Revolution (19 page)

Apparently, the yelling had some effect, as
three of the enhanced came out of the hole, all wearing jeans and
leather jackets. One of them had the head of a frog and the body of
a man, while the other two... they looked like mixes of pigs,
horses and dogs. Their torsos were human, but their legs were
crooked and slender like racehorses, while their arms ended in
sharp canine claws. They boiled out onto the surface, snarling and
waving their arms.

“Teenage rockers,” Anastasia muttered as she
set herself up in a fighting stance. “They would have to come up
with something like this.”

The trio of mutants didn’t wait for an
invitation. Instead, giving wild screeches, they attacked.
Anastasia laid out the first thing that came at her, the
frog-headed monstrosity, while Harry took on one of the other
mixes. The thing slashed at him from all directions, but it
couldn’t match skilled combat training. Harry swept its legs out
from under it with a well-timed kick. A follow-up right hook took
it out of consciousness-land. Ilic simply took aim from with his
pistol and shot the third monster through the head. It collapsed in
a heap.

“I like direct approach,” he said,
grinning.

The grin disappeared, as did his head when a
pair of jaws took it off. The severed head bounced a few yards away
and the headless corpse sagged to the ground, blood staining the
ground a bright red. Szabo stood in its place, his bloody teeth
exposed in a smile that portended no good. He held a pistol in his
hand. At this range, he couldn’t miss. Slowly, Harry raised his
hands and Anastasia did the same.

“Nice of you two to come for a visit,” the
smiling monstrosity said. “Shall we go inside?”

Szabo shepherded them downstairs at gunpoint. Along
the way, two of his people came to guide them. They remained in
front and the shark man brought up the rear. As they walked, their
feet echoing on the stone steps, Harry took note of the design. It
was identical to the one in Hungary, right down to the sickly
yellow lights on the ceiling, the laboratory and the cells. The
only difference was that this facility was newer and smelled less,
but it was no less dangerous. It was a pit of human tragedy, the
product of a diseased and warped mind.

At the bottom, Szabo called a halt and let
out a shrill whistle. Immediately, people of all shapes and sizes
poured in and stood at attention. Harry spotted mixtures of elk and
human, fowl and boar along with other mixes so bizarre it boggled
his imagination. “How do you like my mini-nation?” Szabo asked.

“They’re ugly as sin and you’re a scumbag,”
Anastasia hissed.

Her summation of the menagerie didn’t please
the leader, as he let loose with a backhand to her face and she
fell to the floor. Picking herself up, she bared her claws, but
Szabo had his gun centered on her midsection and shook his head.
“Don’t try it, girl. I know you are a capable fighter, but you
cannot dodge a bullet at close range.”

Harry put a hand on her shoulder and held her
back. The muscles under her fur felt like iron, but a second later
she relaxed and spit on the ground as if offering her opinion.
“Take her to a cell,” Szabo instructed to his people.

Two of his guards grabbed her by the elbows,
but she shook them off and walked proudly, head held high. Once
she’d gone, Szabo dismissed the rest of his people save one, a man
with a head like a German shepherd. He spoke to the man in his own
language, gesticulating to the surface. The other man shook his
head.

Szabo growled with disappointment and
switched to speaking English. “Take three others and scour the
surface. Be quick about it. We must find him.”

The other man nodded and ran off, returning a
few seconds later with two other similar mutants. Once they left,
Szabo waved to a table with some chairs grouped around it and
gestured for him to take a seat. Harry sat down, warily eyeing the
pistol.

However, Szabo went to the far corner of the
room and put it on a counter, came back and sat down. It was almost
as if he was laying out a challenge. Harry glanced at the gun, but
decided to wait and see how things played out. “Do all of your
people speak English?”

Szabo shrugged. “It is a useful language and
is still the means of international communication. I use it, as do
all my people. It gives them something in common.”

He turned his gaze up at the ceiling and gave
a sigh. “It seems that the little pig-man is more resourceful than
I imagined. We will find him eventually.”

As he spoke, he examined his claws, carefully
picking out a few traces of dirt. Once done, he looked up at Harry,
his gaze frank and open. “So,” he said in an amiable tone, “While
your girlfriend is not so impressed with my allies, I see that you
are, are you not?”

“Not really. They look like freaks. Did you
dream this up, or did Kulakov?”

Szabo laughed. “Ah, so you have another name
to go on. I will not ask you where you heard it, but I shall tell
you, anyway. In reality, we both imagined this plan although to
give credit, it was his idea first. He was the one who created me
and the others. I am telling you this because we both know you will
never leave here.”

Now where had Harry heard that before? Oh
yes, twice, from smarter individuals who were now dead. He’d get
out, somehow. “If you’re going to repeat your offer of me joining
your gang, forget it. I wasn’t interested before, and I’m even less
interested now.”

With a slight sigh, perhaps one of
resignation, Szabo reached over to an adjacent table, took a
rolled-up piece of paper from it and proffered it. “What is this?”
Harry asked.

“Open it up and look.”

Unrolling it, Harry saw a map of Europe.
While the notations were in Serbian, he knew where the countries
were, all of them except for a number of small areas marked with
red circles. The first was in the northern end of Hungary. Others
were in Serbia, Croatia and Russia. A few crude pictures were at
the bottom of the page. They were flags of Great Britain, Germany,
Italy and France. “Let me guess, these are going to be your new
homes?”

“They are.”

He leaned forward. “The marked areas comprise
around fifty square miles. Hungary is still my home, no matter
what, but it is just a start. Once we build a home in my country,
we will branch out.”

Szabo pointed to one corner of the room. It
held a Genesis Chamber. The ability to transmute human flesh and
animal flesh into a hybrid was something out of science fiction,
yet Harry and a corps of engineers had managed to turn it into
science fact. Using DNA from animals, the chamber simply
accelerated the transformation. Instead of months, as it had taken
with the previous Russian scientists, it took only minutes. “Let me
guess, you’ve been using it on other followers, am I right?”

Szabo nodded. “You are correct. And I will
have legions. Did you see those people I lead? They are the ones I
spoke of when last we met. They are the disaffected, the outliers,
the ones discriminated against. They come from all points along the
human and sexual orientation spectrum. They are all religions and
all creeds. I do not care what they are. I only care that they can
help me achieve my goals, which are their goals as well.”

“Your goals,” Harry said. “You mean your
goals of murder?” He was barely able to contain his disgust. “I saw
the tape of you burning people up. There must have been over a
hundred people in those cells. You just torched them. You’re
sick!”

“No, I am doing what is necessary. You would
do the same.”

Voice rising, Szabo went on to say they would
continue their campaign of murder until the governments of Serbia
and Hungary caved in. Russia would be next. “We cannot be caught
and we cannot be exterminated, not so easily. Our efforts will
continue until we get what is ours. After that, we shall live in
peace.”

Call this a SMH moment—the plan was
ludicrous. “You realize that we found your hideout in less than a
day,” Harry pointed out and didn’t bother hiding his sarcasm. “How
long do you think it will take for the army to find out where
you’re hiding? It won’t take long, not after all the people see
what you’ve been doing.”

“It is just a means to an end,” remarked
Szabo in a matter-of-fact voice. “The governments will accede to
our demands.”

Harry still wasn’t convinced. “That’s a load
of crap. You’ve got, what, thirty people left? You can’t last. I
don’t care about the Russian army, but they’ll eventually hunt you
down. If they don’t, then the other armies will. You’re wasting
your time.”

Szabo shrugged. He seemed unconcerned with
facing superior odds. “What you forget is that there are many
discontented people within those armies. I know of them, know how
to reach them and know how to lead them. There are other places
that we can go. We can hide—we can create. All of this, I know for
a fact.”

With a start, Harry recalled the list he’d
seen. There had been over ten thousand names on the prison list,
those released and those ready to be released. As if reading his
mind, Szabo gave a smile. “You underestimate me, Goldman. I have
been a step ahead of you all the way, for I have planned this.
Soon, my plan will come to fruition.”

A second later, he leaned back in his chair,
his dark eyes shrewd. “You must also understand by now that the
process performed on you was incomplete. That is why you are weak,
weaker than your girlfriend.”

“How do you know that I’m not acting?” It was
a stupid lie and an even dumber question, but Harry had to come up
with something.

Szabo, however, saw right through it and
smirked. “You do not have a tail like your girlfriend. You are not
as fast or as strong as she is. Against someone like me who has
been fully transformed—twice—you stand no chance whatsoever. My
personal feeling is that when you went through the process, it was
interrupted.”

Harry had already come to that conclusion
months earlier. Piotr, the Russian rhino-boar hybrid, had smashed
through the chamber at roughly the four-minute mark. It interrupted
the process, but Harry had still gained enough strength to
regenerate. “So, are you asking me if I want to go through the
process again?”

“If you wish,” the answer came with a note of
certainty in it. “Why not become what you are, what your science
intended you to be? Do you realize what an opportunity this is for
you?”

Szabo’s dull, dead eyes abruptly began to
shine. They held a madness that hadn’t been there before. Madness,
though, often had a purpose to it and Szabo certainly had his own
goals in mind. “This is your chance to take back your life,” he
said. “Your girlfriend can take back her life as well. You can live
among others of your own kind. I’m giving this to you, Goldman, in
exchange for your help.”

Here it came, the offer. While Harry was
keenly aware of how society viewed him as well as his girlfriend,
murder and tyranny was no answer. “And how can I help you?”

“I need Istvan,” Szabo stated in a
businesslike voice. “You asked me once why I needed him, and now it
is time to tell you. His blood is the key to immortality. You are
aware that when a hybrid is created, it will eventually
devolve.”

“I know.”

Szabo eyed him carefully. “You are also aware
that when two or more animals are combined with a human, that
subject’s lifespan is shortened considerably.”

Harry was also aware of this fact. He’d heard
the news from both Nurmelev and Grushenko. With a shock that
shouldn’t have been one, he now understood what this maniac wanted.
“You’re going to use his blood to counteract the aging process of
the cells.”

The man-shark’s mouth split into an enormous
grin and he gave an enthusiastic nod. “You
are
clever. I
tried to explain this to my fellow members, but they do not
understand. Over time, with the extension of life, we can work on
other things, such as intelligence. For now, they serve my cause
well enough as they are.”

This was worse than monstrous. Harry got up
quickly, his movement tipping the chair over. He’d run simulations
on that before in his lab, back in New York. Hematology wasn’t his
specialty, but he knew enough about blood to make an educated
guess. In every single experiment he’d performed using improved
T-cell saturated blood as a countering agent, it had ended in
failure. “You’re worse than crazy. The blood won’t counteract the
change in genes. I tried that. I tried using protein sheaths to
prevent the decay and—”

“And you will continue to refine your ideas
until you get them right.”

The words, so casually delivered in a cold
and calculating manner, indicated that Szabo was absolutely sure
that his plan would work. He got up and offered a tiny smile,
drawing his lips back to reveal his razor sharp teeth. “You may
think now that you will not help me,” he said. “I think you will,
Goldman. I most assuredly think you will. If you don’t want to see
your girlfriend flayed while she is still alive, you might
reconsider.”

A shudder of horror speared Harry. This
maniac was crazy enough to do it. The mob that had taken her to her
cell...

“If you touch her, you won’t live ten
minutes,” he said, feeling his own anger outweigh his fear. “Try
anything and I’ll...”

He got no further as Szabo, in a move too
fast to follow, backhanded him across the face with his claw. The
impact hurled him through the air and he landed ten feet away, flat
on his back and half out of it. Getting to his feet, Harry wiped
blood from his mouth and rushed the monster, claws out and moving
fast.

It didn’t work. With a casual move, the
man-shark grabbed him around the throat, picked him off the ground
and held him aloft. He shook him like a dog would shake a rat.
Harry struggled and slashed at the man-shark’s arms, but couldn’t
get free of his grasp. “You... you won’t...”