Nick Carter - The Omega Terror

“Is this Section One, sir?” I said, stalling.

“Yes, you idiot!” he replied. He turned partially away from me. “The cutting room is in the other wing. You go back through these….”

I brought the edge of my right hand down in a swift chop at the back of his neck, and he collapsed into my arms. I dragged him to the closet door and turned the handle. It was locked. I swore under my breath. Somebody else could appear in this corridor at any moment, and I would be stuck with the body. I fumbled in the djellaba I was wearing and came up with the lock-picker I had taken from my clothes along with Wilhelmina and Hugo. In a moment I had the door open. But another door opened twenty feet down the corridor while the lab man was still on the floor in the hallway. Another white-frocked man came out but turned the other way without seeing us and strode quickly down the hall. I let my breath out. I grabbed the unconscious body and pulled it into the closet after me, turning on the light inside after I closed the door.

The closet was tiny, with hardly enough room for two people. I quickly stripped off the barber’s clothing and dumped it into a pile in a corner with mops and pails. Then I moved to the small sink behind me, turned on the water and scrubbed the washable stain from my face and hands. I dried with a utility towel from a stack on a stand nearby. I took off the man’s coat, shirt and tie. I’d kept my own pants in the previous exchange. I put the new clothes on, removing and replacing the holster and stiletto sheath. In a moment I was a white-coated technician. I bound my man with the utility towels, gagged him, left the closet and locked it behind me.

Out in the hall I looked at my badge. My name was Heinz Kruger and I was assigned to Department F, whatever that meant. I wondered how close to Dr. Z and Li Yuen that would get me. I moved down the corridor toward the far end, where there were large swinging doors. A young woman with spectacles came out of a side corridor, glanced at me and spoke in English, which apparently was the second language of the facility.

“Good morning,” she said as she passed, giving me a second look, as if she wondered why my face was not familiar.

I snatched a glimpse at her badge. “Good morning to you, Miss Gomulka.”

The use of her name seemed to reassure her, and she smiled briefly as she moved on. I did not look after her. I walked quickly down to the end of the corridor and the double doors.

The long room I entered was a ward, the beds filled with Arabs and a few black Africans. They looked like the flotsam of their world or any world. And they all looked very sick.

I glanced down the aisle between the beds and saw a male nurse giving a shot of something to a patient. The nurse glanced at me and nodded but paid no further attention. I returned the nod and moved down the aisle in the other direction. What I saw made my stomach turn.

There was no attempt to keep the bedding clean in this ward or even to keep litter off the floor. And it was clear that the men in these beds were not being medically treated, since many of them had the open sores and malnutrition they had been brought here with. But there was something about them that was much more unnerving than these visual marks of neglect. These people were deathly ill. Their eyes had a dull, bloodshot look, their skin was flaccid and dry, and many of them were in obvious pain. They moaned constantly and asked for medication as I passed. One bony black man lay motionless on the bed, his soiled sheets kicked off. I walked over and looked at him. His eyes were open and glazed over. His tongue protruded halfway from his mouth and was swollen and dry. His face had been wracked with the marks of excruciating pain, and there was almost no flesh on his body. I touched his wrist. The man was dead.

So that was what was going on in there. These poor devils were being used as human guinea pigs. They had probably been picked off the streets of villages with the promise of clinical treatment and then brought to the lab to be experimented on. They had been injected with Omega and represented final proof of Zeno’s success.

My insides twisted up, thinking about what these wretched men had been put through. As I stood looking at the corpse, I thought of a large city in the United States after the Omega Mutation had struck. Gray-skinned men and women dying in the streets, unable to get help, writhing in agony, hollow eyes pleading for mercy, dry lips mumbling for some miracle to end the suffering. Hospitals clogged with groaning victims, the staff itself unable to function because of the attack of the disease. Government offices closed, transportation and news services inoperable. No trucks or planes moving to get precious medicines to the hospitals.

“Can I help you?”

The voice startled me, coming as it had from just over my left shoulder. I toned and saw the male nurse standing there. His voice was high-pitched, his manner saccharine.

“Oh. Just taking a look at results,” I said. “How is everything proceeding this morning?”

“Quite well,” he said in an effeminate tone. He was trying to remember me, like the girl in the hall. “We have several third stages now, and the symptoms are remarkable. It appears that the en-tire procedure requires only about four to five days to termination.”

This man had to know what was really happening. He wasn’t one of the dupes, so he was more dangerous to me. “That’s good,” I said authoritatively. “You have a terminal over here.” I pointed to the dead man.

“Yes, I know,” he said. He looked me over with cold appraisal.

“Well, have a good morning,” I said briskly. I turned to walk away. Then his voice stopped me again.

“Why are you wearing Ringer’s badge?”

My mouth went dry. I had hoped I could avoid this kind of confrontation. I let Hugo slip into my palm as I turned back to him. I looked at the badge.

“Oh. I borrowed a coat of his and forgot to take the badge off. I’m glad you saw it.”

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” he asked.

“That’s right. I’m Derek Beaumont. Brought to the project under Dr. Zeno’s orders just last week.”

“Yes. Of course.”

He didn’t believe me. I sensed he was just waiting for me to leave, so he could get on the inter-com. I had no choice. I stepped a bit closer. “Well. See you around.” I clapped him on the shoulder heartily and moved my right hand forward in a quick thrust to his rib cage. His eyes saucered as the cold steel entered, then he fell heavily against me.

I replaced Hugo and dragged the limp figure to a nearby empty bed. There were at least a dozen pairs of eyes on me as I threw him on the bed, but nobody made any attempt to cry out or move in my direction. I threw a sheet over the limp figure and strode hastily from the ward.

I moved down a side corridor to the left. There were few doorways there. When I got down to the end, there was a closed door with a simple sign on it: DIRECTOR. No admission.

This had to be Li Yuen’s office. I hesitated a moment, wondering what my next move should be. I could run into so much trouble there that I’d never find the lab or Zeno. But I decided to take that chance.

I opened the door and stepped into a reception room. A secretary sat at a desk, a Chinese woman in her forties, and a big, husky black African stood guard just inside the door. Another door, to my right, led into the private office of Li Yuen.

The guard looked at my badge but made no comment. The woman looked up, smiled uncertainly and spoke. “May I help you?” Her English was excellent.

“I must see Li Yuen,” I said.

She scrutinized my face. “I don’t believe I know you.”

“I’ve just joined the research team. Kruger. Perhaps the director has mentioned me to you.” I was going on pure bluff again. I had to use Kruger’s name because the black man had already seen the badge. I could only hope that this woman was not too sure who Kruger was.