Earth Man (17 page)

“
So this is about the Growth? Not about me?” Danny asked.

Dr. Glass stopped abruptly and turned around, looking Danny up and down.

“Of course. Why would it be about you?”

When Danny didn
’t reply the doctor turned back around and headed for the elevator. Two armed guards in containment suits stepped in on either side of them and the doctor hit the button.

“
I’m sorry there wasn’t time to arrange a more professional meeting. I heard you were making an appearance on that awful show this morning and contacted Homeland Security, it was all rather short notice.”

“
Why is the government involved?” Danny asked casually.

One of the guards seemed to
turn slightly toward him but he couldn’t tell if the man was looking at him; the mask was tinted too dark to see inside.

“
I work for the government as well, when needed. Essentially they just give me permission to do what I am going to do anyway.”

“
And what do you do?” Danny asked.

“
Why I kill aliens, of course.”

Dr. Glass led Danny into his
private office, adjacent to his massive laboratory. There was a huge flat screen display on the back wall and as soon as they entered, the screen clicked on. The room furniture matched the black TV, all black and dark stained wood with a blood colored rug.

“
Now I don’t have your remarkable abilities, but I do have science at my disposal. Science and a ton of money. Two very powerful weapons.” Dr. Glass said.

On
the TV screen appeared what Danny thought was a black blob, but as the camera steadied itself, he could see it was a Growth. A large, bulbous creature that seemed to puff up and expand as it sucked in air through a large blowhole on the top of its mass.

“
A meteor crash landed in Africa last year. This was found inside. We believe it is part of the same species you faced, the Growth you called them? This one is different than the one that replaced Dr. Rue. For one, this one does not seem to DO anything.”

Danny stepped closer to the screen, a sick feeling growing in his stomach.

“This thing was kept here for a while, but we’ve moved it to a more secure location.”

Dr.
Glass turned and ran from the room, waving Danny over to follow him. He seemed to be full of energy and excitement and Danny found it hard to keep up with him. The two guards who’d been following them finally gave up as Dr. Glass ran down an emergency staircase. Danny followed behind him, only to find the Doctor stepping carefully over a metal door. The door had been torn by hand from its hinges and tossed aside.

“
Watch your step Mr. Boyle. This is where the intruder came in. This is why I’ve brought you here.”

They continued quickly down a dark hallway, the two security guards rushing to catch up with them. Another pair of double doors stood ripped off their hinges; one of them had a palm shaped smear of black blood across it.

“We experimented with the Growth we have in custody and it was immune to every known type of gas and poison. We even tried getting a genetic sample, but with over 350 million base pairs of DNA, it was taxing our computer systems. Any living thing with a DNA that size should not be able to gestate and grow as fast as these things are. Yet as you’ve seen yourself, they do.”

The inside of the hol
ding cell was completely trashed, every piece of equipment was in ruins and even the paint on walls was shredded. Something had entered the room and when it had not found what it was looking for, it took out its anger and frustration on its surroundings.

“
What did this?” Danny asked quietly.

“
You know what did this,” Dr. Glass said.

He removed his glasses and began cleaning them with the end of his lab coat.

“I killed the Growth. It’s finished.” Danny replied.

“
Oh yes, I know. I’ve got the body downstairs. This was another one, Mr. Boyle. That means there are now two of these things on this planet. One contained in our secret facility and another that is on the loose and looking for it. Isn’t that amazing?”

“
I don’t know if amazing is the word I’d use.”

“
We need to find it, Mr. Boyle. We need to find it before they find each other.”

“
I agree. But what can I do? The last one came after me. I don’t have any way to track these things. If I see it, I might recognize it, but other than that, I can’t possibly be more useful than the U.S. military.”

“
That may be true,” Dr. Glass said, rubbing his chin. “Yet I can’t help feel like you are connected in some way. Come; let’s see the body of the other one. Perhaps it will reveal something we previously missed.”

The
y headed back down the hall, this time passing the stairwell and heading toward an elevator at the other end. They only descended one more floor, but this floor was active with scientists coming and going from labs on either side of hallway. They walked past four doors on the left and Dr. Glass opened the fifth, holding it for Danny to go first. Reluctantly he stepped into the room. It was small and dark but Dr. Glass quickly turned on the light. The body lay in the center of the room, sealed inside a plastic cell that looked more like a transparent coffin. A large machine was attached to the front of the cell and Danny had no idea what it was for, or why there was a big red button on it. He remembered his dream and suddenly the hair on the back of his neck began to stand on end.

“
You sure it’s dead?” Danny asked, walking around the plastic cell.

“
There are no vital signs that we could detect. If you wish I can show you a thermal scan, there is no heat at all.”

“
You said you faced one of these things? Did you mean the one on the video?”

“
Oh, no. That one had no vestigial limbs, no way of communicating. No, I faced the one that broke in here. I was in the lab when he, or it, came looking for the other.” The way Dr. Glass spoke, Danny could tell he was proud of himself.

“
It spoke, quite clearly, WHERE IS SHE, it said. I managed to dodge out of the way as it began throwing the tables around. I hit it with a broom but the broom broke and well, it stood there staring at me for a moment. I think it was debating whether or not to eat me.”

Like a cartoon character, Dr. Glass described how he
’d fought for his life. Danny couldn’t take his eyes off the corpse in the case.

“
It came at me, so I ducked underneath it. Its face kept changing, as if it was made up of different people and couldn’t decide which face to keep. I threw everything I could find at it but nothing worked until I came across a rather large amount of liquid nitrogen. The cold did not hurt it, not exactly, but I believe I surprised it. Its hand froze and shattered so it ran away. We’ve got the fragments around here somewhere.”

As he finished Dr. Glass took off his glasses and began to clean them off with the end of his medical coat.

Danny leaned in close to the plastic cell, staring at the corpse inside. It seemed to be moving. As his eyes passed over the exposed bones and blackened flesh he thought he saw something shifting and squirming out of the corner of his eye. When he tried to focus on it, it remained still. It was clearly dead and yet he could not shake the queasy feeling he got looking at it.

“
It’s still alive.” Danny said.

“
Why yes. Unfortunately it escaped back the way it had come in.”

“
No, not the one that broke in here. THIS one.”

Danny opened his hands, pointin
g them at the corpse.

“
Impossible. There is no life in that cell, Mr. Boyle.” Dr. Glass’s voice took on a rude tone and he put his glasses back on.

“
No life you recognize, perhaps nothing like anything we’ve ever seen before. But I am telling you, this thing is not dead.”

In response to
his voice, a black tentacle suddenly smashed against the plastic cell leaving a black smear where Danny’s face had been. The two guards immediately raised their guns as Dr. Glass jumped back.

“
Jesus Christ!” Dr. Glass shouted.

The doctor stumbled back, toward the door and the two guards stepped between him and the case. Danny placed his hand against it but it did not come directly for him. Instead the tentacle waved around, banging on both sides of the cell.

“The consciousness is gone, but the body is still reacting to the environment. We need to get rid of this thing right away.”

Danny circled the cage until coming around the front. He realized suddenly what the large buttons on the device were for. Reaching
out his hand slowly he hit the giant red button. Flames engulfed the creature inside the cell as it roasted and squirmed.

“
NO!” Dr. Glass shouted, grabbing Danny’s arm.

It was too late; the creature stopped moving, its body popping and hissing as it simm
ered. Black smoke obscured the inside of the transparent cell.

“
Sorry.” Danny said, adjusting his tie.

He was lying; it felt good to see the creature reduced to a puddle. Dr. Glass saw this on his face and sighed.

“Yes well it needed to be done. I wish we’d had more time to study it, but that was why I brought you here. Come, let’s leave this room. I’ve had enough of these creatures for today.”

As the guards escorted Dr. Glass out of the room, Danny stood behind watching the last flames go out on the rem
ains of the Third. Nothing moved or twitched, it was finally dead. Yet out there in the world were two others, perhaps even more. The thought of facing two more of them send a cold chill up Danny’s spine.

             
Dr. Glass flopped himself down in his desk and removed a bottle of water from a fridge hidden beneath it. After drinking back large mouthfuls, he opened the fridge a second time and took out another bottle and handed it to Danny.

“
You got any beer in there?” Danny asked sarcastically.

The doctor paused
for a second, then opened the fridge again and removed two cold bottles of Corona. It wasn’t one of Danny’s favourite beers, but he took it, handing the doctor back his bottle of water.

“
Thanks.” Danny said.

“
You’re welcome. Now on to the business at hand. Mr. Boyle, you seem to have a keen instinct when it comes to these creatures.”

Danny choked on his beer slightly. Instinct was not the word that he would have chosen.

“The reason we brought you here was to hire you, Mr. Boyle. Your insight into the monster, your assessment of the threat, was quite impressive. That was something wasn’t it?”

The doctor reached into his drawer and removed a white handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Taking off his glasses, he tried to clean them with the handkerchief but
when the greasy fingerprints do not come off, he throws his glasses down on the desk.

“
We need to capture this other creature. The idea of it out there makes me very uncomfortable.” Glass said.

“
I agree but how exactly do we do that?” Danny asked, finally sitting down across from the Doctor.

“
We work together. The full resources of Chem-X are at your disposal. When you locate it, you call us and we will help contain and incarcerate the creature.”

“
Then what?” Danny asked.

“
Then we’ll turn it over to the U.S. government. It’s ultimately their prerogative. Who are we to make decisions of this magnitude?”

Danny scratched his chin, mulling over the offer. He knew what he wanted to say, but he was struggling for a way to say it.

“What is my compensation?” He finally asked.

“
What do you mean?”

“
I could die tomorrow and then what? What does my family get? I mean why should I help you? Maybe I can do it myself, I beat the one we just fried alright.”