Warren Murphy: Deadly Genes

Someone complaining. Softly. The sound of rapid footsteps on shattered glass.

"Not now," Judith murmured to herself. She wasn't ready.

More voices. Hushed, nervous.

She got to her feet. She had to steady herself against her desk as she made her way around to the other side. It was a challenge to stay upright as she staggered across the space between desk and door.

Her head was reeling. The voices seemed far away.

No. Close up.

She pulled open the door.

There was a narrow room off the rear of the main laboratory. It was supposed to be an extrawide corridor and storage area, and connected to another laboratory. Dr. White's team had redesigned the long chamber to house the BBQs. In her hallucinatory haze, Judith could see a faint amber strip of light coming from beneath the closed door to this room. "Quiet, " a hushed voice insisted.

"There's no one here," another rasped.

"Just be quiet, anyway," ordered the first. "Here, start with the ones nearest the door."

Dr. White heard the distinct, dejected lowing of the BBQs.

Not now, she thought. I'm not ready for this. Holding on to metal lab stools and desks, she made her way across the laboratory to the closed door. The single BBQ that had been brought into the lab for the press was still in its pen. The animal blinked at Dr. White as the scientist passed by, crawling hand over hand along the small fence that held the sad-eyed creature in place.

It seemed to take forever, but she finally made it to the door.

There were more than the original two voices by now. She could hear several more inside, grunting and swearing.

Judith fumbled for the doorknob. A distant, lucid part of her mind was surprised when she managed to catch it on the first try. She flung the door open wide.

The startled eyes that looked out at her from the long corridor did not belong to the BBQs.

There were a dozen of them. They wore skintight black mime leotards. Black gloves and black sneakers covered their hands and feet. Their heads were shielded by solid black ski masks. White eyes stared out through rough triangular holes in the masks.

The black-clad figures had been busy.

Most of the BBQs were gone. The last two creatures were even now being herded down the hall to the adjoining lab.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Judith demanded. Her voice was a guttural snarl. Through her blurry, surreal vision, Dr. White could see that one of the floor-to-ceiling panes of glass in the next room had been shattered. More figures in black hefted a BBQ out the broken window. There was a fire escape beyond.

The figures nearby seemed paralyzed for a moment.

Judith staggered into the room.

If the injection would only clear... It didn't take long. Once it did, she'd be able to...

"I'll take care of her," snapped a gruff female voice.

One of the leotard-clad figures ran over to Dr. White. Judith held up one hand in an odd defensive posture. Her back arched visibly as she readied for the attack.

But the injection she had given herself was just too strong. Disoriented, she swung down at her attacker's head.

And missed.

She didn't get a second chance.

Something appeared in the hand of the dark figure. A flashlight. The beam played wildly across the wall as the intruder's arm swept up and then down viciously across the side of the scientist's head.

The pain was sharp and bright. It exploded from around the point of impact, racing through her already numb brain.

Judith dropped to all fours on the cold floor. Weakly, she tried to push herself up. No good. She collapsed over onto her side.

A wave of blackness bled through her mind.

"There's another one in here!" she heard the woman who had struck her exclaim. The voice echoed.

Judith's distorted vision caught a final glimpse of black sneakers scuffing past her and into the main lab. They seemed fuzzy, far off.

There was a final, plaintive moan from the last BBQ.

Then a night shroud of warm oblivion swept in. The wave of intense darkness engulfed Dr. Judith White.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo, and he was explaining to the inmate that he had just masterminded a prison break. It was a tough sell, considering they were sharing a tiny solitary-confinement cell in the Supermax maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado.

"What are you talking about?" Todd Grautski blinked, his voice thick with sleep. He was a gaunt man with a face that appeared to have been tied in a knot at one time and never completely unloosened. Wild eyes darted beneath a mop of uncombed, graying hair. His gray beard was like an unkempt ostrich nest.

It was dark in the small cell. A silvery pool of dull light spilled in through a barred panel in the door of the cell. The closed door.

The solemn red numbers on the cell's new digital clock told Todd Grautski it was after midnight. Grautski was suspicious of the clock, just as he was of all things mechanical. Unfortunately, the timepiece was not his.

"Keep your voice down," Remo whispered. He held a finger up to his lips. In the darkness, his deepset dark eyes gave him the appearance of a shushing skull.

Remo was sitting on the edge of Grautski's bunk. The inmate tugged his blanket toward his chin as he sat up.

"What are you doing in here?" Grautski asked fearfully. His voice was stronger now that he was more awake.

Remo rolled his eyes. "I told you," he said, even more quietly than before. "I just engineered a prison break."

"So what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be outside?"

"Ohh," Remo said with a smile. "Now I understand the source of your confusion. You don't get it. I didn't break out. I broke in."

Grautski looked at the door. Still closed. There was no evidence that it had been opened since it had been locked with a chillingly mechanical click more than four hours before. However, there was still the vexing problem of the thin young man sitting on his bed. He wasn't a ghost; therefore he was real. He must have gotten in somehow.

Grautski wasn't sure if he should call a guard. "Don't call a guard," Remo suggested, as if he had read Todd Grautski's mind. "They only get in the way. We want this to be neat, don't we?"

"Want what to be neat?" Grautski asked. He pulled the covers more tightly to his chin, as if the wool might protect him. There were a lot of people who wanted Todd Grautski dead. He had a sudden sinking feeling that his skull-headed visitor might be one of them.

The stranger's reply surprised him. "Our escape, silly," Remo said.

"You're getting me out?" Grautski asked doubtfully. "Thanks but no thanks. I'll take my chances on appeal." Fearful of his guest, he pulled the blankets over his head.

"Don't you want to be free?" Remo asked Todd Grautski's trembling bedcovers.

"Go away," came the muffled reply.

"Don't you want to soar like an eagle over these prison walls?" Remo gestured grandly to the wall of the solitary-confinement cell. It was plastered with magazine pictures of naked women. He paused, studying the photographic images. "You know, when I was in prison they didn't allow dirty pictures," he commented.

"They're not mine," Grautski mumbled.

"They mine," interjected a voice behind Remo. Remo had been aware of the second inmate since before he'd even entered the cell. But the man had been snoring softly until now. Remo turned to the speaker.

The face peering from the adjacent bunk was as black as the darkest cell shadows. Bloodshot white eyes stared at Remo.

"Do you mind?" Remo asked, irked. "This is a private prison break."

"You gettin' out?" the other inmate growled. He glanced at the closed door.

"No!" Todd Grautski mumbled through his blanket.

"Yes," said Remo.

"I comin', too," the other prisoner insisted.