Wolfen (2 page)

“Get out,” Leslie snapped. She’d been careful to make the
cut shallow, but Sigma Nine was still losing too much blood. Pinching the
girl’s skin together, she applied a clear solution to glue the edges closed. It
wasn’t normally used for lacerations this long, but Leslie didn’t want to mar
the poor girl with rough stitches and an ugly scar. It would have to be enough.

“I will see you fired for this—”

The lights went out with the disconcerting sound of a
power-down as the entire facility sighed into darkness. Five seconds later,
emergency generators kicked in and red bulbs flared, illuminating the room and
the corridors outside.

“What’s going on?” Leslie demanded, winding a sterile
bandage around Sigma Nine’s arm.

Sallinger cast her a dirty look. “Probably just a power
outage. Stay here.”

“Gerry?”

“It’s okay, Sinna. Just hang tight for me, all right? I’m so
sorry I hurt you. I promise it’ll never happen again.” There was no reason; her
lack of regenerative abilities confirmed her status as inert.

That’s what you thought about the dead boy, too.

She pushed the thought aside. If she studied the boy’s
behavioral history, she’d probably find clues about his convert tendencies
beginning from an early age. Sigma Nine was too gentle, too sweet. No, she was
inert—for all intents and purposes, human.

When she finished with the girl’s bandages, Leslie freed her
arm and sat her up, pushing her curls away from her face. “How are you doing,
sweetheart?”

Sigma Nine’s chin wobbled, and more tears spilled.

Leslie hugged her tight, rubbing her back for comfort.

That was how Sallinger found them when he came back. His
hair was disheveled and he was missing one pair of glasses. Gasping for air, he
slammed the door shut and locked it. “They breeched the holding pens,” he said,
heading for the security console.

“What?”

It took him three tries to enter his code, then the screen
split into nine, showing security feeds from their wing. “I knew I shouldn’t
have signed off on the transfer,” Sallinger rambled. “My God, they’ll kill us
all!”

The break in his voice sent a chill down Leslie’s spine.
“W-what are you talking about?”

Sallinger rubbed his sweaty face, shaking as he watched the
screen. Two of the nine feeds showed groups of scientists herding several
children in one direction. Two more showed the convert holding pens—empty. “The
crazy Japs! Michito didn’t come alone. Fukushima den was compromised. They were
storing too many fully grown converts, and they broke free. Michito didn’t want
to lose twenty years of research, so he captured several of them and brought
them here.”

“Is he insane?”

Sallinger trembled so hard, he knocked his glasses off his
nose trying to adjust them. He wheezed, on the verge of tears, and his distress
sent Sigma Nine into wailing fits. Sallinger froze, staring at the child. “She
knows,” he said. “She can sense them. We can use her to get out.”

“Don’t you dare!” Leslie twisted to keep Sigma Nine away
from him, but her gaze was fixed on the screen and all of those people
nervously looking over their shoulders.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? We’re going to
die
if
we don’t get out.”

Leslie circled around Sallinger to get to the screen. Her thumbprint
would be enough to signal distress in the lab. “You’re panicking over nothing.
The guards will take care of this.” They were highly trained mercenaries, paid
well for their service, and their response time was usually less than seventy
seconds. Of course they could handle this. She was certain of it. They’d come
and escort the three of them to safety.

But Sallinger shook his head. “They’re all dead! Fully grown
converts are not like the children, Gerome. They feed and they breed, and
they’re unstoppable when the urge hits them. It’s like a hive mind effect. The
Fukushima ones were starved, and their frenzy riled up the converts here. The
den is overrun!”

No. That couldn’t be. He was in hysterics. When he calmed
down, he’d realize how crazy that sounded. A small army of guards, dead? No
way. She’d show him.

Adjusting Sigma Nine in her hold, Leslie typed one-handed,
looking for a duty roster. Everyone on active shift could be reached directly
in an emergency through a tracker in their radio unit. She called them with her
digital page, one after the other, but no one answered. Throat suddenly dry,
Leslie shook her head and tried again. One by one, the signals disappeared as
if deactivated. Either every one of those radios had gotten smashed, or someone—some
thing
—had
damaged the main controls in the lower level server hive. She couldn’t call
out. No one was coming. They were on their own.

Apprehensive and irritated by the red lighting, Leslie
backed away from the screen. “What about the others?”

Sallinger hesitated.

“
What!
”

He jerked his chin toward the screen just as the last group
disappeared from the shots. “They’re already evacuating. The researchers and
orderlies are gone, along with whatever children they had with them at the
time. The rest they left for dead.”

Leslie’s knees buckled and hit the floor so hard, the impact
jolted through to the top of her head. Sigma Nine clutched her, whole body
shaking with sobs.

“Listen to me,” Sallinger said. “There’s an escape hatch at
the end of the corridor. We can make it. If we can get to the surface before
they detonate the charges, we’ll be fine. We just have to get there. Give me
the child.”

None of his words had penetrated Leslie’s haze of fear, but
when he reached for Sigma Nine, something snapped. Why did he want her so
badly? “No.” She moved out of the way. “I’ll take her.”

Though he looked ready to throttle her, he somehow pulled
himself together and nodded. “Very well. But you must calm her down. They will
hear us.”

A flicker of movement on the screen caught her eye, but she
refused to look. “Give me a minute.”

Removing herself to one corner, Leslie rocked Sigma Nine,
crooned to her. “Easy, sweetheart. Breathe. You’re okay. You’re going to be
just fine. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Hurry up,” Sallinger hissed, nervously watching out the
window.

Leslie hummed and rubbed the girl’s back until her sobs
eased. “That’s my girl. That’s my brave girl. Now, we’re going to play a game,
okay? I want you to close your eyes, and stay as quiet as you can. We’re going
to pretend we’re hiding from monsters.”

“Will they hurt me?”

Sallinger gasped. “Move it!”

Leslie glared at him. “No, baby. No one’s going to hurt you
again, I promise. Are you ready?”

Sigma Nine sniffled and nodded against her shoulder.

“Good girl. On three, okay? One…”

She signaled for Sallinger to open the door. He did it
slowly, peeking out to make sure the path was clear.

“Two…”

Silence out in the hall—no hum of artificial lights, no
pitter-patter of rushing feet, not even alarm sirens. Just total, dead silence.
And that terrified her. They were truly all on their own. Gritting her teeth,
Leslie walked when Sallinger beckoned, and stepped out of the room.

“Three,” she whispered.

The race was on. Leslie focused on the ceiling hatch some
thirty yards away. She headed straight for a wall ladder leading up to it,
heart pounding, and Sigma Nine sitting heavy in her arms.

Of course, Sallinger noticed her readjust her hold. “Let me
take her,” he offered. “I can carry her more easily.”

Leslie shook her head and quickened her step. Almost at the
ladder. Shuffling noises from the other end of the corridor made her look back.
“Oh, no…”

Two converts, an adult and a child, lumbered toward them.
They looked marginally human, with patchy hair and thin bodies corded with lean
muscle. But their long limbs ended in clawed fingers, and they had fangs
instead of teeth. Because of their cold-blooded nature, their skin held a
grayish tinge, but this condition didn’t seem to affect their metabolisms in
any significant way, acting as a cloaking mechanism only. Matching body
temperature to their surroundings made them invisible to heat sensors and
infrared cameras.

Monsters. Boogeymen out of nightmares. Mindless, ravening
beasts.

And they were coming closer.

“Climb!” Sallinger shouted.

“Hold on to me,” Leslie told Sigma Nine, and then she
climbed.

The converts stopped and sniffed the air. Although their
hearing was impaired and their eyesight compromised by the flashing emergency
lights, their sense of smell remained unequaled. The moment it scented prey,
the adult convert tossed its head back and screeched.

Several others answered from a distance.

Then it ran forward.

“Climb!
Climb!
” Sallinger shrieked.

Leslie climbed as fast as she could, arms burning with strain,
Sallinger right on her heels. But they could only go so far before Leslie had
to stop to open the latch. Sallinger clambered on top of her as high up as he
could manage.

It wasn’t far enough.

He screamed as the adult convert sank its claws into his leg
and dragged him down to the floor.

“Keep your eyes closed, Sinna.” Leslie trembled, vision
blurry with tears, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off her target as she
touched the thumbprint pad to activate the latch mechanism.
Don’t look down.
Don’t look down!
“Just hold on, baby girl,” she whispered as monsters tore
into Sallinger below. The sounds he made…

Please, God, get me out of here.

The heavy escape hatch slid open, and she moved, climbing
higher to reach the pad on the other side.
Don’t look down.
Just a few
more rungs. Almost there.
Don’t look down…

Got it!

The three-inch metal hatch slid closed, sealing off all
sight and sound.

Leslie pressed her forehead against the ladder, too shaken
to keep going. They were still thirteen stories below the Chernobyl disaster
site. To this day, few came to these parts for fear of radiation poisoning.
Just as with Fukushima, it had been the perfect hiding place, with all
contingencies accounted for.

Except for the crazy Japanese.

If Sallinger had been right, then somewhere on the surface,
a researcher had his twitchy finger on a detonator that would entomb this place
forever. Leslie had to get moving or she and Sigma Nine would be buried right
along with it.

“Gerry?”

“It’s okay, Sinna, we’re safe. You can open your eyes now.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“That’s because it’s dark.” Leslie looked up. Twelve stories
above, a small green light marked the exit—her north star. “I’m going to get us
out of here,” she swore. “We’ll get out, and catch a plane to San Francisco. We
can go check out the sea lions at Pier 39, would you like that?”

Sinna nodded.

“Good. Now just hold on.”

Keeping her eyes on that little green light, Leslie reached
up for the next rung.

Start Recording…

I thought we’d left it behind. I really believed it would
all be over.

I was so very wrong.

My name is Dr. Leslie Gerome. I am recording this because
someone out there should know what really happened, how the world really came
to an end. And it wasn’t with a bang or a whimper. It happened with the
splicing of a single cell. Man tried to become God, and Nature bucked under his
command, striking out with unimaginable fury.

They never buried Chernobyl den as I’d hoped. I think I died
ten times over on the climb up to the surface, expecting the walls to start
caving in on me at any second. But they never did. No one ever came looking for
it, or for me and Sinna. They probably thought the converts were too stupid to
make it out, that they’d starve to death down there. Maybe they were right.
Maybe the monsters we created thirteen stories below a nuclear wasteland did
eventually die there.

Those they extracted did not.

Whoever finds this, please believe what I’m about to tell
you. There’s no such thing as an inert—no middle ground for the creatures we
engineered. The DNA grafts might be dormant, but sooner or later, one way or
another, they always activate. That’s why Fukushima den imploded; they never
realized how many potential converts they housed together.

The inerts who converted outside the dens are fully viable
and capable of reproduction. It has now been three years since the dens shut
down, and in that time, world governments have tried in vain to bury the story
with mindless entertainment for the masses. But there’s no hiding it anymore.

Last night, I found an online video of a female convert
giving birth and promptly devouring her own young. Conspiracy theories estimate
that converts, or “Grays” as they’re called, are reproducing at an increasing
rate. Outside of stable laboratory conditions, they can develop three times
faster than a human and, although they show each other the same ravenous
savagery they display toward prey, they do mate, and they do breed.

End Recording.

Start Recording…

September fifteenth, twenty-twenty, four NE.

I watch Sinna growing beautifully every day. She’s my hope
that we must have done something right. The dens may have unleashed a terrible
plague on the world, but we’ve also created beings so much
more
than
human. The Wolfen are still out there somewhere, walking among us, hiding in
plain sight.

I think of Alpha Seven and Beta Twelve often. Are they still
alive? Who’s taking care of them? They’re not that much older than Sinna, but
they’re strong, and they’re smart, and they have each other.

Martial Law has failed against the Grays. Cities are
becoming overrun with them and people are fleeing for the hills, but I doubt
they’ll find safety there. Sinna and I have stayed in San Francisco too long,
and now that they’ve destroyed every bridge to the mainland, there’s no chance
of leaving. So we hide.

Sinna has tested negative for regenerative capabilities
three times under real life conditions. That’s enough for me. I think… I think
as long as I keep her inside, away from them…I can keep her safe.

End Recording.

Start Recording…

Hellooooooo. Is this thing on? Gerry, how does this work?
Testing. One, two. And a-one, two, three, four.

End Recording.

Start Recording…

Tomorrow is Sinna’s eighteenth birthday. She’s so excited,
it breaks my heart. I asked her what she wanted for her present. She answered,
“To go outside.” Cabin fever has been our faithful companion for a long time
now, and with each day, I see yearning in Sinna’s eyes. She wants to go out
there, to see the world, such as it might be, and I don’t think the silver cuff
I found for her will impress her much by comparison.

Four years ago, San Francisco was one of the last few
strongholds left in the United States. The city has since lost contact with the
outside world. With the bridges gone, the peninsula is effectively cut off from
the mainland on three sides. They’ve erected barricades fifteen stories high
wherever the southern perimeter was compromised, and against outside Grays, the
protections are quite effective. But there are still those inside the city
itself. They’re growing smarter, bolder. They’ve learned when and how humans
hunt them; they hide so well, even the keenest eyes can’t spot them. And when
they come out again, their wrath is terrifying.

The war’s at a stalemate. Humans are holding their own for
the moment, but it’s only a matter of time before Grays overwhelm us. I fear
that day’s not long in coming…

End Recording.

Start Recording…

Sniffle… Cough.

Umm…

Sniffle.

This is Sinna. Uh, the date is… Hell, I don’t know. Thirteen
New Era? Not that anyone gives a crap anymore.

Silence.

Gerry’s dead—s
ob—
I di—I didn’t know! We were out
looking for food, and she told me to stay close, but I saw this…stupid, useless
lava lamp in a window, and I thought I was so smart. I’d just go out for a
second, check it out, and be right back. But then a pack of Grays came out of
the old reservoir. I hid inside, but I couldn’t warn her. She ran back to our
house, but…

Moan…

God, she screamed so much.

Soft crying… Sniffle.

Anyway, she’s gone now. I can’t stay here anymore, it’s not
safe. The Grays marked this area; they’ll definitely come back. I only came in
for a minute to get my stuff. There’s a group of survivors holing up in the
church. I heard them when they passed by the other day. If I give them all the
food I have, they might let me stay there for a while.

So pathetic. Everything I ever had in this life: a few cans
of tuna, a stupid bracelet, and an ancient voice recorder that’s about to run
out of—

End Recording.