Jonathan Bond - The Terminus experiment

“What you sense,” came de Vries’ low whisper, startling both, of them, “is the process for creating a new breed of infected. From what I’ve been able to determine, it’s a process so complicated, and containing such a mixture of magic and technology, that there are only about five people in the entire world who could do it. And only two of them who could carry it out single-handedly. The man behind this place could easily be the most dangerous person on the entire planet.”

Then he was gone again, leaving Sinunu to wonder how de Vries could possibly have heard their whispered conversation.

“All right.” said Flak, “I’m in. Let’s roll.”

“Okay. Loading bay number three is located fifty meters to your right. Everything is green, but time’s running out. So let’s hump it up.”

Flak took point, as they had planned, and the team fanned out in an arrowhead formation. Sinunu on the left, Rachel just behind and to her right, and Truxa taking the far wing. De Vries shadowed Truxa, and somehow, Sinonu found his placement comforting.

Moving in set stages, they covered the ground quickly, taking cover as best they could, until they reached the loading bay.

The building was a low-stung dome, longer than it was wide, and stretched off into the darkness. The loading bays were at the end of a short paved road that circled around to the front of the building.

The bay was empty and they swung up the short stairway, noting the dead cameras at the entrance. The double doors at the end of the bay were locked as Flak stepped up to them.

“All right, this part is tricky,” came Sandman’s voice over the taccicom. “if I unlock it, an auto alarm will sound. It’s retinal ID only, along with an eight-digit code.”

“Damn,” said Flak. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Take it easy, big guy. Just put your eye to the scanner. I couldn’t open it myself, but that didn’t stop me from changing the codes.”

Flak grunted, and lowered his face to the scanner. There was a small beep, and a tiny panel near the door slid out to reveal a numbered keypad.

“It’s coded for your birthday, then five-five.”

Using his thumb nail, Flak entered the code, and for a moment nothing happened. Then the lock clicked as the panel slid back into place.

“Like taking candy from a baby,” came Sandman’s voice.

The team stepped into a long, dimly lit hallway. “All right,” Sandman said, “our target is three floors down. The elevator is out of the question. No way for me to reroute the programming without letting the whole place know we’re here. But the emergency stairs are just peachy.”

They were just starting to move when de Vries appeared at Sinunu’s side. “I’ve got a bit of business to finish before we get there,” he told her. “I’ll meet you at the target.”

Before she could say anything, de Vries dissolved into a cloud of mist that floated softly down a small vent.

Pakow sat at the main console of the operating theater, cushioned by his overstuffed chair. Below him, framed by the octagonal-shaped, slanted plexiglass walls, stood the huge stainless steel containment chamber. Two of his assistants. both barely more than automatons, moved about their programmed assignments, filling the vats with the glowing blue fluid Doctor Wake had developed.

Pakow wiped away a trickle of sweat that dripped from his hairline and ran down his forehead. Things were getting messy, and it was scaring him.

He leaned down and spoke into a microphone that sprouted from the top of the console, “Number Two, set temperature at thirty-one point three, then exit.”

Pakow watched as the misshapen creature stepped onto the engraved white and green pentagram that gridded the floor, shambled to the huge container, and did as it was told. Once the setting had been entered the thing that had once been a man made his way to the lift platform that would lower him out of the chamber, Pakow knew it would take him down into the decontamination section, where he hoped the small glitch in the decon program would go unnoticed. If it didn’t, the computer would realize that Number Two didn’t have any contaminants on him at all. And if that happened, the game would be up.

Another trickle of sweat followed the first, and Pakow wiped at it in frustration, He was exhausted and frightened. He didn’t like all this intrigue wasn’t used to the stress it caused, and was seriously worried that he was going to crack before the night was over.

“Number One, transfer the patient to the tank.”

The other occupant of the room, an ork who had been one of the first metas to undergo the procedure, shook slightly then started in the wrong direction before stopping, turning, and heading over to a large hatch in the side of the theater. This ork had been part of a test group for an omega strain Pakow had designed, one intended to transform members of the various metatypes into vampires, without also conferring the disadvantages HMHVV usually bestowed on their metatype.

Pakow shook his head. He hated using Number One. In fact, he hated everything about Number One. He shuddered as he thought back on the night he and Wake had finished the procedure on the poor creature.

Instead of the fully intelligent and magically capable being they’d hoped to engineer, the ork had come off the table a drooling, homicidal thing devoid of any ability whatsoever They’d implanted the psychotropic chip, but the ork’s meta gene reacted with the virus in such a way that the chip seemed to have no effect.

Only after they’d given it a frontal lobotomy did Number One settle down to where it was manageable. They had spent almost three hours inside the thing’s skull, selectively searing neurons until they’d found the right combination.

However, whatever talents the ork might have had were also deleted, making it fit for nothing more than high-risk, decon-proof tasks that didn’t require any brain power. Still, tonight, that was exactly what Pakow needed. Even if things didn’t go quite as planned, there was no way Wake could learn anything from this creature, not even using his formidable magical skill. The only magical manifestation Number One showed was a profound resistance to anything magical. Something that Wake thought of as a success of sorts.

As Number One opened the sliding hatch and clumsily lifted the body waiting there. Pakow turned to the large monitor at the front of the console. Everything was ready. The room showed no sign of contamination, and the vat itself was now filled with a simple saline solution instead of the DMSO-saturated liquid required for the process. The DMSO facilitated the subject tissue’s absorption of the chemicals necessary to start the conversion process.

Number One placed the limp form into the vat, and stepped back.

“Initiate sedation.”

Number One shook again, but this time got the order right on the first try. A small needle attached to an articulated mechanical arm stretched out from the side of the vat and slid into the side of the patient’s neck. Pakow smiled. Anybody watching the trid replay would see that everything was going according to standard operating procedure. However, instead of sedating the patient, he was being injected with a chemical that would actually counteract most of the drugs he’d been given in the last twelve hours.