The Lycan Society (The Flux Age Book 1) (5 page)

The thug with lank brown hair - Tomas knew him as Vlado - held a vial of blood in the air triumphantly. “Enhanced lycan,” he sneered. “Fresh.”

Tomas’s heart lurched in a number of directions at once. Fresh lycan blood?
That
was incredibly hard to come by. How would it affect his experiments? More importantly -

“Where did you get that?” he asked suspiciously.

Vlado grinned, his ruddy, pockmarked face splitting in two. It was a chilling sight.

“Your assistant gave me one of them silver sickles,” he drawled. “Went to New York and opened up a lycan from ear to ear.”

Tomas felt incredibly cold all of a sudden. “You
killed
a lycan for that blood?” he asked quietly. The intense anger in his tone was unmistakable.

Vlado seemed to be relish Tomas’s emotion. With a defiant gleam in his eyes he pressed the vial into the scientist’s hand.

“You wanted blood,” the Berliner spat. “I give you blood. Our methods are none of your concern.
Doktor.
”

Eyes locked on the thug, Tomas gripped the vial. What Vlado had said was essentially correct, but he struggled to contain his outrage. Herr X had assured him that no one would be hurt in the course of this important research. The men had shaken on it. Of course, in this day and age handshakes meant very little.

Tomas Verdano was a pacifist. He abhorred violence in all its forms. He’d seen enough to last him a lifetime growing up in the ghettos of the Ukraine. As a big, strapping teen he’d been able to look after himself fairly well, but an incident in the Stadion Vorskla sports stadium when he was 17 turned him off violence for good. He was attacked in the stairwell by a gang of young punks. Defending himself, he accidentally killed a boy by throwing him down the stairs. The police never investigated too deeply - the gangs were a menace and loathed by all.

But the incident had left a permanent scar on Tomas’ soul. He devoted himself to science, to further the cause of humanity. He graduated with distinction at Yuri Kondratyuk University and immediately began looking for work in the field of advanced biogenics. One of the first to observe that a significant portion of human DNA remained locked and unused, Tomas seemed set for a brilliant career on the world stage.

That was when he came across
that
book. Killing a few hours one wintry afternoon in the National Library in Prague, he discovered MONSTERS IN THE DARK: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DARK AGES by Vladimir Prakow. Knowing a little Romanian, he delved deeply into the text, fascinated with the author’s audacious proposition. At first he was throughly entertained. As a kid he’d always loved stories about vampires, werewolves, mummies and other mythical creatures. He knew they couldn’t possibly exist. The idea of magnetic Flux events that caused these monsters to roam the earth was so fantastic his scientific mind automatically rejected it.

At first.

But then he considered the failure of historians to adequately explain why the Dark Ages had occurred. Then there was the widespread chaos surrounding the turn of the Roman calendar from O BC to 1 AD.

Both of these troubling, dynamic periods were exactly 1000 years apart. If Prakow was correct, another Flux period had already begun. What would that mean for modern human civilization?

Just for kicks, Tomas resolved to test Prakow’s Flux theory and see if there was any evidence of this fantastical event.

Which lead him to Herr X. Information was scant, but during his research on mythical creatures Tomas came across vague references to a Nazi sect called the Berlin Club. Formed in 1939 and made up of wealthy Nazi sympathizers, the Berlin Club took a special interest in the paranormal, claiming to have located a werewolf colony deep in the heart of a Polish forest.

When the Nazi regime collapsed at the end of World War II, not much was heard of the Berlin Club for several decades. Rumor had it that the Club survived but was very careful not to make any of its activities public. In 1983 a German doctor was taken into custody for the murder of a woman he insisted was a werewolf. He claimed innocence, saying he was blackmailed by his masters at the Berlin Club. The man was found dead in his jail cell the next day.

Fascinated with this lead, Tomas traveled to Berlin and researched everything he could on the unfortunate doctor. That was when Herr X took him into custody and questioned him for twelve hours.

Tomas managed to convince Herr X that he was a man of science flirting with the paranormal, no more. The mysterious German took an interest in Tomas, claiming he always had room in his organization for brilliant minds.

Herr X was particularly interested in Tomas’s theories on the Flux. The scientist was astounded to discover that not only did Herr X believe in the Flux, but wanted to build a facility devoted exclusively to researching the phenomenon.

Tomas didn’t know what to think - his mind was a blur of conflicting ideas and emotions. He was a man of science, of empirical evidence, yet here was a man asking him to research paranormal phenomena. Yes, he’d always had an interest in this mythical stuff, but he never seriously thought he could apply proper science to it.

But how often was a scientist offered total freedom and a state of the art research facility to work in? It was all his dreams come true. Besides, if the research came to nothing, what would he have lost? A couple of years, no more. In the end, money was the deciding factor. Herr X’s offer simply couldn’t be refused. He had just met his wife Vanya and hoped to one day support a family. This project seemed like a solid way to kick-start his career.

But still, something ate away at Tomas’s mind as the research facility entered its design phase. Herr X promised not to intervene with his work, but how could he be trusted?

The man had very strong links with the enigmatic Berlin Club. Did that mean Tomas was working for a Nazi?

Herr X himself had laughed off the notion, claiming he was just a ‘good German citizen’ with an interest in Prakow’s theories. Somehow Tomas didn’t think this was entirely true. He feared that Herr X would use the Flux research for unthinkable purposes.

But if those fears grew in the back of Tomas’s mind, that’s where they stayed. Once the Silo was complete the scientist threw himself into his work, thrilled to have so many resources at his disposal. Whole teams of technicians, specialists in spectral physics, bio-engineering, bio-modification, genetic theory, political science and paranormal anthropology.

Everyone under his authority had the same objective - to find out if the Flux was real.

For a half-Ukrainian boy from Poltava, it was a dream come true. The past three years had flown by in a blizzard of discoveries. Tomas’s contract stipulated that he couldn’t go to the press with any of his findings. It was all the intellectual property of Herr X.

Tomas went to sleep most nights dreaming of being able to share his knowledge with the world, though in truth the data would send everyday citizens into a panic. Not only had he amassed ample evidence that the Flux phenomenon was real, he’d also demonstrated that its power was increasing every year.

Herr X was not a patient man. His employer grew increasingly agitated with every step Tomas took towards completing the main project.

The German’s attitude to the scientist’s work was puzzling to say the least. On the one hand there was access to a dazzling array of resources. Tomas couldn’t begin to guess how much all this had cost. On the other hand, Herr X seemed to regard everything Tomas did with extreme disdain.

The scientist couldn’t help but think that the Berlin Club would have a major role to play in this whole affair.

Herr X’s motives were unclear and quite possibly dangerous. Tomas’s contract was to end in three months and he was of a mind to give himself a much needed break.

After all, Project White Knight was near completion.

The figure lying unconscious on an operating table in the isolation cell was the key to everything.
That
was both his defining achievement and his worst atrocity.

Playing Dr. Frankenstein was never what he wanted. But in many ways Flux research demanded it. At the beginning of their working relationship Herr X insisted that one of the project deliverables be a fully functional lycan.

At first, Tomas thought it an impossible dream. Yes, he was beginning to suspect that such a thing as a lycan could exist, but to create one from thin air seemed fanciful at best.

Then Herr X’s thugs started bringing in cadavers. As a scientist Tomas never had a problem with human bodies. As long as they weren’t killed by Herr X’s minions, he was fine with it. His employer assured him the bodies were fresh from the morgue. Tomas didn’t like to dwell on such matters, preferring to focus on what he could control.

It only took a few months for Tomas to realize that the creation of a lycan was not only possible, but probable. The peculiar conditions of the Flux made it so.

In theory, all he needed was a sufficient quantity of Lycan blood, a dynamic DNA / RNA blueprint and the right electromagnetic trigger.

Fifty years ago a corpse wouldn’t have responded to his electromagnetic triggers at all.

And now? Now there was what Tomas liked to call
willingness
. A body’s willingness to become whatever its previously locked DNA and RNA allowed it to become. When Flux conditions were in operation, it was just a matter of finding out what DNA blueprint worked best for the individual.

The theory was that if you could splice the very building blocks of a person’s DNA, the Flux would take care of the rest, bringing forth the ‘monster’ that had always lurked within. Some of the biologists in Tomas’ team hypothesized that humans had been affected by the Flux since their emergence some 40,000 years ago. It made sense. If the physical forces of the Earth itself were flipped on its head every 1000 years, it was only reasonable to expect life to be altered accordingly.

As far as Tomas could tell, there were hundreds of possible ‘endpoints’ for scrambled, re-energized RNA nodes. Ghouls were common. As were zombies and wights. Succubi, Aquila and Djinni were all more benign forms of Flux transformation.

Then there was the Naturebound. Tomas thought there was nothing more noble than being able to connect with one’s spirit animal and take its physical form. Herr X seemed to think differently, referring to Naturebound as base vermin and an insult to humanity. Even so, the German was adamant that Tomas produce a Naturebound in perhaps its most graceful form - the lycan.

The scientist in Tomas was of course curious to see if such a thing could be achieved. The implications of success were unimaginable. And the best part? There was some evidence to suggest that the only Flux mutation capable of surviving non-Flux periods was the lycan. In fact, lycans were probably responsible for preserving human knowledge and culture during Flux events. They did it around the time of the old Roman Empire, and they did it again during the Dark Ages.

If Tomas could create his own lycan, it could be the start of something profound. The only question mark was Herr X and the Berlin Club. What did they have in mind for this lycan? It was hard to imagine a positive outcome where Herr X was involved.

In the end, the sheer excitement and importance of Tomas’s work was strong enough to overpower any ethical considerations he had. So he worked hard on his creation and blocked the rest from his mind.

Inducing a lycan was incredibly difficult.

Various mutations, both inhibiting and enhancing, were a common element of all evolutionary processes. Tomas had subjected countless ‘fresh’ corpses to his own, patented method of genetic manipulation, working furiously to mimic the precise configuration found in lycans. It was possible to work on these corpses for two weeks before their life force faded for good. Tomas kept their hearts beating in this ‘live’ period via electromagnetic therapy. For all intents and purposes the subjects were dead, but their core DNA blueprint could still be tampered with.

The corpse lying in the isolation cell was as close as Tomas had ever gotten to a lycan - it exhibited enhanced musculature and bodily fur without looking exactly right.

Hopefully, the vial of fresh lycan blood Tomas clutched tightly was the last piece of the puzzle.

And with the impending arrival of Herr X, this blood may have arrived just in time.

“Petyr,” he called, walking over to the diagnostic machine linked to the cell. “It’s time to settle this once and for all.”

Petyr gave a small nod, a mad gleam in his eyes. Tomas had developed a healthy dislike for the man, finding his willingness to play God a little disquieting. But his assistant was both knowledgeable and efficient. As Tomas prepared to launch an animation sequence, Petyr was already checking the integrity of the hundreds of electromagnetic conduits that were about to flood the specialized cell with energy.

Tomas attached the blood vial to a long line IV drip. The ‘live’ corpse inside was about to receive prime blood of the werewolf.

The scientists waited for the blood to spread through the subject’s body. Tomas monitored its life signs carefully. The heart was beating strongly, propelled by a constant barrage of electromagnetic pulses. Given enough energy it would be possible to reanimate this corpse for a good half minute.