by James Somers
“Good morning, Lola,” he said.
The security door opened before him, and he walked through. Doug took another bite of his jelly donut, careful to slurp the sticky filling off his fingers before it landed on his white button up shirt. He walked down a well lit corridor to his office at the other end and opened the door. “Illumination,” Douglas said. The lights came on at his command.
A deep male voice spoke surprised him. “Good morning, Doug.”
Douglas looked up and saw Trenton Hallowed sitting in his brown office chair behind his mahogany desk. Trenton held a crazy look in his eye. He was dressed in black fatigues. Trenton placed his black Gortex boots on the desk. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Only then did Doug notice the others standing in the room. At least a dozen men, and a few women, stood on the far side of his spacious office, in the shadows. Carl Sanders, the morning security guard, stood before them with a blank stare on his face. One of Trenton’s crew patted the older man on the back. The guard hit the floor like a one hundred and eighty pound sack of potatoes. Doug noticed the bullet hole in the back of Carl’s head.
Doug dropped his coffee drink and jelly donut. “What do you want with me?” The overweight man had already begun to perspire.
Trenton smiled at Doug. “I relieved him of duty, permanently.”
“Trenton, why are you doing this?” Doug asked, trembling.
“Because this is what must be done. Mankind has stagnated long enough,” he said. “I’m just giving humanity a kick in the pants, that’s all. My mutagen is the key to jumpstarting our evolution again.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Doug asked. Sweat already soaked the armpits of his shirt and ran down his face.
“I want the Enhancement Serum you were working on,” Trenton said.
“It’s never been properly tested—only on lab rats. It did terrible things to them—drove them crazy.”
Trenton slowly stood up from behind the desk. “I’m not a rat, Douglas. Look at what I’ve accomplished already. I want that Enhancement Serum—now!”
Trenton slammed his forearm down across the face of Doug’s mahogany desk. It split in two and buckled to the floor. Doug gasped.
Trenton smiled. “And I’m in no mood to wait.”
•••
“I think my grip is loosening. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold you up,” Jonathan said.
“NO! Please, don’t drop me!” Ming cried.
Jonathan held the man suspended over the edge of the roof by his ankle. The two hundred pound man felt no heavier than a ten pound dumbbell. But he didn’t allow Ming to know it. Jonathan groaned, as though in a strain, and dropped his arm slightly. Ming’s body bobbed toward the pavement thirty stories below. “No, wait!” Ming pleaded. “I don’t know where he took the boy. He was supposed to come back here with the rest of my men, I swear!”
“Why should I believe you?” Jonathan asked.
“I gave him money, weapons, trucks, and my people in exchange for immortality!”
“Immortality?”
“Yeah, yeah. That crazy doctor said he could make me immortal like him—said I would have super strength. I believed him, but he lied to me.”
“No honor among thieves these days?” Jonathan mused.
“Look, I swear. Hallowed bailed out on me with my own men. If I see them, they’re all dead, as far as I’m concerned.”
Jonathan pulled Ming back over the roof and dropped him at Michael’s feet. “No good, huh?”
“Nothing very useful,” Jonathan said. “What about Genetic Corp?”
“They’ve called in the National Guard already. No one has approached the building yet.”
“Any way to check on the computer files that Jay locked away?”
“All I know is we still can’t get into them,” Michael said. “Some of our best guys have been trying for the past two hours to access the database. That kid’s good.”
“I only hope he’s still alive.”
25 HALO TECH
Trenton watched Douglas Tanner, Chief Executive Officer of Halo Technologies and one of its leading scientific minds, as he stood at the security access panel to the main vault. The massive circular door loomed above them fifteen feet high, made of titanium, five feet thick. “Let’s get on with it,” Trenton said.
Ming’s mercenaries waited with Trenton in the main laboratory, one of them guarding Jay, who sat in a chair, unable to walk on his own. Trenton had broken his ankle and used the painful injury to exact the computer access he desired. Once Jay had completed his computation routine, the encryption on Trenton’s files fell like wheat before a scythe. Trenton had already accessed the vault—everything was open to him now. He only had to go to Genetic Corp and claim it.
One of the mercenaries dared to complain about the time. “How long before we get this mutagen, Hallowed?”
“Patience,” Trenton said. “You will all have what is coming to you in due time.”
“The police scanner says the mayor has called in the National Guard,” the mercenary warned. “We don’t need heat like that.”
“It won’t make any difference, once I have the Enhancement Serum. Besides, they don’t know where to find us,” Trenton said.
“With the building on lockdown, it won’t take long for them to realize something is wrong. More employees are trying to get in,” the mercenary said.
Trenton walked over to him—a young Chinese man with tattoos trailing down from his right temple to somewhere under his shirt. “If you don’t have the guts to finish this job, then just say so,” Trenton said.
The mercenary had a pistol in his hand. He could have shot Trenton right there, but it wouldn’t have done him any good. With Trenton’s power and speed, he might have killed the younger man before he could pull the trigger—certainly before the second shot.
Trenton stared the younger man down. He wouldn’t budge. The mercenary slowly holstered his pistol, then tore his eyes and his wounded pride away from the confrontation.
Trenton nodded. “That’s better.” He turned back to Douglas at the vault. “I want that vault open in ten seconds, Douglas, or you’ll be dead.”
Doug rubbed his hands together nervously. “My hands must be too sweaty. The pad isn’t taking my print identification.” He forced a laugh.
Trenton began counting. “Ten, nine, eight.”
Douglas stopped trying to be humorous. He wiped his fingers on his pants furiously, then laid his hand on the pad again. “Access Denied.”
“Seven, six, five.” Trenton walked toward Doug and the vault access panel. He raised his submachine gun, pulled the firing bolt, and allowed it to snap into ready position.
Doug frantically typed on the adjacent keypad. “Access Denied.” He cursed at the computer.
“Four, three, two.” Trenton placed the barrel to Doug’s left temple with his finger on the trigger. “Goodbye, Douglas.”
He typed again—hit enter. “Access Granted. Welcome Dr. Tanner.”
“One.”
The vault door shifted and moved out of its recessed place in the wall. Trenton watched it and smiled. “Very good, Douglas. I knew you could do it.”
Doug heaved oxygen into his lungs in great labored breaths. Sweat rolled off his body in waves. He nodded, smiling, but not for joy. He had walked too close to death and been spared—barely.
Trenton Hallowed had never been the violent sort. Anyone who ever knew him understood him to be a dedicated, driven individual. He gave to charities and helped people with his research. The last few days had changed that perception. Not a person in the room doubted the veracity of his quest for power. Anyone who got in the way of his goal became instantly expendable.
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 go
vernment 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.
“Have you kept it in here, or in the cryo unit?” 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 closed 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.
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 station 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.
“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.