Rise of the Transgenics (27 page)

Eventually, he got his breathing under
control, and with an effort, he arose, his eyes gleaming once more.
“Think of it, young man, just think of it! Human beings living for
as long as they like, unencumbered by disease or even death, and we
have the ability, the power to achieve that and it all lies at our
fingertips!”

Speech over, another series of racking coughs
overtook him and he bent at the waist, heaving in great gulps of
air. “I am sorry. My condition is...not good, but,” he straightened
up, “this should not concern you.” Straightening up and pointing to
the door, he said, “Come with me.”

Leading the way out, Harry trailed behind
him, and as he passed through the door, Piotr stood upright and
barred the way with his massive arm. “You listen to doctor,
da?
Lyudmila tell me not to hit head, but I am not so
careful all time.”

He then grinned, showing his bloody teeth,
and put his arm down. “Go, little man.”

Allowing the doctor to play leader, Harry
followed him down the corridor. Along the way, he saw numerous
rooms, the windows painted black. “What’s in there?” he asked.

“The dead,” Grushenko answered in an even
tone. “There were those who made it through the procedure, but they
escaped, unfortunately.”

“How many got out of here?” Harry wanted to
know.

The doctor shook his head. “Not all of them
came from this lab. There were others located around our country,
and in other countries. I had heard of other labs being constructed
and used, but I was not a part of them and I do not know how much
progress they have made, if any.”

Harry thought about it. There were others,
alive, and maybe sane or not. Reports of animal attacks on
humans...maybe they weren’t exactly animals, after all.

Averting his gaze from the doctor and turning
it in the direction of the blackened window, a small hole caught
his eye. Peering through it, he saw well over a hundred bodies
stacked on top of one another, arms and legs twisted, warped and
stunted, bodies that had been deliberately perverted, all in the
name of science.

“We must experiment until we get it right,”
Grushenko whispered into his ear.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea formed in the pit
of Harry’s stomach, and the thought of all those dead people made
him double over and vomit. He retched out bitter yellowish bile.
Once done, he found Grushenko staring at him, face totally devoid
of emotion. “It may sicken you, young Goldman, but cancer sickens
one even more. Consider that. There are always tradeoffs in life.
This is one of them.” He turned away, looking weary and spent.

Harry followed him into a small room and
stopped. There, inside a cell, Anastasia lay strapped down
securely. “She is asleep, a heavy sedative,” Grushenko said in a
calm, analytical manner. “She had to be restrained, as I did not
wish her to interfere with the process.”

With a languid wave of his hand, he indicated
another object in the corner of the room. A genesis chamber sat
there with a computer on top of it. It looked almost identical to
the one the FBI engineers had constructed, only older. “That is
what Nurmelev designed but never built years ago. Before this, it
took months in order to achieve the desired effect, but now it can
be achieved in less than five minutes.”

For a second, Harry wondered why Grushenko
didn’t mention the Genesis Chamber in the FBI labs. The only thing
he could think of was that Piotr had destroyed it, but hadn’t
realized what it was. Therefore, he didn’t bother to mention it to
anyone. Reaching, yes, but that was the only possibility.

Grushenko walked over and patted the machine
fondly as a parent would pat an obedient child on the head. “This
is the only one of its kind, and it works,” he said with a great
deal of pride. “It is what I used to create Lyudmila and Piotr. It
is what I will eventually use on myself when the process is
complete.”

He whistled sharply, and the form of Piotr
appeared in the doorway. They conversed in Russian and the doctor
made for the door. “Familiarize your mind with the equipment,
Goldman,” the doctor said. “Learn, for we shall begin our
experiments very shortly. I must...take my treatment. Do not try to
escape, or else Piotr will dissuade you.”

His slender frame disappeared around a
corner, and the massive rhino-boar parked his butt in the doorway.
He did not speak, but the grin on his face indicated that he’d
relish an attempt at escape. With no possibility of getting out for
the moment, Harry went over to sit next to the cell and hoped that
he would be able to figure a way out of this.

Tick-tock went the clock, thirty minutes
passed, and Anastasia remained asleep. Harry got up and went over
to a table holding racks of chemical vials. From there, he checked
out the various types of machines, and it didn’t take him very long
to familiarize himself with the equipment. From his standpoint, it
didn’t look much different from what he’d used, although the names
of some of the chemicals and serums were in Russian. Still, he knew
what he had on hand, and after thinking the matter over, also knew
what he had to do.

He stole a look at Piotr—the massive
rhino-boar creature hadn’t budged. He sat like a mini-monolith and
occasionally reached behind his head to scratch at something. When
he turned around to check the hallway, the red mark that Lyudmila
had mentioned at the warehouse in New York stood out. Round and
oozing clear fluid, Harry recalled something about Piotr not
healing as rapidly as she did...

He turned his attention to the genesis
chamber and walked over to it. He turned it on, and immediately
Piotr’s voice came from the doorway.

“Hey, what you do?”

“Doctor Grushenko told me to look at all the
equipment here,” Harry said in a pseudo-friendly voice, keeping his
tone as polite as possible. “If I’m going to help you, I have to
know how this works.”

The creature grunted and walked over, and
with a lightning fast move, grabbed him around the throat,
throttling him. “I do not like you, little man,” he growled. “You
are small, weak, and nothing to me!”

He spit out the words, his breath foul and
heavy. Harry started to lose consciousness, but managed to wheeze
out, “Kill me, and your master is...screwed. So are you.”

Piotr’s eyes turned blood red. “I will not
kill you yet. I will make you want to die.”

The beating began. Piotr had a heavy paw,
and he slapped Harry across the face numerous times. The rhino-boar
man hit very hard and with purpose. Harry felt something break in
his face, maybe a cheekbone, and probably his nose.

Then Piotr lifted him and bashed him into
the ground like a pro wrestler delivering a body-slam to his
opponent. Harry spit out a mouthful of blood. His entire body felt
as if a train had run over him. Breathing heavily, he managed to
say, “Is that all you’ve got?”

His taunt spurred Piotr to pick him up again
and start punching him in the gut. Three hard shots to the ribs
followed, and Harry heard something snap. Immediately, he coughed
out more blood. Broken rib, maybe two, he thought, and the pain
turned into an inferno.

“This is just warmup,” Piotr said dropped
Harry on his back. He raised his massive leg to stomp Harry in the
chest, but then Grushenko called out, “Piotr” followed by more
Russian.

The monster grunted, slowly lowered his leg,
and offered a grin. He strolled through the door, leaving Harry
writhing in pain on the floor.

“God, that hurts,” Harry moaned. Crawling on
his belly, he reached the door and locked it. Stupid move, he
thought, as nothing seemed able to stop the monsters from getting
in. With agony digging into every muscle and nerve in his body, he
made the return trip to the table where all the vials were. Taking
a few shallow breaths, with a tremendous effort, he got to his feet
and searched through the various formulas.

There...he found what he was looking for and
took one vial. Grabbing a sterile needle, he jabbed it through the
covering, filled it, and plunged it into his arm. Injection over,
he pulled out the needle, tossed it away, and waited for something
to happen. His consciousness began to fade, and with it, his
hopes.

A second later, he slumped to the ground,
feeling and seeing nothing. “I thought it would work,” he
whispered.

Then a tingling sensation filled him, a
sense of well-being. A second later, a series of spasms hit. His
body shook violently, and he grabbed onto the leg of the table for
support. I don’t have much time, he thought, and crawled over to
the chamber. Getting to his feet, he typed in the numbers on the
computer. The top slid open and he hauled his body inside.

More internal tremors hit as the serum
started to work its magic. A second later, the chamber lit up and
unseen rays hit every atom of his body, accelerating the process.
He felt a scream building in his gut, but he didn’t cry out as that
would alert the authorities...

Abruptly, the sound of the machine died and
Harry wondered if that was the end of the process.

A second later, Piotr’s massive paw smashed
through the top and Harry rolled aside just in time. “You, little
man, I have come to finish you off!” Piotr cried.

He tore off the covering to the chamber,
picked Harry up by his throat, and hurled him at the far wall.
Harry smashed face first into it, but the impact didn’t hurt as
much as he thought it would.

In fact, with a sense of astonishment,
nothing
hurt. After getting to his feet, he asked, “Do you
want to try that again?”

Piotr bellowed and charged, and his head
collided with Harry’s shoulder. Piotr began to club him with his
massive paws, but Harry barely felt the blows.

What he
did
feel
was...
strength.
Along with strength came the sensation of
speed, power, and being able to kick major butt.

Piotr backed up and charged again, and this
time Harry stepped aside a split second just before impact. His
reflexes had become lightning quick, and Piotr ran headfirst into
the wall and smashed right through it.

“I will kill you!” Piotr screamed. He
hammered his fists against the wall, but couldn’t pull free.

“Like it?” asked Harry, and kicked the
massive man-thing squarely in the gut. Piotr bellowed in pain and
Harry kicked him again. “Yeah, glad you like it.”

With Piotr still trapped, Harry ran to the
cell. Anastasia had woken up and was blinking the confusion out of
her eyes. “Harry?” she asked. “You’re different.”

“What are you talking about?”

His voice died away as he caught sight of
himself in the small mirror that hung on the wall. His face looked
the same, but his eyes were now yellow, and his jaw seemed squarer.
He’d used the same feline DNA that Anastasia had been given, only
this DNA had come from a male Ussuri cat.

He looked at his forearms. They seemed more
muscular, and the veins stood out in bold relief. He looked behind
him—no tail. As he swung around again, he caught Anastasia’s gaze.
“Is that...really you?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, and pulled on the
door. The lock resisted him for a moment, and then gave way.
Rushing to her side, he quickly tore the restraints away. “Are you
okay?”

A tiny grin emerged. “Yeah...what did you
do?”

He started to say something, but the voice of
the doctor interrupted him. “What have you done?”

Harry spun around.

Lyudmila stood next to her master. “I see
that he has gone through the same process.” She started toward him,
but suddenly stopped when Anastasia got off the bed and strode out
of the cell, extending her claws. “He has, but you won’t live to
see it,
comrade.
”

With a howl of rage, she charged Lyudmila.
The ensuing impact took them through the door and into the hallway,
hissing, spitting, and slashing at each other.

Harry watched, and then the sensation of
growth and change occurred once more. His body shook violently, and
when the shakes subsided he stared at his fingers. Claws not unlike
Anastasia’s, long, sharp, and tough, emerged. “Join the party,” he
said.

Grushenko fumbled in his pocket, presumably
to bring out a pistol or a knife, but Harry moved faster than even
he thought possible and seized the doctor by the throat. “Hey, I’m
not one of your patients, remember?”

Dragging him to the center of the room, he
waited. Piotr had already pulled himself free, and shaking his head
to clear it of the concrete cobwebs, he charged.

Bad move on his part, as Harry held the
doctor in front of him as a human shield. Grushenko only had time
enough to scream “No!” before his creation ran him through and
collided with the cell bars.

The force of his run caused Piotr’s head to
smash through the metal bars, and he remained pinned. Grushenko
slumped to the floor, dead. Harry went to the cage where the
rhino-boar creature was frantically trying to pull his head
out.

“You’re stuck,” Harry observed, totally
without irony.

Piotr flailed helplessly, and then twisted
his head sideways. His eyes bugged out in disbelief when he saw the
physical changes. “You...are like me.”

“No, I’m nothing like you,” Harry
answered.

The red spot at the base of Piotr’s skull
stood out, weeping clear fluid. Harry extended his claws. The
movement felt as natural as extending his fingers. He hesitated
only a second before plunging his hand into the back of his
opponent’s skull as deeply as it would go. Once inside, he squeezed
the monster’s brain. The massive creature gave a huge hiccup, and
his body sagged.

Harry pulled his hand out and stared at the
blood and flesh on it. It caused nausea to well in his gut. He’d
just killed someone, but there was no time to think about it. With
a sense of urgency, he ran outside to search for Anastasia who was
still deep in battle. Lyudmila had her in a chokehold, and a fierce
grin split her features. “I have you now, you whore,” she spat.
“Your lover will watch you die.”