David Robbins - Citadel Run

The chamber was huge and filled with table after table of scientific, medical, and chemical apparatuses. Dozens of workers, the majority of them from the Genetic Research Division and the rest human, were engaged in a variety of technical and experimental tasks. Some were toiling over smoldering test tubes, others mixing chemicals, and a group of four near the door was dissecting a dog, a collie.

Yama quietly closed the door before the occupants noticed him. He realized he must be in the very heart of the Biological Center, in the Docktor’s inner sanctum.

The next door opened into a small office containing a desk, two chairs, and a file cabinet. No one was inside. The sign on the door revealed this office evidently belonged to someone named Clarissa.

Yama padded along the hallway and reached the next door. This door was locked and a bright red sign was posted at eye level. It read: “Keep Out!”

Now what could this be?

Yama knelt and examined the lock. He could shoot it open, but the shot would attract unwelcome attention to his presence. Trying to pry it open would take too long and leave marks.

The sound of cheerful whistling suddenly reached his ears.

Yama rose and hurried into Clarissa’s office, leaving a slight opening between the door and the jamb so he could view the hallway.

A man in a white frock appeared at the junction, holding a glass bottle filled with a red liquid. The man reached the locked door, produced a key, and walked inside.

Yama waited a moment, then left the office, crossed the hall, and carefully entered the room. There was no sign of the man in the frock. This chamber, like the Bio Lab, was enormous, and like the Bio Lab it contained row upon row of tables. On these tables, however, were large glass vats filled with a clear liquid and something else.

What were they?

Yama moved closer to the nearest vat, observing at least a half-dozen tubes emerging from the vat and running along an overhead rod until they reached a massive piece of equipment positioned in the middle of the room. This latter item rose almost to the ceiling. Dozens upon dozens of tubes ran into it near the top, and the bottom third was a confusing array of switches, knobs, and blinking lights of varied colors.

Still no trace of the man in the white frock.

Yama reached the first vat and gazed inside. Although the liquid in the vat was clear, along the sides it was somewhat foamy, compelling the Warrior to squint as he looked within the vat. It took several seconds for the sight he was viewing to register.

It couldn’t be!

Ordinarily, Yama was one of the more stoic Warriors, refusing to allow his feelings to show. It usually took quite a shock to elicit a reaction from him, and this time his mouth dropped, his eyes widened, and he inadvertently took two steps backward. Sheer disgust overwhelmed him and he suffered a nauseous sensation.

The grisly scene he beheld struck the Warrior to the very core of his being. As with every other Family member, Yama was deeply religious.

The Founder of the survival retreat called the Home, Kurt Carpenter, had himself been a religious man. He had developed a program of religious instruction for Family members starting when they were yet infants.

Carpenter had recognized that religion was indispensable to moral and spiritual growth, but he had wanted to avoid the formalized dogmatic doctrine, the perpetuation of fossilized creeds, so prevalent in pre-war society. Consequently, every Family member was permitted to cultivate exclusively personal spiritual beliefs, and the establishment of a Family religion was strictly forbidden. Despite the injunction against formalization, a certain generalized consensus did exist. Everyone in the Family believed there was a God, a Supreme Being, a Divine Light, the Way, Allah, or whatever term the individual Family member decided to use in describing the Maker and Shaper of the cosmos. Each Family member also accepted the fact every mortal was spiritually related to everyone else, was a son or daughter in one vast universal family.

Consequently, the Family viewed life itself as especially precious, to be treated with the ultimate respect. Yama’s reverence for all life was particularly keen, and consequently he was exceptionally unsettled by the contents of the vat.

It was a baby, no more than six months old, floating in the liquid in the vat, attached to a half-dozen intravenous tubes!

Yama couldn’t bring himself to take another look. His utter revulsion sickened him. What was it Seth Mason had said? That the Doktor drank blood? Wasn’t that the rumor? Well, one of the tubes running from the infant to the machine in the middle of the chamber was carrying a reddish substance!

What did it all mean? What was the Doktor…

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

Yama turned to his left. The man in the white frock was standing three feet away, his hands on his hips, glaring in obvious anger at the Warrior.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” the man repeated. “You know damn well this area is off-limits to everybody except authorized personnel! Let me see your pass!”

“Certainly,” Yama replied sheepishly. He stepped over to the man and held out the Wilkinson. “Would you hold this for me?”

The man took the gun, closely scrutinizing Yama.

“I know I have it here somewhere,” Yama said, reaching in his left pants pocket with his left hand while he scratched his head with his right.

“Hurry it up!” the man snapped, stamping his right foot.

Yama eased his right hand behind his neck and undid the leather strap securing his scimitar. He gripped the hilt before the sword could slide any lower. All the while, his left hand was groping in his left pocket.

“Do you have it or don’t you?” the man demanded.

Yama removed his left hand, holding a coin. “I have this.”

“A dollar?” the man scoffed. “Listen, buddy! You’d better produce your pass, and fast, or you’re going to lose your head!”

“I believe you have it reversed,” Yama said quietly, and dropped the coin.

The man in the white frock was distracted by the falling coin; he watched it land on the floor and roll a foot before falling onto its side.

“You’d better pick that…” he began, looking up at the silver-haired soldier.

Yama, the scimitar already held aloft over his head, swung, the razor-like blade arcing downward and connecting, slashing into the man in white, into his neck, and nearly severing his head from his body.

The man gasped once, his arms flapped against his sides, and he toppled to the floor, blood gushing from his ruined throat, covering him and the carpet both.

Yama wiped his scimitar on the white frock and replaced the sword in its scabbard, under his shirt, securing the hilt to the leather strap.

What could he do with the body?

He scoured the chamber for a plausible hiding place and came up empty. The closets were too small to hold a grown man. He considered tossing the body into one of the vats, but that would be too obvious.

Finally, he dragged the dead man behind the machine in the center of the room.

It would have to do.

Yama went through his victim’s pockets and found a set of keys attached to a metal ring. There was a handful of coins in the pants, some imprinted with “In the Name of Samuel” and others with “In Samuel We Trust.” Different numbers were stamped onto the metal, some coins with a one, others with a five, and a few with a ten. He also found a wallet, which he stuck in his left back pocket until he could find sufficient time to examine its contents.

What should he do about the infants in the vats?

Yama thoughtfully walked to the front of the chamber and retrieved his Wilkinson. There was nothing he could do for the babies, he decided, not now anyway. He wiped the Wilkinson on the rug to remove some spattered blood. If he continued to search, he told himself, he might discover a room where records were stored. Surely somewhere in the Biological Center there had to be documents detailing the reason for this horrible room!