by Unknown
The vault door cleared the wall with the sound of pressurized air spilling into equalization with the rest of the room. Doug motioned to the inner vault as the lights came on inside. The chamber encompassed the size of a football field. Rows of highly lethal weapons and government contracted technologies filled the space with only concrete lanes between them.
Trenton’s mercenaries gazed in wonder at the vast assortment of armored vehicles, crowd control devices, and weapons of every sort that lay before them. A large steel cube stood near the vault entrance.
“The Biohazard Vault,� Trenton said with a smile. “Open it.�
Doug walked sheepishly over to the access panel. Laser guided gun turrets, mounted in the ceiling of the main vault chamber, tracked his every move. Trenton knew they were there. He had them installed when Halo Tech began working on secret, germ warfare agents for the government. Any one of those little beasties could wipe out all of Imperial City, in a matter of days.
Trenton grinned at Doug. “Be careful when you go inside. You wouldn’t want to spill anything.�
Doug wiped his hand on his pants and placed it on the scanner pad. He spoke his special password to the voice recognizer. “Hercules 12.� He placed his right eye in the beam of the retinal scanner. The access LED changed from red to green. The Biohazard Vault door opened.
Trenton watched the gun turrets stand down. He walked into the main vault chamber behind Doug. “Let’s go.�
They walked through the doorway and down the stairs to a level below. A smaller area lay before them. This one held several large containment coolers, each with a coded lock. Granite countertops lined the middle of the passage—workstations with sinks and other equipment necessary for lab work. Cryogenic containment units stood even further down, where another vault door remained.
ât=“0” w€œHave you kept it in here, or in the cryo unit?â€� Trenton asked.
“It’s in Cold Locker One, Dr. Hallowed.� Doug went to the locker and entered his pass code. The LED became green, and he opened the door. Cool vapor spilled into the room. Doug reached inside and carefully removed a vial of serum.
Trenton walked over to the table and examined the contents. The label read, Enhancement Serum.
“Tell me about it,� Trenton said.
Doug took pride in his work. “The Enhancement Serum will interact with the Generation X mutagen in your bloodstream. It will bind with the mutagen molecules permanently and be applied to your cellular reconstruction and genetic chemistry.�
“Binds with the mutagen in my blood?�
“Yes. How long has it been since you dosed yourself with Gen X?� Doug asked.
“Nearly two days,� Trenton said. “There won’t be any of it left in my blood. The tissue absorbs it much faster than that.� Trenton took the vial and paced with it, thinking. “What would happen if I took it now?�
Doug considered the possible outcomes. “I’m not sure. It will not bond in the tissue. The Enhancement would take place, but only on a short term basis at best.�
“How short term?�
“Maybe six hours,� Doug said.
“If I introduced the Gen X gas within that time?� Trenton asked.
“With the Enhancement Serum still in your bloodstream, it would immediately bind with the mutagen molecules and then be accepted into the tissue. The change would become permanent.�
Trenton grinned. He thought about the accessible vault waiting for him at his own Genetic Corp lab—just ten miles away. “I want it,� he said.
“There’s no telling what it could do to you, Dr. Hallowed. It might kill you,� Doug warned.
“I’m touched, Doug, but I’ve been laughing at death all week long. I don’t see any reason to stop now.� Trenton grabbed a syringe and needle from a bin at the workstation. “What’s the dosage?�
“Ten milliliters, for a man your size,� he said quickly.
Trenton introduced the needle and syringe to the serum vial. He pumped the plunger, withdrawing the required amount from the vial. Doug handed him a smaller needle to use for the intravenous injection, but Trenton stopped him.
“This 19gauge will do just fine. It’ll take that much to get through my new skin.�
Trenton guided the needle into a prominent vein in his forearm. He had to push harder than normal as he had expected. His improved tissues did not like the intrusion. A spike of blood shot into the needle hub. Trenton pushed the entire contents of the syringe into his body. He withdrew the needle and tossed it across the room. Trenton close d his eyes as he felt the serum circulate throughout his body.
Doug licked his lips, pushing his glasses up on his nose. He had seen the effect on lab animals—small ones—but never on a human being. When the serum hit Trenton’s heart, seconds later, he suddenly convulsed and collapsed.
Doug backed away as his former employer-turned-psychopath writhed on the floor. Trenton’s eyes popped open—bloodshot to the point of multiple hemorrhages. Every vein in his body seemed to be screaming for a way out.
Trenton wailed at the top of his lungs. Doug screamed back in terror. What had happened? The animals had not had this kind of reaction at all. Doug backed away, running around the counter. He shot up the stairs with remarkable agility, for someone his size.
Trenton called after him. “Wait! Help me, coward!�
His muscles began to spasm. Trenton tried to stand, but it was impossible. His whole body shuddered under the multiple seizures washing over him like waves of the sea during a hurricane. He wondered what was wrong. Perhaps that fool, Tanner, had given him the wrong drug on purpose. Maybe Doug had even tried to poison him.
Trenton seethed with anger, despite the convulsions wracking his body with pain. He crawled forward to the base of the stairs. Through sheer force of will, he climbed up toward the vault door. He saw Doug at the top. Tanner screamed, pushing the door closed, as Trenton reached the top on his quivering hands and knees.
HALLOWED_BE_THY_NAME
26 METAMORPHOSIS
“What’s happening?� the young Chinese mercenary said. The others stood at his heels.
“I don’t know. Something is wrong—he’s changing!� Doug screamed as the vault door locked into place. They heard Trenton’s muted cries from behind the steel vault door. The timbre of his voice changed, as he shouted a stream of obscenities at them from beyond. Trenton Hallowed had possessed a smooth, yet menacing tone, but whatever stood beyond that door seemed to shake the ground beneath their feet with its roaring.
They heard pounding, and the thick door vibrated. The pounding on the inner door continued, growing in intensity with each new rage-filled scream. The metal bulged with the next impact.
Doug backed away, intermingling with the stunned Chinese mercenaries from Ming’s personal army. Jay tensed in his chair. The armed woman guarding him paid no attention to her prisoner now, but Jay still couldn’t walk on his own. His swollen, bruised ankle dangled at the end of his leg, sending intermittent pain through him every few seconds.
A Chinese mercenary ran toward the rows of weapons that filled the main vault, picking a grenade launcher he found with a display of ammunition. He loaded the weapon and called for his cohorts to join him. Some of the braver ones followed orders and armed themselves with better weapons than what they had been carrying. The others ran from the main vault, through the lab complex, and out through the security doors beyond.
The pounding remained steady, but then the disfigured steel cube split with a massive pop like a stick of dynamite going off. Something became visible beneath the torn metal—something only vaguely human.
Doug ran to an alarm s
tation and pulled the switch. The huge, main vault door started to close as red warning lights rotated in the ceiling, casting a crimson shade over the entire chamber. A synthesized female voice warned overhead. “Containment breach—lethal organism—containment breach.�
Jay watched Doctor Tanner run out of the main vault toward him. The remaining mercenaries stood inside, armed to the teeth. The steel, vault cube, containing Trenton, burst apart at the seams just as the main vault door obscured Jay’s view of the interior. Trenton’s transformed voice roared at the mercenaries. He no longer sounded like a man at all, but rather some ferocious beast unleashed from the very depths of Hell.
The mercenaries opened fire on whatever had emerged from the underground vault. Jay watched in horror as a massive arm, the size of a tree trunk, bashed one of the men still visible to him. The mercenary flew into the diminishing space between the vault door and its frame. Blood gushed through the opening and sprayed across the lab floor, but nothing more came through.
“Come on, young man, we’ve got to get out of here before all the security doors fall into place.� Doug grabbed Jay, hauling him out of his seat by his clothes. The ankle shot pain through his leg and up into his torso. Jay screamed over the cacophony of muted gunfire and terror-filled shrieks emanating from within the vault.
A steel containment door slowly fell before them. Jay gritted through the pain, as Dr. Tanner dragged him across the laboratory floor. Behind the massive vault door, the shooting sputtered and stopped, like a bag of microwave popcorn nearly done. The screams of terror had subsided as well. Then the pounding of beastly flesh and bone against metal took up again.
“He’s trying to break out of the vault,� Jay said, as Doug carried him toward the security door. The door lowered right to the floor. Doug heaved Jay underneath, then rolled his bulk under just in time. The door fastened itself into place, bisecting the large laboratory room adjacent to the vault.
Roars of anger and pounding filtered through the safety barriers to their ears, like peels of thunder from a distant storm. Only, this storm would tear them both to shreds when it finally arrived.
Doug sat Jay in an office chair and ran to a storage locker in the corner of the room. He used an access code to unlock it. Then he grabbed some of the contents and came back to Jay. Doug held a Mossberg military issue shotgun and a box of shells. He began loading the shells into the magazine while watching the security door.
Jay couldn’t believe he intended to stay and fight this thing Trenton Hallowed had now become. “Are you crazy? That shotgun isn’t going to help us! He just slaughtered a bunch of thugs with assault weapons. None of that stuff did any good before you gave him your drugs and it sure isn’t going to help now!�
Doug continued loading the weapon. “Don’t you think I know that? We just have to hold on until the National Guard investigates the alarms and take the building.�
“The alarms are telling them this building is now a hot zone. They’re not going to infiltrate, believing a deadly germ is on the loose in here,� Jay reasoned.
“I’m hoping they’ll figure out this is all about Trenton Hallowed and come in anyway.�
•••
Jonathan prayed as he sat on the curb outside of Ming’s business building. He still didn’t know what sort of business the gangster had running out of it, but most likely those days were over. It seemed an eternity since this had all started. In truth, only days ago he had been normal, without a real problem in the world. He prayed for guidance, for patience, and most of all for Jay’s safety. They had heard nothing all night.
Michael talked with other officers, now on the scene, concerning the night’s events and Ming’s involvement. The man himself had been treated by an ambulance and then placed in the back of one of the squad cars. A police van had taken custody of the other living members of Ming’s crew left in the building. Most of his enforcers had been sent with Trenton to break into Police Precinct # 7 and remained with him even now.
“Thank you, Lord. Amen.� Jonathan stretched his aching muscles. The early morning sun warmed him, while the flashing blue strobes of fifteen police cars bathed the plaza in azure. His body had taken the ultimate beating over the past few days, beginning with a shower of lead slugs from an assassin’s machine gun inside Trenton’s laboratory.
Despite his new healing ability and increased strength, Jonathan felt like he’d been hit by a train. On top of all the abuse of the past forty-eight hours, he’d gotten no sleep and barely enough food to keep going. Somehow, he always felt hungry. He had seen a television special once on moles, of all things, and remembered how their metabolism was so high that they constantly fed, or else starved to death. He felt that way now. His body was running on overdrive with not enough fuel in the tank.
Jonathan watched Michael finish up his report with the uniformed officer. Another approached him. Michael’s eyes popped open at whatever news he had just received. He sprang over to Jonathan. “Let’s roll!�
Jonathan jumped to his feet. “Did they find Trenton?�
Michael commandeered a police cruiser, with the officer’s permission, and got behind the wheel. “The National Guard is moving on one of your other companies—Halo Tech. Apparently, a containment alarm has been triggered. Employees trying to get into the building found themselves locked out this morning. There was also a report of an armored truck found in the underground parking garage.�
“Let me guess. It’s black?� Jonathan asked.
Michael started the cruiser’s engine and slammed it into gear. “Bingo!�
HALLOWED_BE_THY_NAME
27 CONTAINMENT BREACH
Jay searched the laboratory with his eyes, hoping to find something that might aid them. The pounding continued from within the main vault, but Jay had little doubt Trenton would eventually free himself. They would be at his mercy.
Doug picked up the phone receiver and dialed out. “I’m going to notify the mayor of the situation and give him access to the emergency codes. They’ll know it’s not a microorganism.�
Jay smiled slightly through his throbbing pain. “That should save some time on them getting to us.� He had seen enough movies to realize only a hazmat team would enter the building under a real containment breach. All that would take too long. Even cutting the red tape would likely do no good.
Jay heard a massive pop and the sound of metal twisting. “He’s getting through the vault door!�
Doug watched the security door, finishing his phone call to the mayor. He hugged the Mossberg shotgun, his finger quivering over the trigger.
“Can’t you just open these other security doors and get us out of here?� Jay asked, watching the steel partition—likely the only thing still separating them from whatever Trenton Hallowed had become.
“I don’t have the access. They’re purposely locked so that only a cleanup team can get in here. If someone trapped in here with a lethal bug could just walk out, then the whole city would be infected.�
Doug’s explanation made perfect sense, so Jay dropped it. They had to wait and hope. He heard several heavy footfalls beyond the remaining barrier. Then it buckled, as Trenton smashed into it. “He’s coming!� Jay screamed.
The steel barrier resembled a wide flexible garage door—the kind used by some businesses to lock up their storefronts. Trenton hit the barrier again. Each time he left a large indention in the metal. A split appeared. Trenton pushed his fingers through, widening the hole until both of his hands fit inside.
He used his leverage to push the split even wider, until his head became fully visible to Jay and Doug in the other portion of the laboratory. Jay
got a first look at what Trenton had done to himself. “Hello, boys,� Trenton said.
His skin was blotched and deep red, as though he had severe sunburn. His body had bulged through his clothing. He wore only shredded rags now. Trenton made a large professional wrestler seem small in comparison. The Enhancement Serum had pushed him to the very limit.
His muscles bulged, and his veins pulsed through his skin. Jay wondered how his skin could even contain the grotesque mass of muscle that had developed in just a few minutes. Trenton’s face was contorted and vile—his once fine looks now only a horrible mask.
Only the blood made him even more terrifying to look upon. He had managed to cover most of his body in crimson, through his attacks on Ming’s mercenaries. Some of the blood had to be Trenton’s, as well. Bullet holes had almost completely healed already, after the shootout in the vault. Trenton carried no weapons, but he had been the only survivor.
Doug raised the shotgun, took aim, and gave a final warning. “Dr. Hallowed, please don’t come any closer. I don’t want to harm you.�
The beastly man laughed at the threat. “My dear, plump, Dr. Tanner, Trenton Hallowed is no longer in. Nemesis is in control now.�
Nemesis lunged at Doug. He fired the shotgun over and over again at the approaching juggernaut. Jay watched each slug hit this new Nemesis creature in the chest, but he kept on coming.
An indicator light on the security door behind them changed from red to green. The door had been unlocked. Someone had arrived to rescue them.
Nemesis charged Dr. Tanner and his shotgun like a rabid silverback gorilla. He hammered a swollen fist into the doctor, sending Doug flying over one of the lab workstations and his gun skidding across the tiled floor.
Nemesis shifted his attention to Jay and came at him. The steel security door opened, and National guardsmen in gas masks entered the room behind Jay. When they saw Nemesis charging at them, they raised their submachine guns and opened fire.