Separation (3 page)

“That’s the plan,” Harry agreed as he tossed
his mic aside and followed his wife to the open spaces.

On the street, she stood grousing about
attitudes and vendettas. Pedestrians passed by, shouting greetings.
A few people came over, notepads in hand. A young boy perhaps ten
years old thrust his notebook at Anastasia and asked in a piping
voice, “Could you sign my book, please?” His parents hovered in the
background, wearing smiles.

Anastasia quickly wrote her name, which
elicited a grateful, “Thanks,” from the boy. He ran off to join his
parents, who waved and exited stage left.

“See, at least you’ve got one fan,” Harry
said.

She turned around with a faint grin. “It’s
better than none.”

More people then crowded around, cameras at
the ready. Harry obliged them by posing with Anastasia and things
seemed to be going well...

Until Baskins, holding a bloody handkerchief
to his mouth, strode over and screamed in full view of the crowd,
“Do you see what this... this thing did to me?” He followed up his
question by pointing an accusatory finger at Anastasia. “I’m going
to sue you, you... you
animal!
”

With a look of fury on her face, she started
forward, but Harry put out his arm and blocked her way. “I’ve got
this,” he said. Turning to Baskins, he leveled the man with a
single shot to the jaw. Bending over the unconscious blob, he
added, “Count on two animals doing this to you.”

Anastasia lingered long enough to throw a
look of contempt at the show host. She then took Harry’s hand and
they moved off in the direction of Farrell’s car, parked
conveniently a few feet away.

Their handler was leaning against the
driver’s side, looking at his cellphone intently. “Are you going to
say anything?” Anastasia’s voice cut through the air.

“No.” With a slow, deliberate motion, he
stowed his cellphone away in his pocket and his voice came out
quietly. “I was watching the show. You did right.”

“Did we?” queried Harry, feeling suddenly
bereft. This gig was supposed to have smoothed things over. In the
end, it seemed that the host had gotten what he wanted. “I guess we
can rule out appearing on any more daytime talk shows.”

His comment got a laugh out of Farrell, but
there was no humor behind it. “We’ve got other matters to worry
about. Get in. I’m taking you both to FBI headquarters. We have to
talk.”

Twenty minutes later, the three of them sat in
Farrell’s office. Located on the second floor, it overlooked
downtown Manhattan, offering a startlingly clear view of the
area.

Inside, though, the room was stark and almost
bare, save for a bookshelf with some law texts on it, a desk, a few
chairs, and a large window. Farrell occupied a chair and tapped
buttons on a computer while Anastasia lounged in her own seat. Over
her initial fury, she directed her gaze, quiet and thoughtful, at
the window, tapping her claws lightly against the table.

No one said a word, and while Harry wanted to
ask a million questions, he refrained from doing so. Time was of
the essence, or so he thought, but his mentor kept pecking away on
the buttons in a slow, methodical manner, as though he had nothing
but
time.

With the hunt-and-peck thing along with the
tapping-of-claws thing going on big time, Harry’s tension mounted
exponentially. Finally, after ten minutes had passed and his level
of tolerance had reached the breaking point, he asked, “Well?”

His question got an immediate response.
Farrell spun the computer around. “We’ve been getting reports the
last couple of weeks,” he started off by saying. “They aren’t in
North America, but in Western Europe.”

Instantly, Anastasia’s eyes lit up and she
swiveled her head to gaze at the screen. “I see countries and
that’s all. I don’t need a geography lesson. Do you want to be more
specific?”

As if the computer had been anticipating the
question, a series of red dots appeared and highlighted France,
Italy, and Spain. “We’ve had reports of a series of savage
mauling’s and deaths. Sound familiar?”

It did, and Harry asked, “Why didn’t you tell
us before?”

“We weren’t sure, not at first, but the bite
marks, the slashes... they all indicate something not quite
human...” Farrell stopped and leaned over to tap some more buttons.
“Take a look.”

A series of pictures appeared, with each one
more horrific than the last. People young and old, men, women, and
even children, ripped apart or bitten in half. Harry managed to
stifle a gasp while Anastasia couldn’t. “How many so far?” She
grimaced as she viewed each picture.

The reply came immediately and it was a
shocking one, so many people in so short a time. “By our count as
well as the officials in those countries, there’ve been ten in
France, fourteen in Italy, and twelve in Spain. I...”

Farrell broke off his speech and began to
cough. The coughs got heavier and deeper, and he hurriedly tugged
at his collar. Loosening it, he heaved in a series of deep breaths,
each one sounding like a death rattle.

“Are you feeling all right?” The question
came from Anastasia, and she started out of her chair to go over to
him. He waved her off.

“I’m fine.”

Clearly, he wasn’t, as his face had gone
chalk white and he seemed to be struggling for breath. He bent down
and opened a drawer on his desk to withdraw a small bottle of
water. Taking a swig, he put the bottle down and cleared his
throat. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

He certainly didn’t look fine, but Harry said
nothing and waited for the next bad words to come, something along
the lines of creatures ripping people in half. Sure enough, Farrell
obliged him.

“As you can see from the photos, the attacks
indicate something not quite human was responsible. You saw the
same thing yourself when you went to Hungary and Serbia before. You
know how those mutants killed the innocent.”

A light went off in Harry’s head. In Hungary,
not so long ago, he’d faced off against Szabo and defeated him. His
girlfriend, a winged thing named Martuska, had knifelike sharp
wings and had used them to kill and maim others. Their transformed
transgenic minions had also done significant damage to the native
populations of that country as well as in Serbia before they’d been
stopped. Harry had seen what they could do. These pictures... it
couldn’t be anyone else.

“Do you think that scientist survived?”

Farrell’s voice interrupted his musings. He
remained silent, but Anastasia arched her eyebrows. “Not sure, but
we were there.” She turned to Harry. “You saw. Do you think Kulakov
is still alive?”

It was hard to believe anyone could have
survived the fall. Kulakov, the former head of the Russian
transgenics program—indeed, he’d been its founder—had also been a
man... once. He’d begun his tests in Russia and was one of the
first to undergo changes. Unfortunately in his case, the changes
had been horrid and irreversible. Essentially, he’d devolved into a
multi-limbed, very dangerous amoeba.

In a final battle atop a cliff, Harry had
defeated him and the scientist had plummeted to his death. The
sound of the body splattering upon the rocks had signaled certain
demise, one most foul.

However, the scientist, before he died, had
alluded to other Genesis Chambers that had been built. Scientific
secrets could only remain secret for so long. Sooner or later,
someone would get the urge to play god in the laboratory.

It seemed someone had already gotten the
urge. Farrell coughed loudly. He still seemed most uncomfortable
and reached inside his coat pocket for something. Bringing out a
small packet, he extracted a tiny white pill.

“Mint,” he said. “Throat’s still dry.” He
popped it out and dry-swallowed it, adding, “We’re checking with
our allies in Europe. If we find out anything, we’ll let you
know.”

“Uh-huh,” said Harry, thinking hard. Ever
since he’d become one of the enhanced, he’d heard from the
scientists he’d encountered as well as their followers that a
number of transgenics still lived. Estimates ranged anywhere from
thirty-five to a hundred, and it was a given some of them had bred.
Most of them were European, young, homeless, and shunned by
society.

Szabo’s plan had been to take the homeless
and disaffected youth and blackmail other countries into giving him
his own territory. He’d sown murder and discord over a period of
perhaps two months, and before he died he’d said at least thirty of
his own enhanced followers were still out there. “And there shall
be more. Wait and see, Goldman, there shall be more.”

Ominous words, indeed, and when he’d said
more he’d implied a number of healthy young unenhanced would
somehow flock to his cause. They would then undergo the procedure
that would transform their bodies into something other than
human.

To make matters worse, as if they needed to
be any worse, many of his would-be disciples were ex-prisoners. The
FBI and the various law enforcement agencies in Europe along with
Interpol had managed to keep tabs on most of them, but they
couldn’t find them all.

Since being released from prison, they hadn’t
broken any laws, so arresting them wouldn’t have done any good. It
didn’t mean they weren’t thinking of committing crimes. However,
they also had rights, and the authorities in Europe had other
problems to worry about.

“You did try tracking them down, didn’t you?”
Harry had posed the question to Farrell when he came by the cabin
one morning a few weeks back.

“We tried, but it was a waste of time.”
Farrell sounded dismayed, and had proceeded to say the enhanced
transgenics, those not aligned with Szabo, decided for the most
part not to advertise their presence. “Considering the size of
Europe, not to mention the relative ease of moving from country to
country, it’s hard enough to keep track of anyone. These people are
good at hiding, and I understand why.”

Online traces hadn’t turned up anything new,
either. And as usual, Farrell wasn’t giving them the entire
picture. The citizenry in Europe had not been as forgiving as the
people in the USA, if only by a matter of degree and not of
feeling. Harry had read the reports from various online sources,
and the happenings could only be described as appalling.

In Italy, the enhanced had been the target of
local citizens’ groups for the longest time. So far, they’d shot at
least seven of the transgenics, proudly showing the bodies of the
people they’d killed, saying, “They presented a clear threat to the
safety of the Italian people. We are the people. They aren’t.”

It all added up to xenophobia by mobs of the
uninformed and bigoted, nothing less and nothing more.

Naturally, the Italian police decried the
violence, but they hadn’t done anything to stop it, and so far no
arrests had been made.

In France’s case, while the enhanced weren’t
persecuted, at least outright, they had been shunned by most of the
populace. “We are committed to including them in society,” said
Bernhard Lambert, an official government spokesperson.

A tall, slender man in his fifties with a
head of snow white hair and a kindly, lined face, he seemed most
sympathetic to the transgenic and human rights cause. “They are
French citizens and should therefore be accorded the same rights as
anyone else.”

Noble words and nobly spoken, but the few
enhanced who had come forward had also been met by indifference,
and had soon disappeared into the vast forests surrounding the
countryside. The police considered them vagrants and nothing more,
but they hadn’t arrested any, at least not for the moment.

As for Spain, the government officials
professed to deal with them on a humanitarian basis, but with few
funds and the limited education most of the transgenic group had,
those in the enhanced group had gone underground—or so the reports
had said. All of these reports dated back to roughly three months
earlier. There’d been no reports since... until now.

Finally, Harry stopped thinking about things
and came out with, “I know about the other hybrids from reading
about them online. But we haven’t been contacted by anyone.”

“Okay, then we’ll wait.” Farrell’s cellphone
buzzed and he flipped it open to say, “Yeah, they’re here. Come
in.”

“Who is...” Harry started to say, but the
door opened.

As he turned around, Jason Parham and Tina
Mazerowski stood in the aperture. Jason, tall, skinny, and geeky
looking with long black hair and an angular face, held a small
paper bag as he stood next to his girlfriend. Tina, also tall and
slender although not quite as skinny as he, bobbed her head. “Hey
guys, welcome home,” she said.

“We never left,” Anastasia commented in a dry
voice as she got up to give Tina a quick hug.

Jason and Harry gave each other an awkward
fist bump. Formalities observed, Farrell asked for a rundown on the
latest developments. Tina walked over to the computer. “This isn’t
my regular laptop,” she said as she got seated, “but it’ll do.”

Her fingers began to fly over the keyboard.
Midway through her typing, she stopped to pat her pockets. “I’m
out,” she said. “Jason, have you got my stash?”

A confirmed chocoholic, she never seemed to
be without something dark, chocolaty and sweet, and it constantly
amazed Harry how she remained so slender. Jason proffered the bag.
“Got it here,” he proclaimed.

“Gimme.”

He handed it over. “There you go, Tina.”

A sour look crossed her face. “We’ve been
going out for a long time and you still call me by my real name.
I’m Maze. I think I’m going to officially change it to that.”

Stifling a laugh, Harry thought about her
nickname. She’d gotten it due to an almost preternatural ability to
hack into any mainframe or get into any site, including the FBI’s
database, the NSA’s, and the CIA’s. None of those organizations had
been amused in the least at her efforts. The latter two were even
less amused when she and Jason went to work for the FBI.