Jon Merz - Raider X

“The serum that gives me the ability to… mutate is dependent on the blood cells found in bone marrow, hence the need for me to ingest it. There’s nothing supernatural about what I am, I am merely an evolution of humanity that is far superior to modern man.”

Thatcher studied the creature before him. She was half again as tall as she had been which meant she towered over Thatcher and any other man aboard the ship. Her face was drawn back as if someone had grabbed the entire front of her head and yanked it back into her hairline. Her neck resembled the turkey-esque features that Thatcher had seen on many old women. But she was obviously not as weak as an elderly woman or man. Cyra radiated a bizarre strength that frightened Thatcher and kept him from moving. Perhaps it was the way her arms now resembled muscular claws rather than the dainty appendages that Thatcher remembered from before.

Cyra spread these arms now and smiled at Thatcher. “Don’t be scared, darling. We could still have some fun.”

“Fun?” Thatcher shook his head. “What sort of fun would you want to have? You’d rip the bones out of my body and eat the marrow from them.”

Cyra shook her head. “I would not dream of doing such a thing.”

“Really.” Thatcher frowned. “And what makes me different from any of those poor men you’ve already killed?”

“I haven’t just been sent out into the world to do the bidding of my masters,” said Cyra. “There’s yet another reason for my release. Another experiment, if you will.”

“Which is what?”

“Procreation, of course.” Cyra smiled at Thatcher and he could see that the front teeth had also morphed into pointy fangs that reminded him of a vampire. But Cyra was no blood sucker. Just a terribly mutated version of a woman. It was then that her words finally reached his ears and he heard what she was saying for the first time. It nearly caused him to retch.

“There’s no way I’m impregnating you.”

“But you had no problem bedding me before, Harrison. In fact, I think you quite enjoyed yourself the other night.”

“I did. But that was before I knew the truth of what you actually are.” Thatcher took a breath. “And that’s a deal breaker right there.”

Cyra stepped down into the engine room, closer to where Thatcher stood. “Men are such fools. Driven only by what they see before them. Imagine, Harrison, being part of something extraordinary.” Cyra looked down at herself. “Look upon the glory and triumph that this mutation has caused within me. I am stronger now than any other woman on Earth. Most men as well. I have had my genes mutated to transform into what awaits us all eventually. Now the goal is to discover whether this can be passed down from mother to child. That is where you come in, Harrison. You could be the father of the first generation of mutated offspring. It is a glorious honor to have bestowed upon you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Thatcher. “I’m not really ready for children yet. Too much responsibility.”

“You would have no cares in the world about raising them. They would be cared for by the same team of scientists that created me.”

“That makes me feel even less good about doing it then. There’s no telling what those kids would be subjected to.”

Cyra’s eyes narrowed. “You disappoint me, Harrison.”

“Well, then that makes two of us.”

But even as Cyra spread her arms and moved toward Thatcher, there was a burst of gunfire from behind her and she reeled forward. Blood spattered the air and Thatcher didn’t wait. He took off running out of the forward exit from the engine room, hoping that the motor shaft would detonate the artillery shell and sink Raider X. And if it happened to take out the monstrosity that was Cyra, as far as Thatcher was concerned, all the better.

He had no idea what sort of scientific evil genius had masterminded the experiment upon hera, although he was willing to bet that Hewitt might know. But the end result was a shocking and terrifying display of what happened when mankind thought they were the gods of creation. Some things, Thatcher decided, most definitely should never be trifled with.

Down the corridor away from the engine room, Thatcher ran into Steinkopf heading in the opposite direction with a machine gun at his side. “Herr Thatcher!”

Thatcher grabbed him. “You don’t want to go back that way, kid. There’s something terrible in the room.”

For a moment, Steinkopf hesitated but then Thatcher saw the look of determination come over his face. There was no way he wasn’t going to go back there. Especially when his buddy came up behind them both and pushed past Thatcher. Steinkopf hurried after him. Thatcher watched them go for a moment and then turned and headed for the upper deck.

Several bursts of machine gun fire echoed out of the engine room and caught up with Thatcher as he ran. The screams took longer to reach his ears, but they too came with startling speed. Thatcher sped his way toward the open air. If anything, it was now preferable to take his chances with the sharks than it was to remain on Raider X with what had once been Cyra.

Part of Thatcher had hoped that there might be another seaplane aboard Raider X that he could use to make his escape in. But the only one had been destroyed in the explosion when Schwarzwalder’s men had fired at the plane and set it ablaze. He wasn’t sure where he would have flown anyway. He’d practiced taking off but he really had no idea how to navigate once he was in the air. His flight lessons had been interrupted by his arrest back in England.

That left the motor launches that he knew would require more men than just himself to get down to the sea.

Or the lifeboats.

Thatcher knew that most of the newer model lifeboats could be operated by a single soul in case of extreme emergency. He was counting on that being the case for the ones on Raider X. He just had to reach them before Cyra caught up with him.

He wondered if the bullets he heard being fired across the ship were having any sort of impact on her. Was she even susceptible to gunfire at all? Or did she simply shrug them all off? Maybe she had the ability to heal herself, thought Thatcher. Who knew what sort of bizarre powers manipulating her genes had given her. If nothing else, Thatcher needed to get this information back to Hewitt. If they could find out where these experiments were being conducted, they could bomb the place back into the Stone Age and not have to worry about anyone else like Cyra being released into the world ever again.

He broke out on to deck and gulped fresh air by the bow of the ship. He looked back and wondered if he should close the door leading back inside. He didn’t think it mattered. If Cyra was somehow able to stretch and shrink herself down so she could get through the porthole in her cabin, then no amount of barring a door was going to keep her contained. She would go wherever she wanted to go on this ship and kill as she pleased.

It struck Thatcher as insane that the Nazis would permit one of their assassins to kill as many sailors as Cyra was doing at the moment. Even less likely was that they would permit the sinking of their newest and most lethal commerce raider. And yet, here she was doing exactly that.

There had to be a reason why. And even as Thatcher looked ahead and saw the lifeboats that hung ready to drop and further away saw the first lights from the islands that Raider X was steaming toward, he instead chose to dash for the bridge. Anything of import was likely to be there somewhere.

It was foolish as hell and he knew it. But he also knew that the destruction of Raider X and her crew was apparently vitally important to the Nazis. Which meant it had to be carrying something that Hewitt would most likely love to get his hands on.