Dark Creations: The Hunted (Part 4) (27 page)

“Damn Taliban bastards and insurgents got their hands on more C-4 than you could imagine. That stuff packs a real punch, even took out one of our transport trucks.”  Jack paused and stared off in the distance, flexed his jaw, then added, “My guy, the explosives guy, he and others in his platoon used to pack C-4 into cracks and crevices and detonate it to take down heavy walls in a controlled way.  Those rats used it to kill our men.”

“And we’re going to use it to kill Terzini’s men,” Yoshi said.

“That’s the plan,” Jack agreed.  “I’ll call my friend.  His name’s Roger.”

“You think this Roger guy will do this for us?” Gabriel asked.

“For us?  No. For me? Absolutely.  We’re under attack here.  How are these monsters any different from terrorists?  We fought them overseas and we’ll fight them here.  So yeah, I’m positive he’ll get us enough C-4 to incinerate that old brewery with all those fuckers inside.”

Gabriel wanted nothing more than for the nightmare, for Terzini and his creations, to end forever.  If blowing up a building filled with them meant an end to it all, he would have to do just that.  But he wondered whether Jack would be inclined to include him among the casualties if he knew the truth, that Gabriel was Terzini’s second creation, that he was the original prototype designed to transform humanity.  He did not consider himself to be a monster by any means but the fact still remained that he was not like Jack, or anyone else for that matter.

“I’m going to go call him, get things started on his end.”

“He just has this C-4 stuff lying around?” Melissa asked Jack.

“He’s prepared for anything,” Jack replied cryptically.  “We’ll get what we need.”

“But how do we get them all there?” Alexandra asked.

“We have Jarrod’s cell phone,” Yoshi replied.  “He’s their liaison to Terzini. He’s the guy they answer to and he answers directly to Terzini.  I’ll start messaging them from his phone to meet at the old brewery, and they will have to show up.”

“Just be sure that they’re all creations, and not real people,” Melissa said then blushed, immediately realized her mistake. 

Real people
.  He could not believe what he’d just heard.  He knew what she’d meant, that it was imperative to ensure that only creations were in the building and no one else, but reeled somewhat at her word choice.  Melissa was by no means insensitive.  She was not prone to inconsiderateness.  To the contrary, he’d witnessed many instances where in which she’d taken extreme caution with the feelings of others, and had chosen her words carefully to avoid hurt feelings of any kind.  Yet seconds earlier, she had not exercised that same caution with him.  Her words had stung.  And she knew it.  Her face screamed of her error. The expression she wore was one of immediate remorse and embarrassment.  He felt confident that he knew her well enough to know that it had been a mere misstep of words, a misrepresentation of her true feelings. But for a split second, he found himself wondering whether that was how she really felt, that he was somehow less real than everyone else she knew.  He looked at her and tried to gauge her countenance further.  He saw her long, golden-brown hair backlit by the waning rays of day, her bright green eyes searching his for something, forgiveness perhaps.  He could not be sure.  Whatever he eyes sought to convey, he felt certain it was motivated by love.  She loved him and would not hurt him intentionally.  But her intent did not diminish the fact that a small part of him smarted at her term selection.  He did not want to feel the way he felt, thought it inappropriate to pout about semantics when they were in mortal danger and plotting the demise of dozens of Terzini’s creations.  So he removed himself from the others to refocus.

“Give me the phone, Yoshi and I’ll start sending those messages,” Gabriel said to the group. 

He could tell that Melissa wanted to speak to him, that in all likelihood she wanted to give him an explanation.  But he did not feel one was necessary given the immediate circumstances.  Instead he distanced himself from the group, phone in hand, and gave the impression of studying the member list.  For several moments, he did not see a single letter or number on the list.  He closed his eyes tightly and collected himself, all the while bracing for what lay ahead of him.  He had a job to do.  The world needed to be relieved of his maker and the army of mutants he’d created.  He would pose as their leader and gather them for their execution.  He found his role to be ironic.  After all, he was one of them, no better really.  He was a mutant, and a hypocrite at that.  He was assuming the responsibility of saving a group of people that, if made aware of his origins, would undoubtedly reject him, if not call for his death as well.  He listened as Jack returned to the group and told them that he had procured enough C-4 to demolish the brewery.  They would visit his friend Roger first and pick up several pounds of the explosive material, then travel to Napa to wire the entire building.  The retired Army Staff Sergeant regaled the group of how, with a little more than a pound of the substance, his platoon had demolished a van and rendered its driver to ash.  They would do the same to Terzini’s legion.  Gabriel glanced at the list and began to text message.

Dr. Franklin Terzini drove his sleek, black Cadillac down Route 44 in Napa County.  The sun had been swallowed by the horizon earlier and the world was consumed by twilight.  Precision halogen headlamps sliced through the unearthly electric blue of dusk that had overwhelmed the landscape.  Smothered in cyan shadows, the realm beyond the car appeared unnatural, ethereal.  Had he been a man who subscribed to spectral superstition, Terzini would have felt unnerved by the haunted appearance of the land around him.  He did not, of course, believe in such nonsense.  Spirits and ghosts, like deities, held no allure for him.  They were for the weak-minded, for fools, and contributed to the downfall of mankind.  He was a man of science, plain and simple.  Science answered any question he could pose.  Science held within it profound truths and immeasurable power.  Mysticism and faith were not needed where concrete solutions existed, where untapped power waited.  He did not bow to ancient phantom authorities whose existences were yet unproved, nor did he implore divinities for approvals.  He was above it, above the pandering, above the drivel. 

He pondered the nonsensical nature of religion as his eyes scanned the peculiar blue wash that had besieged his surroundings.  It held no spirituality whatsoever.  The coloring was a result of atmospheric gases and molecules, and the frequencies of colors that reached Earth, not divine beings painting their preferred palette.  Many people needed to cling to flawed beliefs.  He was not among them.  He credited science, not God, for his accomplishments.  He had created life in his laboratory, unassisted, and was en route to meet with one of approximately sixty-three that he’d created.  Jarrod Richards, an assistant of sorts that he had formed, had requested that they meet at eight o’clock at an abandoned brewery.  His subordinate would not explain why they were meeting when he had contacted him, just that they needed to meet.  And in Jarrod’s voice, there had been a hint of urgency.  Though it had been clear that Jarrod had worked to conceal it, he knew his creations, knew that they had been designed devoid of emotions.  The faintest trace of pressure in his speech pattern had suggested that he had been placed in unfamiliar circumstances at the time of the phone call.  The need to meet at an abandoned building at the edge of town only fueled his belief that extenuating conditions prompted the call and the need to meet.  After carefully considering their interaction, Terzini had deduced that only one person could generate distress on the part of his newest members.  And that person was Gabriel. 

The clock on his dashboard revealed that it was seven o’clock just as he pulled off of the highway.  He recalled how Jarrod had come close to ordering him to his current location, dangerously close.  His creations did not order him, ever.  Their indoctrination process prohibited them from doing so.  Jarrod’s pressured manner of speaking and his insistence that they meet where they were meeting meant something else entirely and, was a dead giveaway that a problem had arisen.  He doubted his new batch of creations possessed flaws as his others had in the past.  He had been careful with his most recent set, took painstaking measures to ensure that any earlier flaws had been corrected, that their root cause had been eradicated.  He felt certain that he had rectified any and all glitches that had existed or could exist.  Yet, a complication undoubtedly existed or he wouldn’t be parked several hundred yards from their rendezvous point an hour ahead of schedule.

From his vantage point, perched on a ridge that afforded him a clear view of entire building, he removed his binoculars from the front seat of his car, raised them to his eyes and began surveying the surrounding property.  He immediately spotted a vehicle on the western side of the brewery.  Clearly an attempt had been made to park it in a concealed location, for its driver to be as inconspicuous as possible.  Had he entered at the turnoff from Route 44 to the brewery, he would not have seen it.  And perhaps if he had arrived at the designated time, it would have been better hidden there, or gone altogether.  Regardless, he had anticipated difficulty, and had planned accordingly.  He adjusted the magnification of his binoculars and began inspecting the area more carefully.  He did not see anything out of the ordinary around the building, apart from what he discerned to be a rusted pickup truck upon closer inspection.  Given the dilapidated condition of the truck, he wondered whether it had been abandoned just as the brewery had been, and was unrelated to his meeting with Jarrod.  Activity in one of the second-story windows dispelled any doubt he’d had about the truck, however.   People were moving around inside.  The possibility that they may be some of his creations had crossed his mind.  But it had been a fleeting thought.  If Jarrod had instructed any of his fellow members to be there, they would have arrived at the time they were told to arrive, and not a moment earlier.  He wondered why anyone else would be there and began to suspect a setup of some sort.  But Jarrod would never be capable of deception.  His unwavering loyalty to his maker would prohibit him from deceptiveness of any kind.  Furthermore, the entire membership knew that their creator would never be foolish enough to walk right into a trap, that he was a meticulous man in every sense of the word.

In keeping with his meticulous disposition, he reexamined the vicinity of the truck.  He gazed through the lenses of his binoculars and felt them nearly slip from his grip and fall to the dirt below.  He could not believe what he was seeing, the vision before him was utterly impossible.  He fumbled with the device, looked through its lenses incredulously then pulled them from his eyes.  He intensified the magnification so that they revealed each detail of the man’s face and stared through them once again.  An unfamiliar sensation traveled down the length of his spine and filled him with unrest as he recognized the face of the man at once; it was a face he’d created.  Gabriel James walked to the decrepit vehicle, opened the rusted driver’s side door and leaned in until the upper half of his body had disappeared.  When he emerged, he held several objects in both arms and began walking slowly back toward the building.  Terzini inhaled sharply and sucked in his cheeks as he focused his binoculars on the objects Gabriel held.  They looked like bricks of modeling clay, modeling clay with wires attached to them.  Terzini recognized them immediately and felt the binoculars drop and land on the ground with a soft thud.  Gabriel carried plastic explosives to the building. 

Gabriel, though foolish enough to believe he could outsmart his maker, had somehow overcome the intensive programming he’d received, and now conspired against him.  Such a feat was perplexing and disappointing.  Terzini was stunned and appalled by how flawed his earlier creation really was.  Gabriel had intended to lure him to the brewery after equipping it with explosives, trap him and detonate the bombs.  The fact that Gabriel thought a genius of his caliber would be stupid enough to fall for such an idiotic plan highlighted just how naïve his second creation was,  how pathetic.  He smiled and felt a burst of laughter touch his lips.  He turned, scoffing at Gabriel, to return to his car and formulate his own plan, a counterattack of sorts.  But he froze mid-turn.  A short man of Asian ancestry appeared before him and aimed a shotgun at his face.

“Wow, I thought you were supposed to be a genius or something, a super smart scientist.  Yet you picked the most obvious spot in the whole area to watch from.  I didn’t expect that,” the Asian man said.  Terzini presumed him to be Gabriel’s companion, the one he’d returned to Harbingers Falls with months ago.  “Just for fun, what made you think that a clearing in plain view of the building was a good idea? 
Not
a genius move by my standards,” the man taunted and chuckled.

Terzini was shocked a second time, and outraged that anyone dared question his indisputable brilliance.

“Don’t make assumptions!” he heard himself hiss.  “I don’t know what you
think
you know, but rest assured all your information is a grossly distorted version of the truth.  I am going to fix,” he began to explain but was interrupted.

“Shut your mouth and start walking,” the small man ordered.  “I know everything.  You think you’re going to improve society by killing teenage girls, or by creating psychotic beings to off people all over town?”

He felt his temper flare.  None of his creations were psychotic, and they certainly did not hunt teenage girls. The presumptuous little man had had the audacity to first wave a weapon at the most important person to live thus far, and then had made erroneous statements about work so significant, so revolutionary, history books would be rewritten, evolutionary models transformed.  He wasn’t merely accusing Terzini’s creations of insubordination, of murder.  He was impugning his entire body of work.  He would not stand for it, even if the man aimed a gun at him.