He paused to think things through and phrase them in such a way as to not only state his case, but also not to antagonize someone who could ostensibly clear the way for better things to happen, mainly security. “Right now there’s only Anastasia and me. I didn’t know this guy—uh, Pavel—would show up. I didn’t know about Istvan, either, but it happened. And it’s not like we’re asking for a free ride. I’d like to work. When Anastasia gets out of the hospital, maybe she’ll want to work, too.”
Great, he sounded even more naïve. Assuming his wife would be okay—he sent a mental command for her to wake up and be with him again—he’d be a father, something else he’d never thought would happen. But it had, and now he felt as though he was fighting a losing battle.
Holliman offered another grunt and it sounded like the wail of a dying animal. “With you and your wife, I can understand, but as I said before, I’m being squeezed here. While we currently have jurisdiction, Washington may just decide to step in and limit things for you. The State Department really has the final say in all this, and I don’t have to tell you that many congressmen and senators don’t like what’s going on. They can put a stop to it anytime they choose to.”
“They already have,” Harry stated and tapped a single claw on the table so as to underscore his point. “We’re citizens, but we can’t find work. I can’t do what I do best, and that’s transgenic research—research, not creating. Up until Anastasia got pregnant, she couldn’t get work, either.”
Holliman ran his hand through his sparse hair. “This isn’t easy for either of you, I know. But you have to realize there are a number of people out there, very powerful people who are in charge of lawmaking, who simply cannot accept you for what you are. I’m doing what I can, but until that day comes...”
There didn’t seem much else to say. Holliman had summed up the predicament most elegantly and succinctly. Overton then stepped in. “Sir, since I’ve been put in charge of this case, may I respectfully ask that I be allowed to take our new arrival somewhere a little less, er, conspicuous?”
An aggrieved look settled over Pavel’s face. “What, you think people already don’t know what I look like?” he asked, and now he sounded offended. “I know what I look like.”
“It’s for your own safety,” Overton replied and this time he sounded testy. “We’re also right in the heart of the most densely populated city in this state, and—”
“That is a good idea,” Holliman cut in, and he sounded somewhat more positive this time. “Take him somewhere safe and secure. He’s your responsibility, and I’ll expect you to check in as often as you can.”
The meeting was over. Holliman arose and ushered them out. Returning the way they’d come, they made their way to the garage, and Overton pointed the way to a nondescript car. “It’s not fancy, but it runs.”
“Where we go?” Pavel asked as he squeezed into the back seat.
“Hopefully, somewhere where it’s safe and where we can talk.”
As they made their way out, they had the bad fortune to come into contact with a news crew. They spotted the car, and a reporter, a young man, hungry looking and quick of movement, hustled over with a camera crew. Immediately, the lights went on and the reporter thrust a mike in their direction. “Can I have a statement from you, any of you?” he enquired.
Now more cameras turned in their direction, flashes went off, and Pavel slunk down in his seat. If ever there was a time not to be seen, then that was it. “C’mon, give us something to work with,” implored the reporter. “You gotta admit that having another freak in town is good for news.”
A few reporters laughed, but at the mention of the word “freak”, Pavel freaked out. Rising swiftly in his seat, he reached out in a lightning fast move and grabbed the collar of the young reporter’s jacket. “You want statement, yes?”
“Yes.”
The man gibbered out something else incomprehensible and tried to wrench his body away, but Pavel had a grip like a vise. The man wasn’t going anywhere. Overton said in the quietest of all voices, “Let him go. He isn’t worth it.”
Pavel glanced at him and then at the reporter. “You know, in Russia, when news crews come, it usually means something bad happens, like someone gets crushed or falls from ten-story window. If there is no news, people make news. You understand me, da?”
His meaning was all too clear, and the reporter turned a whiter shade of pale. “Yes sir.”
“I am visitor here. I am guest. You should not prowoke me.”
He meant provoke, and the reporter whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s better.”
With a quick shove, Pavel sent the man hurtling into his camera crew and Overton quickly drove off. As they skirted the crowd, Pavel asked in the most innocent of all voices, “You think I be a regular on talk-show circuit?”
Overton muttered, “More like a side-show.”
It struck Harry as being funny and he chuckled. Pavel laughed as well, and for the moment, a feeling of bonhomie reigned.
Chapter Three: More Questions
Since staying in the city was out of the question, instead, they ended up in Harry and Anastasia’s old digs, a cabin in the Catskill Mountains. Isolated for the most part, it offered privacy as well as security. “We’ve cleaned everything up, installed motion sensors, hidden cameras, and other goodies,” Overton explained as he stopped the car.
The evening was quiet, with only the sounds of the night birds and insects breaking the silence. Taking out a small device from his pocket, Overton pressed a button. “Everything’s disabled for the moment. I’ll reactivate things once we’re inside.”
Pavel gazed around at the scenery. Everything was a beautiful summer green, the scent of fir and maple and birch wafting in. Inhaling deeply, he let out a sigh. “This... is so much better than jail cell, but I see cameras everywhere. I also see audio equipment. Is this idea of good security?”
His pronouncement, delivered in deadpan fashion, caused Harry to turn away, stifling a laugh. Overton, however, did not find it funny in the least. His face turned a bright crimson. It seemed he hated anyone contradicting his authority. “Yeah, so point ’em out.”
The dog-man proceeded to do just that, jogging over to each supposedly hidden area. “Here,” he called out and waved his hand at a clump of bushes. He then clambered up the tree next to it, a thick pine, and pulled off a tiny sound transmitter.
After that, he reached up to another branch and plucked a small surveillance camera from its perch. “Is this what you want? I have big nose. I smell little things.”
Throwing up his hands in a gesture of defeat, Overton called out, “Fine, we need to upgrade. Come on in.” He reached inside his car and brought out a laptop. “You might want to do some research on this. Your old computer was wrecked during the last home invasion.”
“Thanks,” Harry said. It would be a relief to get back to doing research, but his thoughts of DNA strands and nucleic acids vanished when he set foot inside, replaced by a wave of homesickness. He hadn’t been gone so long, and with a sense of relief, he stopped at the entrance, exploring the view.
The cabin had never looked so good. When the attack had gone down days ago, there had been a tremendous amount of blood spilled on the wooden floors, smashed furniture, and an odor of death had permeated the entire place. Now, the entire place smelled as clean as the outdoors.
“Is nice house,” Pavel remarked as he sniffed around. Spotting the refrigerator, he opened it and reached inside, taking out a carton of orange juice. He proceeded to down it one gulp.
“Cabin,” Harry corrected. “Help yourself.”
“I just did.”
Thirst seemingly done away with, Pavel made his way over to the couch. Sitting down, he grabbed his chest and his face twisted up in apparent pain. “Are you okay?” Harry asked.
“Is heart problem,” Pavel answered, grimacing. He took in a few quick breaths, almost as if regular inhalation hurt too much. “I ta
ke medicine. It helps a little.”
Overton took a seat on a chair facing him. “Once you’re feeling better, start talking. I’m going to forgive that incident with the reporter, mainly because he was acting like a little turd, but you shouldn’t go around accosting American citizens.”
“If you mean no hit stupid people when they call me freak, maybe you are right,” Pavel answered. His breathing had returned to normal and he visibly relaxed, the look of pain quickly fading.
Rubbing his forehead as if to stem an oncoming headache Overton continued with, “So I’m prepared to let that go. What’s more pertinent is the fact that you weren’t completely truthful back at headquarters. Holliman is my boss, and this could get back to me. This is my case, and I don’t want anything left out that could compromise this investigation. You owe us information, and no lying to me.”
Severity of his tone aside, it wasn’t really an investigation, thought Harry, more like a guard-against-attack kind of deal. However, their Russian visitor didn’t seem to be offended in the least. “Okay, I tell you how I come here. It will not take very long.”
His story wasn’t too dissimilar from the stories the other transgenics had, but with one key difference. Pavel had volunteered for his enhancements. “I was fighter in Army, Russian Army. Boxing champion, light-heavyweight division,” he proudly proclaimed. “My full name is Pavel Andreyevich Romanoff, from Ukraine. I join army when I was eighteen.
“That was,” he cocked his bestial head to one side and scratched his jaw, “nine years ago. I win championship, but then one day while marching I fall down. I can no breathe. They take me in for tests, doctor say to me, you have heart problem. No more fighting.”
Without any means of support—hospitals were prohibitively expensive in Russia and even in the army it was difficult to find adequate medical care—he hid his ailment. “It is problem with heart stem. That is all doctors tell me.”
Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out a small bottle and shook it. Pills rattled around and he put it away after popping one. “I take these. They help me breathe better, take strain from my heart. I am still strong, can still fight. This is something I do.”
As for how he’d been transformed, it had nothing to do with Allenby. “I do not know that name,” Pavel said. “I was made by Grushenko.”
“Made?”
Harry asked the question. It shocked him that anyone would actually be willing to undergo this procedure, but then again, he shouldn’t have been overly surprised. He’d met other Russian transgenics in the past who’d volunteered. Lyudmila and Piotr, another cat-girl and boar-man respectively, had been two of them, and Szabo had been another. It seemed some people weren’t above seeking to become more than what evolution had intended them to be.
“Yeah,” he said after thinking it over, “I’ve met a few of them.”
He told Pavel their names. Pavel replied he didn’t know them, but his story sounded legitimate. “I volunteer for this program,” he insisted. “I did not know then what he would do to me. He had other volunteers. Some of them were soldiers, like me, but many were members of gangs—criminals.”
While tapping the side of his head as if to draw out the facts, he laid down what he knew. Grushenko had been one of the members of the unholy triumvirate of transgenic scientists performing experiments on people. Harry had met him in Chernobyl where he and Anastasia had been taken, roughly a year before. They’d had a showdown there, which resulted in the scientist’s death, along with the deaths of Lyudmila and Piotr, the aforementioned creations.
It had also been the place where Harry had used a Genesis Chamber as a last resort. He’d been mortally wounded by Piotr. The chamber was the only thing able to save his life.
“I hear about Grushenko doing things, using animal parts to help people,” said Pavel, filling in the gaps in his résumé. “There are always rumors in Russian Army. One day, my commander say to me, Pavel Andreyevich, there is man who can help you.”
So the Russians had made a deal with Grushenko. It didn’t surprise Harry at all to find out the army had made deals with the devil. Pavel continued his tale. “I go to hospital in Moscow. I think this doctor will come in and fix my heart. No one tells me what will happen. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I get needle in arm.”
He paused to run a long, thick tongue around his lips. “I wake up in dirty hospital and hear I am in Chernobyl. I try to struggle, but they tie me down and then two deer-men,” he licked his lips again and his voice grew anguished, “they come in and hold me down. I fight, but no good.
“After I wake up again,” he swept his hands down his body, “I look like this. Grushenko tells me I will be forerunner, but I still have heart problem.”
Harry took a good guess what forerunner implied, but kept silent. He had to hear this. It didn’t take Pavel long to escape, and once he’d gotten out of the confines of the Ukraine, he made his way to his home country where he hid out among other escapees.
“I hear your name and name of Anastasia before I leave Grushenko’s laboratory in Chernobyl. Other people there, they say it, say you are American and have great knowledge.
“They say you can help me. So I find cargo ship going to America and I hide on it. Then I get off at dock, hunt for food at night and stay in sewer so no one find me, and then I see your picture on television.”
After that, he’d made his way to Manhattan. Now he was there. The story seemed implausible, but that was how Anastasia and Istvan had also come to the USA, so anything could happen. “I guess security isn’t what it what it used to be,” Harry mused.
“How many others were with you in Russia?” Overton questioned, writing everything down in a small notebook.
Pavel shrugged. “People I know, maybe twenty, maybe more. Russian people—army and police—they hunt us down. I was army fighter once. I was soldier. I defended my country and now... now I am garbage to them. They no want me back. I still know people in army, but now... now I am citizen.” His face darkened with what seemed like despair. “No, I am not citizen. I am hunted.
“Still, even though I am freak to them, I must go back to help my countrymen. This is what I must do.”
Thinking fast, Harry decided to keep him there. “We need to run tests on you first. I have to check your DNA and maybe a doctor here can fix your heart problem.”
With that pronouncement, Pavel’s face suddenly brightened. “You do that... for me?”
“On the condition you help us,” Overton chimed in as he packed up the laptop. “Are you looking for asylum?”
Pavel shook his head. “No, I must go back. What I say before to other man is truth. For now, I am visitor, and I will do what I can, if I get something in return.”
“If you help us first,” Overton repeated. “Does that sound fair?”
“Da... it is fair to me.”
Since it was late evening, they decided to stay overnight and get things done the next morning. Overton made a few calls and arranged for them to go to a nearby hospital in order to get the tests done. “I’ll stand watch,” he offered. “You guys rest up.”
“Good idea,” Pavel said as he lay down on the couch. A moment later, he was snoring.
Harry went into his bedroom and tried to sleep, but thoughts of his wife kept intruding, which kept him tossing and turning all night. He did manage to sleep, though, and perhaps minutes or hours later, a hand shook him and he started. “What time is it?” His voice came out thick and fuzzy. He’d clearly needed sleep, but felt guilty for doing so.
“Eight-thirty,” Overton answered, bleary-eyed and unshaven. “It’s time to go.”
Pavel was already in the car, and by the time they got downtown, a crowd had gathered. Word had gotten out and the curious had flocked to see the newest member of the transgenic brigade. By now, people were used to Harry and Anastasia’s presence, but the arrival of Pavel practically set off a wave of panic.
A few reporters managed to trail them, but Overton put a
stop to them entering the hospital, flashing his badge and asking for a little privacy. “This is an ongoing investigation,” he said. “I’m asking for your cooperation in this matter.”
One reporter called out, “Is there anything we have to worry about?”
“Not yet.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, but at least no one followed them. Inside the hospital, Harry asked a technician for a DNA differentiator. “That’s all I’ll need, that and an electron microscope in order to examine your blood. I want to make sure of something.”
The technician guided them to the proper room. While Harry geared up the machine, he called upon his training and experience. In his mind, he ran through the various combinations and permutations, searching for answers. He was hoping Pavel possessed the same enzyme Istvan had, but wasn’t sure. The machine would let them know.
For his part, the Russian transgenic said nothing. He merely gazed in simple acceptance while his blood was drawn and the sample fed into the differentiator. “What this do?” he asked.
After taking a seat, Harry said, “What this will do is figure out which strains of canine genes they used. My best guess is you’re a mix of German Shepherd, Doberman and maybe pit bull... but the demon look...” he shook his head in wonder, “I don’t know where that came from.”
Checking the readings, he added, “This is going to take a couple of hours. For now, maybe we can relax somewhere.”
Overton went to make arrangements, and returned a couple of minutes later. “We can use the lounge upstairs. They cleared the way.”
The answer ignited something in Pavel and his voice rose with each passing sentence. “Why must they clear way? I am person. I look like dog, but I am person.”
In a sudden burst of rage, he slashed the wall, and his sharp claws carved a chunk out of it. Alarmed, Overton drew his weapon, but Pavel’s eruption had ended. He stood there heaving out great gasps of air, shaking his head at the seeming futility of it all. “All I want is go back to homeland... to be normal... to be person. If I cannot be person, then people should be friend to me like this.” Looking up, he had tears in his eyes.
Reunion Page 3