Island 731

by Jeremy Robinson

  It was Bray who answered. “I’ll tell you why.” He stood off his bench and stepped closer to the bars, staring at Kam. “And please, correct me if I’m wrong.”

  With no reply forthcoming, Bray continued. “During World War Two, Unit Seven thirty-one set up shop on this island. The first location in mainland China worked out well for chemical and germ warfare development. Lots of people for experiments. Flea bombs with bubonic plague. Family pets given cholera. Poisoned water supplies. Sick shit. But nowhere as sick as what you boys dreamed up for this island. You’d have thought vivisection was bad enough, but Unit Seven thirty-one wanted to fuck with nature. Make living weapons. Down and dirty biological weapons. Screw microbiology. They wanted macroweapons. So you came here, where you thought you’d never be discovered. You buried the bodies in the sand. Or dumped them into the river. And over the past seventy years, the island became populated with the freak show Unit Seven thirty-one dreamed up. But test subjects are harder to come by, right? So you hijack ships, maybe lure in others with distress calls, or maybe go the old-fashioned pirate route. However you get them here, once they’re in that cove, they never leave. How close am I?”

  Kam stood still.

  Pulse.

  Hawkins flinched, expecting some kind of attack to follow the barely audible sound.

  “You are correct,” Kam said. “On all counts.”

  “But it doesn’t explain you, Kam,” Bray said. “You’re, what? Twenty?”

  Pulse.

  “Twenty-three,” Kam said, stepping closer to Bray, but not yet looking at him. “My father was Kamato Shimura Senior. My father was twenty-five when he led the research here.”

  “You were born when your father was seventy?” Bray said, sounding incredulous.

  “My … mother was not so old,” Kam said. “I was born on Island Seven thirty-one. I didn’t leave here until four years ago when—”

  Pulse, pulse.

  Kam stammered, glancing up, first at Bray and then Bennett, and then back to his feet. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Someone’s definitely directing Kam’s answers, Hawkins decided. One pulse for an affirmative answer, two for negative. He couldn’t fully trust Kam. He doubted he could trust him ever again. But the apology might have been genuine. And that meant they might have a chance. So how can I out Kam and find out who’s really in charge without revealing his apology?

  “Since my father’s death ten years ago,” Kam said, “his work has continued.”

  Hawkins stood. “But not by you.”

  Kam looked thrown by the statement. “What?”

  During his college years, Hawkins, like all college boys, did stupid things. He didn’t go streaking or binge drink, but he’d been placed in the “nerd dorm” and the game of choice involved learning silly phrases in foreign languages and saying them to people on camera. Hawkins played along, finding it mildly humorous, until he used his Japanese phrase on a woman who spoke the language. She’d been more surprised than anything, and answered his question kindly, pointing down the hall toward the men’s room. He repeated the phrase now, “Benjo wa doko desu ka?”

  Where’s the toilet?

  When Kam didn’t reply, Hawkins repeated the phrase more forcefully. “Benjo wa doko desu ka!”

  Kam began to fidget.

  “You can’t speak a word of Japanese, can you, kid?”

  Pulse, pulse.

  “Ignore whoever is sending you the signals,” Hawkins shouted, “and answer my damn question for yourself!”

  The response was laughter. But it didn’t come from Kam. It came from one of Hawkins’s cellmates.

  39.

  Hawkins nearly fell over when he spun toward the source of the laughter. At first he couldn’t believe the man had anything to do with this island. It seemed absurd. Even when the soft chuckle turned into a maniacal cackle, he thought maybe the kid had finally just cracked. It wasn’t until Bennett slipped easily out of his plastic cuffs and unlocked his cell door that Hawkins knew, without a doubt, that Bennett—the terrified, bumbling kid—had taken them all for suckers.

  Bennett laughed and laughed, for nearly a minute. He tried to control himself a few times, but whenever he looked up at the prisoners’ shocked faces, he howled with renewed vigor. He held on to the operating table while the last remnants of his laughter worked their way out of his body. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Ohh, that was good. Haven’t laughed that hard since— You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed that hard.”

  Bennett looked at Jones and nearly started laughing again. “Oh, Harry. You look so wounded.” He suddenly changed his body language to that of a young, scared man. “Yes … yes, sir.” The reenactment of his feigned fear aboard the Magellan was perfect. He straightened back up. All of the fear and timidity disappeared.

  “We trusted you,” Jones said, holding on to one of the cell bars. “My daughter trusted you.”

  Bennett flashed a wicked grin. “Oh, she did more than that.”

  Jones looked like he’d had the life sucked right out of him. He stumbled back and sat on the bench, his head down.

  Hawkins tried to ignore the sharp emotions of the moment. “Remain calm in the face of danger,” GoodTracks told him once. “Fear can focus the mind if it is not allowed to blossom out of control.” He tried to put the pieces together, but Bennett wasn’t going to give him a chance.

  Bennett spun toward Hawkins and stabbed a finger at him. “I can’t believe you left me in the jungle! Seriously. No sense of responsibility. Of course, I suppose I can’t blame you. Joliet is really the only one of us you care about.”

  When Hawkins didn’t take the bait, Bennett leaned against the metal bars of his and Bray’s cages. “So, how about it? Has the dynamic duo figured things out yet?” He waggled a finger first at Hawkins, then at Bray. “You’re the sidekick, by the way. Going to have to lose that potbelly if you want to compete with Alpha Male over here.”

  For a moment, neither man spoke. Bennett was enjoying this too much to humor his request. At the same time, it might be the only way to get answers.

  Bennett hopped up on the operating table and kicked his legs like a ten year old eagerly awaiting an ice-cream cone. “C’mon, you have a captive audience, after all.”

  Hawkins cut Bennett’s snickering short. “The island started out as a Unit Seven thirty-one facility, and maybe the original buildings continued to operate for years after the war. But this isn’t a Japanese site anymore.”

  Bray took a sharp breath, no doubt figuring out where Hawkins’s line of thinking was going. “Holy shit.”

  “What?” Blok asked. “Is this some kind of secret corporate lab?”

  “Secret? Yes,” Bennett said. “Corporate, no.”

  “The feed bag in the barn is written in English,” Hawkins said. “The warning message in that, that—”

  “I call it ‘the gallery,’” Bennett said. “They were works of art. ‘Were’ being the operative word since you made me incinerate them.”

  “—freak show,” Hawkins said, “was also in English. If Kam was really born here, and I think he was telling the truth about that, and he can’t speak a word of Japanese, then he was raised in an English-speaking community. His accent is either fake or learned from his father, who knew Japanese, but spoke English.”

  Kam seemed to shrink at the mention of his name. Despite his betrayal and participation in the unforgivable kidnapping, torture, and murder of several Magellan crewmembers, and perhaps hundreds of other people, Hawkins suspected that his involvement was somehow compulsory.

  “In 1946, the War Department took an interest in Unit Seven thirty-one,” Bray said. “They uncovered the Zhongma Fortress in Beiyinhe, Manchuria, but the research was gone, hidden by Shir¯o Ishii, the microbiologist-slash-lieutenant general who conceived of and ran Unit Seven thirty-one. To the War Department it was a treasure trove of research and knowledge that the United States couldn’t easily acquire. Harry Truman
himself signed the order to not prosecute Ishii and the rest of Seven thirty-one for war crimes, of which they would have easily been convicted. If Unit Seven thirty-one went to trial, their crimes and research would have been made public and available to our competitors, primarily Russia. He granted immunity in exchange for research and exclusivity. But that’s not all, is it? The War Department, or maybe some new splinter group or Black Op—whatever—kept this island operating. At first, maybe this place was mostly Japanese scientists from Unit Seven thirty-one, but over time, U.S. personnel came over. This facility and every horrible thing done here since 1946 belongs to America. That’s why it doesn’t appear on any maps—who else could hide an island? That’s why it’s surrounded by a thirty-mile-diameter garbage patch that deters ships from getting within radar range.”

  “A broad assessment,” Bennett said. “You were close to the truth. After the war, the island’s facilities were maintained and the research done by the original Unit Seven thirty-one was pored over by a team of scientists, many of whom were the original staff who’d been pardoned of all wrongdoing. The island didn’t become a fully active research facility until twenty years later, long after it, and the scientists living here, fell off the United States’ radar. Within months, the research that Unit Seven thirty-one pioneered was back on track. But there was no way you could have known any of that, Bray, so I’m actually impressed. Maybe you can come work for us? We seem to be short on staff these days.”

  “Because you sewed them into a ball,” Hawkins said, his emotions threatening to spill over as he remembered the people bound together. They’d been part of the island’s vile legacy, but what he’d done to them was sadistic.

  “Just the ones I didn’t like,” Bennett said, and then he smiled wide. “You should have seen them the first time they woke up like that. Nearly tore themselves apart, didn’t they, Kam?”

  Kam said nothing. He just stared at the floor.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t throw you in with the lot of them,” Bennett said to Kam. He turned back to Hawkins. “I couldn’t do that to my own brother, though, could I? Well, we’re not really brothers. We grew up together, here on the island. But both of my parents were … what’s the word I’m looking for, Kam?”

  When Kam didn’t answer, Bennett pulled a small black device with two red buttons from his pants pocket. It looked similar to a car remote. He pushed the larger button on the outside edge once.

  Pulse.

  “Human,” Kam said.

  “Human,” Bennett repeated. “Thank you, Kamato Junior. In light of recent events that left many staff … incapacitated, and fearing exposure, the clandestine organization running the facility—which employs neither me nor Kam, by the way—sent someone out to check when communications went unanswered. She was a delightful specimen, much more resilient than her crew, but in the end, she lacked the strength to return with a report. I can only guess that the island’s former masters made the assumption that the facility had been compromised.

  “Despite their resources, they lack the ability to drop bombs or fire missiles, at least without drawing too much attention, so they sent a strike team to liquidate the island and hide their seventy-year-old secret. The assault didn’t end well for those men. Twenty of them. Retired Special Ops. Mercenaries. I suspect they would have been killed anyway, after seeing the island’s secrets, but probably far less painfully.”

  “So you use the crocs, the seagulls, and those little freaks to do your killing?” Bray said.

  Bennett looked confused. “Little freaks?”

  Hawkins saw Kam’s eyes flash with worry. He spoke quickly, cutting off Bray’s response. “The drakes.”

  Bray glanced at him and seemed to understand the interruption’s purpose and didn’t correct him.

  Bennett grinned. “Drakes?”

  “Draco-snakes,” Bray said.

  “You’ve named them?” Bennett looked pleased. “And after the captain no less. They do have similar dispositions, don’t they? Huh. Where was I? A year passed and we were left in peace. Maybe the few people overseeing the project died? Or lacked the resources? I don’t know. But Kam and I found ourselves quite bored without test subjects. So we set out for the world to seek our fortunes. And what did we find, Kam?”

  Pulse.

  “The Magellan,” Kam said.

  “The Magellan,” Bennet repeated, “bound for waters so close to home that you may have stumbled across our island without any help. After getting ourselves hired, which was easy, by the way—the elusive Captain Drake is a sucker for sob stories and phony credentials—we made sure the Magellan found its way to our beautiful resort island. My only regret is that we weren’t able to rendezvous with the Darwin. We would have had so many more new subjects.” He shrugged and pushed himself off the table. “But we have you. And we’re cooking up something special for if and when our predecessors return again.”

  Bennett looked at his wristwatch. “In fact, I’ve prepared a little demonstration for you.” He headed for the door and turned to Kam. “Keep an eye on our guests until I return.”

  Then he was gone and a little bit of sanity returned to the room. While Kam and Bennett may have both grown up here, it appeared only one of them was driven mad by the experience. Kam, at least, had some semblance of a guilty conscience.

  “Kam,” Hawkins said. “You have to let us out.”

  No answer.

  “Kam, I’m your friend. You know I mean that. Whatever Bennett has, however he’s controlling you, we can undo it.”

  Kam shook his head. “I can’t.” He glanced quickly toward the back corner of the room.

  Rolling his head in mock frustration, Hawkins peeked in the direction Kam had looked. Bennett might be watching. The sick bastard had probably watched while Joliet was taken. And when Jim attacked. And their near-death experience in “the gallery.” It’s how he gets his kicks, Hawkins thought. That and mutilating people.

  “You should give up, Ranger,” Kam said.

  Bray pressed his face against the bars of his cell. “Kam, I swear to God, if I get out of here—”

  “There is no hope for you!” Kam shouted, but his voice sounded like a mix of anger and desperation. “Even if you escaped your cells, you are unarmed.” He turned to Hawkins. “Your rifle was destroyed.” He moved behind the operating table and bent down. When he stood back up, he held the captive bolt stunner in one hand and the machete in the other. “And I have taken all of your weapons.”

  Kam placed the weapons on the operating table. Then he fished into his pocket and took out a bell. As he placed it on the table beside the weapons, the door opened. “As much as you would like to, these weapons and your freedom will forever be out of your reach.”

  Bennett entered the room, pulling a hospital gurney cloaked with a sheet. “You’re finally coming around, Kam? Did one of them say something mean about your mother?”

  As Bennett chuckled to himself, he locked the gurney wheels with his feet. “Almost ready.” He pushed a button on the modern electric gurney and the back half rose up. As the sheet shifted, it clung to the body hidden beneath, a body with a distinctly feminine shape.

  Not Joliet.

  Jones launched to his feet and clutched the cage bars. “No. Please, no.”

  Bennett ignored Jones and walked to the countertop. He pulled out a stool and switched on one of the microscopes. He then reached up and pulled the flat-screen monitor away from the wall. A metal arm extended from the wall mount and Bennett turned the screen so that it faced the cells. “Everyone have a good view?”

  No one replied.

  “Good,” he said. “Time for a lesson in microbiology.” He looked back at Bray. “Let me know how I do.”

  Bray flipped him off.

  Nonplussed by Bray’s gesture, Bennett reached up and turned on the screen. The image was black and white. At the center of the screen was a rough circle that looked a little like a translucent moon. The circle was stuck against a curved s
hape emerging from the left of the screen. And to the right, there was a long, straight tube with a pointed tip. A needle, Hawkins realized.

  Bennett pointed at the object on the left side of the screen.“This is a micropipette. Nothing too special about it except that it holds this”—he pointed to the circle—“in place. This is a blastocyst. It’s full of genetic code and stem cells that, when fertilized, eventually forms an embryo. When all those little stem cells are told what to become, they multiply like crazy and form a human. Or a dog. Or whatever. The miracle of life.”

  Bennett waved his hand toward the needle. “But this is the real miracle. See those little white spots?”

  Hawkins did. Each white spot just fit inside the tiny needle.

  “Those are stem cells I’ve modified using homologous recombination—basically taking two DNA molecules, then nicking them so the two separate strands come loose, and merge with each other. It’s called the ‘holiday method.’ Happy homologous recombination day! The point is, they’ll become whatever I want them to become and since they’re forming alongside the host cells, they will merge flawlessly. Rejection isn’t an issue for me.” He swiveled in his chair and looked at his audience. “Did you know that there are chimeras all around you and no one cares? People get pig valve transplants all the time and no one seems to think it’s strange or unnatural.” He shrugged and turned toward the microscope. “Now comes the moment of creation.”

  Bennett leaned over the microscope. Hawkins couldn’t see what the man was doing, but he saw the needle on the screen begin to inch closer to the blastocyst. The tip of the needle came to a stop just shy of the thin cell wall. The needle moved up and down slightly before aligning with the blastocyst’s center. Then it thrust forward like a lance. The cell wall bent in, and then broke. One by one, the little white dots slipped through the needle and into the blastocyst. Once all of the stem cells were inside the larger cell wall, the needle withdrew.

  Hawkins thought that was the end of it, but a second, much larger needle entered the screen.