“I checked on what happened to Jasper, by the way,” he said. “Heard that his precious monsters perished him, though. Now Jakoff and Dicky Perle are gettin’ the kill-squads ready. Gonna be Def-Con 4 in about fourteen hours.”
Jer shook his head as Dakota and Damiana eyeballed him. They both had anger in their eyes as if they just needed Jer’s permission to end the fucker.
“Which gives us only a few hours to get to Ambrose,” Jer said.
“Who’s Ambrose?” Dakota asked.
Jer pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of an inner pocket. It was the same paper Jasper hid in the post-office.
“Ambrose is a scientist of sorts, a criminal boss, and one of the last people to see Jasper alive,” he answered. “And Max is right, surprisingly. We need to hurry.”
The group crouched and began running through the tunnel. They came upon an intersection with a large, main down-shaft, with drooping fly-flecked tube-lighting illuminating the space.
“Isn’t Sheol a kind of purgatory?” Dakota asked.
“Sure,” Jer replied. “If by ‘purgatory’ you mean the monster’s underground city.”
The two of them rushed to keep up with Damiana and Max.
On the walls, Dakota noticed more graffiti. ‘Matthias Lives’ was emblazoned all over the tunnel walls.
“Popular guy,” Dakota said.
“Think Che Guevara but more dangerous,” Jer said. “Doesn’t just want equality for monsters. He wants monsters to rule over humans. If he even still exists, that is.”
Max and Jer shared a glance as the group shuffled farther into the down-shaft.
Back in the GenAdvance command center, Jakoff stalked the room like a televangelist, headset on, and taking in footage from myriad plasma screens. He glided through the cerebral cortex of his intelligence kingdom, looking for his break in the operation.
An aide did his best to keep up with Jakoff’s pace, rushing to stay close in case the boss demanded anything or had an order to give. The aide snapped a button on a remote-control device and pulled up live footage of GenAdvance’s kill squads readying their combat gear.
“They’re primed, sir,” the aide announced.
Jakoff stopped pacing and took it all in. He smiled and sighed deeply. “And North Brother Island?” he asked.
“In full blown chaos mode, sir,” the aide answered and stabbed the remote control which switched to footage of monsters scurrying in a panic on North Brother Island, some eyeing Purgatory Bridge where Pharma troops were massing. Other monsters dragged debris, rocks, fallen trees, and whatever loose materials they could find to the edge of the bridge, building rudimentary breastworks against the looming military advance.
“Oh, this is good,” Jakoff said, smirking. “It’ll look like they were preparing to mount an attack against South Brother Island. The optics on this are perfect.”
Jakoff wheeled around and stared at the aide.
“Any word on our blind mice?” he asked.
“Apparently absconded into the underworld,” the aide answered. “Should we send the police captain after them, sir?”
“Why would we do that? Everything’s unfolding rather nicely,” Jakoff said and peered at another screen, which showed the claws and paws of the monster that attacked Jer at the post-office, loading gear and weapons. Around his neck, there was an electronic collar that just barely peeked out of his scaly dragon skin.
“Forget the police captain. He’s useless. Send in the kill-squad,” Jakoff ordered. “We’ll reevaluate the situation on an hourly basis.”
The aide skittered off as Jakoff smiled, totally at ease, totally in control.
Inside the tunnel down-shaft area, Damiana continued leading point with Max, Jer, and Dakota following close behind.
Jer checked on Max periodically, making sure he wasn’t look for a means to run off and give away their location.
Max wiped at his expensive but tattered suit, doing everything he could to get the dust off, to no avail.
“Think GenAdvance’ll buy you a new suit, alderman?” Jer asked, joking.
“Like you ain’t on the take,” Max dared.
“I’m not,” Jer replied.
“You were though,” Max accused, as he looked back and stole a glance at Dakota. “The good doctor here started out working for the devil. Didn’t tell you that when you joined his little clinic, did he? He had to put in six months at GenAdvance to get his permit to practice in the borough approved.”
The group moved into a section that had even less light than the previous area.
“It’s true,” Jer admitted. “GenAdvance hired me out of med school. Until I found out that a drug they manufactured called ‘Stay’ caused high-blood pressure in monsters.”
“Which in turn led to—” Dakota began.
“Heart disease, congestive heart failure, atherosclerosis, abdo-aortic aneurysms, and all manner of other fucked up shit,” Jer said, finishing the thought. “So I outed the drug to my supervisor, one Mr. Jakoff.”
“What did GenAdvance do?” Dakota asked.
“Got promoted when he outed doc’s ass to the street,” Damiana answered. “Which is why we have the pleasure of his counseling.”
“Therapy,” Jer corrected. “Counseling is more like life advice. Therapy focuses on your specific challenges and trauma.”
The group stopped as Jer caught a look from Damiana.
“Cost the company millions, but my action saved lives,” Jer added. “Monster lives.”
“And they’ve hated the good doc ever since,” Damiana says.
“They aren’t the only ones who hate him,” a voice growled from the darkness.
Everybody turned as a muscle-quilted beast named Carswell emerged from the shadows. The monster nodded to Damiana but frowned at the rest of the group.
“What do you think you’re doing, bringing them down here?” Carswell asked Damiana with a scowl.
“Why don’t you ask the doc,” Damiana replied. “You’re going to want to hear what he has to say.”
Carswell looked to Jer. “Well?”
“Doing a Jacob Riis,” Jer answered. “Came to see how the other half lives.”
Damiana moved over to Carswell, and the two of them shook hands.
“They’re under my protection,” Damiana said. “I’m responsible for them. If anything happens, it’s on me.”
Carswell gestured to Max. “That asshole too?” he asked.
“No,” Damiana said. “You can go ahead and kill him if it suits your fancy.”
Carswell faked a lunge at Max who flinched.
Damiana and Carswell shared a laugh.
“I’m joking, alderman,” Damiana said, still chuckling. “Oh man, you look like you’re about to shit your pants.”
“Uh-huh,” Max said and forced a smile as he clutched his ruffled suit. “Good one.”
Carswell held up a tablet and swiped at the screen. A metal door slid open, revealing a walkway that led to a staircase. The steps disappeared down into pitch-black nothingness below.
“This rabbit hole keeps going lower and lower and lower,” Max said.
“Is that an Alice in Wonderland reference?” Dakota asked. “Some kind of joke about monsters?”
“At least my sense of humor is better than threatening to kill an innocent man,” Max replied.
“Innocent,” Damiana said and chuckled, along with the others.
Carswell threw his hand out.
“Who’s got the tribute?” he asked.
Damiana shrugged and pointed to Dakota.
Dakota pointed to Jer.
Jer pointed to Max.
Max fumed but whipped out his wallet. He stuffed a wad of bills into Carswell’s mammoth mitts.
Max then tried to move past Carswell, but he was stopped in his tracks. Carswell swung out an arm out to block the way forward.
“An alderman and the devil were sitting in a bar…” Carswell began.
“’Scuse me,” Max s
aid.
“I said,” Carswell began again, “an alderman and the devil were sitting in a bar. Devil said to the alderman, ‘I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world. In return you just have to forfeit your soul.’ Alderman looks at the devil and says, ‘so what’s the catch?’”
Max and Carswell stared each other down.
“I usually have a policy of killing prejudiced aldermen first and asking questions later,” Carswell said. “Damiana may have been joking about it, but I’m not.”
“If you don’t let me pass, all of us will die,” Max said.
Carswell’s eyes flared yellow, and he looked to Damiana, who nodded in confirmation. Carswell moved his arm out of the way.
Max shuffled past and plodded down the staircase, which dropped to a metal door that Max leaned against. He pushed on it, eager to exit the dank tunnel.
As the door began to open, a bright light spreads across his face as a professorial voice hit his ears, along with cacophonous murmurs from monsters.
Max backed up out of fear.
Jer pushed forward, unafraid of the unknown, and led the group inside.
12
The Truth Comes to Light
Through the door Jer entered into the rear of a large and dark theater where monsters watched images flicker across a wide screen.
Jer plodded across the rear of the theater, trying not to draw attention as he took in the surroundings. His eyes transfixed on the screen.
Footage of GenAdvance rising in power played as a narrator intoned, “A small startup grew from a fifty-million-dollar genetic research startup into an eight-hundred-billion-dollar global behemoth, almost overnight. It all started when GenAdvance outbid Walmart and China’s Xiang-Pi Enterprises for the former United Kingdom’s Ministry of Health and Human Betterment.”
The footage switched to a dapper, professorial-type who lowered a pipe as he pontificated—the professorial narrator. “It really was a remarkable ploy,” the professor continued. “They purchased a share of HHB for twenty-million and in return got a fifty-one percent voting interest. They then turned around, pumped the share price and sold their stake for roughly eight-hundred million. Care to guess the rate of return on that?”
The footage changed back to graphics showing GenAdvance buildings growing in size and number. Various company logos were replaced by GenAdvance. Its corporate network spread out like octopus arms.
The narrator began speaking again. “GenAdvance was then poised for its biggest gamble of the privatization years,” the narrator said. “A successful takeover bid for USARMSCORP, the company formerly known as the United States Military.”
The footage switched to show a ceremony. A four-star General formally handed a golden key to a young Dick Perle, the GenAdvance CEO.
Damiana, a grin on her face, sidled up next to Jer. “‘Member the good old days?” she asked. “Back when your pharmacist and your special ops soldier weren’t the same guy?”
The footage on the screen flickered as Jer and Damiana caught up with the others, who were bypassing the footage, and pushed out of the theater and into an eerie side room where a blinding white light splashed across their faces.
“Sheol,” Jer said. “Never thought I’d see it firsthand.”
Ribbons of fluorescent lights hung from wires high above the dusty space.
“Technically, this area is called ‘Dusk,’” Damiana said.
They edged farther in into an underground open market. A mishmash of Tijuana-like food and contraband carts blended with low-rise and hastily constructed tin homes, fruit and fly markets under tents.
Dakota stepped forward to get a better look. She gasped as she took in the view.
Her eyes went wide at the colossal space, which was thousands of yards across and deep. Beyond the tin homes, carts, and tent markets, popup saloons, clubs, and cathouses clotted the landscape. Most storefronts were carved into the cavern walls.
The population consisted of almost entirely monsters. A few random packs of human-teenagers roamed about searching for cheap drugs and even cheaper thrills.
“W-what is this place?” Dakota asked.
Jer weighed his response. “There are monsters that want to be helped, Dakota,” he answered. “And then there are the ones here, the ones who have accepted that the folks above ground will never accept them as equal members of society.”
“You’re saying that they’ve given up on a better life?” she asked as she watched monsters popping pills out in the open and trading cash for weapons. “I’m surprised that GenAdvance hasn’t tried to—”
“Wipe the place out?” Jer asked.
“You don’t have to finish my sentences for me, you know,” she replied.
“Sorry, force of habit,” Jer replied.
“In their dreams,” Damiana said, interrupting.
Jer and Dakota turned to Damiana.
“The single greatest fear for GenAdvance is to get caught up in an urban, guerrilla war,” Damiana added as she gestured to the rows of mud huts and slums carved into the walls.
Some of the cutouts went deep and formed into what looked like passageways and corridors that led in and out of the underground city.
“They’d never send anyone down here,” Damiana continued. “If they did...nasty, nasty things would happen, above and below ground. Full scale revolts would break out in not just North Brother Island but in every monster borough. And you know how GenAdvance is about PR.”
Max scoffed from behind.
“You give them too much credit,” he said.
“Are you coming around to the errors of your ways, Max?” Jer asked.
“Nope,” Max replied. “Totally cool with my deviance. I judge all equally. Hate monsters, hate other people. Hate GenAdvance too. Pretty much the only thing that doesn’t piss me off is me.”
“Shocker,” Damiana said.
“Seeing as how he hates everyone, it’s a wonder he’s been elected alderman not once but four times, running unopposed of course,” Jer said.
“Why is he still along for the ride?” Damiana asked.
“Access,” Jer answered. “You’ll see.”
“I’m still not helping until I get my reward,” Max added.
“You will,” Dakota said, which caused Jer to squint.
He couldn’t help but wonder how an intern was going to come up with the kind of liquid cash that would get an alderman to betray his employers. There was more to Jer’s new intern than met the eye, but he was yet to put a finger on it, and the best outcome at this point was that she came from money and had a trust fund. No way did her Yale scholarship stipend provide enough cash for bribes.
“For the moment, though, all that matters is we’re safe down here,” Damiana said. “Take a breather, get some grub, recharge. You’re all going to need the energy if we’re going to come out of all this alive. Once we’re rested, we make a plan.”
Jer nodded in agreement and started to head off on his own and toward a bar that was carved into the cavern walls, but Dakota hurried after him.
“Hey,” she said, catching up.
“You’re relentless,” Jer said.
“Thanks!”
“Wasn’t a compliment.”
“All the same,” she said. “Listen, I’m kind of scared to be down here by myself. Mind if I tag along with you?”
Jer groaned. “Thought you were sympathetic,” he said. “Now monsters scare you?”
“I am,” she said and quietly gestured to a monster with fangs protruding down to her breasts. “But they don’t hide who they are down here, and if I’m being honest, when they don’t groom their fangs and horns, it’s hard not to let a little fear creep in.”
Another monster passed by and glared at them. His horns stretched out so far that they curled back around and almost touched his scaly forehead.
“You know they don’t even use their fangs or horns to fight,” Jer said. “That’s just how they’re portrayed in propaganda films. They fight wi
th their paws, feet, and claws. Most scientists agree that their fangs developed to help them suck honey out of beehives. Besides, humans have fangs too. They’re just not very pronounced.”
“Still, they look the part,” Dakota said.
Jer grimaced and shrugged.
“At least you’re making an effort,” he said. “Got to give you that.”
“Aced Effort 101 as well,” she said.
Jer rolled his eyes.
“Come on,” he said, accepting that she didn’t want to be alone. “I need a bite and a drink. Besides, the company’ll be nice, and you’ve gotta be famished.”
Dakota smiled with her eyes.
“I love food,” she said, as if this was news.
Her comment made Jer narrow his eyes. She was a strange one alright.
At the same moment, in a tunnel just outside Sheol, the scaly-winged dragon-monster who attacked Jer at the post office streaked past. Its wing span was so long that rocks tumbled from the walls as the creature sped forward.
Three monsters who were small-sized feather-winged harpies followed close behind. Unlike the dragon-monster who didn’t hide his scaly flesh or wings, the three harpies wore clothing, specifically armor-plated vests, heavy combat boots, pouches with grenades, and slings of ammunition. They carried semi-automatics and long-blades. They were also a quarter of the dragon-monster’s size.
The only thing that appeared similar pressed tightly against their feathery flesh. Metal collars that were a cross between hi-tech Fitbits and shackles covered the entirety of their necks.
Pulling up the rear with a smirk and darkness in her eyes was Alexandra Pike, the kill-squad team leader who, along with the deceased Ritter, had arrested Jer on suspicion of murdering his best friend. Over the comms interface surgically implanted into her left ear lobe, a familiar and unpleasant voice crackled out commands.
“Make certain they secure the vial and paper,” Jakoff ordered through a filtered voice.
“Roger that,” Pike replied. “Vial and paper will be secured.”
“Very good,” Jakoff said. “Time we finally use our secret weapon and our clever little ploy to get what we need. Enough jerking off. Let’s finish these fuckers and get what’s ours.”
Monster M.D.: A Monster Girl Harem Mystery Thriller (Monster M.D. ) Page 11