Guinea Pig

by Curtis, Greg

  And it absolutely wasn't bad when he'd had to listen to the ludicrous warnings of that damned priest. Blaming the disasters that had beset Los Angeles on the freak show on the table. The man was pure end of the world doom and gloom. He was obviously a little unhinged as well. He'd spent too long with his head bowed and the blood rushing to his knees. He hadn't spent long enough in the real world.

  In fact Gamut thought the fact that the mission had been carried out without even a minor hitch was a shining success, all things considered. It was something to be proud of. Another victory for America when all around and within were enemies. People that didn't even know they were enemies. Priests who placed their deities above the country. Doctors who considered their guilt more important.

  As for the freak show himself, what he was Gamut didn't know. But he liked to imagine that if he'd been more alert he might have realised that no matter his pain he served a greater cause. That he understood that his sacrifice would not be for nothing.

  He'd said little. That was probably for the best. And maybe Gamut did feel a twinge of sorrow for him, but not a lot. In the end he was just a mug who had taken money to participate in a drug trial. He was paying the consequences for that bit of stupidity. Besides, he wasn't really human. Not any more. And if he wasn't human then he wasn't really an American either. So if he caused the man some pain what did it matter?

  If Gamut had a regret it was that he hadn't killed him when he'd had the chance. It would have been the merciful thing to do. No one should have to live like that. Besides, the man was a walking treasure trove of genetic engineering secrets. The longer he lived outside of a secure government research facility, even under guard, the greater the chance that the secrets contained in his flesh would get out. That an enemy would learn of them. There seemed to be no good reason to let him keep breathing. But orders were orders, and the freak had to live. He wasn't sure why. But he obeyed his orders. At least when those giving them served the country as he did. And Gamut was loyal above all else.

  What he didn't understand was why the major was taking so long. He'd headed over to the hospital building half an hour before, claiming he wanted to see the results of his tests with his own eyes. And then he'd left Gamut in his office in the administration building across the other side of the campus to wait for him. It was a nice enough office, the chair was comfortable and the huge panoramic window granted him a lovely view of the grounds, but he didn't want to be there.

  If he'd been a suspicious type Gamut would have worried that he was being set up. That the Major was making up an excuse to leave him alone while his soldiers surrounded him.

  Actually he was a suspicious type. That was why he never used his real name anywhere. Just his call sign. Even the major didn't know his name. Just his bank account numbers.

  But no soldiers were surrounding him. He kept checking. And in any case that wasn't the way things were done. The government needed specialist outside contractors to do the work they could never get their hands dirty with. They recruited and trained them themselves before letting them go. They paid them highly for their services. And if word had ever got out that they were then betraying their own people, it would have been a disaster for everyone.

  So as he sat there in the leather bound office chair waiting impatiently for the major to return and occasionally checked to see if any soldiers were creeping up on his position, he knew he was safe. More or less.

  It was a pretty view. The four story tall research hospital was situated in the middle of a lovely field of green grass and tall trees. And for a government building it was actually quite pretty – the benefit he guessed of having nearly unlimited funds to build it with. Meanwhile all the ancillary buildings like the administration block were really just large houses. There weren't that many cars around either, but then he guessed the hospital didn't really have many patients, just researchers. And whatever they researched was too important to have strangers wandering around through the building potentially seeing things they shouldn't. There weren't even that many soldiers. A few patrolled the grounds, but they seemed relaxed. Some more were stationed at the front gate. And somewhere over the far side he knew they had quarters. But they didn't wander around in numbers spoiling the view.

  A sudden rumble caught his attention and made him look away from the view to the floor under his feet. Naturally his first thought was that it was an earthquake as he leapt to his feet and prepared to run. That was every Californian's first thought when the ground rumbled. But if it was an earthquake it wasn't a big one. Nothing was falling off the desk or the shelves. The pens in their little cup on the desk were shaken a little but not too much. And he couldn't hear anyone running in the other offices.

  Still, there were alarms ringing in the distance. As he looked across the way he could see the staff slowly walking out of the building. Actually they weren't that slow. They were running. That seemed a little like an over-reaction to him. Then the ground suddenly lurched violently and he forgot about them as he was sent reeling across the room.

  Gamut smashed into the wall and then fell to the floor. But he was quickly back on his feet. Years of training had taught him that he didn't have time to lie around when things were happening. Whether they were gun battles or earthquakes he had to be ready.

  The ground lurched violently once more in the opposite direction and he found himself tumbling violently once again. This he realised, was no minor quake. It was big. Very big. The acoustic panels in the ceiling were falling down and huge cracks had appeared in the walls. The building was coming down.

  Once more he got to his feet and immediately ran for the door. It was time to get outside where nothing heavy could fall on him. But when he reached it the door wouldn't open. The frame had bent and the door was wedged shut. When he pulled at the handle with all his strength it came off in his hands. And unfortunately the door was solid. No matter how many times he shoulder charged it he couldn't break through it.

  Moments later, breathing heavily and starting to get desperate he realised that that left him with only one escape route; the panoramic window. Instinctively he hurled the door handle at it with every ounce of strength he had and cracked it. But the window didn't shatter, probably because it had a toughened laminate layer. So he picked up the office chair and smashed it into the broken window, hitting it as hard as he could, repeatedly.

  Glass went flying everywhere, on both sides of the tough laminate, but the laminate itself held somehow. Who would make such toughened glass he wondered? But he immediately knew the answer. The military. It was probably shock or bomb proof. So he hit it again and then again, and the awkwardly shaped edges of the chair finally started tearing into it and cutting it away.

  When Gamut saw that he realised what he had to do and quickly started pulling at the edges of the tear with his hands, widening it until he could squeeze his way through. He cut himself quite badly, but when the ground suddenly lurched once more and tossed him all the way back across the office and into the far wall again, he didn't care about a little blood. It was live or die. So he ran back to the window and started pulling at the tear again, frantic. He had to get out.

  All of the ceiling panels chose that moment to come crashing down in a storm of plaster and dust on top of him and the wall shelves joined them. But he ignored them as he worked. A few bumps and bruises were unimportant. And it wasn't the ceiling panels that would kill him. It was the solid roof tiles above them, and he could see them coming loose through the gaps in the ceiling.

  He had to get out before the building came down on top of him.

  Finally, with his blood everywhere, he thought he'd widened the tear in the laminate enough and he started pushing his way through it. Forcing himself through the tear and widening it with his body. He took cuts and scratches all over as he did, but when he heard the sound of the heavy clay roof tiles smashing down on to the floor behind him and shattering, he didn't care. There wasn't much time.

  And then like a mira
cle from above he felt hands on him. Strong hands, grabbing his arms and pulling him free.

  A heartbeat later he was lying on the trembling grass, free and celebrating as he seldom had. He was alive. It was a joyous moment and he looked up to give thanks to his saviour, only to see the most impossible thing he'd ever seen. The hospital, four stories of white concrete and glass was slowly sinking.

  “Crap!” He lay there staring at it, wondering if he was really seeing it. If he wasn't dreaming. Buildings didn't do that. But just like a ship at sea it was sinking. Slowly slipping down into a sea of green while the ground rumbled.

  It was surprisingly gentle. Nothing broke, there was no shattering of the huge glass windows. The building didn't even rock. But it was remorseless. Floor by floor it disappeared in front of him, like an elevator going down, and soon he was watching the dark roof itself slip below the grass a few tragic figures standing on it, desperately hunting for a way off the sinking building. There was no way off for them, and he watched them sink into the ground with the rest of the building. And even after that it kept going. The aerials and dishes on the building's roof followed it down, some of them several stories high themselves. Soon they were gone too.

  But even then when it was out of sight he knew it wasn't over. The ground was still rumbling and occasionally lurching violently. And down in the Earth, wherever it was, he was certain the building was still sinking. Travelling deeper and deeper.

  He knew one thing more. There weren't many survivors. There were a few; he could see them on the grass looking down into the abyss. But they were only a few. Many hundreds of people worked in that building however – people who hadn’t left in the great exodus from LA – and they were still in it. Slowly descending into hell.

  Eventually the rumbling stopped. Everything eventually stopped – it was simply a law of nature. That Gamut knew, was his cue. His chance to do something. But there wasn't much to do. Nothing except see what had happened. Gamut got to his feet and along with others started making his way to where the few survivors were standing, still looking down. No one spoke. No one made a sound. They just walked, fearing what they'd find. And when he got there it was everything he'd imagined and feared it would be.

  There was a crater. A huge gaping maw in the ground that had to extend down at least three or four hundred yards. And right in the bottom of it, in the throat he could see rubble. Bits of concrete and glass that he knew had once been a large modern hospital. But not all of it. That mound was just the last gulp the Earth hadn't yet swallowed. Soon it would.

  Sink hole. Someone said the word and instantly Gamut knew they were right. This was another sink hole. But unlike the other survivors Gamut knew one thing more. He knew what had caused it. It had occurred because of the samples he had brought back. This was his fault.

  The damned priest had been right. He was crazy, his world was one of complete insanity, but he was still right. Gamut had brought the samples back, someone had combined them with human cells, and the Earth had immediately swallowed the whole lot up. Anything to make sure that nothing of that unholy union between human and angel survived. And now, if they were lucky, nothing had. Because if it had survived, if there was another man wandering about with his body mixed with angel bits, the rest would follow. Ice storms, fire storms, lightning. Anything and everything it needed to do to destroy him. The same as it was trying to do to the rest of California.

  He should have killed that freak! Gamut knew it with every fibre of his being. He should have killed him and burnt the remains. And he should never have brought any part of him here. But it was too late now. He hadn't done what he should have done. He had done what he shouldn't have. And as a result hundreds of people had died. Hundreds of American citizens. Scientists and military people. People who mattered if the country wasn't to be overrun by its enemies.

  But the true death toll was more than that. These few hundred were dead because he had brought a sample back here and the doctors had dared to use it. But tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands were dead because William Simons lived. Half a state was damaged, a city was ruined and millions were homeless. And the longer he lived the more would die.

  He should have killed him!

  Gamut couldn't go back and fix his mistake now, even though he knew it was a mistake to let him live for even another second. It was his mistake. He couldn't go back to that ruined hospital just yet. Not without the right papers. But he would fix it soon. That he swore to himself.

  When he had set out on his path to become the man he was, he had known only one rule. Whatever he did he always served the country. He was loyal. That was why he could do what he did. He served a greater master than himself. Greater than any personal motive of greed or petty morality. Those who gave in to greed ended up betraying their country sooner or later. Those who believed their morals were more important than the safety and security of America usually ended up doing the same. Even those who followed their orders blindly without thought of what they were doing, made mistakes. But they were not him.

  Everything he did he did for his country. If he took an assignment he took it knowing how it would benefit America. And if he knew it would, he carried it out without question. Just as he had taken this one. But in front of him was the proof that he had got this terribly wrong. He had collected the tissue samples because the technology was too important to lose. It could make America the unquestioned superpower in genetic engineering – and that was the new frontier. It was everything from military power to economic power. America had to have it. It could not fall into the hands of an enemy country. It could not be lost due to the disloyalty of the priests as they placed their God above country. Nor to the pathetic personal failings of a doctor lost to guilt. There should be no guilt. Not when he had brought such knowledge to the country.

  So he had done what had to be done. He had brought the samples to the proper scientists who would use it for the good of the country. And it had been a mistake. Hundreds of important citizens, top flight scientists and military leaders were dead because he had done his job.

  Worse than that he had obeyed his orders not to kill the patient. But he should have killed him. Not only was the man a walking genetics laboratory that no one else could ever know about; now it appeared he was also an enemy of America. He had brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands and destroyed a state. He had done more damage to the country than any war since World War Two. And the priests had even said as much. But still he had let the man live. He had let an enemy walk free. And the country would pay for his failure.

  That could not happen. He could not allow it. And he would not.

  Gamut knew that he could not undo what had been done. But he could make sure that the next catastrophe whatever it was, never happened. All it would take was a bullet. There would be no payment required. And if his employers disagreed they were out of luck. After what he'd seen, what he now knew, William Simons was a threat to the country and one far too dangerous to be allowed to live.

  Chapter Twenty Six.

  Will awoke to pain. Everything within him hurt, and it wasn't the general ache of overworked muscles or even the throbbing pain of a headache. It was the intensely sharp stabbing pain of having had holes drilled into him. A dozen holes literally drilled into him one after the other.

  The memory of the attack was like an open wound in his thoughts. Every part of it. The stabbing, cutting, tearing pain. The burning as his flesh cooked from the friction of the drill. The smell of blood and seared meat. The sound of the drill and the image of the doctor almost on top of him as he forced the drills into his very bones. It was all still with him even now that it was ended. The torture might have finished for everyone else but it still lived within him as he lay there, the pain refusing to go away.

  He had screamed at the time, losing control of himself and even now he still wanted to scream. If he could he thought he might keep screaming for the rest of his life. But as much as he wanted to scream he couldn
't. There were tubes in his throat, more than before, and they made screaming difficult. But something else within him made it completely impossible. Some primitive part of him that understood that that way led to madness. If he gave into his fear and horror now, he would never stop. He would never escape it.

  His life had become a nightmare but this had been no mere bad dream. Even the worst of them didn't leave you in pain when you woke up. But he desperately wanted it to be one. Just a bad dream that had passed and which could quickly be forgotten when he woke up.

  But he was awake. The pain was real – sharp and visceral – almost as bad as it had been when he'd actually been being tortured, and it would not go away. He feared it might never leave him.