Mike Stackpole - Ghost Book One - The Earth Transformed

“You all okay, rangers?”

A handful of the folks who had rescued us stepped forward and we whooped when we finally recognized them behind their gas masks. It was Metal Maniac, Mad Dog, and a bunch of the other townies.

Vargas shook his head. “What the hell are you doing back here — aside from saving our asses?”

Metal shrugged. “After all you done for us, we couldn’t just stand by. We all worked here, remember? We knew the kind of craziness you might find.”

Mad Dog laughed. “Good thing some of us know secret ways to get into the garden or we woulda all been on the outside watchin’ you die on the security monitors.”

There were tears in Angie’s eyes. “This is why the rangers succeed. Not because we have the biggest guns, or the best armor. But because, when we do good by the people, the people do good by us. Thank you, friends. Thank you.”

The townsfolk cheered, but Vargas held up a hand.

“Yes, thank you, but now that you’ve saved us you gotta get the hell out again. We know where Finster is now, and hunting him would get awful crowded with you and your army tagging along.”

“Not to mention you’re all still sick as dogs,” said Angie. “You should all be in bed.”

Metal looked stubborn. “We told you, we want to be in on the kill.”

“And I told you, we’ll bring him out for you if we can, but we need to do this part alone.” He cleared his throat. “There are a few things you can do, though.”

“Name ’em,” said Mad Dog.

Vargas ticked them off on his fingers. “One, find us a ladder. Two, carry out the body of our medic, Kate, who… who didn’t make it.”

“Aw shit,” said Metal. “I’m sorry.”

“Me… too,” said Vargas, then cleared his throat again and continued. “And three, post a guard on all the exits of the base so Finster doesn’t slip out and hightail it out of here.”

Metal saluted. “On it. Thanks.” He spun and called to one of his fellow townies.

“Hey, Owen! Bring the ladder from Storage Bay Six! The big one!”

Ten minutes later we propped a long ladder against the broken window in the roof, shooed Metal Maniac and Mad Dog back toward the exits with their friends, and I started up the rungs with Ace, Athalia, and the rangers covering me from the ground. It was a strange sensation. I knew I was heading for a slanted window in a curved ceiling, but the illusion of the night and the stars was so strong that I felt like I was climbing a ladder through the sky.

As my head came even with the bottom of the window, I drew my pistol and peered in, scanning for threats. Inside was a large, wood–paneled office. Again, everything appeared clean enough to be sterile, and that thought made me think that the whole facility was like a body keeping itself clean to protect itself against infection — and we were that infection. Gave me the shivers.

All that wood paneling should have made the office feel warm and inviting, but it failed. Maybe it was because, while it had more shelving than the town library, there wasn’t a single thing on those shelves — no books, no trophies, no curios, no dust. Likewise there were no pictures, maps, or paintings on the open walls. The room had all the personality of cardboard box, like an office ready for its first occupant, not an office that had been in use for over a hundred years.

And for a full thirty seconds I thought it was empty too. Then I noticed the slender man sitting at the large mahogany desk right in front of me. Noticing him freaked me out so much I almost fell off the ladder. Why hadn’t I seen him? He’d been there the whole time, but I’d looked right past him like he was part of the furniture. Maybe because he was so still? He hadn’t looked up, or shifted, or even seemed to take a breath the whole time I’d been looking through with window. Why wasn’t he moving? Was he dead? He must have known we were coming for him. He’d been there when Vargas had shot out his window, but he just sat there, staring blankly.

I trained my gun on him and took another step up the ladder. “Irwin John Finster?”

It took him a moment to react to his name. I’d have held that against him, but I was the same way. Hardly knew my own anymore. Maybe he was a clone like I’d said before — the last of a long line. Then he faced me — but just his head. His shoulders didn’t turn at all, his chair didn’t swivel. His eyes were bright blue.

“You are the clone,” he said. “You found your progenitor in the lab.”

His voice was weird. I’d thought it had sounded metallic because we were hearing it through the PA system, but it sounded the same in person.

“My progenitor’s progenitor,” I said.

I kept my gun on him as I climbed the rest of the way through the window, then beckoned to the others waiting below me. “He’s here! I got him covered! Come on up!”

I heard the ladder creak behind me, but didn’t look around. Neither did Finster. He sat there looking at me, face as blank as a dead TV screen as one by one Angie, Ace, Athalia, Hell Razor, Thrasher, and Vargas came up through the window and put their guns on him too. It took two minutes. I didn’t see him blink once.

Once they were all in, Vargas spoke. “So… we have some questions.”

“Very likely.”

Vargas opened his mouth to continue, but Angie butted in first. “You can’t be the same man who was in charge of this place when it opened, can you? You’re a clone, right? Like Ghost here.”

“I would not say that clone was quite the right term,” He turned his head toward her — again, just his head. The rest of his body stayed in exactly the same position it had been in when I first noticed it. “But, yes, I am not quite the same Irwin John Finster that founded this facility. When important work needs to be done, that which is necessary for its completion must be created. That is what I did, though the sacrifice was great.”

He stood, and it was such an abrupt change from sitting to standing that we all stepped back and raised our weapons. He didn’t seem to notice.

“So,” he said. “Your questions.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Vargas. “First one. What the fuck are you doing? I mean, I think I understand the original reason for this place. Trying to find ways to help humanity adapt to harsh conditions in the event of the apocalypse and so on, but the apocalypse happened and we’re not doin’ too bad — physically at least. We don’t need fancy new lungs to survive. We don’t need steel porcupine quills covering our bodies. So why are you tryin’ to make animals that can live in conditions that don’t exist?”

Finster’s head descended into what should have been a curt nod, but never rose again. He just froze like that, with his chin tucked to his chest.

“They do exist,” he said. “How big is the area of Arizona in which you can survive without the aid of a rad–suit or a breathing mask? Two hundred square miles? Three hundred? Four? Now, how much of the Earth is covered by clouds of toxic radiation? How much of the Earth will you never be able to explore because you can only go so far before your rad suit fails or you run out of filters.”

His head rose again and those motionless blue eyes fixed on Vargas. “If we could breathe that air, if we could thrive in that radiation, the whole world could be ours.”

I glanced at the others to see if that had sounded as sane to them as it had to me. They were frowning and nodding, so I guess I wasn’t alone.

“Okay, fine,” said Angie. “You’ve got a point there, but what’s with irradiating everybody who worked for you? And don’t tell me it was an accident, ‘cause I’m not buying it.”

Finster’s eyes switched to her. “It was not an accident. As you saw out there, I had reached a dead end with my human experiments. With each generation they became more infantile and weak. Then, when my lead researchers rebelled against me and tried to stage a coup, I realized that the fault was not with my experiments. Instead it was inherent in mankind’s internal makeup, a fatal flaw that would always make them destroy themselves and the world around them. For the world to live and grow and again be returned to the pristine paradise it once was, mankind cannot be a part of it. The species must be eradicated, and a new breed of sentient being allowed to evolve to take its place.”