Frankenstorm: Survivors (2 page)

3

Corcoran fell into his temporary apartment and hit the floor facedown. He kicked at the door as he scrambled to his feet, then threw himself against the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. He spun around and leaned back against the door.

His eyes squinted against the candlelight. There were candles everywhere—on shelves, the sideboard, the coffee table—and each flame seemed bright. The candles sent shards of golden light dancing over the faces of his party guests. Some stood and some were seated in the deep, shifting shadows. All of them faced him. Stared at him.

Corcoran stood and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm his wildly hammering heart. Once he’d caught his breath, he said, “I think it would be prudent, under the circumstances, to keep the door
locked
.”

“But then you couldn’t have gotten in,” someone said.

There was more machine gunfire in the corridor outside.

“Jesus Christ,” Corcoran whispered, rubbing his face with both hands. “Don’t you hear that? One of those people out there, one of the
test subjects
actually has a machine gun. A fucking
machine gun
!”

They continued to stare at him, unmoving dark figures in a dark room. They were little more than shapes robed in blackness, as if he’d walked in on the middle of some kind of occult ritual.

Corcoran’s stomach made an unpleasant belching sound.

“Is there any food left?” he said, going toward the coffee table, where finger foods had been set out earlier.

No one spoke as they watched him cross the room.

He grabbed a handful of potato chips and started eating them as he looked for something else to eat. After spending about a minute munching on cold cuts and crackers, he noticed the room was silent. He stood up straight and faced them.

“Well, how have you been, uh, holding up?” he said.

The silence that followed went on for an uncomfortable length of time before Todd Hinkle said, “We’ve managed.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Our friend Ziggy has been catching us up on everything,” Caleb Tan said.

“Ziggy? Who’s Ziggy?”

With a click, Ziggy turned on his headlamp as he rose to his feet from a chair. “I was the guy who stayed here when you left.”

Corcoran nodded. “Ziggy? That’s your real name?”

“Of course not. But they had to have something to call me because we were talking, so I gave them my childhood nickname.”

He nodded again, ate another potato chip, then said, “And what have you been talking about?”

“Ziggy’s been telling us what
you’ve
been up to,” Caleb said.

“Me?”

“Yes. About your method of finding test subjects.”

Corcoran ate another potato chip and chewed slowly to give himself time to think. He wondered how many of them would stop being scientists and become moralizers thirsty for his blood. Maybe all of them.

He found it galling that they would have the audacity to suggest his use of homeless people somehow made him a bad person worthy of their judgment and scorn. They put no thought into the conclusion, gave it no consideration. They’d simply reacted as they had been trained to react, according to the morals they had been taught as children. It was a knee-jerk reaction. Corcoran had seen it before many times, but never in a situation quite like this.

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s an unpleasant reality,” he said. “But I refuse to believe it’s one that did not occur to any of you until now. You had to know that this project could not be completed without human testing. You also knew what this project was when you joined it and you don’t seem to have any moral struggles with it or else you wouldn’t
be
here.”

“We’ve all done government work,” Ira Goldman said. He was still seated in the recliner, although Eileen Waxner was not on his lap now. “We all know most of it’s dirty work that ends up doing harm to others. We could sit on our hands and avoid the jobs, but they pay well and it’s good work, and if we didn’t do it, somebody else would. It would get done, and any harm it could do would be carried out. We console ourselves with the fact that it will be used on our enemies, on people determined to hurt us.”

Corcoran smiled. “I see you have all your justifications nicely lined up. But somehow,
I’m
the bad guy?
I’m
the villain?”

“You took people off the street, Jeremy,” Eileen said.

“
Kidnapped
them,” Caleb added with disgust.

“I worked on a couple of projects that tested on prisoners,” Eileen said. “They volunteered and were fully aware of the risks, and most of them were on death row, so they didn’t care much about the risks. But we didn’t kidnap them and imprison them and intentionally make them sick against their will.”

“What have you been doing with them?” Todd said. “Infecting them with the virus?”

“And recording the results,” Corcoran said with a nod.

Todd turned his head slowly from side to side. “That’s . . . horrible.”

“Where’s Holly?” Corcoran said.

Eileen said, “In the bedroom. She wasn’t feeling well.”

“That’s a shame. Holly has been assisting Dr. McManus and me in the entire testing process.”

Corcoran sighed as he spread some more cream cheese on a Ritz, slapped a slice of salami on it, and ate it. He took a napkin from the stack on the coffee table and slowly wiped his fingers as he spoke.

“You have no moral difficulty helping to build weapons that kill and maim countless human beings,” he said to Ira. “You have no ethical qualms about experimenting on human beings who volunteer only because it’s marginally more interesting than sitting in their cells knowing they’re one day closer to being electrocuted,” he said to Eileen. To Ira: “You say the weapons will be used against our enemies, and that makes the work acceptable for you.” To Eileen: “You say the death row inmates volunteer and are fully informed and will be executed, anyway.”

He took a handful of olives from a bowl and ate them slowly, one at a time.

“Well, I have chosen the homeless on whom to experiment. These are people who have been reduced, for whatever reasons, to living on the street. And that’s where they will die. They’re addicted to drugs, alcohol. Most of them suffer from any number of diseases, and if they don’t, they will soon. They’ll die in alleys and gutters and in homeless shelters.”

“That
excuses
it?” Eileen said.

“I haven’t said that. And I’m not finished. These people will die meaningless deaths, most of them slow and painful. I’m giving them a chance to add meaning to their lives and their deaths by contributing to the development of a weapon that will save the lives of untold numbers of American troops and effectively disable the enemy by turning its people against each other.”

Eileen said, “And . . .
that
excuses it. Right?”

“I’m not trying to
excuse
it. I’m simply explaining to you how I see it. The same way you’ve explained to me how you choose to see something you’ve done that might be met with . . . disapproval from others. And I am suggesting that you look at this the way I look at it, just as I’m choosing to look at the things you’ve done the same way you look at them. At the very least, it certainly would make our current situation a little more tenable, don’t you think?”

They watched him eat his olives. He waited for Ira or Eileen or Caleb or Todd to say something, but they didn’t make a sound.

“They were human beings,” Ziggy said quietly. “They may be homeless and at the end of their ropes and living on the street, but they’re still human beings, most of them are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, they have families. They’re human beings who are
supposed
to have all the same rights and freedoms as everyone else.”

Corcoran nodded. “Yes. I fully agree with all of that. I’ve simply told you how I choose to look at it, and suggested that everyone adopt that view because we’re going to have to cooperate. We’re going to need each other. We have a problem that is much more urgent and dangerous than moral dilemmas, I’m afraid.”

“Something that directly affects
you
, I would imagine,” Eileen said.

“No, something that affects
all
of us. The powers that be . . . uh, Vendon Labs, that is . . . they’re very unhappy with what’s happened here. Uh, by the way, do all of you
know
what’s happened here?”

“I’ve gotten a couple calls,” Ziggy said. “Last I heard, all your infested test subjects are loose.”

“Infected,” Corcoran said.

“Whatever. I’ve been advised to keep them here for their safety, so that’s what I’ve done. Have
you
been infected, Dr. Corcoran?”

“Me? Of
course
not! Ollie’s men are hunting them down.”

“To kill them,” Ira said.

“Yes, of course. We have no choice.”

“What were you saying about Vendon Labs?” Todd asked.

“The people in charge are pretty upset about this situation and—”

“Which is your fault,” Ira said.

“No. This is
not
my fault. I had nothing to do with Ollie and his men—”

“Better security would have helped. We weren’t even prepared for the hurricane, which you knew was coming. You were responsible for buying the generator. Is it used? Rebuilt? Did you pocket the difference? That’s why you do jobs like this, Corcoran. You’d do a lot worse than kidnap homeless people if it meant a job with good pay. You need the money for drugs, don’t you? Pretty desperately, I’d guess. You’d experiment on your own mother if they told you to, and . . . like all of us . . . you’d find some way to justify it.”

“I’m willing to admit I’ve been . . . lax . . . in some ways . . . and that I could have handled this project better. But I will not take responsibility for a group of paramilitary zealots that manages to break in here and—”

“Zealots?” Ziggy said. “Hey, that’s not true. We got some Baptists and Methodists and Catholics, a few Mormons, a few Muslims, we got a couple atheists, and we even have an Amish guy. We’re
all
religions in Ollie’s group. But . . . now that I think about it, I don’t think we’ve got any Zealots.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Corcoran groaned as he let his head fall forward. He stayed that way for a moment, staring down at his feet. Finally, he lifted his head and said, “As I was going to say, Vendon Labs will be sending a team out here to clean this up. They’ll come as soon as the weather calms down a little. Maybe sooner. They’re going to be eager to remove all evidence of the project, make sure all the test subjects have been eliminated, and they’ll want to make sure word doesn’t get out. They
definitely
want me, but it will be in their best interests to wipe you out, too. All of you. Everyone here. But I could give you some leverage.”

“Leverage?” Eileen said. “Why would you give us leverage? Against what?”

“Did you hear what I said? They’ll probably come in here with machine guns and flamethrowers. Maybe gas, I don’t know. If you have something they want, you might be able to bargain with them. Or at least slow them down until you can come up with a better idea.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Ziggy said. “It won’t get that far. We won’t let it. Ollie won’t let it.”

“You have a lot of confidence in Ollie, but you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

Caleb said, “You’re telling us that Vendon Labs is going to send a team in here to kill all their employees?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Corcoran said. “You’ve all become liabilities. It won’t be the first time Vendon has done something like this, and Vendon sure as hell isn’t the only company that does this sort of thing. I’m telling you in advance so you can prepare, come up with a plan, so when they get here—”

“I think you’re just trying to come up with reasons for us to protect your ass,” Caleb said.

“I’m saying that if you do it right, you could use me to—”

Eileen said, “That’s what it sounds like to me, too, Caleb.”

“I don’t think you should be in here, Corcoran,” Ira said. “I think you should be out there with them. With the people you’ve infected. The people who now have to be killed because of what you did to them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Corcoran said.

Ira stood. “I’m not being ridiculous.”

“I’m inclined to agree with Ira,” Todd said.

Ziggy unholstered his gun. “I think you should leave.”

“And go out
there
?” Corcoran said, pointing at the door. “Are you
insane
?”

“I don’t think it’s fair for you to be in here,” Ziggy said, bending his right arm at the elbow and aiming the gun at Corcoran. He started to move toward him, saying, “Not after what you’ve done to them.”

“You’re crazy,” Corcoran said, backing away from him. “Crazy.”

Ziggy arced around the coffee table, then came toward Corcoran again, sending him in the direction of the door.

“You want me to go out there . . . or you’ll
shoot
me, that’s what you’re saying?” Corcoran said, still moving backwards. His heart was pounding furiously again and he felt nausea rising in his stomach.

“That’s right.”

He turned to the others. “Jesus Christ, are you going to let this happen? I’m trying to tell you, dammit, you can
use
me when Vendon Labs gets here.”

“I don’t think they want to use you, Dr. Corcoran,” Ziggy said. He had not stopped advancing.

Soon, Corcoran was backed against the door.

“I’ll count to three,” Ziggy said. “If you’re not out by then, I’ll shoot.”

Corcoran feared he would hyperventilate if he did not calm down.

“One.”

“You don’t understand, they’ll kill
all
of you!”