Rise of the Transgenics (26 page)

She led him down a hallway. It was heated,
but that didn’t take away his sense of discomfort or fear. Harry
had landed in the lair of the enemy, and they were not the
welcoming type. “Is this a hospital?” he asked.

“You are close,” she said. “This used to be a
mental hospital.”

Harry forced himself to smile. “It’s missing
two of its inmates,” he commented, and for his reward, he received
a sharp smack on his cheek.

“I
will
enjoy killing you later on,”
she said in a voice laden with menace, and pointed ahead. They went
through a series of corridors with dim yellow bulbs flickering
overhead. After taking three flights of stairs to the very bottom
of the structure, she stopped outside another heavy iron door. “You
go in there. You have questions,
da?
Your questions will be
answered.”

Harry had half a mind to tell her to stuff
herself and her so-called superior, arrogant attitude, but he
didn’t think she’d appreciate it, and he also didn’t feel like
getting smacked again. She opened the door and dutifully he
entered, expecting to see an army of other transgenic monsters the
like of Piotr or Ivan.

Instead, he saw only a tall and spindly man
of indeterminate age with a shock of blond hair and a narrow,
pinched sallow face sitting down in front of a laptop computer. He
was smoking a cigarette, an inch of ash hanging from the tip.
“You’re Grushenko?” Harry asked.

“I am,” the man answered, stubbing his
cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. “And you are Harry
Goldman,” he added, getting up from his position and offering a
somewhat strained smile of tobacco stained teeth. “We finally meet.
My predecessor told me much about you and your father’s work.”

He spoke in almost perfect unaccented
English, and had a low, quiet voice. Quiet or not, this man was
very, very dangerous. He was the one who had created monsters. He
had created death.

As for
predecessor,
he meant Nurmelev.
“I suppose you were close friends,” Harry said, keeping his sarcasm
to a minimum. “You guys room together?”

The man shook his head, grabbed another
cigarette from a crumpled pack on the desk and lit up. Blowing out
a plume of smoke, he said, “To be honest, Pavel and I did not meet
very often, and we were not that close. Each of us lived in
different areas of the country, and our communications were
monitored by our superiors. Imagine that,” he stated in a most
ironic tone, “Working for Russia and being monitored.”

“It’s your system.”

Grushenko nodded. “So it is. At any rate,
Nurmelev and I exchanged information in person only a few times,
but he was most enthusiastic about what transgenic DNA research
could do. I am just as passionate about it.”

His hands fluttered a moment and he
delicately balanced the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray before
giving a slight bow. “Forgive my poor manners, please. I did not
properly introduce myself. My full name is Anatoly Grigorevich
Grushenko. I am also a doctor and a researcher. Welcome.”

“Why’d you make your hideout here?”

Grushenko offered a wintry smile. “This is
Chernobyl, young Goldman. It is the perfect place in which to
conduct experiments of...” he hesitated and then finished
off...”This nature. The area, as you no doubt know, was abandoned
years ago. My backers, men who believe in my vision, pulled the
necessary strings. They supplied the materials which I use for my
research.”

Nurmelev had mentioned ex-KGB,
Spetznatz,
rich industrialists and more. Perhaps even
politicians were involved. “Did the politicians help you out, too?”
Harry asked.

Grushenko offered a tiny shrug as if to say
good business was where one found it. “There are many people who
believe in what I do,” he finally said. “Sadly, though, there are
many who do not, chiefly the government. One would think that they
would support such a move, but politicians do not think beyond
their constituencies or getting re-elected.”

“How decent of them,” Harry said, and this
time he didn’t deign to hide his sarcasm. Of all places in such a
large country, why did they end up here? He put the question to
Grushenko.

The older man smoked the remainder of his
cigarette before answering. “This is a place the authorities would
be least likely to look. I live here year round. This place is
shielded from radioactivity, never fear, and when one performs
experiments, it is of little concern where they are done. While I
apologize for the lack of beauty, science does not always have to
be beautiful. It merely has to be effective.”

Suddenly, Harry’s stomach began to churn.
This man had created Lyudmila, Piotr, and God knew how many more
warped versions of people. “I suppose you’re going to tell me about
the nobility of using science, aren’t you?” he asked.

His question earned him a laugh, but like the
smile, it had no warmth in it. “No, I am a very practical man. I
believe in using science to further one’s own ends, and I will do
anything to achieve it. Please to sit down.”

He waved his hand to an old and rather
unsteady looking chair. Harry gingerly took a seat, and Grushenko
pulled his chair over to face him. “I will tell you about this
place and what we are doing. I am telling you as you will never
leave, and neither will your woman friend. But it is important to
know why you are here.”

He leaned back, a meditative look on his
face. “Although I never met your father, I knew from various
reports on him that he was a pioneer in the field of transgenic
research. Even though he confined his work to fruits and
vegetables, it was nevertheless of prime importance. He showed that
transposing genes was a simple and easy process. He also showed
that they could be manipulated for multiple purposes. My
predecessor knew of your father’s work.”

“He told me.”

Apparently, the Russian secret service had
spies in the facility where Harry’s father had worked. The spies
had also hacked into the senior Goldman’s computer and stolen the
data they needed.

“Your knowledge came from my father,” Harry
stated, growing more pissed off as he spoke. Out of the corner of
his eye, he saw the exit, and just as quickly squelched the idea of
escaping. First off, he had nowhere to go, no passport, and no
means of getting back. He only hoped that Farrell would find some
kind of rapprochement with the Russian government, but there was no
guarantee.

A second later, the massive form of Piotr
appeared in the doorway, grinning. Blood dripped from his mouth,
and since it was obvious that he wasn’t a vegetarian, the escape
idea got shelved, at least temporarily.

“Of course it did,” Grushenko agreed, nodding
his head. “We also had the same idea, but your father was further
ahead in his research, so we saw no reason not to benefit from it.
I am just sorry that I never met with him. It would have been good
to exchange scientific views.”

Grushenko offered another cold smile. He
reached for another cigarette, seemed to change his mind,
hesitated, and then withdrew his hand. Instead, he propped his
elbows on the desk and continued his lecture.

“However, your father was unwilling to take
the next necessary steps. You were, at least in computer
simulations. However, you were in the United States and we were
here, so we had to rely on our own people. Nurmelev was a brilliant
scientist, but he never managed to solve the secret of the animal
genes overwhelming the human ones. I have managed to do so, up to a
point. You have met my creations, have you not?”

“If you mean the monster twins, yeah, I
have.” Harry decided to let out the sarcasm full strength, but
reined in his temper. He had to find out something. “Have you
managed to reverse the process, bring them back to human form?”

A dark cloud swept over Grushenko’s face.
“No, I have not.” He uttered a weary sigh. “This is the only
drawback of the plan. It seems that when one combines human and
animal DNA, eventually the animal genes overwhelm the human ones,
and the subject devolves.

“However, when one combines two different
animal types with the human subject, the three types of DNA fuse,
and there is no way to separate them. Not only that, the subject’s
life is shortened considerably. I imagine you have run into the
same problem?”

Actually, Harry had never tried combining two
different species with a human, even in computer simulations. The
idea of doing that seemed too bizarre.

Using one type of animal DNA, though, he’d
done the research. Even though he’d managed to overcome the problem
with Anastasia, he wasn’t about to give away his secrets so easily.
Therefore, what he told the scientist was something he figured
Grushenko already knew. “I tried using a protein sheath to cover
the animal DNA. I tried recombinant DNA infused with a retrovirus
to suppress the same genes. It didn’t work.”

While he spoke, Grushenko nodded, lips
pursed, and his eyes gleamed with excitement. He had to be really
into this, Harry thought, into playing God in the laboratory, using
people as guinea pigs, and not caring about having a conscience. It
appeared that Grushenko wasn’t concerned with human feelings.

True to form, when the scientist spoke, it
was with fervor. “You are indeed your father’s son, and everything
Nurmelev spoke of,” he declared. “I am honored to know you.”

The more he spoke, the more he seemed to go
into ranting mode, and Harry figured that insanity was at play in
this scenario. Yet, he had to know more. “So if you’ve run into the
same problems, then what’s the use of all this?”

In a flash, the passionate gleam in the
scientist’s eyes faded, replaced by one of ice. “Nurmelev only
thought of money,” he said, waving his hand like a horse flicking
its tail. “He wanted to sell his ideas to the highest bidder. I am
thinking of something more. It is...” he paused for dramatic
effect, “something of my own design.”

Now the old mad scientist trope came into
play, Harry thought. He wanted to rule the world, rule
humanity...or rule his own country. Start small, yeah, that was the
plan, and work up. “So you want to rule the world?”

A tired laugh greeted his question.
Grushenko’s answer indicated that he wanted the fourth option,
something Harry hadn’t considered. “No, nothing as grand as that,
I’m afraid. I wish to extend my life. I am in my late fifties, and
not long for this earth.”

He waved his hands around, and a grimace
crossed his face. “Due to the lingering radiation here, Chernobyl
has an incredibly high rate of bladder and thyroid cancer. I was
born not so far from here, Pripyat to be exact. When the accident
happened, my parents thought that the radiation would not extend to
our house. They were wrong, as I have developed both types.

“I have also been a heavy smoker, as you can
see.” He pointed to the ashtray. “I imagine that also has something
to do with it as well. But all the same, it is always the genes
which act as filters and defendants of your body. As your father
died from that same disease, I suppose that you can appreciate that
fact.”

Harry’s mind flashed back to his father’s
last days. Never a large man, the pancreatic tumor inside his
father’s body had stripped him of any muscle he had and reduced his
bodyweight from around one-sixty to half that amount. Treatment had
extended his life by only a couple of weeks. In the end, the
verdict came swiftly and with finality.

At the very end, he resembled a mummy’s dried
and desiccated corpse. “I do,” he said, recalling with sadness his
father’s final days, his mother’s grief, and her eventual passage
into the eternal void. He tried to keep the tears from coming,
couldn’t, and hastily brushed his eyes with his hands in an attempt
to man up before this human monster.

“I can see that your father’s passage grieves
you,” Grushenko remarked in an unemotional voice. “My parents died
from the same disease as I suffer.”

He stopped to light another cigarette. “My
preliminary experiments have managed to keep the growths at bay,
but only for a short time, perhaps a few months at best. With your
help, I will be able to perfect the process. So far, only the young
can tolerate the stress of the procedure, those under the age of
twenty. I wish to perfect the process to the point where it can
work on someone older—me.”

“What about your disciples?” Harry asked. “Do
they share your vision?”

With a short, confident nod, Grushenko leaned
forward to explain his ideas in a tumble of words. “They will, they
most assuredly will. They are the first step. Their regenerative
powers are almost off the scale. Once I have achieved my dream, I
will share it with them. They will then be free to go wherever they
wish.”

“Who were they?”

Grushenko shrugged. “Is it that important to
know?”

“Yeah, it is.”

The Russian scientist proceeded to repeat
almost verbatim what Lyudmila had told him earlier on. “Piotr was a
private in the army, working in communications. He came from
Leningrad. Lyudmila also worked in the same army division. Outside
of those facts, I know nothing of their earlier lives. What I do
know is that they are not much older than you or your girlfriend,
and they willingly participated in my glorious vision.”

There was so much wrong with this idiot’s
plan that the fail in it was not strong enough. “Your creatures are
killers,” Harry stated, the disgust heavy in his voice. “They love
killing. Even if everyone around us accepts them for how they look,
they’ll never fit in. They’re psychotic.”

Grushenko shrugged. Apparently, he didn’t
think insanity was such a bad thing. A smile began to form at his
lips, but a sudden coughing fit erased it, and he bent over,
hacking up his lungs with a horribly wet and nasty sound. “Excuse
me, please,” he said between gasps.