The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic
Page 38
Yuri glanced down the rows of steel and glass cabinets that were clearly marked: Anthrax, Ebola, Marburg Virus, Plague, Q fever, Junin Virus, Glanders, and Smallpox; each had to be numbered and their dates checked. He worked, with clipboard in hand, in the tedious manner he had cultivated ever since he had become chief of scientific research at the facility.
The term ‘research’ made him want to gag. There hadn't been a kopek of new research money in a decade, and every year his budget shrank. There was even talk of ending the bio-weapons program altogether.
And then what would Yuri do?
The struggling Russian government wasn't hiring many scientists, and the private sector wasn't eager to be associated with a man who had made his living producing and maintaining weapons of mass destruction. His legal options were few, and his illegal options were even fewer, but they were oh, so lucrative – Five hundred million rubles worth of lucrative. The promise of the money was the single reason he had taken to going to the one locked drawer in the room on every visit.
With a quivering in his chest that wouldn't stop, Yuri undid the stout combination lock, opened the door to the locker, pulled back on the stainless steel slab, and then forced himself to breathe in a normal manner: in and out, in and out. The body lay beneath a sheet and as always, Yuri uncovered it with gritted teeth, while his gorge rose in the back of his throat.
The body was that of a man, or rather it used to be a man, now it was something else.
He took the right arm of the thing, it was grey and stiff, and set it to hang as far as the handcuffs would allow, letting the black blood pool in the extremity. Yuri then went through what had become a routine and completely unnecessary check up. The thing on the slab should have been dead. It was quite literally ice cold since the refrigeration unit was kept at a constant zero degrees centigrade. And yet it was already moving.
The hands spread and the muscles around its mouth began to work, opening and closing. It was in the eyes where it was most "alive". Somehow they were hungry and furious, but also glassy and empty of any intellect. Lately, Yuri had begun to dream about those eyes, and lately Yuri had become an insomniac. He couldn't sleep, knowing that those nightmare eyes would be worn by everyone he knew—if things went wrong.
Still he had a job to do and after a deep breath of stale bio-suit air, he began his check-up, starting with the hated eyes. He then peered into its ears, and nose, and its horrid, dank mouth. Then, making sure his body was completely blocking the camera, Yuri pulled a syringe from one of the zippered cargo pockets that adorned his suit and jabbed the needle into the crook of the thing’s arm where a fat vein had begun to bulge.
The thing didn't flinch. According to every report the creature that once had been a man, couldn't feel the slightest pain.
Yuri filled the syringe with black blood, and then very carefully pocketed it. The virus was blood born and though he could bath in it if he wished, a single prick from the infected needle would kill him in hours.
With sweat running down his back, he covered the body, slid it back into the freezer where it belonged and then went on to his next chore which was to switch out the attenuated viruses in their little plastic pipettes. There were a total of twenty doses of the vaccine—he took six, leaving normal saline in their place. No one would notice, not until it was too late for them.
Of the six doses, he would inject himself with one of them that night, just in case; three were part of the bargain that would make him rich, and the final two he would keep for himself.
These last would guarantee him a position of power if his clients, the North Koreans, were ever foolish enough to release the virus. Given the right conditions he could churn out vaccines in as little as four months, while he had to wonder if the Koreans would ever figure it out. They were pathetically behind in all aspects of technology, as everyone knew.
Yuri closed the last glass case and breathed a sigh of relief. He was done and not a single alarm had gone off, which meant that one wouldn't. Beria had been as poor at his job as ever. Moving quickly, now that the toughest part of his job was past, Yuri breezed through both air-locks, and with the utmost care he transferred the syringe from his bio-suit to his jacket pocket. It felt like he was carrying a bomb with a hair trigger as he made his way up to his office, however nothing untoward happened and he was able to take the needle off the syringe without mishap.
The now capped syringe and the clear pipettes he bagged and then placed inside his thermos, while the needle he dropped onto the open face of the sandwich his wife had made him for lunch; it would go to waste anyway, he could never eat after a visit to the White Room. Very carefully he wrapped it back in the brown bag it had come from and this he gently put in a medical waste container.
One last item: Yuri took the container, which was nothing more than a plastic bag, and walked it personally to the incendiary chute and tossed it in. Now he was done. He went to his desk and sat there picturing everything five hundred million rubles would buy, sighing happily.
A Perfect America
The Sacrificial Daughter
The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead: Day One
The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead: Day Two
The Horror of the Shade: Trilogy of the Void 1
An Illusion of Hell: Trilogy of the Void 2
Hell Blade: Trilogy of the Void 3
The Punished
Sprite
The Blood Lure: The Hidden Land Book 1
The King's Trap: The Hidden Land Novel 2
To Ensnare A Queen: The Hidden Land Novel 3
The Apocalypse: The Undead World Novel 1
The Apocalypse Survivors: The Undead World Novel 2
The Apocalypse Outcasts: The Undead World Novel 3
The Apocalypse Fugitives: The Undead World Novel 4
The Apocalypse Renegades: The Undead World Novel 5
The Apocalypse Exile: The Undead World Novel 6
The Apocalypse War: The Undead World Novel 7
The Edge of Hell: Gods of the Undead 1
The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2
Pen(Novella)
A Sliver of Perfection (Novella)
The Haunting At Red Feathers(Short Story)
The Haunting On Colonel's Row(Short Story)
The Drawer(Short Story)
The Eyes in the Storm(Short Story)
The Witch: Jillybean in the Undead World