Revolution (24 page)

The captive lay on the kitchen floor, bound,
helpless and gagged. When Harry started to question him, he started
to scream and chatter. Even through the gag, it came out high and
shrill. Harry wasn’t an expert on animals, but to him it sounded
more like the cry of a monkey than a man. He wouldn’t respond to
questions. Finally, he managed to break free of his bonds and Harry
knocked him cold.

“I will search for something stronger,”
Istvan said. He went out to the barn and returned, laboriously
dragging a length of chain behind him. “I find this. It is good
enough?”

“It’ll do.”

Grimly, Harry set about tying up the creature
in front of him. Halfway through, the monster woke up and began to
kick. It didn’t scream, though. It simply spit out each word, laced
with unreasoning hatred. “You will never win,” it said.

“I’m not all about winning,” Harry replied.
“I’m about answers. You’re going to tell me.”

“No.”

“Listen, scumbag,” said Harry, his temper
redlining, and he grabbed the thing around the neck. “I’m just
about out of patience. Your boss kidnapped my girlfriend, your
friends have murdered a lot of people in three different countries,
and you’re going to die unless you start talking. I don’t want to
do it, but I will. You remember your little forest retreat, don’t
you?”

A malicious-looking grin spread across the
simian features. “You are nothing. I don’t care about your
girlfriend. If I see her again, I hurt her good.” Hatred laced
every word. “You are just like everyone else. You want to control
me... us.”

“Yeah, I know what kind of people you are,”
Harry said. Szabo had spoken about helping the disaffected youth of
society, those who’d been discriminated against. In reality, he was
leading a group of punks who simply didn’t want to fit in and chose
another way of showing their alienation—the wrong way. “So listen
up—if my girlfriend is still alive, then I want to know where she
is.”

“I will not tell you.”

That was the wrong answer. Harry let go of
his collar, grabbed him by the ears and began to slam his head
against the floorboards repeatedly until the monkey-man’s eyes
began to glaze over. “Talk to me!”

When the other thing wouldn’t answer, rage
overtook Harry. He let go then and lifting his foot up, he prepared
to stomp this thing’s head into something resembling a pancake, but
a hand on his elbow stopped him. Turning around, Istvan stood there
on all fours with a look of determination on his face

“Let me,” he said. Getting up on his hind
legs, he went to the stove to turn on the gas. A flame leaped up
from the burner. He waddled over to the sink, took a pot, filled it
with water and placed it on the burner. Then he waited. And all
this time, the monkey-man watched without saying a word.

A few minutes later, the pot began to boil.
Istvan switched his gaze back and forth between the prisoner and
the stove, all with a faint smile. The monkey-man began to twitch.
Its eyes cleared and it looked at Harry. “You will not do this,” he
said.

“Tell me where Szabo is and maybe you won’t
get scalded,” Harry said.

“No, you will not do this!”

Istvan came back long enough to bend over the
bound monkey-man. “Please hear me. I am a pig now. I do not wish to
be this way, but I am. And I am not happy.” For the first time
since they’d met, Harry detected a note of menace in Istvan’s
voice.

“Go to hell, pig-man.”

Istvan received the insult without another
word. Awkwardly turning back to the stove, he proceeded to take the
now bubbling pot of water and dump it on the monkey-man’s face. The
skin immediately began to bubble and perforate and he screamed in
agony. The sight of melting flesh made Harry want to look away, but
he couldn’t show weakness in front of the enemy. “Start talking,”
he said.

In spite of his injuries, the captive spit
out a “No” answer. There was something to be said for stubbornness,
but this verged on stupidity.

“That is too bad,” Istvan said and filled the
pot with some more water. “It will be ready in about six
minutes.”

Sickened by the brutality, but knowing that
they needed answers and needed them now, Harry swallowed his
feelings of pity. If this was the only way, then so be it. The
sound of bubbling water got his attention and this time he picked
up the pot and began to pour it on the now ruined face of the thing
writhing in agony on the floor. More screams filled the air.
“Please... no more,” it begged. “I will tell you.”

“Give me numbers.”

The creature with the half-melted face
babbled a series of non-sequitur sentences from its puffy,
distorted lips. Some of the words Harry couldn’t understand, but he
heard words like “chamber” “change” “sleep” and one more word that
chilled him to the bone—”stasis”.

“What do you mean by stasis?” he asked,

Monkey-man shook his head and writhed in
pain. “We... have a base... in mountains. More labs... older
places,” he said, the words slurred and distorted by his ruined
mouth.

“Specifics, I want specifics,” Harry said.
“Tell me where the lab is. Tell me how many more people are changed
over. Tell me everything.”

With a shriek, the creature spasmed and its
voice became faint. “More labs... out there. Some of them...very
advanced... we have.”

“Where are they?” demanded Harry, grabbing
the creature by its tattered clothing and hauling him up. “Tell
me!”

“I don’t... know,” the monkey-man said, his
voice a whisper. His body began to shake in a series of death
throes. “I never heard name of place. Szabo knows. He knows. Find
him and you will find labs.”

A rattling sound came from his throat and his
body sagged. Harry lowered him to the ground. Part of him felt
sorry that this had to happen and part of him felt only
disgust.

“Is he dead?” Istvan asked.

“Yeah, he is.”

With the monkey-man’s death, there went any
way of tracking down the main lair. If they couldn’t track it down
and if the Russian government remained obstinate, then more of
these transgenic people could be created and perhaps hidden
away.

However, the possibility that others still
existed away from the main lab was frustrating as well as
frightening. It was frustrating because if he only had the
information, then he’d relay it to the authorities as fast as
possible. The frightening part of it all was that he didn’t know
how many people there really were. The Genesis Chamber was already
operational, and in a number of countries, too. In a year, there
was no way to know how many recruits Szabo could come up with.

“We shall continue searching,” Istvan said in
a high-pitched voice. He sounded very much like a pig that had
recently learned how to speak. “I should feel bad that he is dead,”
he added, looking at the fallen man-thing. “I do not feel anything
at all.” With a snort, he spat on the fallen man whose face was had
gone from being a recognizable simian one to one that connoted the
word monster.

“We already know that we’re close. The pilot
said something about the mountains. That’s my guess, too,” Harry
said. “You should try to cross the border.”

Istvan shook his head. “I cannot go. I am not
strong enough to go on my own. I... I am turning into what I hate
most.”

Harry wanted to say that he knew about the
problem, but Istvan stopped him by holding up a now very porcine
hoof. “You do not have to say. I hear Szabo and other scientist
talk about this. I know what I will become... but I do not want
those crazy people to catch me.”

“So where will you... I mean, what are you
going to do?”

Istvan got down on all fours. It seemed to be
a more natural position for him and he swung his head back and
forth. “I do not know. I cannot go home. I do not wish anyone to
see me when I change to...”

A sudden flow of tears interrupted him and he
rubbed his eyes carefully with the edges of his hooves. “I only
wish to help you find your girlfriend.”

Harry went over and sat beside him. “Thanks.
I know we, uh, haven’t been as nice to you as we should have,
but—”

“I understand,” Istvan cut in and spoke in a
voice without any self-pity attached to it. “You and Anastasia have
each other.”

“And we have you,” a voice from outside
called.

Szabo! He’d tracked them there... or maybe
used the now-dead monkey thing as cannon fodder. It was at times
like these that Harry wished he could fly. Then again, bad idea, as
Szabo’s girlfriend was probably soaring around upstairs, waiting
like the Red Baron to shoot the nearest invader down.

Istvan started from his position and made for
the back door, but Harry clamped down on his shoulder. “Stay
still,” he hissed in a low voice. “They’ll be waiting.”

“I cannot go with them.” Istvan’s voice
bordered on blind panic, something neither of them needed. “I
cannot return to be an experiment.”

Breathing hard, Harry wondered what to do...
and then had an idea. “Get ready to run the opposite way,” he
ordered.

He picked up the corpse of the monkey-man and
heaved it out the window. Predictably, a burst of machine-gun fire
came their way, followed by laughter. Harry detected at least six
voices in the raucous laughter... but not Szabo’s. He was more than
likely circling around the back.

“I hear something,” Istvan said. “Heavy
footsteps, like someone very big.”

“I know who it is.”

Harry got ready. “When I open the door,” he
instructed, “you run to the right and keep going. Understand? Don’t
stop.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Oh really, Harry thought, lie some more. They
were going to shoot him down, plain and simple. After taking a
couple of deep breaths to steel his nerve, he yanked the door open
and charged outside. Seven transgenic mistakes stood there, but
only three of them were armed.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Istvan
fleeing the scene. Good, he’d be safe. Harry then piled into the
transgenics, slashing and clawing his way through them. Two fell
from mortal wounds to their throats and two others fell back
clutching broken arms and hands.

However, three more monsters piled on top of
Harry and pushed him face down on the ground. Their breath smelled
of rotting flesh. Angry voices told him that the end would come
soon. He only hoped that it would be quick. “Time to die, traitor,”
one of them said.

“Not yet,” Szabo said. He strode over and
squatted down in front of Harry. “Guess who?”

“Scumbag leader number one,” Harry ground
out. “C’mon, get it over with.”

“I will grant you your wish.”

Szabo’s boot flew in. Harry felt it hit his
jaw, experienced a blinding pain behind his eyes, and darkness
descended.

Pain woke Harry up. While pain came in many forms,
this particular kind of pain came as sledgehammer kicks in the
side. In the dim recesses of his mind, he didn’t think that being
rendered unconscious was all that great, but it was a whole lot
better than being used as an ersatz football. “Get up,” a voice
said.

Groaning, he blinked and opened his eyes.
Szabo stood in front of him, face expressionless, a machine-gun
slung around his shoulders. “Get up,” he said. “We are almost
there.”

He pointed straight ahead. With a massive
effort, Harry got to his feet and brushed himself off. Following
Szabo’s finger, he saw mountains ahead. Peter, the now-dead pilot,
had been right. “I know this sounds like a stupid question, but
where is here?” was the first question that came to mind.

“Some distance from the farmhouse where we
captured you,” Szabo answered from behind. “My men and I carried
you here and they have gone on ahead of me. We have but a short
ways to go. I have not tied you up. If you run, however, I will
shoot you. If you attack me, I will kill you,” he warned. “Start
walking.”

With a sharp gesture of his weapon, they
began to walk along a dirt road toward the mountains. Sniffing the
air, Harry said, “I smell water.”

“We are in Yakutsk, a port city on the Lena
River,” Szabo answered. “This is the northernmost part, near the
Lena Pillars. It is a sightseeing spot for the Russian—” he spat
out the word—”people. This is near where it all started, where it
started with Nurmelev, with Grushenko and where it started with me.
The laboratory is nearby. Your girlfriend is there, too.”

“If you hurt her—”

Szabo uttered a loud belly laugh and poked
Harry sharply in the back with the barrel of the machine gun. “You
are in no position to threaten me. I am bigger than you, faster,
stronger and I am armed. You were lucky once before in Serbia. You
will not be so lucky here. Anyway,” his voice assumed a jovial
tone, “I do not wish to kill you unless I have to. You are too
valuable.”

Harry stopped in his tracks and turned to fix
Szabo with a stare. “If you think I’m going to help you create more
combinations, then kill me now. I won’t do it.”

A wintry smile came from the man-shark. “I’m
not asking you to create. You are going to fix that which cannot be
fixed.”

He motioned with his weapon. “Keep walking. I
will explain once we get there.”

They continued to walk, this time in tandem,
although Szabo kept a distance of five feet between them and had
his weapon at the ready. He wasn’t taking any chances, Harry
thought, and wondered how he could get out of this situation.
Nothing seemed to present itself. At any rate, he wasn’t leaving
without Anastasia.

Soon a number of pillars loomed up, and they
towered over the rest of the area. The smell of water grew stronger
and held a tang in it. “These are the pillars?”

Szabo nodded. “Yes, they are geographical
formations of limestone, dolomite and slate, among other minerals.
There are caves there, protected by the government. When I was
first created, I was taken here and then brought back to Hungary
for further...” he paused for a moment as if thinking about which
word to use, “education. I remember this area well. Grushenko spoke
lovingly of it. He spoke highly of your girlfriend, Anastasia, as
well.”