Nestled in the Santa Barbara Wine Country, he felt as though he were hiding in plain sight. Such a notion amused him given that his creation had had the audacity to banish him from his previous residence, as if he were a subordinate and not the other way around. Gabriel had attempted to blackmail him into leaving the country and living out his remaining days in exile in an isolated niche of the planet. While Gabriel had succeeded in banishing him from his stunning residence in Harbingers Falls, complete with a state-of-the-art underground facility, he had not succeeded in chasing him to the far reaches of the planet. He had been driven, instead, to Santa Ynez.
Terzini loathed Santa Ynez and all of its quaint shops and folksy inhabitants. Others flocked to such places and adored the western-style architecture and the niceties exchanged with every person who passed along the narrow stretch of land that served as the main artery of the community. The only reason he had selected such a ghastly location was because of its scarce population and the expansive land upon which he could develop. With roughly four thousand four-hundred people in the area, few eyes were on him. It was unlikely that he would be recognized.
He had selected a modern home set on twenty acres of semi-rural property. The house boasted seven- thousand square feet in the main living space and an additional twelve-hundred feet in the guest quarters and gave Terzini ample room for his laboratory. After brokering a deal several years earlier with sellers who had relocated to Austria, he had begun construction on his lab as soon as the deed was his.
He had maintained the home befitting his unique needs and taste unbeknownst to both Gabriel and Eugene. For years, the house stood empty but at the ready for his occupancy. Complete with all the amenities he required, he had contracted a company years earlier to renovate the guest suite to a laboratory.
His laboratory was vital to his residences as it was the place he spent most of his time. And since his work area once existed as a guesthouse, it already had a bedroom for the infrequent times he elected to sleep.
The rest of the living space was impressive. He appreciated the spaciousness and luxuriousness of it, though he had no use for the floor-to-ceiling windows in nearly every room, each offering a view of the land it was situated on. He guessed other humans would enjoy the vista. He, however, held little esteem for nature, least of all in a state as garish as California.
Looking around at his new research facility and all of its sophisticated equipment, he knew he outclassed all other humans, that they were lesser beings. He knew he ought to belong to the new breed of beings he was creating, despite their disappointing performances of late. First, Gabriel presented with a flaw, and then Eugene. Eugene’s failure had been shocking.
Eugene had been defeated, a fact that had haunted Terzini in the days after his relocation to Santa Ynez. He lived now because of the quick-thinking and talent of his maker, but had been beaten by Gabriel. Gabriel had been designed for battle only not as deliberately as Eugene; he did not possess the inherent instinct or the training that Eugene maintained, yet still managed to adapt and best a trained killer. Had Terzini not been present to rescue Eugene, he would have perished.
He had barely made it to his new facility with Eugene in time to save him. His ferocious creation had retained a pulse, but it had been weak. Once in the van, he had been submerged in Terzini’s unique development fluid in an enormous cistern to begin the process of healing. He could have let Eugene die. The thought had crossed his mind. But cloning Eugene would have been far too precarious an undertaking. Even for a geneticist as exceptional as he was, there would be no guarantee that the end result would be as perfect a predator as Eugene. And to train another, possibly inferior fighter, would have taken too long. Based solely upon practical, rational factors, he opted to save Eugene from Gabriel’s conquest.
Terzini briefly considered Eugene’s near-death at Gabriel’s hands a failure on his part but soon realized failure was not possible for someone as gifted and talented as he. Eugene’s defeat was neither a failure nor a disappointment, but a testament to his genius. Gabriel’s adaptation, his ability to trump Eugene’s formidable brawn with his intelligence, was a result of Terzini’s brilliance. Gabriel was his most recent creation and therefore possessed his most recent improvements. Those improvements were invaluable to his future project despite the evolution of sentimentality in Gabriel.
Gabriel was meant to be the future of humanity. But he hadn’t guessed Gabriel would evolve beyond what he’d been capable of anticipating. He’d predicted enlightened thinking, possibly even his development of telekinetic powers in the future. He attributed any and all of Gabriel’s successes to his own genius, his ability to unlock and unleash areas of the brain heretofore unused. What he did not anticipate was that Gabriel would fall in love despite modifications made in his temporal lobe and the deep limbic system of his brain that prohibited him from emotionality.
Months of experimentation and analysis revealed the reason for Gabriel’s flaw. Terzini was reluctant to accept any responsibility for said flaw, but conceded that future creations would be developed with a greater sense of superiority, that Gabriel was far too humble, too modest. Terzini had wanted him to blend into society, which had been a grave oversight on his part. The purpose of future creations would not be to integrate, but to shun the humans that occupied the planet. The new race would regard humanity with the same disdain human beings regard insects and rodents. The thought of mating with one would be utterly repugnant, deviant. The only species they would be attracted to and mate with would be ones he produced and at his discretion.
It had been extremely difficult coming up with the formula for his new creations, especially since his attention had been divided. He needed to refocus his concentration and devote himself entirely to his new project. But before he could do that another matter needed to be addressed. He needed to dispose of Gabriel.
Gabriel’s existence was a constant threat to his body of work a threat that needed to be eradicated. Dr. Franklin Terzini needed to carefully root Gabriel out of hiding. To do so, he had a plan, a plan he was certain would be effective at drawing Gabriel from his lair.
He had cloned Kevin, Chris and John, the three teenagers Eugene had killed in the woods of Harbingers Falls. He had taken their corpses and used their DNA to replicate them with the assistance of his creation tank. After extracting the necessary tissue, he had disposed of the bodies by cremation. The three teenagers had been recreated for the sole purpose of returning to Harbingers Falls. Their bodies had never found, therefore their return would not generate suspicion.
Rebirth and reintroduction to their peers had been the easiest part of the process for Terzini. The re-creation process had proved far more daunting than he had anticipated. When recreating them, he had been careful to not alter or augment their brains or make any changes that would have risked changes in appearance. Such restraint had been challenging. Dr. Terzini was a man who recognized the need for improvement among humanity, and made it his mission to remedy it.
He had refrained from tampering with their cognitive processes but had taken the liberty of enhancing their muscular development by upgrading their fast-twitch responses and speeding their recovery time capacity. The result was overall strength enhancement without any other modifications. Strength enhancement was a necessary component of Terzini’s plan. The three teens needed to be strong enough and fast enough to crush Gabriel.
With three of them, equally matched in strength to Gabriel and outnumbering him, his demise was all but guaranteed.
The rebirth of Kevin, Chris and John had been successful. Dr. Terzini had been pleasantly surprised to discover that when cloning a human being using their preexisting DNA as opposed to intermingling augmented genetic material it resulted in the preservation of the temporal lobe of the brain. With their temporal lobes identically replicated, their memories had been preserved as well as their appearances and personalities insofar as he could tell. Outwardly, they were exactly as they had been. Yet de
spite the seeming success of his endeavor, Terzini was reluctant to deem it a victory. He was hesitant to trust that the three flawed creatures could carry out his plan by themselves.
With such distrust weighing heavily upon him, Terzini, ever the pragmatist, decided to enact an alternate plan; a contingency plan.
He paused and stroked his chin as he stood before a massive stainless-steel tank that occupied the far corner of his laboratory. On impulse, he turned the large wheel affixed to it and began opening the container. Through the thick, opaque fluid, he saw that Eugene’s arm moved slightly. He knew it would not be long before his plan was set into motion.
His plan was to have the three teenage humans draw Gabriel out from where he hid. He hoped Gabriel was not certain the three had been dead when he had seen them in the woods. Uncertainty would pave the way for curiosity, a need to see for himself whether Kevin, Chris and John were, in fact, alive. If all went as planned, Gabriel would return to Harbingers Falls and find more than just the three teens; he would find Eugene and meet, ultimately, with his demise.
Chapter 7
The unexpected return of Kevin, Chris and John sent shock waves throughout the school. Their names were on everyone’s lips. Melissa struggled to regroup after her initial shock at seeing them and felt as though she were in a nightmarish trance for the remainder of her day. She existed in a daze, listening to her classmates go on and on about the astonishing reappearance of their beloved classmates. She alternated between numbness and the persistent urge to vomit at every mention of their names. Adding to her uneasy feeling was the fact that her name was invariably mentioned each time theirs was. After all, everyone knew that she was the person who had claimed that they were dead, not merely missing. Their return brought with it the return of weighted stares. Fellow students stared in her direction again, regarding her with suspicious eyes; judgmental eyes. She felt as though the day could not end soon enough.
When finally it did, Melissa rode home with Daniella and Alexandra who also discussed the homecoming of the popular trio.
“Holy shit! Melissa, what the fuck is going on!” Alexandra said, echoing the sentiment of everyone in the car.
“This is insane. It’s just, crazy! All of it is crazy!” Daniella exclaimed.
“Melissa, I thought that you said that they were dead, that you saw their bodies, you said that freak that broke into my house killed them. I don’t understand what the fuck is going on,” Alexandra said struggling to stay calm.
A stunned silence befell Daniella’s typically lively carpool.
Within seconds, it ended, however. Alexandra turned in her seat to face Melissa who sat in the back seat.
“Well!” Alexandra began, her statement sounding like an accusation.
“Well what, are you asking me if I was making it up?” Melissa countered as her anger began to rise.
“Dead people don’t just become, I don’t know, undead and go back to their normal lives,” Alexandra persisted.
“Don’t attack me!” Melissa fired back. “I know what I saw. I didn’t stop and take their pulses while I was running for my life, if that’s what you want to know!”
“Then what made you so sure they were dead?” Alexandra asked coolly.
“Uh, the fact that Kevin’s head was crushed for one thing,” Melissa answered sharply.
“This doesn’t make any sense at all,” Alexandra added.
“What do you think is going on?” Daniella asked.
“It has to have something to do with Terzini, I told you the crazy things that he was working on,” Melissa said.
Melissa had shared with her friends the nature of Dr. Franklin Terzini’s work; that he was a genius geneticist who experimented with human cloning. Alexandra had seen Eugene and it became necessary for her to offer an explanation. She did not, however, include in her explanation one small detail: that Gabriel could be counted among Terzini’s experimental creations.
“Are you trying to tell me that you think this Terzini brought them back to life?” Alexandra replied
“I don’t know what I’m trying to say Alex, I don’t have an explanation. I just know what I saw, and they were dead. Why are you acting like this?” Melissa asked.
“Look Melissa, I’m sorry all right. I don’t want to sound like I’m attacking you. I’m just totally freaked out and I want to know what is going on.”
“You don’t think that I do too? I’m the one who is going to be considered a nut, or even worse, a liar.”
“Well, you’re going to have to just lay low until we figure out what’s going on. Maybe they staged it to look like they were dead that night or something,” Alex said
“So you’re saying they created an elaborate hoax, and took off for five months just to make me look bad? That seems a little far-fetched,” Melissa said
“Oh, and this Terzini guy bringing them back from the dead seems more logical to you?” Alexandra mocked as they pulled in to Melissa’s driveway.
Melissa promptly climbed out of Daniella’s car and thanked her for the ride home.
“Oh and I’m not going to lay low,” Melissa stated. “I’m still going to Greg’s party tonight. There is no way I’m going to let them intimidate me, not this time.”
“Good, you shouldn’t,” Daniella said.
“Yeah fuck them; of course you should still go.”
“Don’t get me wrong I hope that they’re not there tonight. But they’re not going to get me to lock myself in the house and hide.”
“Okay then we will pick you up at eight,” Daniella said excitedly.
“All right I’ll see you guys at eight,” Melissa said as she shut the car door and walked toward her house.
Melissa unlocked her front door and walked in. The familiar smell of home did little to ease her anxiety. Questions began to form in her mind. Would Kevin, Chris and John be at Greg’s party so soon after their mysterious return? If they came, would they approach her? Would there be a scene as there almost always was since their initial meeting?
As Melissa agonized over the answers to her questions, she busied herself with household chores. She began washing pots in the sink and loading the dishwasher with plates and glasses. When she had finished that task, she moved on the hamper and separated white, light and darkly colored clothes before running a load of towels.
When the rumble of the garage door interrupted her dinner preparations, Melissa realized she had lost track of time, and was thankful for it. Within seconds, she heard the door to the garage open and the predictable sounds of her father shuffling into the hallway.
“Hey Miss!” he called out.
“Hey Dad!” she replied.
She waited for the sound of work boots hitting the hallway floor before she inquired about his day.
“How was work?”
“It sucked like every other day. How was yours?”
“It sucked too, and oh yeah, Kevin Anderson, Chris Mace and John DeNardi showed up at school today.”
Melissa watched as her father’s stainless-steel coffee thermos nearly slipped from his hands and tumbled to the floor. His eyes grew wide and his mouth fell agape.
“Yeah, I know. That’s exactly how I felt, still feel,” she commented on his astonished expression.
“What, I mean how?” her father stammered. “Holy shit, Missy, I thought they were dead. You told me they were dead, that that psycho killed them.”
“And I told everyone else too, because I saw their mangled bodies. I heard their screams.”
As Melissa spoke, her father stared at her with confusion apparent in his every feature but intently, concernedly. The sound of the doorbell interrupted their conversation. It rang once. Then almost immediately it rang a second time exemplifying the impatience of whoever waited on the other side of the door.
“Who the hell is ringing the bell now?” her father asked. “Geez! And the jerk is impatient too. Okay, keep your shirt on! I’m coming.”
Melissa shrugged, equally as
confused as her father.
She watched as he answered the door only to find a police officer standing before him.
“Well, if it isn’t Chucky Miller,” her father stated as his frustration with the dual doorbell rings quickly segued into downright unfriendliness. He did not bother to mask his dislike of the officer standing opposite him.
“That’s Officer Charles Miller,” the police officer replied puffing out his chest and emphasizing his rank. “And I’m here to see your daughter.”
Melissa watched as he father stiffened then asked, “For what reason?”
“I’m interested to see if there is anything about the statement she gave five months ago that she’d like to change seeing as how there are now three corpses going to school with her,” Officer Miller replied haughtily.
“Now hold on a second,” her father said heatedly. “She already gave her statement quite some time ago. I’m pretty sure her story will be the same.”
“I believe I asked to see your daughter, not you, Chris.”
“That’s Mr. Martin to you, son,” her father replied derisively.
Melissa’s heart pounded against her ribcage. She knew that it was not possible that Kevin, Chris and John could have survived. She knew something else was going on, but she would never be able to tell the police what she thought without sounding like a crazy person. She would not betray Gabriel even if she could get them to believe her. Their reappearance, the whole scenario was a total mess. And now, it seemed her credibility was being called into question.
Without thinking, Melissa stepped out from the kitchen and blurted, “I told you what I saw and what happened.”
She did not temper her tone when she spoke to Officer Miller. She did not restrain her frustration at his implication. Under any other circumstances she would have spoken more respectfully, would have regarded a police officer with higher esteem. But Melissa had heard the name Chucky Miller spoken on more occasions than she cared to admit. She knew of his less-than-esteem-worthy past.
Planet Urth Boxed Set Page 103