Fall Prey: The Hunt

by Dallas Massey

  “Why couldn’t you tell me they aren’t human?” Cyrus was flabbergasted now. “Wouldn’t it have made things easier? I’ve spent the last month believing I was committing cannibalism!”

  He removed his claws from the doctor’s throat, content with the answers given him.

  Realizing the doctor was no longer under immediate threat, the guards went for their guns and pointed them at Cyrus’s head.

  “It is a relief to hear that, though.” Cyrus gave Shen an awkward half-smile. He knew he appeared to have an extreme mood swing, but his rage was simply an act to make the doctor talk. “Makes me feel much less like a monster, even if I am beginning to look like one.” He wanted to believe his own words.

  “Believe me, if it were up to me, you would be briefed on every detail.” Shen grasped his throat with his hand, making sure it was still intact. “I don’t know why CyberGen’s board of directors likes to retain such a high level of secrecy.”

  “Where are Elysia and Viddur?” Cyrus ignored the doctor’s excuse and looked toward the helicopter for the siblings.

  “They couldn’t be here this evening as they have other duties to be carried out,” said Shen.

  Cyrus might have asked what these other duties were but decided against it. “Are we going back to the CyberGen facility where I underwent the treatment?” he asked instead.

  “Of course.” Shen raised an outstretched arm. “Where else do you think I would be taking you?”

  “Well, after everything I’ve been through here, I thought I might ask.” Cyrus remained where he stood. “I don’t need any more surprises. What do you have planned for me now that I have completed your survivability test?”

  “Oh, we have many things planned for you, Mr. Blackthorn.” Shen finished straightening his collar. ”Our work is just beginning. That’s why we’re taking you back to the facility in which you were initially treated. Once there, you will be put through an intensive training regimen.”

  “That’s just great.” Cyrus gave Shen a sarcastic frown as he started toward the helicopter, a clear lack of enthusiasm in every step.

  Chapter XIX

  The Trappings of Terror

  “Hey, man, wake up,” said a male voice.

  A hand shook Cyrus by the shoulder. He nearly jumped from his bed, his fatigue and weariness the only thing stopping him.

  “What?” Cyrus slapped the hand away and reluctantly opened his eyes. He found Viddur standing over his hospital bed, his face barely visible through the haze of bright lights.

  Cyrus vigorously shook his head, the weariness still holding him down as he tried to determine precisely where he was. He groaned and sat up in bed, his eyes slowly adjusting to the light. The room was solid white, typical of nearly any room at CyberGen, and contained only a few pieces of furniture. It was almost identical to his room from before. The only difference was a startling lack of machines and monitors.

  “How did you guys get in here?” asked Cyrus, rubbing his eyes. He felt groggy, as though he awakened from a deep, drug-induced sleep. He had no memory of arriving back at the facility.

  Dr. Shen likely hit me with another sedative.

  Cyrus decided to let his frustration with the doctor go for the moment. He looked down and felt a lack of air flowing through the holes in his clothes. His tattered grey tracksuit was removed and replaced with a new one.

  Cyrus gazed toward the door, finally able to see through all the white, realizing Elysia was in the room as well. She grinned at him, holding up a bent paperclip.

  “It was pretty easy to figure out which room you were in,” Viddur explained. “Door was locked when we got here, though. Elysia picked it.” Viddur turned to Elysia, then back to Cyrus, a wicked grin on his face. “She can be as bad as me sometimes.”

  “Viddur, you’re a terrible influence.” Elysia tucked the paperclip back in her pocket and remained near the door.

  “Don’t you think Dr. Shen’s going to be at least a little upset that you’re in here with a potentially dangerous monster?” Cyrus asked. He only now remembered his ordeal in the quarantine facility and the physical changes that had accompanied it.

  “Probably, but he’ll get over it,” said Viddur, his words re-enforced by his carefree attitude. “He did say you only go nuts when you’re around zombies and vampires, so I thought we would probably be safe. Besides, you’re no monster. You’re just a big, white pussy cat.” He leaned toward Cyrus, reaching for his ear.

  Cyrus raised a hand to stop him, catching him by the wrist.

  “Come over here, Elysia.” Viddur wrenched his hand from Cyrus’s grasp. “You like cats. Don’t you want to pet the big ugly kitty?”

  Elysia blushed but remained where she was, hesitant to approach.

  “What are you doing standing over there like that?” Viddur was suddenly aware of his sister’s reluctance.

  “Sorry, Cyrus, but as much as I wanted to see if you were OK, I would prefer we had Dr. Shen’s final word before I get too close,” said Elysia.

  Cyrus might have taken offense if not for the stagnating effects of the sedative.

  “I know you wouldn’t willingly try to hurt us, but I would rather be on the safe side.” Elysia gave him a half-smile, genuine concern plastered on her face. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want it on your conscience if you unwittingly harmed one of us.”

  A series of knocks at the door silenced anything else she had to say.

  “Hello, it’s Dr. Shen,” said the muffled voice through the door, keys jingling as the doctor rummaged through his lab coat. “That’s strange. The door is unlocked,” Shen grumbled as he twisted the door handle.

  Elysia stepped out of the way, moving toward the wall away from the door, still weary of Cyrus. Viddur remained near the bed, undeterred by Dr. Shen’s arrival.

  “Hello.” Dr. Shen stepped into the room, his eyes narrowing when he saw Viddur. “I see you have decided to disregard direct orders, as usual, and reintroduced yourselves to Mr. Blackthorn before I had a chance to re-evaluate him.” Dr. Shen shook his head as he pulled out a stool and sat down beside Cyrus’s bed.

  “We just wanted to see him.” Elysia stepped forward. “You did leave him at the quarantine facility, out in the middle of nowhere for a month, without any human interaction. So what if we just wanted to see how he was doing?”

  “I appreciate your concern Elysia, but it was just a formality,” Dr. Shen explained, unsurprised to find her in the room as well. “As you know, we have engineered Cyrus to be dangerous only towards organisms infected with the vampirism virus and its derivatives, but this does not mean we should forego all precautions. Would you be so kind as to leave the room now?” Shen gave Elysia no chance for a retort, his lab assistant glaring at him with agitation.

  “I would like to begin Mr. Blackthorn’s examination. You can wait in the hall. The examination will not take long.”

  “Whatever you say, doc,” said Viddur. Both he and Elysia made for the door.

  “Goodbye, Cyrus,” said Elysia as she left the room.

  “See you later, man.” Viddur followed her, closing the door behind him.

  “Do I need to undress for the examination?” Cyrus rose from the bed, ready to remove his pants.

  “Oh, no, that will not be necessary, Mr. Blackthorn.” Dr. Shen raised an open palm to stop him. “You survived a month trapped in a ‘quarantine’ facility and made it out alive. You have to be in at least decent physical condition to have made it through those trials. I only said I was here to perform a physical evaluation to keep Elysia and Viddur out of the room.”

  “Whatever you say.” Cyrus sat back down. “What would you like to talk about?”

  “First, I would like to ask if you had any questions regarding absolutely anything you have experienced here at CyberGen?”

  “Yeah, what gives with all these sedatives?” The memory of his previous bout with Dr. Shen returned. He reached for his own throat and found the shock collar around his neck.


  “It was for safety and also convenience, I suppose. You had just threatened to kill me, so it should come as no surprise that we had to sedate you.”

  “Yes, I suppose. You realize I had no intention of harming you. You’re just so thick-headed and closed-lipped sometimes that the threat of violence seemed to be the only way to make you talk.”

  “I would have told you everything you needed to know at some point in time.” Shen placed a hand on the end of Cyrus’s bed. ”You only needed to remain patient for a little longer.”

  “Understood,” said Cyrus, trying to avoid a scolding. “Can you tell me what exactly your intentions are for me? I know we have talked about it before, but there’s something you aren’t telling me.”

  “Mr. Blackthorn, you were created to combat the growing vampire threat.”

  “Yes, you have told me more than once, doctor. I just don’t quite understand why you want me to kill them. I mean, they’re not like the zombies, if what you said earlier is true. If they retain most of their mental faculties, they’re not much different from any other human. They’re just sick people that we have no medication for yet. I understand how they can be dangerous, but why have me kill them? Can’t we, I don’t know, just lock them up until there is a cure?”

  “You are somewhat correct.” Shen stepped in front of Cyrus as though he were about to give a long academic lecture. “These people are indeed ill and as such should be allowed treatment. That I will not argue. However, there exists a large portion of those with vampirism that seek to take advantage of the side-effects imparted to them by the disorder.”

  Cyrus felt his rage cool upon hearing the doctor’s words. He hated the doctor’s habit of not telling him everything upfront.

  “I’ve told you this before, Mr. Blackthorn, and now you have observed it in our lab-grown zombies at the facility. The disorder comes with a considerable increase in physical strength, speed, and stamina.”

  “That sure isn’t the case with zombies, at least not after a while.” Cyrus gazed up at Shen. “Many of the infected routinely became ill, or that is, more ill than they were. I don’t think it would have taken much effort for a healthy adult to take them out when they got like that. Those were the ones I liked to feed on. They were the easiest ones to bring down.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard as much from the guard’s reports.” The doctor nodded in agreement. “It makes absolute sense that you would prefer to feed in the way you did. It’s only the most rational method.”

  “Exactly,” Cyrus concurred. “But, did you design your zombies to act in a specific manner?” He asked while suspicion flooded his head. “Or, I suppose more to the point, did you design them to expire after a certain period of time?”

  “I suppose I should have addressed it earlier.” Shen pulled his stool toward the wall adorned with the one-way window. He sat there, staring down at his shoes before looking back up at him. “The reason those particular infected acted the way they did was that they were approaching the end of their lifespan. As I have said before, it is rare for one inflicted with zombie-ism to survive for more than a few months before they succumb to its effects. It’s even worse when those individuals are conceived with the viral DNA already integrated into their genome, as is the case with our artificial zombies. Our clones were designed to mature at an accelerated rate so that the disorder couldn’t kill them before they were mature enough to be placed in our quarantine facility. There is no scenario where something like that is going to have a very long lifespan. It’s another one of the reasons zombie-ism is not a real threat to humanity. That, and the fact that it is considerably difficult to spread disease via bite, along with several other issues.”

  “Makes sense,” Cyrus spoke nearly under his breath. He found what the doctor had to say about zombie-ism interesting even though he had heard most of it before. It awakened the long-sleeping genetic engineer within him.

  “Severe mental degradation is not something that usually occurs with vampirism,” Shen moved on. “Their human intelligence along with the strength and durability that their disorder grants them tends to give rise to those with vampirism developing a belief system wherein they think themselves superior to all. They feel they are the next step in human evolution. This idea can then lead to a desire to enslave or even eliminate those they see as being beneath them. It doesn’t help that humanity is essentially their food source, which reinforces such beliefs.”

  Cyrus frowned. He felt as though the doctor neglected to mention something. “So what are you saying, doctor?” he asked. “I can understand how they would be an obvious threat, but… I mean, they should be killable. You said yourself, bites don’t spread pathogens around as efficiently as even the air does. Unless… no…” He was finally catching on. ”Are they organizing?” he asked, worried that his intelligence was slightly diminished by stating it.

  “Precisely. Their numbers are on the rise, and they are indeed organizing. There is one organization, in particular, that is steadily becoming very powerful, according to reports from our military connections. They must be stopped before their numbers rise to the point where they are capable of bringing humanity to its knees, twisting it to their needs. It is for this reason you were created.”

  “Is there no other way to stop them?”

  “Various anti-vampire weapons have been developed, but none have been very successful.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, for several different reasons. When the government first learned of the existence of this particular vampire organization, Atropos, conventional weapons were used. Assault rifles and weapons like that. They typically didn’t work very well, given the impenetrability of a vampire’s dermis. Those dedicated to facing the vampire threat now carry more powerful weapons, such as automatic shotguns and grenades. They use those and their own ingenuity, but they need more if they wish to eliminate the threat.”

  “Exactly who is responsible for facing the vampire threat?” Cyrus interrupted, unwilling to hold the question down too long.

  “So far, it has been a paramilitary branch of the US military known as G96 or Legion 96. They are responsible for the field testing of all of the anti-vampire weapons, both with and without our collaboration. They have seen moderate success keeping the vampires in check, more or less, though they haven’t been able to significantly reduce their numbers.”

  And exactly how did they obtain any realistic numbers? Cyrus thought to himself, deciding to let it go.

  “Is there a specific reason as to why you want a purely biological weapon?” he asked instead. “Wouldn’t a robot be a better hand-to-hand combatant for a vampire?”

  “We’ve tried to come up with a robotic solution for some time now, but the field just isn’t there yet.”

  Dr. Shen rose from his seat again and stood between Cyrus and the one-way mirror.

  “Granted, we have some technologically advanced prototypes at CyberGen, but they are complex and cannot be produced in quantities large enough to deal with the vampire menace. There will likely come a day when robots will be the primary method of eliminating rogue vampires, but that day is not here yet.”

  Probably the day they let me go home, Cyrus thought.

  “That leaves the biological weapons,” said Shen. “We have tried to create other viruses that specifically target vampires, but we’ve had no success at all. This brings us back to the visceral. We have artificially created a breed of dog in one of our other facilities, one that sniffs out vampires and then eliminates them. Legion 96 calls them hellhounds. As of right now, I have little information regarding the status of that project.”

  Shen took a breath as he prepared for a shift in their conversation.

  “Even from the beginning, we knew we needed something more intelligent, a creature with reasoning abilities like our own, one we could communicate with verbally. You are only our latest attempt at a prototype. If you show promise, or that is, if you survive your early operations, there are plans to create more
of your kind. More kresnik, as we have decided to call you. I’m sure you heard the word at the quarantine facility.”

  “I suppose that means I won’t be going home?” Cyrus nearly added the word ‘ever’ to the end of his question. He refrained, not wanting Shen to read into it further. The doctor hadn’t given him much confidence. Cyrus believed the only way he would be going home would be in a body bag. He decided to leave the subject for a better time.

  “No, you will not be going home anytime soon, Mr. Blackthorn.” The doctor shook his head. “We did have an agreement. We would cure you of your genetic ailment so long as you agreed to assist us in our venture. Furthermore, as much as I detest the phrasing, you are the combined property of both CyberGen and the US military via the nanobots that now reside within you. If you were to be released now, you would be essentially stealing that property. I couldn’t let you leave if I wanted to.”

  Shen made a failed attempt at eye contact.

  “Have you forgotten what we have done for you, Mr. Blackthorn? You have been saved from inevitable death and saved from a lifetime of weakness and pain. Does that warrant at least some loyalty?”

  “Doctor, I will never forget what you have done for me.” Cyrus tried to rise to his feet but let himself fall back onto the bed, suddenly weak at the knees. “There are few things I wouldn’t do for you, but you ask a lot. Almost too much, really. I’m not sure I realized what the trade-off entailed. A life of sickness and death for, basically, a life of indentured servitude.” He gazed toward the one-way mirror in front of him, paying little attention to his reflection and staring into space.

  “Do you really believe we can release you back into the world after what you have become?” asked Shen.

  “I suppose not.” Cyrus’s gaze fell on his reflected image in the mirror. He looked into his yellow eyes. His attention then shifted down to his hand. Cyrus extended his fingers, scrutinizing his sharp, blackened claws. He retained only a few human features.