Parahuman (Parahuman Series) (33 page)

     Even
though Devan knew he had made the right decision he wasn’t at ease with it. In
some way the thought of finding the pack and establish some logical explanation
to their behavior seemed imperative so he could put this whole thing behind him.
It was a hope though; a hope and desire for things to be normal so he could go
forward with his life here. Those things undermined logic which was something
that Devan lived his life around, even if it had been in short supply lately
around Laney.

     Her
emergence into the forefront of his thoughts caused both a warmth and a
coldness to invade his body; both of which he forcibly suppressed as he was unwilling
to deal with either emotions. With a heavy heart Devan spun around and sprinted
back the way he’d come, uncertainty warring in his mind. 

    
Arriving back at the house Devan found Brett in his office examining the
samples acquired from earlier. “You found it?” Brett asked maintain his
microscopic inspection.  

    
“Yes,” Devan answered gravely.

     Brett
appeared too preoccupied to notice Devan’s solemn tone. “Bring it in and put it
on the desk, I made a space for it.”

     Devan
had observed the cleared desk covered in plastic. He deposited the several
pieces of bones he’d carried back; a section of the jaw bone, a fibula, and
sections of the vertebra. 

     The
clunking of the bones seemed to invade Brett’s subconscious because he looked
up.  Walking up to the desk he picked up the nearly eviscerated fibula and
raised his eyes questioningly.

    
“There wasn’t much left,” Devan explained dryly. “The wolves eradicated most of
it.”

    
“Really,” he said, his eyes roaming over the other pieces. “They must have been
really hungry.”

     Devan
gave an internal shake of his head at Brett’s comment. For how intelligent Brett
was his continual lack of knowledge concerning animals and their behavior was
comical. In some ways Devan wanted Brett to keep on thinking it was something
natural, but to disregard the anomalous could be dangerous to all of them,
Laney as well now that she was linked to them. 

     “It’s
a very rare occurrence for wolves to eat a pack member,” Devan explained. “That
they would break into a building just for the purpose of acquiring a convenient
meal is statistically improbable.”  

     
“What’s your assessment of the situation?” Brett inquired, setting the bones
back down.

      Devan
bypassed that question for one of his own. “Have you been able to find anything
of value?” He prevaricated, walking over to the microscope.

     Brett
followed. “Not from these samples; maybe if I had something to compare them
to.”

    
“Since these are the only wolves seen in the area in decades that might be a
problem, and I’m not sure we have the time to send away for some samples.” 

     “Yes,
well, there’s the crux of the matter.” Brett sighed heavily, paused, and then
continued. “I know we’re both thinking the same thing.”

     Devan
stiffened in denial, not wanting to accept that possibility. “That’s quite a
theoretical leap,” he replied gruffly.   

     Brett
walked up behind him laying a hand on his shoulder. “We have to acknowledge
that it’s a possibility.”

     Devan
pulled away, uncomfortable with the tacit comfort, and finally acknowledged
what he’d been trying to discount the entire afternoon. His shoulders slumped
in acquiesce and everything that had taken place that day abruptly caught up
with him. He walked over to the nearest chair and collapsed into it feeling
immensely tired. Pulling off his bloody gloves he tossed them across the room
into the trash can.  

     Brett
gave him an extensive worried look before making his way over to the bones on
the desk. He picked up the vertebra. “I might be able to get something of
interest out of the marrow.” He mused distractedly. 

     Devan
closed his eyes listening absent-mindedly to Brett’s mumblings as he shuffled
around the small office; the clanking of instruments slowly faded into the
background as exhaustion claimed mind and body. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 
   A faint
light and flickering shadows on his eyelids was the next thing Devan became
aware of; that and the unfamiliar arrangement of his body. He was in a vertical
position when he normally slept horizontally. His head was tilted in a very
uncomfortable angle that was causing an ache to settle in his trapezius muscle.

     Devan
reached up and rubbed it as he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Brett
asleep in his office chair, his head resting in the crook of his arm on the
corner of the desk. He was surprisingly quiet. Normally his snores could be
heard reverberating throughout the house.

    
Devan’s eyes lit on the clock, and the time of 8:04 a.m. displayed on its face
caused him to straighten in shock. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept
past six in the morning. On the other hand, yesterday hadn’t been a normal
day.  

    
Unfolding his body from the chair Devan stretched relieving a multitude of
cramped muscles. The ceiling was in the way of his reach so he had to arch
backward to get the complete stretch he wanted. He noted that his injured arm
exhibited no twinges or pain of any kind.

     Lowering
his arms Devan observed that Brett had made headway on the bones he’d brought
in last night. With his customary silent tread Devan made his way over to the
table and could see that all the bones had been meticulously drilled and shaved
in an effort of finding any amount of marrow still available for examination. 

     The
microscope had a slide positioned on the stage under the 1000x magnification
lens. 
Bending over Devan’s only thought was a profound desire for there to be nothing
of interesting upon it. 

     Studying
the sample Devan breathed out a deep sigh a relief at finding no anomalies on
the slide. The wolf was a normal albeit deformed aberration. He’d been worried
for nothing, they wouldn’t have to leave. The rush of joy he experienced made
him almost lightheaded. 

     He
moved the stage and his joy vanished bit by bit. This shaving of marrow,
obtained from the vertebra he’d fetched, was brimming with eukaryotes. Which
would seem like a good thing, but in this case it wasn’t. The quantity he was
observing was disproportionate to what would normally be seen in this sample
size—at least three times as much. There was also a dimension issue between the
cells, half where of a normal size and the other half where a fraction larger.

     Devan
straightened in dismay but only slight shock. The wolf’s marrow displayed
unmistakable signs of genetic manipulation. There was no other way to explain
the proliferation and variances in the sizes of the red blood cells. He hadn’t
seen it in the previous samples because when the cells traveled out of the bone
marrow they had gone through the cycles of diffusion and osmosis equalizing the
pressure of intercellular and interstitial fluids, which in turn had made all
the eukaryotes uniformly equal in size.   

     Deep
down Devan had been deceiving himself into thinking that the abnormalities in
the wolves were just natural aberrations when everything about the wolves
screamed transmutation: the way they had trotted onto the school grounds with
no fear of the humans around them; their focus centered on the scent they had
obviously been trained to hunt; jumping through glass windows just to get to that
quarry; and then going back for their dead pack member and dragging it away so
no one could examine or identify it. None of that was even close to normal wolf
behavior. 

    That’s
why they had been following his trail in the woods surrounding the house, and
why they had headed straight for his jeep and the storage building at the
school. It was likely that they were programmed to locate him.

     Were
they also programmed to kill him? The way the wolf had jumped through the
window seemed like a definite indication of a kill agenda. 

     Brett
had enlightened Devan about his initial experiments; how he had first begun
manipulating the genetic material of certain animals to make them larger and
stronger, and now it looked as if The Company had been able to duplicate those
first initial experiments. Devan wonder how much more they’ve been able to
replicate. 

     His
gaze flickered to Brett who hadn’t moved from his slumped position in the
chair. Devan could hardly believe Brett had fallen asleep after seeing this
evidence. Devan would have expected Brett to have woken him up right away so they
could make an immediate escape. 

     Devan
had thought he had enough on his plate worrying about The Company searching for
them, but now he had to contend with these wolves and whatever else was out
there hunting them. Life just got more complicated when he’d thought it had
been complicated enough.

     Devan
hesitated on waking Brett up. Brett would want to make plans to leave right
away, and Devan could see his point in that assessment…but still he hesitated.
The thought of leaving was causing a heavy knot to form in his stomach, just as
it had done every other time he’d thought of leaving. There was really no
choice though; their lives were at stake, as well as Laney’s if she was anywhere
near him…which she seemed to be a lot of the time.

     But
she was safe at home now, and that was where he wanted her…safe. And if Devan
had to leave to make sure she stayed that way, he would. No matter how painful
the thought of leaving stabbed through him, the thought of her in danger was
infinitely more painful. 

     Devan
was hit with a shocking revelation…he cared deeply for her. 

     From
the first moment he’d met her she had been working her way past his defenses. The
genuine kindness that she displayed, the endearing stubbornness of her
character, her unique scent that called to him, and the sensations he
experienced each time her eyes locked onto his; all of it…everything about
her…had penetrated the walls Devan had erected around himself. 

     He
hadn’t seen it coming, and he wondered how he was going to function rationally with
these feelings gnawing at him.

     A
sleepy snort from Brett’s hunched over form roused Devan from his stupor, and
he headed for the kitchen—might as well get something to eat before Brett woke
up and rushed them out.

     Devan
wasn’t sure if it was the noise from cooking, although he thought he’d been
fairly quiet, or the smell of the food that woke Brett from sleep, but he heard
the clearing his throat in the other room before he came into view rubbing at
sleep lines left from his shirt sleeve. 

     “This
is quite a spread.” Brett looked around at the array of food Devan had
prepared. It consisted of eggs, toast, elk sausage, pancakes, and hash. 

     “If
we’re going to be leaving I wanted to use up as much of the food as possible.” Devan
flipped a pancake with one hand while rotating the sausage with the other. 

     Brett
sat down heavily at the kitchen table. “You’ve seen the sample?” His voice was
weary, either from sleep or from the situation. Probably both.

    
“Yes.” Devan kept his attention on the food; moving the hash around and then
buttering the toast.

     “I’m
sorry Devan.”

     Brett’s
apology surprised Devan. He wondered what the sorry was for; the wolves, The
Company, having to leave, creating him, all the above. 

     “I
know you are, Sam.” Devan used Sam’s true name―it seemed fitting―
and tried to keep the same weariness out of his own voice. No need for both of them
to sound so morose.

     “I
knew it was possible that this could happen; not all my research was destroyed
in the fire we set before escaping. Many of my earlier test experiments were
set aside into cryogenic storage. They must have been able to find someone to
reverse analyze the experiments. From there they were then able to reconstruct
them. When you mentioned the abnormalities of the wolf my first thought was of
an experiment I had done involving wolves. I altered the animal with bear DNA
to make it larger and bloodhound DNA to enhance its olfactory senses. They must
have recreated the experiment with the sole purpose of finding you. The
question is whether they were sent to locate or to kill you?”

     Devan
nodded. “Yes…I was wondering the same thing. The animal gave the impression it
wanted me dead, but they might just need to make physical contact with me.” He
replied evenly. “You know, it’s statistically improbable that one pack of
wolves would have been able to track me down throughout the entire United
States, Canada, Mexico, and South American regions. I wonder how many packs
they’ve created.” Possibly dozens…and that was a sobering thought.

     Another
thought counteracted the anxiety. Although The Company had the means to
generate as many animals as they wanted there were only so many handlers they
could assign to them, at least those they would trust with the task. That left
the possibility that the wolves were possibly left to roam free until they
located their prey. 

     Brett
nodded gravely. “Yes, I’m sure there are more.”

     The
food was done so Devan began shifting everything from the stove over to the
table, after which he loaded up his plate and began to eat. Brett watched for a
moment before doing the same.

     For
the first time ever Devan wasn’t all that hungry, but he needed to fill in some
time. However, it wasn’t long before they were both picking at what was left,
putting off the conversation that needed to come next, and it wasn’t hard to
see that Brett could barely maintain a serene demeanor with the probability of
The Company bearing down on them at any possible moment.   

     Brett
broke the laden silence, his voice heavy in urgency. “We should probably start
getting ready; there’s no telling what kind of tracking system The Company has
on the wolves. They may be monitoring the wolves’ movements; for all we know
they could be on their way at this very moment.” He stood up, not bothering to
take care of the dirty dishes.

     Brett
went to the hall closet for boxes that they stored just for the purpose of
moving…preparation was paramount. He then proceeded to the office to pack up
the laboratory equipment. 

    
Knowing he had held them up longer than he should have Devan followed suit. 

     Even
though they had never had to leave this hastily before they were prepared for
the eventuality. Devan’s first responsibility was to get all their necessary
papers. 

    
Sprinting out the back door he snatched up a steel pipe and ran in a straight
line for a hundred yards from the corner of the house halting in front of a
medium sized boulder. No one who came across it would think that under it were
forged papers essential for their next life; mainly because it was a three
hundred pound boulder no
one
person would likely be able to move. 

    
Levering the steel pipe under the boulder, Devan used another smaller boulder
as a fulcrum to raise the boulder enough so he could reach the papers
underneath it. The documents were in a plastic bag to keep them protected from
environmental damage. There were two other separate locations where they had
additional documents hidden, lest the house be compromised, but they could be
left where they were, it was highly improbable anyone would find them.

         
After a quick change of clothes Devan loaded just the essentials Brett had
packed plus a few things of his own. Ten minutes later they were standing in
the driveway ready to leave.

     “So,
Denver, right?” Devan asked, striding toward the jeep. They’d made arrangements
when they’d moved here for Denver to be their exit city. 

     “Yes.”
Brett replied, opening the door to his truck.

     That
would take them back through town…past Laney’s house. 

    
“We’ll stop and fill up with fuel before we leave.” Brett called before slamming
his door.

    
Driving past Laney’s house Devan slowed down in the hopes of one last glimpse,
from a window, or even better outside walking around, but the house was
completely still. If he hadn’t canceled their plans last night, and wasn’t
skipping town, she would have been heading over to his house right now. 

     That
thought didn’t help Devan’s mood, which was getting darker by the minute. He
had been keeping his emotions under tight control since this morning, when he’d
stopped deluding himself and realized they would have to leave, but Devan could
feel anger building deep inside of him and he wasn’t sure how long he would be
able to contain it.

     The
anger he felt toward The Company was expected, but Devan was shocked by the resentment
he was also feeling toward Brett. It wasn’t rational; Brett was the reason Devan
was alive and no longer caged, and he was in just as much danger as Devan if he
was caught, but the animosity simmered none-the-less.

     The
road through town was unaccountably busy; the curbs lined with vehicles leading
up to and past The Diner. The Diner itself was packed full of people inside and
out, even more than last night, but the atmosphere was a lot less exuberant;
more focused and intense. The presence of the police cruisers increased the
seriousness of the whole appearance.