Evolver: Apex Predator (3 page)

He took a step back and then leaned forward about to roar at her when Jackson remembered he was human under all the fur and muscle. He looked at his paws and sniffed at the one that had the creature's blood on it. He sneezed and wiped the paw on his belly. Laurie was smiling at him. "Good," she said. "You're still you in there."

He watched her get to her feet and begin to inspect him. "Wait," she said and went to the insect-thing, looked at it, winced. She turned quickly to the lab table behind her and grabbed a syringe. She had two vials of the thing's blood when she walked back to Jackson. "Thanks," she said looking up at him, "for, uh, you know, that. Can you change back to yourself?"

He closed his eyes.
Soom
. The word darted across his mind and was gone. He tried to see himself, but instead saw a large crowd of blue people with tails and long, boneless arms that had mouths on the palms of their hands and something like kelp for hair; he saw a red plain spread before him with strange, grazing animals and a long, winding blue river. He shook his head and then saw his mother making dinner; his father tapping at his tablet computer and walking around in circles at home, then in the lab, dying. "That's it," Laurie said, sounding far away and small.

He found memories of running a half marathon; remembered swimming faster than anyone else at tryouts; cooking with his mother; dancing with the homecoming queen. He opened his eyes and looked down: he had his own hands, pink skin and all, his own feet and no clothes. "Um," he said trying to cover himself.

"Cool," Laurie said. She waved a hand at him. "Come on, we'll get you some clothes and a shower. You stink of musk."

"What have you done to me? What am I?"

She went to a tall metal cabinet and pulled out a blue and red bundle of cloth, threw it at him. "You'll need this," she said and turned back into the cabinet. Jackson covered himself while she dug in the bottom of the cabinet. "And these," she said and turned around with a pair of bracelets and a pair of boots.

"The boots okay," Jackson said, feeling more like himself, "but not the jewelry. Uh-uh." He shook his head.

"They’re not jewelry. There's a lot I don't know, but I know you need these,” she said. "Moletronics in the plasmids will respond to embedded circuits in the suit that are controlled by these wrist gauntlets." Laurie looked at him expectantly, then said, "At least, in theory. We still need the phages."

The next thing they heard was the stomp of heavy boots on the floor above them. Lots of boots and heading for the stairs.

"Get dressed," Laurie said sharply.

Jackson stepped into the legs of the suit and put it on in a hurry, pulling the tunic over his head. The hard plastic disks on the shoulders were uncomfortable, but he didn't think too hard about them: he could hear the door at the top of the stairs being rattled and he moved more quickly. The boots were a little big, but the bracelets clasped snugly at his wrists. His body tingled. When he looked around the lab, Laurie was nowhere to be seen.

"Where are you?" The fear working its way up his spine made him sound more desperate than he wanted to. There was a loud bang from the stairs at the far end of the lab and he heard Laurie behind him.

"This way, quickly!"

Jackson turned and saw Laurie inside the cabinet where she'd pulled the suit and boots from, shouldering a heavy-looking black backpack. He shook off his surprise, ran over and climbed in with her. "Now what?"

Laurie closed the door as the heavy boots crashed down the stairs in the otherwise silent lab. In darkness, she put a hand over his mouth and whispered "Quiet," in his ear, then led him through the back of the cabinet and into a tunnel with rough rock walls and a dirt floor.

She patted him twice on the shoulder then left him. Jackson heard a very slight click where he thought the back of the cabinet should be and when she patted him on the shoulder again he jumped but didn't let out a sound. Her breath was warm on his cheek when she whispered again, "That won't last long. We have to move quickly. Hold my hand and do as I say, okay?"

Jackson nodded, a small gesture that rubbed his cheek against hers in the coolness of the tunnel.

She took his hand and the lead and they walked fast through the darkness, though Jackson could see pretty well. The only sound was their feet padding on the dirt and their breathing. The disks on his chest and shoulder glowed a pale yellow then orange and that was enough light to let them walk at a good pace. Nearly running, taking winding turns with some speed, it was hard to tell how far they went. Laurie stopped them after they’d rounded a big corner.

"Nearly there," she said breathing hard. She leaned against the wall, then crouched down and put her hands on her knees. "I'm way out of shape."

Jackson smiled, though she didn’t see it. "I can carry you if it's not too much farther," he said.

"No," she said, drawing out the sound with a little laugh. "No. Come on."

She grabbed his hand again and led him around another turn where the tunnel rose sharply upward. Jackson bumped his head once, twice, before Laurie told him to get down on all fours so they could crawl the rest of the way out.

*

The tunnel ended in a forest thick with trees and underbrush.

"There," Laurie said, pointing toward the house. Four black vans were in the driveway, and a dozen men with rifles were searched the yard, swinging white beams back and forth in crisscrossing patterns.

"Those aren't police," Jackson said. "Any idea who they are?"

"Nope," Laurie said. "Except that they want the secrets locked in your DNA now." She tapped his chest.

Finally, an answer.

He considered all this, looked down at the house again and then at Laurie. "What do we do, then?"

"We need help," she said then shrugged. "You ready for a long walk?"

CHAPTER FOUR

They briefly considered going to Laurie's apartment or Jackson's dorm room for supplies, but decided it might be too dangerous if the people in the black vans were looking for them. They spent the day hiding on the edge of the forest farthest away from the house, eating meager rations from the backpack Laurie had grabbed.

As the sun went down, they made their way into town and walked across the park and ride lot, hoping that no one would notice them.

"How far?" Laurie had bags under her eyes.

"Half a mile to the edge of the campus," Jackson said, "then across the parking lot to the loading dock. Maybe. I'm guessing."

"You have a plan to get us inside?"

"Uh," Jackson stopped. "No."

Laurie smiled. "Relax," she said and opened the backpack.

"Your father gave me a packet about a year ago with all sorts of information in it, including an EnviroTech ID with my picture and a list of property and bank accounts under the name of Eve Thornhill." She waved the card at him. “That’s how we’ll get in.”

"He knew something was going to happen," Jackson said. "What was he so paranoid about?" He started walking again, faster.

"I don't know," Laurie said as she jogged to catch up to him. "But Dr. Thorn might have an idea. He would probably know who else would be interested in your father's work."

"I only met him a few times. I kind of got the feeling he and Dad were more competitors than friends," Jackson said. Laurie looked at him sideways. He shrugged and didn't say anything else.

"Let's hope that'll be enough for him to help us, then," she said.

*

Dr. Ebenezer Thorn, a man in his sixties with gray hair and a beard in the Van Dyke style was in his own lab on the third floor of EnviroTech, flipping through a folder full of papers when he heard the door behind him unlatch and open.

He turned: Laurie Langley and Jackson Savage stood just inside the room and the boy was ready to run. "Dr. Thorn," Laurie said. "We need help."

The older man didn't move except to sit back and put his hands on the arms of his chair. "The police are looking for you, Jackson," he said. "They are under the impression that you had something to do with your father's death."

Jackson stood tall, tried to look tough. "There was a thing in the lab. A monster. I just happened to be there."

"I'm sure," Thorn said with a little nod then turned to Laurie. "And you, young lady, the police think you smuggled Jackson off the campus last night."

Laurie didn't answer. Jackson studied Thorn. Something made him uneasy but it was gone before he could put his finger on it.

"Well," Thorn said, folding his hands together. "What can I do for you?"

"How much do you know about my father's work?"

"Quite a bit more now than I did a week ago and a lot more than you," Thorn said, patting the report in front of him. "He had made advances he was supposed to share with the company and hadn’t yet.”

Thorn stood. “I see you're wearing the suit, do you have the phage discs?"

Laurie frowned.

"We'll have to get those, then," he said, moving slowly and deliberately. "I'm glad you came here, my boy."

The older man walked around the lab table to a drawer, keeping his eyes on Jackson. "I'd like to get a blood sample, if I could," he said. He reached into the drawer and pulled out a syringe and two small vials.

"It's okay," Laurie said as Jackson took a step back. She tried to convince him with her eyes.

"I've had enough of shots and tubes and all of it," Jackson said. He looked from Laurie to Thorn.

"I understand," Thorn said and set the syringe and vials on a small tray. "Your father and I weren't all that close as friends, but we respected each other. While my loss is nothing compared to yours, I miss him, too."

Jackson was startled. Maybe he was reading too much into off-hand comments from his father. Maybe the old man wasn't as bad as he thought.

"If she does it, okay," Jackson said. Thorn handed over the implements and went to another drawer, pulled out a clear vinyl sheet that had half a dozen micro discs on it, each about the size of a nickel and thinner than a credit card, and brought it back to where he'd left the folder. He took the vials of blood from Laurie, who also handed over the vials of blood from the insect creature. Thorn didn't say a word as he put each sample in a separate machine, each of which hummed to life.

"This will take a little while," he told Jackson as he handed the vinyl sheet to Laurie. "You both look like you could use some rest."

"We both need a shower," Laurie said as she slipped tiny, shiny discs into the tops of the disks on his chest, shoulders and the wrist bracelets. She turned back to Thorn. "And something to eat."

*

Cleaned up and dressed in scrubs from the employee locker room, Laurie sat down next to Jackson in Dr. Thorn's lab. There were two open plastic wedges next to him that had once held two slices of bread cut in half with ham and American cheese between them. She picked up one of the two remaining vending machine sandwiches and turned it over and over. "These are terrible," she said.

"Not when you're hungry." Jackson chewed vigorously and reached into a bag of chips.

Laurie noticed the suit hanging over a chair next to him. "What did you do with that?" He still had the bracelets on and was wearing scrubs the same as her.

"Washed it in the shower," he said. "But it didn't really seem to need it. It didn't stink."

She shook her head. "You're such a boy. Except for actually washing after yourself..."

"Feeling better?" Dr. Thorn said, coming from the other side of the lab.

"Much," Jackson said gorging on the sandwich in hand. "Where can I sleep?"

"There are a couple of couches in my office through that door," Dr. Thorn said with a nod.

"Thank you, Dr. Thorn," Laurie said, opening the cellophane wrapper of a peanut butter sandwich. "We really appreciate it."

*

Lying on the couch in Thorn's office, Jackson dreamed of playing catch with his father. "Why didn't we do this when you were alive?" He threw the baseball easily and a little too hard. Dr. Savage caught it in the palm of his glove with a hard 'thok' sound.

"I never had the time," his father said. "You never asked me when I did."

"What am I supposed to do with this --- Why would you do this to me?" He caught the ball and tossed it to his free right hand.

Dr. Savage didn't reply. He caught the ball awkwardly and held it. Jackson held his glove out, ready for a throw, then let his arm fall to his side when none came.

"Dad?"

The elder Savage looked up at the sky. "There's so much to wonder about," he said in a far away voice. "It's easy to get lost in all the things out there; the stars, the planets."

"Dad," Jackson said. "I'm right here in front of you. Throw me the ball."

The ground shook and both of them were startled. "What was that?" Jackson tried to get to his father, but the ground convulsed again and this time he fell down. When a third temblor dropped the ball and glove to the ground, his father was still looking at the sky as the earth opened up beneath him.