Reunion

by J. S. Frankel

  Yes, badasses could cry, too, Harry realized, and he laid a friendly hand on the other man’s shoulder. “If I can do anything, I will. But we need to find this man Allenby. Grushenko’s dead, and I want Allenby to join him.”

  Overton, who’d put away his pistol, walked over, and his voice sounded surprisingly kind. “Like Harry said, we’ll do what we can. But we have to work together.”

  A growl came from Pavel, but it subsided quickly. “Da... I understand.” Utter defeat permeated each word.

  Matter settled for the moment, the trio moved to the lounge, where Pavel dozed and Harry paced back and forth, wondering about the tests, but mainly concerned for his wife. He called the hospital, but Anastasia’s condition remained unchanged. No change was better than worse change, or so the reasoning went.

  After an hour, he woke Pavel up. “Let’s see what the readout says.”

  Harry viewed the results, and while they turned out to be disappointing, they were not unexpected. Blowing out a deep breath, he leaned back in his chair. Overton had left in order to place a few phone calls—”checking in with the hackers”—he meant Jason and Maze—and only Pavel remained in the room. “So what you find?” Pavel wanted to know.

  “According to this readout,” Harry pointed at the numbers on the screen, “you’re thirty percent Doberman, ten per cent pit bull, forty percent human, and as for the other twenty percent, it’s something I’ve never seen before.”

  “I no understand.”

  Harry didn’t quite get it himself, either. The DNA scan showed that the remaining twenty percent was a mixture of various genotypes. Numbers didn’t lie. They were close to predicting the ultimate truth, but for all his knowledge, he couldn’t accurately pin down what the truth was. The percentages kept shifting, almost as if the genes had been programmed to be hidden, which was impossible.

  Then again, Harry had entered the land of the impossible over a year ago, the day he’d met Anastasia. He’d ventured into unknown territory when he’d transformed, and now... now he was finding out how much and in what ways a person’s DNA could be twisted and reshaped.

  Still, why Grushenko had done this—and more importantly, how—remained a mystery. Harry relayed the information in as simple a manner as possible to Pavel.

  The dog-man shrugged his thick shoulders upon hearing the facts. “I am no scientist,” he said. “I am only soldier. I fight. That is all I do.” His tongue came out to roll itself around his mouth. “I remember, Grushenko tell me I am forerunner. I no understand meaning.”

  A beep came from the differentiator. Curious, Harry read it out and couldn’t believe it. “I think I know why your condition is like it is. Grushenko told you the truth. You are a forerunner. You’re a prototype.”

  “What you mean?”

  Keep it simple! “Did you see anyone else in Grushenko’s lab that looked like you?”

  Pavel blinked and shook his head. “No, I am only one.”

  The information on the screen confirmed it and with a sudden flash of scientific insight honed by genius and experience, it all became clear. Grushenko had designed Pavel’s body to be more adaptive. He’d added in things like genes for extra strength, speed, and night vision. Those assets would then be called upon when needed, more than likely in extreme survival situations.

  However, there was a downside to it all. While Pavel’s body showed no signs of devolving—he’d been on his own for at least five months if not longer—the added DNA put a tremendous strain on his system, in particular, his heart. Pavel had mentioned his condition, a heart stem problem.

  From what Harry could figure out, he had a minor split in the aorta. In human cases, that led to aortic dissection, a situation where the aorta ruptured. Only ten percent of the cases survived, even with prompt treatment.

  In Pavel’s case, the animal genes had been keeping the dissection at bay. However, if these results tested out, every time he exerted himself in terms of speed, strength, or anything else, his heart would be damaged a little more. Unlike his other organs, it could not regenerate to the same level.

  Strength above the norm, speed, ferocity... Pavel had it all. He was also on borrowed time. Aortic dissection happened quickly and death would almost certainly result without an operation. Full recoveries were usually the norm in the cases of those operated upon, but this was no ordinary situation.

  And therein lay the quandary. Should he tell Pavel he probably wouldn’t live very long if he ever got into a fight? In spite of the man being a giant in strength, he was a crippled giant. Still, there was hope. Once this was all over, perhaps his heart problem could be repaired through conventional surgery.

  In addition, while Harry had to continue working on his theory of reversing the transformation effected by the Genesis Chamber, once he succeeded, he could return all the transgenics to their formal mortal status. He was close, very close...

  “You can help me...”

  “What?” He’d been thinking. The question jarred him back to reality. “What is it?”

  “I ask if you can help me,” Pavel repeated. “I no care if I look like dog the rest of my life. I need heart back. Real heart... heart that works.”

  His comment, so plainly and yet plaintively spoken, made Harry feel even worse than he did, but he repeated his earlier statement about doing what he could.

  Pavel received it without batting an eye. “I wish to be normal... to be like you, even.”

  Harry was about to offer a reply, but the sound of the door opening made him look up.

  Overton had arrived, a strained look on his face. He was carrying a laptop and set it up inside the room. “Maze called me. Headquarters got a video feed and I thought you should see it. This is live, by the way.”

  Unfolding the laptop, he tapped a few buttons. A picture popped up of Allenby, hidden—naturally—in some cave. Overton dropped his voice to a whisper. “We got this a few minutes ago. Tried to trace it—no luck. This guy is good, no doubt. We’ll keep checking.”

  Getting a good look at the man behind the mayhem, Harry noted the changes in Allenby’s physique right away. Formerly, he’d gone through a program of accelerated physical change and had emerged from a specially constructed chamber as a paragon of physical virtue. Tall, in the realm of nearly seven feet, he’d possessed the body of a god, every muscle large, carved and defined as if by some invisible chisel.

  Now, though, things had changed. Knobby protuberances of bone laced the joints. The muscles, while large, appeared flaccid, and Allenby’s face had acquired a certain kind of lumpiness. His forehead sloped forward, almost meeting the bridge of his nose. Coarse black hair covered his head as well as the sides of his face. His lips had also thickened, and the eyes had become more deep set. It was almost as if he had begun to devolve to a Cro-Magnon state.

  “Goldman,” he intoned in a basso voice that portended no good, “You and I have some unfinished business. As you can see, I have begun to revert. My theory on human perfection still needs more...” he paused as if searching for the correct word, then came out with “... enhancements. “Therefore, I am offering an exchange. I will give you the life of this worthless piece of offal”—he reached down and picked up a squealing Istvan, who, from the wide eyes and trembling mouth, was clearly terrified—”in exchange for the formula to reverse this process.”

  Harry’s first reaction was to tell Allenby to go to hell, but then he realized another life was at stake—Istvan’s.

  “What assurance do we have you won’t try something,” Overton asked. “And what assurance do we have you won’t send your clones out?”

  A harsh laugh came from the fast-changing monster. “You don’t. However, I have stopped my cloning program. You can choose to believe me or not, but it is the truth. I simply want a fair exchange, Goldman’s knowledge for the life of the pig. You decide. You have ten seconds.”

  If there’s a chance, then...”Where and when?” asked Harry.

  Allenby smiled. A few of his t
eeth had fallen out, revealing still-bleeding gums. “I see another lab creation standing next to you,” he said. “It will not be coming with you.”

  Pavel clenched his fists at the insult. “My name is Pavel Andreyevich Romanoff,” he bristled. “And I no like you.”

  Another laugh emanated from the speaker. “Whether you like me or not is irrelevant, speck. However, I am still in a position to be magnanimous. I will send you a message tomorrow. The meeting will be at a place of my choosing. Only you will attend, Goldman, you and no one else.”

  The video faded. Overton whipped out his cellphone and placed a call. “Tell me what you found,” he said into the receiver.

  As he listened to the answer, his face got tighter. With a grunt, he clicked off. “That was Jason. He and Maze, along with the other intelligence personnel, were trying to trace Allenby’s shipping records. They ran into a snag. The reports were bogus.”

  Wonderful, thought Harry. “Any more good news?”

  Overton sighed. “We were trying to trace the signal, but couldn’t get a lock on it.”

  A thoughtful look appeared on Pavel’s face. “You get bounce-back, yes?”

  “Yes, using multiple addresses and multiple servers are taking us to locations—”

  “Is common technique,” he interrupted. “In Russian Army, we use trick like that all time. You Americans, you do as well. You look at header, yes?”

  “Yes.” This time, Overton sounded more interested. “That’s the first step. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Is not enough,” Pavel waved off the explanation and walked over to the computer. “I show you. This is something I learn in army.”

  Watching the mini-battle of authority versus knowledge was interesting if somewhat confusing to Harry, but he wanted to see how it would play out. Obviously, Pavel knew more than he’d initially let on. “Sir,” he said to Overton, “let him show what he can do.”

  Shrugging, Overton waved at the computer. “Go ahead.”

  Seating himself, Pavel wiggled his thick fingers and gently pecked on the keyboard. “I call up your email records, okay?”

  “Do it.”

  His movements grew faster and more assured. Soon, the list of email messages appeared. “So,” Pavel said, “you check your spam server and then look at most recent one. You know this, yes? You have blacklist, yes?”

  Overton nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes, we have all that, so what else can you tell us?”

  A chuckle came his way and Pavel typed in another command. “You need patch for this.”

  “I need a what?”

  “Is needed patch,” Pavel replied. “How you say—application?”

  “App,” Harry put in. Most of that had gone over his head. He could decipher genetic codes, devise theorems for separating animal genes from human ones, knew math well... but this was something he really didn’t know much about. Jason and Maze were the true experts in matters like these, and if they didn’t know...

  “Ah... .” Pavel continued, “App... thank you. I no understand English so well. We have app in Russian intelligence. Wait.”

  They did, and a second later, a message appeared—in Russian. Pavel hummed an off-key tune, typed something else in, and the message came up once more in Russian. “This is app from friend. It trace signal back to user, no doubt.”

  Mystified yet gratified, Harry offered, “Nice job” and got a grin in return. Overton dutifully wrote something down in his black book, then placed a call to Jason. Overton spoke for a few seconds, and then an aggrieved expression appeared on his face. With an emphatic “Just do it,” command, he hung up.

  Overton then pivoted around to face Pavel, and gave him an appreciative nod. “Thanks for the information. We owe you one.”

  A hoarse laugh came from the dog-man. “We settle later.”

  Overton’s cellphone rang again. He spoke softly into it and when he clicked off, he wore a genuine smile on his face. “That was the hospital. They need to see you.”

  Uncertainty gripped Harry’s soul, and he sent out a silent prayer to the powers that governed all life. “Let’s get going,” he said.

  They motored back with the greatest speed and ran into the hospital together. At the room, a couple of guards stood outside, hands on their weapons, and they raised them when they saw Pavel. “He’s with us,” Overton called out. “Stand down.”

  Harry was about to wrench the door off its hinges, but it opened and Doctor Blanchard emerged.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said. To her credit, she only blinked when she spotted Pavel. In turn, he bobbed his head in a brief greeting and turned away. “Er, your wife woke up twenty minutes ago and immediately asked for you,” she said. “That’s a good sign, I think.”

  A voice, feminine and full of life, called out, “Harry, are you there?”

  Anastasia! Running inside the room, Harry found his wife awake and alert, sitting up in bed and looking at the intravenous drips in her arms with curiosity. She then smiled at him. “Hi,” she said in a cheerful voice. “Did I miss anything?”

  Chapter Four: Reemergence

  “I’m feeling fine,” said Anastasia as she gently pulled out the intravenous tubing. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she stood up, shook her legs, and unsteadily weaved her way over to the closet where her clothes had been stored.

  “Let me clean up and get dressed,” she said as she grabbed a couple of items and walked into the bathroom. This time, her steps took on a greater assurance.

  Emerging a few minutes later, she wore her usual yellow skirt and blouse outfit, although the skirt stretched a little tighter around her midriff. Pregnant or not, she really wasn’t showing.

  Yellow was her color, most definitely, thought Harry as he observed her move around the room in a graceful manner. Recovery and regeneration most truly rocked. “How are you feeling?”

  A smile crossed her face. “I can feel the baby moving,” she said with a note of wonder in her voice. “That’s motherhood for you.”

  A knock on the door came, and it opened with Overton poking his head inside. “Is everyone decent?”

  Anastasia waved him in. “I am now.”

  He entered, followed by Pavel. The demon-dog nodded at Anastasia and hesitantly said something to her in Russian. She replied slowly at first, and then the words flowed from her with greater speed. After a couple of minutes of talking back and forth, she turned to Harry. “He’s explained the situation. Let’s go.”

  “Hold on a second,” he said and mentally put the brakes on things. Suddenly his wife was speaking fluent Russian? “I didn’t know you remembered your language.”

  She’d been stricken with amnesia when Nurmelev had experimented on her, but over time she’d recalled who she was. Apparently, the language came with the total recall. “It came back to me,” she offered with a shrug, as if that explained everything. “And it’s easier to communicate with Pavel, so...”

  Confusion hit Harry right between the eyes. It wasn’t as if he didn’t trust his wife, with her speaking with a fellow countryman in their language. Trust came with marriage, and he did trust her.

  However, going along on this mission... in his opinion, it wasn’t the wisest move around. “Uh, not to be a wet blanket or anything, but running around and all that, aren’t you thinking about the baby?”

  The question caused Anastasia to shoot him a look of annoyance, the yellow in her eyes flaring. “It’s because of the baby I’m doing this. I feel fine, and that bastard tried to kill me. He kidnapped me, and no way am I going to let him or anyone else harm our child.”

  She put her hand up as Harry started to object. “When it’s time, I’ll know. But for now, I’m in.”

  Seeing the determined look on her face, he knew better than to argue. Once she set her mind to something, no force on Earth could dissuade her. “Fine.” It came out as a muttered response. He respected his wife’s wishes... but he didn’t have to like it.

  Overton’s
cellphone sounded and he excused himself to take the call. Pavel had a slight smile on his face. It was hard to tell, considering the way his jaw was constructed, but he sounded good-humored enough. “Is wonderful to speak my language again,” he said, gesturing to Anastasia. “English is good, but Russia is my mother. I—” he grabbed his chest and sought refuge in the nearest chair. “Forgive me, please.”

  Immediately, Anastasia got all sympathetic and knelt beside him. They spoke softly to one another. After a few seconds of parlay, she stood up and came back to Harry’s side. “He says his heart is weak. He shouldn’t go with us—”

  Pavel cut her off with “I hear what you say.” He pulled out his medicinal stash and took out another pill. “I am sick, yes, but I am still good.” Throwing it in his maw, he dry-swallowed it. “I need rest is all—I can help.”

  Overton popped in long enough to beckon Harry outside. “This will just take a moment,” he announced. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  In the hallway a good distance away from the room, Overton pulled out his cellphone. “I had Jason and Maze check on our Russian imports’ information, just in case. It seems the signal leads to Arkansas. We’re checking further on it and should know fairly soon whether it’s a viable lead or not.”

  He seemed pensive, so Harry pressed, “And?”

  “And, while they were at it, I asked them to check on Pavel’s background.”

  “You think he’s a spy?”

  “Uh-huh,” Overton nodded and showed him the data. “Say hello to Lieutenant Pavel Andreyevich Romanoff, Russian Army intelligence.”

  Reading over the facts presented, it should have come as a shock, but didn’t. After all the time he’d spent in foreign countries, meeting with other people and finding out the new and the different, Harry thought he knew people.

  Now this... and it made him feel totally out of his league. Pavel Andreyevich Romanoff... age twenty-seven... specialist in cryptography and intelligence... member of Spetznatz, the Russian elite... reported missing eight months ago...