Rise of the Transgenics (21 page)

With a mighty yank, she lifted him clear off
the ground and hurled him off the steps and into the fire below. He
screamed and rolled around in a frantic attempt to beat out the
flames. The other denizens scattered to avoid being burned.

“I warned him,” Harry said softly.

Anastasia twisted her head around to spear
him with a gaze of controlled yet absolute fury. “Are you going to
say stop?”

“No.”

It probably wouldn’t have stopped her,
anyway, he thought as he watched her leap from the stairs into the
chamber. The pack had already regrouped and this time they had
their weapons ready. Having weapons didn’t help, though. With
lightning fast reflexes, she evaded every slash and jab and swing
they took, and soon the entire group lay in a pile, moaning.

Anastasia took her time climbing the stairs,
and once at the top, she muttered, “Let’s get out of here.”

Emerging from the chamber, they descended the
steps and Harry saw that their situation had gotten even worse. The
tide had now swelled to chest level, and while he hated the idea of
wading through this river of gunk, it was a lot better than being
caught—again.

They jumped into the middle of the moving
tide, and Anastasia went under briefly before fighting her way to
the surface. She came up spitting out junk and cursing. “This
stinks! My toes can barely touch the bottom.”

“You want to go back to the chamber?” he
asked.

She tossed him an extremely unpleasant look,
which he interpreted as
don’t mess with me or you get
slashed.
“I hope you can swim.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he answered. “Let’s
go.”

Laboriously wading through the now faster
moving river of sludge, they made slow progress and the tide grew
higher, now up to their necks. This was not good, he thought. “We
have to get to higher ground,” he said, chin barely above the filth
and trying not to gag from the smell or swallow the dirty
water.

Anastasia puffed and panted as she moved, and
her eyes roved back and forth. “This...is not what I call a
romantic outing,” she managed to say.

Harry almost laughed, but a roar cut short
his reply, and stealing a look behind them, he saw a wall of water
surge in their direction. “Oh crap!”

With a roar, the tide caught and lifted them,
and they went under. With his good hand, he clutched her arm
tightly and didn’t dare let go for an instant. The current moved
them along rapidly, and he fought not to breathe in the filth from
the city.

In a sudden surge, the current pulled him and
Anastasia in a different direction. They seemed to be moving faster
now, went through a series of turns, and with spots forming in
front of his eyes from the lack of oxygen, he knew that he couldn’t
last much longer and hoped some kind of tributary was up ahead.

It seemed that his prayers were answered, as
their path abruptly went down and they tumbled out of the pipe into
a large basin. He came up gasping for air, and pulled Anastasia’s
limp body up with him.

“Oh hell,” he got out and put his ear to her
mouth. She wasn’t breathing.

Immediately, he performed a very clumsy
cross-chest carry and towed her over to the ledge. Bad shoulder and
all, he managed to heave her body up on the concrete, hauled
himself out, and started mouth-to-mouth. “C’mon, breathe,” he urged
between breaths. “Breathe! Don’t leave me here alone!”

Continuing to work, he switched to CPR, doing
fifteen compressions on her chest, and then switching back to
mouth-to-mouth. Time passed, he sweated in spite of the cold, and
finally, her body jerked and she immediately vomited out a large
amount of water and kept retching as if her stomach contained half
the sewer.

Exhausted, he slumped back, and after she
finished expelling the waste of the city from her guts, she rolled
over with a groan and opened her eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked between heaving in
mighty gulps of air. His heart kept hammering against his ribcage
and he hoped that it wouldn’t burst. “I thought...thought I lost
you.”

“I’ll make it,” she answered, and squeezed
his hand gently. “I almost drowned back there. You saved me.” She
sat up and regarded him with a look of wonder. “You saved me.”

Pleased by the compliment, but shrugging it
off, Harry mumbled that he’d merely hung onto her and done what he
had to do. “Uh, well, that’s okay. You saved my butt a few
times.”

While he must have smelled horrible,
Anastasia didn’t seem to mind and hugged him so tightly he felt
like one of his ribs was about to break. “Thank you,” she
whispered.

Embarrassed by the display of affection, yet
still pleased, he put his good arm around her shoulder. “We should
be okay here for the rest of the day. Let’s get some rest,” he
suggested.

Anastasia said nothing else, just snuggled
into his chest, and soon, weary from their swimming and escape
efforts, they passed out, with the sound of rushing water lulling
them to sleep.

Mid-afternoon turned into dusk, and dusk turned into
night. It got cooler in the sewer, but never freezing. Fortunately,
where they were, the water remained at a constant level. Harry
strained his ears, listening for the sound of footsteps from
anyone, subterranean dweller or city official, coming their way,
but heard nothing save the sloshing sound of the water.

“I think we’ll be safe here,” Anastasia said.
Her arms wound around his waist and he copied the move. Huddling
together and sharing each other’s body warmth, they stroked each
other’s faces until tiredness overcame them and passed out again in
each other’s arms.

Harry did wake up a couple of times, but his
girlfriend slept deeply, and for once, she didn’t talk in her sleep
or thrash around. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps she’d come to terms
with what she was and what she’d done. The only thing that remained
was what she’d do in the future. He was determined to be a part of
that future.

In the end, Harry became too tired to think
about all the possibilities and passed out once more. Sometime
later, he felt her hand shaking him. “Hey, get up, I think morning
is here,” Anastasia said. “Let’s go up topside.”

They carefully made their way to the surface.
Anastasia led the way and cautiously pushed the manhole out of the
way. Poking her head out of the opening, she glanced down and
announced that they were still in the Bowery. “I remember the
pictures I saw during my time in Russia,” she said. “We must have
fallen into some kind of reservoir.”

“So where exactly are we?”

“In an alleyway,” she replied with a bright
smile. “It’s gonna be a good day. Come on up.”

Emerging into the light, Harry blinked,
shivered from the cold, and watched as his girlfriend went dumpster
diving. The garbage flew out of the container as she rummaged
around, and her foraging efforts netted a few half-eaten
hamburgers.

Ordinarily, this would have been a big pass,
but “when you’re hungry, you eat,” Harry said as he carefully bit
into the cheeseburger she’d found. Hunger overcame him, and he
ravenously devoured the rest of the pickings. Eating made him feel
somewhat warmer, and he shook out his shoulder and moved around,
figuring that would increase his body temperature somewhat.

Glancing at the manhole, he reviewed the last
few hours. Being in a sewer exposed a person to an entirely
different way of thinking and acting. Almost drowning only
solidified the idea in his mind that there had to be a better way
of doing things.

Practicality eventually broke through, and
his mind raced through the possibilities. They’d already eaten, so
the next step was finding somewhere to clean up, and after that,
finding a car in order to get around.

“I got an idea,” he said, peeking out of the
alleyway. Yellow cabs dotted the streets and a number of passersby
rushed here and there on their way to work. Judging from the sun’s
position in the sky, it had to be around seven in the morning. Rush
hour would be starting very soon. It was clear, cold, and he
shivered in the morning air. He felt around in his pockets—yes, he
still had some spare change.

“What are you...” Anastasia asked, and then
stopped as she followed his finger.

He’d pointed to a car wash. “I’m guessing
that it’s automatic. No one is going to wash their car at this time
of day.”

It seemed like a plan.

Carefully stealing across the street, they
encountered no one and entered the lot. A coin box sat on the wall
and a hose with a spray gun below it. Feeding five quarters in, he
heard the gurgle of water come through and picked up the spray gun.
“You ready?” he asked. “It’s going to be cold.”

“Better than stinking,” she replied. “Let her
fly.”

He did, and a burst of water came out,
showering Anastasia from head to toe. She let out a faint hiss, but
stood still and turned around in order to get completely wet.
Noticing something out of the corner of his eye, he turned off the
water and picked it up. It was a sliver of soap. “Here, use this,”
he said, tossing it at her.

Quickly she lathered up and he hosed her down
again. Once done, she said, “Your turn,” and they switched
positions.

The water was freezing, and coupled with the
winter weather, it came as a real shock to his system. He couldn’t
help but tremble mightily at the cold. “You’re acting like a baby,”
she said after the initial hose-down. “Here, let me help you.”

She turned the water off and wrapped her arms
around him, soaping him up. While this wasn’t the time or place, he
felt her warmth, her animal as well as her human warmth, and,
oh...this wasn’t the right time to get awkward about things...

If she knew, she didn’t say anything about
it, but a tiny grin emerged on her face and she purred into his
ear, “Isn’t that better?”

Stepping back, he looked down and found
himself covered in suds. “Uh, yeah, I guess...”

Once again, the spray gun did its work and he
let out an angry squawk as the water rinsed away the soap.
Anastasia shook herself off in the same manner a cat would, and
started to groom her arms and hair. Harry’s teeth chattered and he
figured hypothermia was just around the corner...

“Hey, it’s them!” a voice rang out.

Turning toward the source they saw two men
standing at the entrance, one of them already in the process of
whipping out a cellphone. It was a sure bet that he was contacting
the police, giving them their location, and...

“Oh, man, this is not going to end well,” he
said.

“C’mon,” Anastasia urged, grabbing his
undamaged shoulder. She yanked him in the direction of the far wall
and they ran quickly toward it. It had to be at least fifteen feet
high.

“Hang on,” she cried and jumped up with him
in tow.

From this height, he caught glimpses of the
street life below. The two men were waving someone down—probably a
squad car—while other people were staring in their direction. A
bird flew by, and startled by their unwanted presence it chirped
out its disapproval and kept going. They finally they landed in a
small backyard. Covered in snow, it lay as a tiny oasis from the
mean streets behind them.

Shouts followed them, and they did the
run-and-jump thing until they’d gone at least twenty houses down
the block. She shifted direction and they veered off to their left,
through more backyards.

“We have to keep going,” Anastasia urged, and
forcing his body to do what he thought was impossible, he managed
to keep up with her. They scrambled over fence after fence in a
desperate attempt to outrun their pursuers, but the shouts kept
following them. “Run!”

After they reached the thirtieth house or
thereabouts, the sounds of shouting stopped and Anastasia stopped
to look around. She wasn’t even breathing hard and could probably
do this all day. On the other hand, he was winded, felt chilled
beyond belief, and right now his muscles began to lock up and he
could go no further. “I gotta sit down,” he said, and sank to the
snowy ground.

Gasping for air and feeling as though his
lungs would burst, with his head down, Harry wondered what to do
next. “Who’s there?” a voice called.

With a sinking heart, he saw an old and
skinny black woman come out wearing a housecoat draped over a
nightgown. Heavy galoshes covered her feet, and she had a scarf
tied round her head, covering wispy shoulder-length white hair. “I
smell you, and you don’t smell all that great to me,” she
stated.

She was short and walking with a limp,
carrying a cane in her left hand, but he wasn’t looking at that. He
was looking at the pistol she held in her right hand. It was small,
but very lethal looking, and at this range, she couldn’t miss.

“Who’s there?” she asked again, her voice
strong and sure, belying her age. Shuffling along slowly, one hand
outstretched with the cane in hand, while the other firmly held
onto the pistol, she cocked her head to one side and listened
intently. With a smooth, unlined face even though she had to be at
least eighty, she could have passed for anyone’s grannie. The
pistol, though, that changed everything.

When she blinked, though, he saw the milky
whiteness of what used to be organs that could see.
Blind...she’s blind.

He tapped Anastasia on the shoulder and she
nodded. She’d already figured out that the woman couldn’t see, but
stood stock still as the house owner moved in, her nostrils
flaring.

“I’m legally blind,” she began. “I can only
see shadows and can’t make out your features, but I can hear two
people breathing,” she stated, her voice still sure. “One of you
must be cold, because your teeth are chattering.”

Harry clamped his jaws together, but couldn’t
stop his body from shaking. Damn, this woman heard everything! When
she spoke, it was in a clear, confident voice. “Just because I’m
blind doesn’t mean I’m deaf. From the sound of your voices and that
stink, I know your position. If I let loose with this,” she
continued, the pistol never wavering, “at least one of you won’t be
breathing! Speak up and do it now.”