Guinea Pig (23 page)

“Crap!” He lay there staring at it, wondering if he was really seeing it. If he wasn't dreaming. Buildings didn't do that. But just like a ship at sea it was sinking. Slowly slipping down into a sea of green while the ground rumbled.

It was surprisingly gentle. Nothing broke, there was no shattering of the huge glass windows. The building didn't even rock. But it was remorseless. Floor by floor it disappeared in front of him, like an elevator going down, and soon he was watching the dark roof itself slip below the grass a few tragic figures standing on it, desperately hunting for a way off the sinking building. There was no way off for them, and he watched them sink into the ground with the rest of the building. And even after that it kept going. The aerials and dishes on the building's roof followed it down, some of them several stories high themselves. Soon they were gone too.

But even then when it was out of sight he knew it wasn't over. The ground was still rumbling and occasionally lurching violently. And down in the Earth, wherever it was, he was certain the building was still sinking. Travelling deeper and deeper.

He knew one thing more. There weren't many survivors. There were a few; he could see them on the grass looking down into the abyss. But they were only a few. Many hundreds of people worked in that building however – people who hadn’t left in the great exodus from LA – and they were still in it. Slowly descending into hell.

Eventually the rumbling stopped. Everything eventually stopped – it was simply a law of nature. That Gamut knew, was his cue. His chance to do something. But there wasn't much to do. Nothing except see what had happened. Gamut got to his feet and along with others started making his way to where the few survivors were standing, still looking down. No one spoke. No one made a sound. They just walked, fearing what they'd find. And when he got there it was everything he'd imagined and feared it would be.

There was a crater. A huge gaping maw in the ground that had to extend down at least three or four hundred yards. And right in the bottom of it, in the throat he could see rubble. Bits of concrete and glass that he knew had once been a large modern hospital. But not all of it. That mound was just the last gulp the Earth hadn't yet swallowed. Soon it would.

Sink hole. Someone said the word and instantly Gamut knew they were right. This was another sink hole. But unlike the other survivors Gamut knew one thing more. He knew what had caused it. It had occurred because of the samples he had brought back. This was his fault.

The damned priest had been right. He was crazy, his world was one of complete insanity, but he was still right. Gamut had brought the samples back, someone had combined them with human cells, and the Earth had immediately swallowed the whole lot up. Anything to make sure that nothing of that unholy union between human and angel survived. And now, if they were lucky, nothing had. Because if it had survived, if there was another man wandering about with his body mixed with angel bits, the rest would follow. Ice storms, fire storms, lightning. Anything and everything it needed to do to destroy him. The same as it was trying to do to the rest of California.

He should have killed that freak! Gamut knew it with every fibre of his being. He should have killed him and burnt the remains. And he should never have brought any part of him here. But it was too late now. He hadn't done what he should have done. He had done what he shouldn't have. And as a result hundreds of people had died. Hundreds of American citizens. Scientists and military people. People who mattered if the country wasn't to be overrun by its enemies.

But the true death toll was more than that. These few hundred were dead because he had brought a sample back here and the doctors had dared to use it. But tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands were dead because William Simons lived. Half a state was damaged, a city was ruined and millions were homeless. And the longer he lived the more would die.

He should have killed him!

Gamut couldn't go back and fix his mistake now, even though he knew it was a mistake to let him live for even another second. It was his mistake. He couldn't go back to that ruined hospital just yet. Not without the right papers. But he would fix it soon. That he swore to himself.

When he had set out on his path to become the man he was, he had known only one rule. Whatever he did he always served the country. He was loyal. That was why he could do what he did. He served a greater master than himself. Greater than any personal motive of greed or petty morality. Those who gave in to greed ended up betraying their country sooner or later. Those who believed their morals were more important than the safety and security of America usually ended up doing the same. Even those who followed their orders blindly without thought of what they were doing, made mistakes. But they were not him.

Everything he did he did for his country. If he took an assignment he took it knowing how it would benefit America. And if he knew it would, he carried it out without question. Just as he had taken this one. But in front of him was the proof that he had got this terribly wrong. He had collected the tissue samples because the technology was too important to lose. It could make America the unquestioned superpower in genetic engineering – and that was the new frontier. It was everything from military power to economic power. America had to have it. It could not fall into the hands of an enemy country. It could not be lost due to the disloyalty of the priests as they placed their God above country. Nor to the pathetic personal failings of a doctor lost to guilt. There should be no guilt. Not when he had brought such knowledge to the country.

So he had done what had to be done. He had brought the samples to the proper scientists who would use it for the good of the country. And it had been a mistake. Hundreds of important citizens, top flight scientists and military leaders were dead because he had done his job.

Worse than that he had obeyed his orders not to kill the patient. But he should have killed him. Not only was the man a walking genetics laboratory that no one else could ever know about; now it appeared he was also an enemy of America. He had brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands and destroyed a state. He had done more damage to the country than any war since World War Two. And the priests had even said as much. But still he had let the man live. He had let an enemy walk free. And the country would pay for his failure.

That could not happen. He could not allow it. And he would not.

Gamut knew that he could not undo what had been done. But he could make sure that the next catastrophe whatever it was, never happened. All it would take was a bullet. There would be no payment required. And if his employers disagreed they were out of luck. After what he'd seen, what he now knew, William Simons was a threat to the country and one far too dangerous to be allowed to live.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Will awoke to pain. Everything within him hurt, and it wasn't the general ache of overworked muscles or even the throbbing pain of a headache. It was the intensely sharp stabbing pain of having had holes drilled into him. A dozen holes literally drilled into him one after the other.

The memory of the attack was like an open wound in his thoughts. Every part of it. The stabbing, cutting, tearing pain. The burning as his flesh cooked from the friction of the drill. The smell of blood and seared meat. The sound of the drill and the image of the doctor almost on top of him as he forced the drills into his very bones. It was all still with him even now that it was ended. The torture might have finished for everyone else but it still lived within him as he lay there, the pain refusing to go away.

He had screamed at the time, losing control of himself and even now he still wanted to scream. If he could he thought he might keep screaming for the rest of his life. But as much as he wanted to scream he couldn't. There were tubes in his throat, more than before, and they made screaming difficult. But something else within him made it completely impossible. Some primitive part of him that understood that that way led to madness. If he gave into his fear and horror now, he would never stop. He would never escape it.

His life had become a nightmare but this had been no mere bad dream. Even the worst of them didn't leave you in pain when you woke up. But he desperately wanted it to be one. Just a bad dream that had passed and which could quickly be forgotten when he woke up.

But he was awake. The pain was real – sharp and visceral – almost as bad as it had been when he'd actually been being tortured, and it would not go away. He feared it might never leave him.

Why couldn't he just die? It just wasn't fair. Anyone else would have died. He should have. But instead he had to live. To go on, knowing that worse was coming.

They couldn't even help him with the pain. As he lay there Will knew that his suffering was probably going to be worse and last longer than it had to simply because the doctor was afraid to give him any pain killers. That seemed cruel to him. Just then he would have welcomed a little morphine – even if it killed him. Especially then.

But they needn't have worried. He wasn't going to die. He knew that now. That wasn't the plan. Until then, until Adams had hurt him so badly, he hadn't understood that. He hadn't known that there was a plan. But now he knew there was one. As the doctor had drilled into him again and again and he'd screamed in agony, wishing he could finally leave behind the ruin his life had become, he'd discovered that he could not leave. That no matter how bad things got, no matter how badly he was hurt, he would not be allowed to die. Someone had whispered that into his soul as he had lain there and begged for death. A woman. And though he couldn't see her he was sure it was the old woman with the long white hair. The woman who had saved him in the clinic.

He believed her. While he might not know what the plan was, or whose plan it was, he knew she was telling him the truth. He would not die. He would be saved time and again until the end. He would endure. Or his flesh would. She whispered to him that he had no choice. It was all part of the plan.

That wasn't fair. But then fair wasn't part of the plan.

There was one part of the plan that he did understand. That he would fully transform into what he was meant to be. That too had been whispered into his soul by the white haired woman while he'd cried out for death. This transformation he was going through, it would continue no matter what. He had no choice in that. It would continue until it was finally complete. There would be no stopping it. The doctors would not stop it. Even if they discovered a way they would not be permitted. It would not burn out like a disease. His body's immune system would not kill it. Not even death would be allowed to release him from its terrible grip.

But then when it was done, when he had finally become whatever he was doomed to become, maybe he would be allowed to die? She hadn't told him that. She hadn't told him how it would end or what came next. Only that it would end. That there would come a point when everything that could change had. At least it was something to hope for as he lay there staring at the cracked ceiling tiles of the surgery and hurt.

As his vision slowly cleared Will recognised the ceiling tiles and he knew he was still lying in the surgery as he had been for many days. Maybe weeks. There were no days and nights here. He had no knowledge of the passage of time. But his flesh was speaking to him of a long time having passed as he slept. Days at the least.

He hadn't left the theatre for emergency treatment though he surely needed it, and he suspected he would never leave it. That he would remain chained to this steel bed until the end. That too was a plan, but not the plan of whoever had decided he wasn't allowed to die. It was the soldiers' plan. Maybe it was the governments' plan. And possibly it was also the church's plan. The only one whose plan it wasn't was his. He didn't have a plan.

They were frightened of him, though he couldn't think why. He'd never harmed anyone in his life and he never wanted to. It just wasn't who he was. But still the government and the soldiers and even the church were all afraid of him. Pastor Franks had said it was something to do with him becoming a nephilim. A bad boy half angel as he knew from the movies. But that seemed wrong to him. He wasn't a bad man and he wasn't dangerous. And as for the other part that he'd told him as the soldiers had dragged him away from his flat – that he was somehow responsible for all the disasters – that was complete insanity no matter how his paranoia kept telling him it was true. Or at least he wanted it to be insanity. With all those people dead and injured, the city destroyed, the idea that it could all somehow be because of him was just too much. He didn't want to be responsible for that. He prayed that he wasn't.

Still, regardless of whether it was true or not he would remain here, chained to a bed in a crumbling surgery in an abandoned hospital surrounded by heavily armed soldiers. He had no choice in the matter. If he tried to leave he knew he would be killed. That is, if the white haired woman would let him be killed. He might well end up back here with more holes in him and more pain as he began the long painful process of healing.

He remembered seeing the hospital as he'd been brought here in chains. Thinking that it wasn't so much a hospital as the front half of one. The back half was missing and the wings to the side were rubble. Which had made it seem like an odd place to keep him. He'd suspected at the time that it would be more a prison than a hospital. When they'd dragged him out of the truck still in chains that had been obvious. But he had never thought as they'd brought him in and chained him to a steel table that this would be where he would spend the last of his days. Secretly he might have wished for it though. The confusion and the fear then had been very powerful.

Pastor Franks had been there with him every step of the way as the soldiers had dragged him to his new bed, doing his best to bring him some cheer and promising him that he would not be harmed. But he hadn't been certain, and Will had seen the pain in his face as the pastor understood that all he was doing with his promises was putting a band aid on the gaping wound of his fears. Strangely Doctor Millen had been there as well. In the truck waiting for him, and telling him that he would do everything he could to help him. He was still there with him trying to help him. The doctor couldn't do much for him – Will knew that – but it was still oddly comforting to see him there working on him day after day. Even after what he'd done to him.

Why Doctor Millen had done what he'd done Will didn't know. Maybe the man had told him but he'd been slipping in and out of consciousness ever since he'd been here. And even when he was awake he wasn't completely there. But he still knew that the man had changed at some point. Sometime after having visited him in his home and declaring William a personal triumph. Something had made him see that what he had done was no triumph. That it was a nightmare. And that in turn had become his nightmare.

Shame and guilt were driving the doctor to work every hour of the day he could to try and fix his mess. And the understanding that he couldn't fix it was crushing him. The pain was written all over his face as he cared for him, the crushing guilt was in his eyes as he worked at the microscopes and computers studying who knew what. Along with a lot of heavy bruising from something as Will suddenly noticed.

The sight of his swollen, blackened face confused Will. It looked like he'd been punched repeatedly in the face, something that just wasn't done to doctors. He wondered when that had happened. Maybe while the other doctor had been torturing him. Though why someone would have hit him Will didn't know. The man was already suffering. And despite everything that he'd done, Will didn't like to see him hurt like that. Maybe he was just soft in the head. But at the same time Will suspected that this entire ordeal might be good for the doctor in a strange way. Therapeutic. It was returning him to his calling, the thing which somewhere along the way he'd forgotten. He was a doctor. Maybe that too was part of the plan.

Doctor Adams on the other hand was not a doctor. It was hard for Will to think about him. Every time he did the rest of the memories came flooding back. The memory of the man almost on top of him, his face impossibly calm as he methodically drilled into him again and again. The pain of that was still vivid, so fresh in his mind and his flesh that it hurt as if it was still happening. Yet for all that he had screamed and begged he could have been screaming at a lump of iron.

Why had the man done it? Will didn't know. But then he'd been drifting in and out at the time, and the first he'd known of it was when the drill had started biting in to his flesh. That had woken him up in a hurry, but he hadn't been able to do anything about it. The chains had prevented him from running or resisting in any way. And no amount of begging would persuade the doctor to deviate from what he was doing. The doctor had a job to do and it had nothing to do with medicine.

The doctor was a lie. Even while Will had been lying there writhing and screaming in agony, begging, he had seen him as he truly was. And the man was a lie from start to end. A man who no longer had a name. A man who lived in secret and who in the end had somehow become the secret. Will didn't know how he knew, but he knew he that he was right about him.

Adams wasn't a doctor. He wasn't any of the people he'd claimed to be over the years, and Will somehow knew that there were many. So many false identities that he'd forgotten who he had once been. Adams was a man who didn't have a name. Only numbers. His face wasn't his own; there had been too many surgeries for that. He had no home and no one who called him friend or family. Even those who had hired him didn't know who he was. The man also didn't have any regard for others. How could he when he didn't really know any others? Not friends, not lovers and not family. He was simply a man with a job to do and he had set about doing it. He was logical and cold, and above all else purpose driven. He had to be. Because that purpose, that mission, was all that he was.

Existentialists often said that people became who they wanted to be. That identity was a fluid thing and it could be changed. Adams was the perfect example of their claims. He had made himself the perfect agent. He would do what he was asked to do because the perfect agent would. He would have no qualms because they weren't part of a perfect agent's nature. And he would have no name and no true identity because that was what the perfect agent was. A man with neither of those things. As he'd drilled into him again and again Will had seen all of that within him.

It was a strange thing to understand that a man could be like that. Nothing more than a set of bank accounts and a new mission every so often. It was stranger still to have seen a glimpse of the man's soul. But in a way it seemed right that he should have seen it. What he didn't understand was why he had suddenly been able to do it then and never before. Why, when it was the most natural way of seeing. It was as though up until then he'd been blind.

And now he was blind again. People were just people. As he looked around the room he could see them as they were physically. And maybe something of their feelings. But he couldn't see any of them as clearly as he had seen the man called Adams.

Perhaps that was a good thing. Seeing people like that wasn't something human. It was something of whatever he was becoming.

“You're awake.”

Will looked up to see nurse Etta standing over him, a moist sponge in her hand which she proceeded to wash his face with. It felt good having her do that for him. Cooling him down when he was hot. But more than that it felt good for a fellow human being to be actually concerned for him. It didn't take the pain away – only time would do that – but it helped.