“What the hell do the nukes have to do with the appearance of these things? I thought you guys were breeding them as part of your experiments.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. “Breeding them? Are you mad? We were running our experiments in hopes of finding a way to fight them, should a severe outbreak occur. As you know, they can reproduce, in a manner of speaking, by producing offspring and thralls. However, the thralls are almost always weaker than the original subject who created them. Eventually, by the third or fourth generation, the thralls lose the ability to reproduce.”
That made sense. I’d often wondered why we weren’t completely overrun with the damn things already. “Okay, but if that’s true then how do you explain how we have so many of them running around now?”
“That’s the thing—at first, we couldn’t find any pattern to explain where they were coming from or what was causing them to appear at certain times, and not at others. Finally, we noticed an increase in reports of occult species sightings and attacks following increases in solar flare activity. The team I was working with developed a hypothesis that, if these creatures were extra-dimensional in origin, that the increased solar flare activity could be somehow facilitating their ‘crossing over’ from another dimension of existence.”
“You’re talking that they came from another dimension?”
“Yes—that’s the only logical explanation, since there’s no evidence of any occult species in the fossil record. They’d have to have come from someplace other than Earth.”
This was all getting pretty far out there, but after my first brush with the undead, I’d decided that anything was possible. “I think I see where you’re going with this—you think that the bombs somehow damaged the barrier between their world and ours.”
She smacked the counter with her fist. “Exactly! And that’s the good news—in every single instance of increased solar activity followed by increased occult species sightings, the sightings and attacks died down within a few decades, or they tapered off over the course of a few centuries.”
“That doesn’t sound like good news for us. I mean, according to your theory, by the time these things start to die off, humans could become extinct as a species.”
The doc raised a finger in the air, and her face lit up. “Yes—but if the theory holds true, then that also means we have a chance to either hold out or even kill them off, since their numbers and means of reproducing are finite.”
I wiggled my hand back and forth. “Sounds iffy, doc. But even a small bit of hope is hope.” I leaned back and decided to drop the $100,000 question. “So, how do I fit into all this?”
About that time, Gabby came walking in. She still looked a little green around the gills, but she was definitely in better shape than any person had a right to be after having a bullet dug out of their gut. The doc nodded at her. “There’s your answer.”
“I don’t understand.”
Gabby came in, pulled up a chair, and looked me up and down. “You look like shit.”
I laughed. “So do you. How’s that bullet wound?”
She looked at the doc. “Should I show him?”
The captain cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head. “If you feel comfortable sharing it.”
Gabby nodded. “I trust him.” She lifted up her shirt and pulled the bandage away. Just twenty-four hours prior, there had been a large incision in her abdomen. I’d been there when the doc opened her up to remove that bullet, and I saw her get stapled up. Now, there was barely a scar.
“Holy shit. She’s one of your experiments.”
The doc looked at Gabby and placed a hand on her arm. It was a tender gesture, and full of the kind of affection that a mother or older sister has for a young child. She turned and looked at me with less of the fevered enthusiasm of a research clinician, and more of the benevolence of a family physician in her eyes.
“Gabby was brought by her uncle to a FEMA camp a few months after the bombs fell. She was dying of radiation poisoning and there was nothing that conventional medicine could do. I convinced her uncle that I could save her, but that it would be risky. He told me that if I didn’t he’d put a car tire around my neck and set it on fire.”
“Sounds like a charming guy.”
Gabby smirked and rolled her eyes. “He wouldn’t have done it.”
The doc chuckled. “Back then, I think he would have. Taking care of you, raising you, I think it changed him for the better, Gabby.” She looked off out the window. “Regardless, he agreed to allow me to try and help her. It was the only chance she had. So, we took her to the research facility on Bullis, and I saved her life. Within days of the therapy, she evidenced a complete recovery. A modern medical miracle.”
“Hold up—you mean to tell me this facility is still intact?”
“Yes, absolutely. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I can give humanity what it needs to turn the tide in this war. I can make you superhuman.”
- - -
[8]
CARE
“You want to do me what with what?”
“I’m serious, Scratch—I can make you more than human, enough to give you and others the edge you need to face the occult species threat head on. No more running from Them. No more hiding in the sticks. This technology has the potential to turn the tide in this war, and save the human race from extinction.”
Whiskey tango foxtrot. This was all just a little too much to take for me at the moment, and I was, for once in my life, speechless. One thing was for sure though: I didn’t want anyone jacking with my DNA, and especially not to inject me with something that came from Them. Uh-uh, no way, no freaking how.
I stood up. “I’m going to go check on Bobby.”
The captain stood up as well, and took a step forward with a hand extended. “I know this is asking a lot, but I can assure you, the procedure is completely benign. There will be no personality changes, and you’ll be the exact same person, just faster, stronger, and you’ll heal more quickly.”
At that moment, I didn’t know whether to laugh, or punch her in the face. “Are you freaking insane? You can’t play God with people—I mean, we’re talking potentially altering the gene pool for the entire human race. You have no idea what the repercussions will be for the generations of humans who’ll come after us. We could end up as a race of monsters ourselves.”
Gabby crossed her arms and glared at me. “Do I look like a monster to you? Remember, I saved your life! Would a monster do that?”
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 stil
l 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.”
THEM (Season 1): Episode 2 Page 6