting, as if in a bad dream, its eyes still closed. Clawing the water as if it were drowning in a kind of madness. Poor soul, she thought. There was nothing she could do for him now. She needed to find Golding.
She scanned the room and saw another door, double-hinged, leading to the east. This place was massive underground. One would never think, looking at the small squat operation on top, that there was a huge, nearly military-grade, research facility underneath. For a moment, she had the eerie sensation of moving through a wasp’s burrow. Or an ant’s. At any moment, she could run into one of the other soldiers. She undid the top button on her jeans and untucked the business shirt. If she had to turn, she’d need to do it quickly.
There was another hallway but this one had stairs, darkly illuminated by red warning lights that rotated behind wire grills. She could faintly make out another door at the bottom and hurried down the flight of cement steps. Each step was painful. There was something unnatural about the hardness of artificial places, and she could feel her legs working against her as they slapped painfully. I wish I’d brought a pair of hiking boots instead, she thought, suddenly hating her disguise, which had not only failed to fool Golding, but was now hampering her.
At the bottom of the stairs, she kicked her shoes off. Barefoot, at least, she could sprint. As she threw her shoulder into the door, she had to blink against another shock of light. It wasn’t bright this time, just… different. Like the frequency was off, in the same way the fluorescent lights in the hallway to Golding’s office seemed off. She suddenly understood why.
*
She had wondered just how deep the facility went, and now she saw that it probably wound its way into the sewers, and possibly even under the Thames to the south. It was a perfect escape route, but more than that, it was a perfect location for Dr. Golding’s final experiment.
She saw the room had likely been a hydro processing plant at one time, but it had been turned into another containment pod. This one looked smaller, but there was significantly more hardware plugged into it. Giant capacitors stuck obscenely out of it like electrodes, and a faint greenish glow issued from the liquid inside, casting the whole area in a swathe of vermillion that danced across the walls like reflection from the surface of water.
In the center of the containment pod, she saw Dr. Golding. He had pulled his shirt off, and was fully submerged, but had an oxygen mask attached to his face, which trailed hoses to another breathing apparatus outside the pod. He balanced there, and suddenly there was a static sound as electricity began to circulate and sparks coughed from the containment pod.
He raised his hand at her, and although she couldn’t see his mouth, his eyes said it all. He was smiling, cruelly. From several circular entrances she heard the same soft rasping sound and saw the other Wolf stride out, its gait deliberate and loping, and its eyes unbridled. He’s given it a fresh injection of his own chemical, he realized. And I’m fresh out of Laudacite.
She looked back at Golding. Whatever this containment pod was, she figured he had been cornered. Cornered animals became dangerous, unpredictable. He hasn’t tested his theory of ribosomal flux on a human carrier, she thought. He was going to try to
test his research on himself; either it would kill him instantly, or he’d suddenly take on the attributes of the theriomorphs he’d tortured.
“Shit,” she said and took a step back from the approaching Wolf.
There was no choice left. She hoped that Laura would find this place soon. In the meantime, it was up to her. She thought of Connor, and tore her shirt off and struggled out of her pants. Golding, behind the plastic, seemed to recognize what she was doing and snapped his fingers. Even submerged, it made a definitive click, the Wolf’s ears bristled once and he lunged.
She was half-way through her transformation when the Wolf landed on her, its claws heading for her neck. She ducked it deftly, and snarled at him. She remembered what Laura had said about Golding’s creatures having some sort of venom in them – get tagged once, and she’d be dead before she could even reach the doctor.
She growled again, her full black pelt erupting like a time-lapse, and she braced her large Bear body on the cement floor, waiting for a second attack. The Wolf gave it, regaining its posture and lunging again; same tactic, a bad move in a fight. When Golding had taken away their humanity, he’d also taken their ability to reason. This thing was literally just acting on impulse, using the same attack over and over.
She easily deflected its blow by hitting it in the muzzle with an open paw, and the Wolf made a bleating sound like a dying sheep as it struck against the railing, bouncing off its ribs. Sarah growled and realized it had managed to sneak in an incision with its claw before it had been hit, and a small red streak darkened red on her fur.
The Wolf stood up, shook its head like a boxer recovering from a blow, and lowered its ears again. Another attack. This time it was different, but still predictable, and Sarah ran forward on all fours to meet him. At the last minute, she sprung off her hind leg and twisted in mid-air, missing the snapping jowls of the Wolf who emitted a surprised croak from its lean throat, and struck upward with her claws.
The Wolf’s underbelly was unprotected and she felt her paw slice neatly through the thick hide, sinking in deep against its ribs. She landed hard and rebounded, but when she turned back, the Wolf was limping badly and blood was pooling under it. It let out a throaty gasp and she realized she’d punctured one of its lungs, which was rapidly collapsing. It looked at her, almost fearful, and collapsed on its side. In his tank, Golding screamed mutely into his breathing mask, and Sarah winced as another electrical bolt filled the tank.
It looked as if he was in his death throes as he tore at his bare chest with his hands, his whole body in a kind of spasm. His arms began to grow in a geometric growth, doubling in size as he lurched. It was like watching a worm in the sunlight, struggling against the poison of UV light. His face began to twist as well, until he ripped the breathing apparatus from his face and bubbles streamed from his open lips, which began to curve inward.
A thin hair began to grow outward, fine and silken, but down his back, a huge mane of black bristles sprouted outward. It reminded her of a porcupine, except that his appearance was different, more fearsome. His legs folded back on themselves, becoming double jointed like a dog’s. He was bigger than his pet Wolves, and while there was something wolfish about his appearance, it was too grotesque to call canine. His face broke apart, elongating as the muscles and bones flexed into a half-human half-lupine visage that was hellish in itself.
Then suddenly the power cut out and the room was dark. Emergency lights came back on, painting the light a dull red. Sarah looked into the tank and saw that its contents were swaying, jogging against the sides of the plastic. Golding was gone.
Panic filled her like a balloon and she took a step back, straining all her senses. A movement in the corner of her eye, but when she snapped her neck towards it there was nothing. She heard something like laughing, but it was too guttural. Inhuman. Another flash, something dark behind her and she snarled and turned. Nothing.
“I’m here,” a voice whispered. She whirled around. Still the empty tank.
He was playing with her. Trying to make her afraid, and it was working. She could feel her pulse coursing through her veins, thumping loudly in her ears, and she tried to remember her meditations and calm herself. She needed all the help she could get, and having her heartbeat in her ears was only compromising her position.
She tested the air with her nose. The scent of him was everywhere, ubiquitous, like water. Like she was swimming in it all around, impossible to localize.
“Now I’m here,” she heard, and something brushed her ear.
Shit, she thought, for the umpteenth time.
Another movement, and something hard caught her in the side and she rolled against the side of the cement wall, gasping. Spittle flew from her mouth and she looked up. In the flickering red lights, she saw a form warming toward her, as if trying to develop in the dark like a photographic negative. He leered down at her, and it was sick, but she could make out Golding’s features in the glaring face, even though it had ceased to be human.
She growled hoarsely.
“I had thought of keeping you alive,” it croaked, “but I think instead, I will kill you. My first kill as a theriomorph! But I want to see you look at me… look at me knowing you will die. I want to see your fear!”
Sarah resisted, but he kicked her in the side with his massive legs and she groaned and squinted back. She had never known Bears, or any other shape-shifter, to possess the ability for human language. He truly was a hybrid, although his vocalizations struck her as crude, unpracticed, like an organism learning to adapt to itself for the first time. She thought of the first terrestrial air-breathers, and how clumsy they must have been when they struggled out onto the land.
“Now that I know this is possible, I can create an entire nation… a whole army. Think of it!” he said. He’s losing his grip on sanity, she thought. There had to be side-effects to this kind of procedure, and Golding had already manifested some psychological instabilities. He was rapidly losing himself in the creature he had become. “Now… squeal for me,” he said, raising his fearsome claw and standing up on his hind legs.
Sarah closed her eyes and waited for the end. Her breathing slowed, and for the first time since she’d stepped into the facility, she wasn’t afraid. It was creepy, this calm. As if she were finally surrendering, after raging for so long against the dying of the light. She thought of Connor, and of his smell, his smile. She thought of Cora, her tenacity. Both of them were safe. She did not fear dying, even if she was possessed of a terrible sadness that she could not have died seeing them one last time.
Goodbye, my loves, she said to herself, and her muscles relaxed.
Then, when there should have been a terrible pain, there was a sound of impact. Her eyes flashed open and she saw another shape wrestling atop Golding’s back. It was canine, but it wasn’t a Wolf. It was smaller, more agile, but clearly well-trained. Its big bushy tail swayed precariously as it tried to keep its balance, sinking its teeth again and again into Golding’s neck, even though the monster seemed impervious.
Sarah recognized the Coyote as Laura immediately. She barked, a loud sound that ricocheted off the walls, and sprung to her paws, suddenly filled with purpose. She would not die today, not while there was a chance in hell that she could return to Connor. She lunged at Golding while he was distracted, and her claws were held out in front. Bear claws tended to be used for scraping and slashing, but she felt a surge of relief as they stabbed into his chest and stomach.
Using her momentum, she pushed all three of them toward the tank. Golding snarled and beat down on her with closed fists. It felt like hammers, and although she didn’t feel pain, it was a huge shock that nearly took out her legs.
Laura, on top, savagely bit again, trying to keep Golding occupied as Sarah pushed off her back legs, trying to tip them all over into the small pit that housed the containment pod. Golding suddenly understood what she was trying to do and pounded on her back again with one hand while trying with the other to rip Laura of
f his shoulder.
There’s only this, Sarah thought, and made a last heave.
Laura leapt easily off Golding’s back, skidding to a stop beside the Bear, and Sarah let out a sharp breath as the creature tipped backwards. Golding seemed to register his fear, but it was only a nano-second. He collapsed back against the capacitors lining the containment tank. There was a fireworks display of sparks and a crackling like cellophane as his body was hit with all the residual electrical energy that been stored up in the pod’s system.
The sickening smell of burnt meat and hair permeated the room as Golding screamed once and folded back, his torso burning from the inside out. And then he was still, and the faint sound of singed meat cracking like knuckles. Laura returned to human form beside her and glared vehemently at the corpse. Beside her, Sarah raised a pale hand and set it fondly on the woman’s shoulder.
“It’s over,” she said.
Laura merely nodded. “Aye.”
“You saved me,” Sarah started to say, but Laura turned sharply.
“Because of you, my people are safe,” she began, “you don’t understand the extent of what you’ve helped to accomplish here.”
“He wanted to turn other humans… into him.”
Laura nodded and took a step back. Naked, she was incredibly pale, almost like a ghost in the blackness of the small atrium. “I feel sorry for him. But this was necessary,” she said, as if to console Sarah, “I wish there could have been another way.”
“Me too,” Sarah said with a thin smile, “What will you do now?”
The Asian woman puffed out her cheeks and raised her eyebrows. “What we’ve always done. Survive. Live, love. Aren’t those the most important things?”