Guinea Pig (22 page)

“William though – his cells could survive the insertion and even allow for some tiny amount of multiplication. With everything else that I had discovered about him I thought that was another sign. And I thought that if his tissues could support the angelic DNA however minimally in culture, then in his body it would be better.”

“Fortunately – or at least I thought so at the time, I could still do the insertion with what I had – my engineered virus is incredibly good at acquiring genes – but I would need to use all of it. I'd never planned on that. I had thought that I could do the procedure and then when it had been shown to be a complete success I could perform it on others. That potentially I could transform the entire world.”

“But I couldn't do that. And then by the time I'd worked out how, I couldn't even add William to the trial. It was closed, the six subjects chosen. So I had to fake records and pretend there was a seventh subject. And I knew that sooner or later I would be caught.”

“That meant I had to change another part of it. I had initially intended to do it bit at a time. To insert just a few genes at a time and see what happened. Then to do it again. To take it slowly and cautiously, maybe over many years. But when I knew I would be caught soon enough, I couldn't do that either. It was all or nothing. One shot. I had to give him everything.”

“But I thought that too was fate. That it had to be done that way. That this was never the sort of thing that should be done in small steps. By then I was so committed to the plan, so far along in my madness that I couldn't see the blindingly obvious.”

It was a form of tunnel vision he supposed. He could see nothing except what he was aiming at. And it was only when the train had started veering off the tracks that he had understood. And by then it was too late. Far too late. And no matter what he did now, he couldn't fix it.

“It was madness. Superstitious behaviour as terrible as that of any compulsive gambler. I saw signs and thought they meant something other than coincidence. I turned a blind eye to all the warnings along the way. I threw reason out the window and medical ethics with it. And somehow I forgot in all of it that there was a real human being I was using as a guinea pig.”

There was silence for a while after he finished speaking, probably because no one knew what to say. And then Pastor Franks cleared his throat.

“Please don't say it Pastor.” Reginald held up his hand to stop him before he tried to say something consoling. There could be no consolation. Not for him.

“There is nothing you can say to make any of this better. I know my failures, my crimes. They are unforgivable. And I will tell them to the judge when the time comes. It's not me who needs your comfort. It's Mr. Simons.”

Chapter Twenty Five.

Gamut sat in the major's office, annoyed that he should have to. Normally he didn't. After a mission he simply went home and in due course received his payment and sooner or later his next assignment. It was just the way things were for a private contractor like himself. And he liked it that way. It wasn't just for the pay either, though it helped that he was well compensated for his work. But he would have worked for far less. For a normal salary if need be. In the end he did what he did for his country. And the satisfaction he got from finishing an assignment and knowing that he had served his country and made America stronger, was worth more than mere coin – far more.

In the end he was a patriot. Others might laugh if they heard that. But he didn't need to wear a uniform to prove it, and accepting money for his work didn't disprove it. In the end patriotism had nothing to do with wearing your country's colours or taking its money. It was about knowing that there was something greater than you and serving it unquestionably. A patriot was more than a man and he was proud to be a patriot.

However his employers didn't seem to understand that. And sometimes they made things awkward as they worried about his loyalty. He wasn't certain that this was one of those times. It seemed more like some sort of clerical mess. There had been unexpected paperwork to do before he could receive his money. Forms to fill out. And then there had been checks to be done. Most of them medical checks as they worried that he might have been infected with the angelic DNA. As if that could happen. He wasn't stupid enough to get himself injected with something like that. Especially not when he'd seen the freak show on the morgue table. No one could be that stupid.

Still, he'd done all the tests. Eight hours of sitting in a surgery being poked and prodded and having some tissues of his own sampled. At least they hadn't used the drill he'd been given for his job. He'd filled out the endless forms and handed them to the major. And soon a cool quarter million should be finding its way into his bank accounts. And that was as it should be. This was America – the home of capitalism. It was expected that a man should be compensated for his work. Especially when he'd done it well.

And he had done it well.

After all he'd done exactly what had been asked of him. He'd obtained the samples – all that they could want and more. The doctors hadn't exactly objected when he'd handed them the refrigerated briefcase full of samples nine or ten hours before. He hadn't killed anyone, not even the freak show on the table though he probably should have when the man was a threat to the national security. And he'd left without anyone ever knowing who he was. No records, no pictures and no names.

Even the mercenaries who had helped him didn't know who he was. All they knew was that they had been hired for a mission. To fly in, pretend to be members of the military – something that was made all the easier by the passwords and fake orders he had provided for them – and then escort him away while the others looked on. And then they had been paid and gone. They never knew what the freak on the table was. They didn't care. Their role was purely as muscle and show. And if they had ever started to wonder then sooner or later they would wind up with a bullet in their chests. They, like him, knew the rules. Complete anonymity.

Every part of his mission had been completed perfectly. There was nothing that could go wrong any longer. That wasn't bad when he'd been given only a day to prepare. To take on the identity of a government doctor who himself was using a fake name. Lies within lies. And then to be trained in all the medical jargon he needed to know in a matter of hours.

It really wasn't bad when he considered how much crap he'd had to listen to. The maudlin self-recriminations of the bungling doctor who'd created the mess in the first place. Gamut really disliked the man. More correctly he despised him. He had aspired to greatness and yet somehow had not only failed but buried himself in guilt. And not guilt for his failure, but guilt for what he had done to a single man. That was no way for a true scientist to think. You couldn't make an omelette without breaking eggs as they said. And regardless of whether his experiment had worked out as he wanted, he had made significant technological advances in genetic engineering. Advances that the country needed.

And it absolutely wasn't bad when he'd had to listen to the ludicrous warnings of that damned priest. Blaming the disasters that had beset Los Angeles on the freak show on the table. The man was pure end of the world doom and gloom. He was obviously a little unhinged as well. He'd spent too long with his head bowed and the blood rushing to his knees. He hadn't spent long enough in the real world.

In fact Gamut thought the fact that the mission had been carried out without even a minor hitch was a shining success, all things considered. It was something to be proud of. Another victory for America when all around and within were enemies. People that didn't even know they were enemies. Priests who placed their deities above the country. Doctors who considered their guilt more important.

As for the freak show himself, what he was Gamut didn't know. But he liked to imagine that if he'd been more alert he might have realised that no matter his pain he served a greater cause. That he understood that his sacrifice would not be for nothing.

He'd said little. That was probably for the best. And maybe Gamut did feel a twinge of sorrow for him, but not a lot. In the end he was just a mug who had taken money to participate in a drug trial. He was paying the consequences for that bit of stupidity. Besides, he wasn't really human. Not any more. And if he wasn't human then he wasn't really an American either. So if he caused the man some pain what did it matter?

If Gamut had a regret it was that he hadn't killed him when he'd had the chance. It would have been the merciful thing to do. No one should have to live like that. Besides, the man was a walking treasure trove of genetic engineering secrets. The longer he lived outside of a secure government research facility, even under guard, the greater the chance that the secrets contained in his flesh would get out. That an enemy would learn of them. There seemed to be no good reason to let him keep breathing. But orders were orders, and the freak had to live. He wasn't sure why. But he obeyed his orders. At least when those giving them served the country as he did. And Gamut was loyal above all else.

What he didn't understand was why the major was taking so long. He'd headed over to the hospital building half an hour before, claiming he wanted to see the results of his tests with his own eyes. And then he'd left Gamut in his office in the administration building across the other side of the campus to wait for him. It was a nice enough office, the chair was comfortable and the huge panoramic window granted him a lovely view of the grounds, but he didn't want to be there.

If he'd been a suspicious type Gamut would have worried that he was being set up. That the Major was making up an excuse to leave him alone while his soldiers surrounded him.

Actually he was a suspicious type. That was why he never used his real name anywhere. Just his call sign. Even the major didn't know his name. Just his bank account numbers.

But no soldiers were surrounding him. He kept checking. And in any case that wasn't the way things were done. The government needed specialist outside contractors to do the work they could never get their hands dirty with. They recruited and trained them themselves before letting them go. They paid them highly for their services. And if word had ever got out that they were then betraying their own people, it would have been a disaster for everyone.

So as he sat there in the leather bound office chair waiting impatiently for the major to return and occasionally checked to see if any soldiers were creeping up on his position, he knew he was safe. More or less.

It was a pretty view. The four story tall research hospital was situated in the middle of a lovely field of green grass and tall trees. And for a government building it was actually quite pretty – the benefit he guessed of having nearly unlimited funds to build it with. Meanwhile all the ancillary buildings like the administration block were really just large houses. There weren't that many cars around either, but then he guessed the hospital didn't really have many patients, just researchers. And whatever they researched was too important to have strangers wandering around through the building potentially seeing things they shouldn't. There weren't even that many soldiers. A few patrolled the grounds, but they seemed relaxed. Some more were stationed at the front gate. And somewhere over the far side he knew they had quarters. But they didn't wander around in numbers spoiling the view.

A sudden rumble caught his attention and made him look away from the view to the floor under his feet. Naturally his first thought was that it was an earthquake as he leapt to his feet and prepared to run. That was every Californian's first thought when the ground rumbled. But if it was an earthquake it wasn't a big one. Nothing was falling off the desk or the shelves. The pens in their little cup on the desk were shaken a little but not too much. And he couldn't hear anyone running in the other offices.

Still, there were alarms ringing in the distance. As he looked across the way he could see the staff slowly walking out of the building. Actually they weren't that slow. They were running. That seemed a little like an over-reaction to him. Then the ground suddenly lurched violently and he forgot about them as he was sent reeling across the room.

Gamut smashed into the wall and then fell to the floor. But he was quickly back on his feet. Years of training had taught him that he didn't have time to lie around when things were happening. Whether they were gun battles or earthquakes he had to be ready.

The ground lurched violently once more in the opposite direction and he found himself tumbling violently once again. This he realised, was no minor quake. It was big. Very big. The acoustic panels in the ceiling were falling down and huge cracks had appeared in the walls. The building was coming down.

Once more he got to his feet and immediately ran for the door. It was time to get outside where nothing heavy could fall on him. But when he reached it the door wouldn't open. The frame had bent and the door was wedged shut. When he pulled at the handle with all his strength it came off in his hands. And unfortunately the door was solid. No matter how many times he shoulder charged it he couldn't break through it.

Moments later, breathing heavily and starting to get desperate he realised that that left him with only one escape route; the panoramic window. Instinctively he hurled the door handle at it with every ounce of strength he had and cracked it. But the window didn't shatter, probably because it had a toughened laminate layer. So he picked up the office chair and smashed it into the broken window, hitting it as hard as he could, repeatedly.

Glass went flying everywhere, on both sides of the tough laminate, but the laminate itself held somehow. Who would make such toughened glass he wondered? But he immediately knew the answer. The military. It was probably shock or bomb proof. So he hit it again and then again, and the awkwardly shaped edges of the chair finally started tearing into it and cutting it away.

When Gamut saw that he realised what he had to do and quickly started pulling at the edges of the tear with his hands, widening it until he could squeeze his way through. He cut himself quite badly, but when the ground suddenly lurched once more and tossed him all the way back across the office and into the far wall again, he didn't care about a little blood. It was live or die. So he ran back to the window and started pulling at the tear again, frantic. He had to get out.

All of the ceiling panels chose that moment to come crashing down in a storm of plaster and dust on top of him and the wall shelves joined them. But he ignored them as he worked. A few bumps and bruises were unimportant. And it wasn't the ceiling panels that would kill him. It was the solid roof tiles above them, and he could see them coming loose through the gaps in the ceiling.

He had to get out before the building came down on top of him.

Finally, with his blood everywhere, he thought he'd widened the tear in the laminate enough and he started pushing his way through it. Forcing himself through the tear and widening it with his body. He took cuts and scratches all over as he did, but when he heard the sound of the heavy clay roof tiles smashing down on to the floor behind him and shattering, he didn't care. There wasn't much time.

And then like a miracle from above he felt hands on him. Strong hands, grabbing his arms and pulling him free.

A heartbeat later he was lying on the trembling grass, free and celebrating as he seldom had. He was alive. It was a joyous moment and he looked up to give thanks to his saviour, only to see the most impossible thing he'd ever seen. The hospital, four stories of white concrete and glass was slowly sinking.