First Team

by Robbie MacNiven

  There was a clatter as Michael accidentally dropped a long, slender bone saw. He cursed, reaching down to retrieve it. None of this was his kit anyway. Neither of them had seen the surgeons since yesterday afternoon. He and Melissa had been working in the lab next door for the past four months, overseeing the genetics results. They’d tried to avoid mixing with the surgeons and other, less readily identifiable medical professionals who operated in the theater as much as possible. In fact, they’d made a private pact, just the two of them, to not even discuss the ethics of what they were working on together. That was on top of the folders-worth of non-disclosure forms they’d signed in an official capacity when they’d joined Revitalize Incorporated, Sublime Corp’s primary pharmaceutical enterprise. The forms reassured them that letting slip a single detail of the work they’d been undertaking would see them locked away for the rest of their lives, but that wasn’t even the main deterrent. They’d both met the boss on several occasions, and seen the sorts of people he had dealings with. If one of them let slip about what was happening on Rikers Island, Michael doubted either of them would get as far as a court room, let alone a jail.

  “Help me with this one,” Melissa demanded, struggling to heft the box she’d just sealed onto the gurney they were using to transport the last of the theater kit. The facility appeared wholly deserted now, bar the foul-tempered delivery driver who’d been hired to shift the last of the place’s contents, and the security team who manned the bridge from the island to Brooklyn. Michael stacked the medical case he’d been packing on top of the box and hefted it onto the metal frame.

  “Just two more to go,” he said, glancing back at the final pair of boxes and the stack of files next to them. So much for the promising career in medicine he’d looked forward to in college, he thought bitterly. Here he was, lugging gear around like a student nurse on an assignment. He could do without adding a physical burden to the literal one he’d been carrying for some time. It wasn’t that he cared about mutants – his father had made sure he instilled a fear of them from a young age – but sometimes the screams from the theater were loud enough to reach the lab, and it made working difficult. Usually they just sounded too human. They’d even started giving him nightmares. He knew that Melissa was the same. She’d confided as much once over after-work drinks, prior to their “no talking about what goes on at work” pact. If Melissa was being made uncomfortable by the nature of their research, he knew he wasn’t overreacting. Six months ago, Michael would have called some of the experiments he’d been ordered to undertake insane. But that was before he’d seen the results.

  “Remember those files,” he said, glancing back at Melissa as she hefted one of the two remaining boxes. The stack of documents next to them on the operating slab was all that remained to pack away.

  He maneuvered the gurney towards the lab doors, before realizing that the brake was still on. He looked down to flip it with his foot, and as he did so his world went dark.

  He froze. Melissa’s swearing reassured him that he hadn’t just blacked out.

  “Power’s gone,” his lab partner hissed. He heard her fumbling around near one of the operating slabs behind her. There was a clatter, cold steel on a polished floor, as she knocked one of the remaining instruments out of its box.

  “Careful,” Michael hissed back. The last thing he wanted was to step on an uncapped scalpel. “Just hold still. I’ll get the door to the corridor. The emergency lighting might still be working there.”

  “Why isn’t it working in here?” Melissa replied testily. “Isn’t that the whole point of ‘emergency lighting’?”

  Michael didn’t answer, too focused on feeling his way around the gurney without upending it. He heard the sound of footsteps nearby on the tiled flooring.

  “I said stop moving,” he demanded.

  “Mike,” Melissa said, the tremor in her voice giving him pause. “I’m not moving.”

  Michael went very still. His skin prickled, and a chill ran down his spine.

  Someone else was in the lab with them.

  He didn’t dare breathe. Slowly, he reached out and placed a hand on one of the boxes on the gurney, orienting himself in the pitch black. A part of him wanted to believe it was the delivery guy, come to check on them. But why hadn’t he said anything to them yet?

  The sound of footsteps came again, more rapid this time. Behind him. Michael spun around just as he heard his lab partner cry out.

  “Melissa!” he shouted.

  “Something went by me,” she exclaimed, almost shrieking. “Mike, there’s someone else in here!”

  “Just hold still and keep quiet,” Michael urged in a strained tone, his heart pounding. He swore he could hear movement all around him now, as though multiple figures were shifting through the lab, the feet passing right by him in one direction, then another, their breath on the nape of his neck. In a blind panic, he lashed out and gripped onto something.

  The something screamed. He realized it was Melissa, and he grabbed hold of her fully.

  “It’s me,” he snapped, desperate to shut her up. “Be quiet! Please, just stop!”

  She stopped, but Michael didn’t think it was his demanding that did it. With an abruptness that left them both dazed, the lights blinked back on, searing the scrubbed white tiles into their retinas.

  “What the…” Michael swore, letting go of Melissa and shielding his aching eyes while desperately attempting to take in the lab around them. He half expected to find the two of them surrounded, though by what he didn’t even dare to imagine. Instead, there was just a single other figure present, standing in the doorway, his hand on the light switch.

  “What the heck are you two doing in here?” the delivery driver demanded, looking decidedly unimpressed as he took in the sight of the pair of terrified lab workers

  “That wasn’t funny,” Melissa all but screamed at the man. “Why would you do that to us?”

  “Maybe you two should leave the fooling around until after the job’s done,” the sallow-faced man responded.

  “Were you just in here with us?” Michael demanded before Melissa could launch into a fully-fledged tirade. “In the lab, moving around?”

  “In the lab?” the man repeated, expression oscillating between angry and confused. “Son, I came by to check what the heck’s keeping you both. I was supposed to finish my shift three hours ago. My wife’s had to put the dinner on the stove.”

  “There was someone in here,” Michael said with more certainty than he felt. “Maybe more than one. They switched the lights off.”

  “Then they must still be in here,” the driver said. “Because there’s only two doors in and out of this room. One’s locked, and I just walked through the other and didn’t see a thing.”

  “The papers,” Melissa said abruptly. Michael glanced around to see what she meant, and realized she was staring at a spot on the operating slab next to the medical boxes. The space that, just before the lights had gone out, had been occupied by a stack of the lab’s test results.

  “The files are gone,” Melissa said.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Graymalkin placed the last remaining sheet down on the stack of papers he’d piled neatly next to the laptop and turned to face Vic and Cipher.

  “I will need to make a more comprehensive reading over the next few days,” he said, his tone precise. “But based on my initial observations, I’m certain of two things; a number of Sublime Corp subsidiaries are currently conducting highly illegal experimentation into mutant genomes and DNA sequencing, and our friend Santo was recently being held prisoner at a facility on Rikers Island listed at Companies House as Revitalize Incorporated.”

  “They’ve got Rocky!” Vic exclaimed over a mouthful of pizza – had the rest not still been in his lap, Graymalkin was sure he’d have surged to his feet.

  “I believe so,” he confirmed. “Though he
is no longer on Rikers. I suspect he’s been moved within the last twenty-four hours, though to where I do not yet know. A more detailed reading of the files I recovered from the facility may yield possible locations.”

  “You said this facility was being cleared out when you arrived?” Cipher asked from where she was sitting in the safecrate’s only chair.

  “Yes,” Graymalkin said. “I was not able to gain access when I first visited it several days ago. I now regret that. It appears the vast majority of useful information has already been stripped from the site.” Frustration filled him at failing to get the files faster. Graymalkin felt a personal burden building – he was horrified at the thought of not only Victor’s father, but now a fellow compatriot, being held by fanatics who reminded him all too clearly of his own father.

  “I should have gone,” Cipher said, sounding exasperated. “I was too busy following up the leads in Brooklyn.”

  “But Santo was there, in the facility?” Vic pressed.

  “It appears so,” Gray answered as he quickly masked his feelings. While less free with expressing himself than the likes of Victor, he didn’t want to futher agitate his friends by indulging in what-ifs. He stuck to the facts. “His description shows up a number of times in the files.”

  “What were they doing to him?”

  “That remains unclear. As I said, these matters relate to mutant DNA, but I’m afraid I’m supremely unqualified to understand it exactly. Whatever form the experiments took, they appear to have already moved him.”

  “I should go there,” Cipher said. “See if I can pick up anything they might have left behind.”

  “I’m coming too,” Vic said immediately, setting aside his pizza box. Graymalkin suppressed a sigh.

  “I’m better suited for it,” Cipher responded. “I can be in and out of there without them even knowing.”

  “It’ll be better if all three of us search,” Vic said. “We need to go now. If they’re moving stuff, we might catch them before they finish. We could tail them to their new facilities too.”

  “I might already know where that is,” Cipher said. “The Purifiers are all over the Church of the Seven Virtues. Xodus is there too. It looks like they’re building something.”

  “Something?” Graymalkin queried, unused to Cipher being evasive.

  “They looked like pyres,” she said, glancing away as she spoke. “Pyres for burning people.”

  Silence followed her words. Graymalkin felt a plummeting sickness that left him devoid of words.

  Victor spoke first. “Was there any sign of Rocky there, or my dad?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Cipher said. “I searched the whole building from the spire to the crypts. As of this afternoon it was just Purifiers setting up. No Sublime Corp, no one matching Lobe’s description. But I did see Xodus. Had to go right through him.”

  “It could be a distraction,” Gray pointed out. “After all, they know Victor is in New York, and they must surely suspect he now has assistance. Maybe they’re trying to draw our attention away while they change their primary facilities?”

  “But why would they change them in the first place?” Vic wondered. “We won’t know unless we investigate it.”

  “You’re sure you’re ready to come?” Cipher asked, not quite able to keep the concern out of her voice. “It would be a lot quicker if it was just me.”

  “I’ve got to step up at some point,” Vic replied. “I’ll go insane if I spend another night in here. Besides, look how shredded I am now.”

  Putting on a grin, he extended his right arm. It had continued to grow at an aggressive rate and was now visibly larger than its counterpart. He flexed his fingers and jagged spines formed along his upper biceps and shoulder, the jelly-like nubs beginning to acquire a hardened, carapace-like skin.

  “You look like you’re a quarter ape,” Cipher said unenthusiastically. “Have you even got full feeling in it yet?”

  “It’s fine.” Vic clenched and unclenched his fist, but Graymalkin noticed his wince. “I’ll need to break it in anyway.”

  “The facility may still be guarded,” Graymalkin said. “The bridge to Rikers Island certainly will be. I can gain entry in the dark, and Cipher can go whenever she pleases, but how do you intend to get inside?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Vic said. “There are these three guys I know.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  It was raining hard as the black vehicle crossed the long, desolate length of the bridge to Rikers Island. Rain thundered on the asphalt and flurried through the harsh security lights at the entrance to the complex, drenching the security guard the moment he stepped out of his post. His partner – wisely sheltering inside – had already run the van’s registration plate as it approached the checkpoint. It passed the clearance. Apparently, it was one of the unmarked ones used by Esson Electrical.

  The guard on the gate had heard something about a power outage the day before. It was a strange time to visit, but he’d long stopped questioning the odd hours kept by many of the people working at the facilities he was paid to protect. His mood tonight was as miserable as Rikers Island itself, a bleak spit of land in the East River that had long borne an equally bleak purpose. Since the nineteenth century it had been used to house New York’s criminals, and had acquired the reputation to match. In the past few decades, the prison population had dwindled as public opinion turned against the idea of the island and its massed incarceration, so that now a little over half of it was privately owned and the Correctional and Detention Center was confined to a nest of razor wire and searchlights on the west side of the island. On the surface, it appeared Rikers’ new population consisted of a disparate collection of animal testing facilities, recycling centers and pharmaceutical labs owned by half a dozen different companies. All, however, had links to Sublime Corp.

  “Let’s see your papers,” the guard demanded as he stepped up to the driver’s window. He peered through the rain-slick glass before he realized that there was, in fact, no driver. The cab was empty.

  He called out to his partner at the same time as he heard a muffled grunt, followed by a splash. He spun, fumbling for his sidearm as his shift buddy was thrown from the guardhouse and out into a puddle by the gate, groaning.

  Something was in the now-dark cabin, a suggestion of a shadow, pale and ill-looking. The guard tried to bring his weapon to bear, fingers slipping, torn between the need to keep the thing in his sights and the desire to call for backup on the radio. The monsters were all supposed to be locked up inside the island. They weren’t supposed to be outside.

  The terrified man heard a soft hum behind him and spun around. The window in the driver’s door lowered, exposing the inside of the cab. Still, though there was no one there.

  He hadn’t believed in ghosts before tonight. He certainly hadn’t believed they could knock him out with a single, invisible punch. That, however, was exactly what happened. There was a crack. The last thing he remembered was hitting the asphalt.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Vic found the sight of Graymalkin with a fully grown man slung over each shoulder like twin sacks of potatoes vaguely funny. If the situation hadn’t been as tense as it was, he’d have probably been able to come up with something side-splitting to say. As it was, he just watched from the back of the Esson van as his friend tied the two unconscious men back-to-back inside the guardhouse.

  “All clear,” he said, before raising the shutters on the security gate. Cipher, sitting in the cab, gunned the engine as Gray rejoined Vic in the back.

  “Halloween is in two months,” Vic said as his drenched companion closed the van door carefully behind him. “Please tell me you’re going to go as Nosferatu?”

  “I do not… understand,” Gray said slowly, wiping rainwater out of his eyes and off his slick skull.

  “Like a vampire?” Vic said. “You know,
Dracula and stuff.”

  “Ah, the work of Bram Stoker,” Gray said, catching on. “Yes, I have read that. Diverting enough, but somewhat unbelievable. Why would anyone be that afraid of the dark?”

  “I don’t know Gray, why did that security guard freak so bad when he saw you throwing his buddy out into the rain?” Vic quipped.

  “Can it, you two,” Ci called through from the front. “We’re here.”

  Vic felt the van rock to a halt and opened the back door, hopping out. The rain pelted down with vehement ferocity, hard enough to make the tender, fresh skin of his exposed right arm sting. Before him, across an empty carpark, sat a squat, solid-looking concrete building, its windows like dark, dead eyes, its front doors shut. A sign over them – the only thing lit up – read “Revitalize Incorporated.”

  “This is it,” Gray said. “This is where I tracked a removal truck contracted to Sublime Corp. There’s a laboratory inside and an operating theater.”

  The words caused an icy anger to settle over Vic. He’d been trying to avoid thinking too much about what they may have been doing with Rockslide in the time since he had disappeared. It would only lead to him worrying more about his dad. He knew he had to try and stay level-headed, or he’d be putting Ci and Gray in danger, not to mention himself.

  “How did you get inside?” Vic asked Gray as he glared across at the building. He found himself unable to imagine it in any setting other than a miserable, rain-slashed night.

  “I cut the external fuse box,” he said. “Then entered through a side door, on the north face of the building. Security was light at that point. Most of the removal work appeared to be complete. I would be surprised if anyone still remains now.”

  “There’s an easy way to find out,” Ci said. Vic hadn’t heard her get out of the van, but here she was, standing next to them as the rain drenched her dreadlocks. She vanished without another word. Vic and Gray waited for a minute and, sure enough, she reappeared ahead of them, phasing back through the facility’s front doors.