Dawn of the Mad (8 page)

The colonel saw a fleeting shadow move at the edge of the jungle before feeling two small impacts on his shoulder. Looking down, he saw two thorn-like objects embedded in his armor.
No doubt poisonous
, he thought. He looked up, and in an instant two beasts descended upon him with fury from within the confines of the jungle. Never had he seen such creatures. Standing almost seven feet tall, they were humanoid in appearance, but that’s where the similarities stopped. A thick layer of yellow quills covered their heavily muscled, hairless bodies. Their heads were elongated, and as they hissed, rows of razor sharp teeth dripped saliva.

The first one jumped almost ten feet from a standstill, hurling itself at the colonel. It swiped at him with two long clawed hands. The colonel deftly sidestepped as the beast flew past. As it turned around, the colonel’s massive blade stuck home, slicing the beast in half at the torso. The upper body slid to the ground; the legs remained standing for a few seconds longer before following suit.

The colonel spun around as fast as he could, but it wasn’t enough. The remaining beast flew into him full force, knocking him backward against the hull of the drop ship. His helmet was knocked off his head, and his sword flew out of his grasp. As he lay on the ground stunned, he looked at the beast as it moved closer. He noticed tattered remains of what looked like military fatigues around its waist, its muscled body long having ripped them apart.

The beast now seemed to smile at him, as if it knew it had captured its quarry. The colonel regained his feet, but the beast launched a powerful right hand strike, hitting the colonel square in the jaw and sending him right back onto the ground. He slowly steadied himself against the hull of the drop ship, wiping a thin trickle of blood from his lip with his hand. The colonel waited for the next attack, but it did not come.

The beast shrieked out in pain as the colonel saw several green energy trails pierce its body in several places. Captain Cruwell stormed forward, blazing away, driving the beast into the ground, its limbs and torso evaporating into red mist. It finally ceased its cries and died. The colonel walked over to his sword and picked it up.

“I owe you one,” the colonel said as he stared at the corpse.

“Don’t worry about it. We should get back though. This place is starting to get on my nerves.”

The captain helped steady the colonel, and as they began to make their way toward the bunker when they heard the jungle hissing in front of them. They could sense something big was moving toward them, and fast.

“You have got to be kidding me,” the colonel said. He readied his sword, and the captain dropped to one knee, inserting a fresh magazine into his EMR.

After a few tense moments, they both relaxed, seeing Matthias and several troopers burst through the jungle. Matthias walked up to the colonel and said flatly, “You pull a stunt like that again, wandering off on your own, and I’ll kill you myself.”

CHAPTER 5

Colonel Chuikova, followed by Sergeant Matthias and Captain Cruwell, proceeded into the bunker. The remaining troopers took refuge inside the bunker entrance.

The trio approached Corporal Scotts, who waited in front of the door opening to the level’s genetics lab. He ran his hand through his shoulder- length black hair, now slick with sweat, pushing it off of his face.

“What have you found out, Corporal?” the colonel asked.

Corporal Scott’s cleared his throat. “This appears to be a genetics research laboratory. The enemy was working on a number of projects in here.” Scotts raised his arm, motioning for the trio to enter the lab. As they entered, he followed close behind. The tech troopers inside immediately came to attention.

“At ease. Carry on,” the colonel said immediately.

Scotts walked towards the center of the large room, standing in between two large tanks.

“
These tanks are quite interesting,” Scotts said, as he pointed to them. A tech trooper arose from his kneeling position behind the far tank, located at the back of the lab. He held a large held scanner and was busy analyzing a green puddle of liquid on the floor. Three more troopers surrounded him, each using handheld analyzers to make a concentrated sweep of the lab. Large metal cases were opened on the floor, revealing various scanning equipment and portable computers. The colonel immediately strode over, his black- booted feet avoiding as many of the green liquid puddles as possible.

“What is it?” the colonel inquired, peering into the nearest tank, trying to see if there was anything still inside the tank.

“This tank contains some sort of organic liquid,” the tech trooper said. “Its composition cannot be deciphered with our equipment here; however, I have analyzed some of these large objects in the tanks and in some of the puddles in the floor.”

The colonel looked down on the once-sanitized red tiled floor and noticed chunks of what appeared to be human flesh. Each chunk was in or near a puddle. He noticed that the puddles seem to be on a path that started near the largest tank, by the technician. The puddles led out of the laboratory to the main corridor, where they stopped.

“This is also of interest, sir.” The tech trooper was examining a long table equipped with several microscopes. He pointed to some small, misshapen chunks laid out on metal trays. “These are all brain tissue samples, and all are in some sort of regenerative stage.”

“Get to the point,” the colonel said as he walked over to the table to take a look, his curiosity now piqued.

The tech trooper continued. “You can see that some of the samples are inactive, but some—.” He pointed to several that were hooked up to various machines via wires and electrodes. “Well, some seem to be active.”

“Active?” The colonel now listened raptly.

“Yes. Perhaps they were working on some form on neurogenesis: in other words, the reanimation of dead brain tissue. We have a limited capability to regenerate damaged, living tissue, but dead tissue—this is revolutionary.”

“I want all of this prepped for movement. It goes with us.”

Captain Cruwell followed the trail of puddles into the corridor. His excited voice made everyone turn toward a side door, left ajar. “There’s a footprint here!” he shouted. He ran back inside the laboratory elated at his discovery. “It’s barefoot, not one of ours,” he continued.

“A footprint? What?” the colonel replied confused.

Scotts and Matthias hurriedly made their way to the footprint and examined the tank again more closely.

“Colonel, these are indeed pieces of flesh. And here we have a handprint on this tank.” He indicated the side of the tank closest to the large puddle. “That evidence leads me to believe that there was a life-form in the tank,” Scotts said matter-of-factly.

“Perhaps they have some new healing technology?” the colonel said absently, more to himself than anyone else, as he stroked his stubbled chin.

The colonel walked purposefully over to lab coated prisoners sitting on the floor under armed guard. “What were you working on here? Tell Me!” said the colonel.

The prisoner looked up in the colonel’s face and uttered, “Go to Hell. We will never tell you anything.”

The colonel grabbed the prisoner by the throat and lifted him off the floor with one hand. The prisoner kicked his feet wildly and grasped the colonel’s gauntleted hands, trying in vain to free himself. The colonel squeezed with all of his might, crushing the man’s larynx, and lowered him slowly so that his feet again touched the floor. Within moments, the body went limp, and the colonel released his grasp. After wiping a bead of sweat from his face, the colonel turned to Cruwell and said, “Captain, secure the rest of this complex. The faster the better, but be thorough. We need to find out what they were doing here.” The colonel turned to the other prisoners, briefly contemplating another interrogation, but quickly lost interest. “And make sure these prisoners get topside. We will let the Auger-Seers pry what they will from their brains.”

“Yes, Colonel, understood.” Cruwell turned toward Sergeant Matthias and pointed to the three prisoners now sitting on the floor, with their hands bound behind their backs. “Take them up topside to the drop pod and prepare them for interrogation once we get into space. Start loading as much as can from the genetic labs also. See to it yourself.”

“Consider it done.” Sergeant Matthias motioned for the trooper guarding the prisoners to get them on their feet. He addressed the prisoners, looking them each in the eye. “I would suggest you cooperate. We have some rather terrifying methods to extract what we want.” The prisoners said nothing as Sergeant Matthias and the lone trooper escorted them to the surface.

Cruwell turned to the remaining troopers still in the laboratory, who were busy collecting samples from the tanks and removing lab equipment, tissue samples, memory drives, and main boards from the smashed computers.

“Careful with those samples,” he instructed. Cruwell did an abrupt about-face and strode out of the laboratory. Back out in the corridor, the captain walked up to Scotts and the colonel who were trying to manipulate the controls to open the sealed door. The sign above the corridor read “Testing”.

Scott’s was turning a large spanner set in the door, forcing it open slowly inch by inch. The door finally groaned open fully, the interior pitch black. Scott’s fished out a hand held torch from his assault vest and switched it on. What it revealed made him gasp. The room was nothing more than a metal walled rectangle, half the size of the genetics labs. Stacked in a large pile on the right side were at least twenty to thirty corpses wearing nothing but their underwear. From what Scott’s could see, each had a single bullet hole in the forehead.

Feeling nauseous, he stepped back and grabbed the far wall for support. The colonel stepped into the room and a second later a dim light illuminated the grisly scene. In addition to the pile of bodies, four bodies in various stages of dissection laid still on gurneys. While the genetics lab was relatively clean and orderly, this room had blood splatters on the wall. The air held the stench of death. Scott’s and Cruwell entered cautiously. Scott’s spied a video camera mounted on a tripod against the far wall, pointed at the corpse pile.

Scotts rewound the tape, the hit play. “Sir, you should see this,” he said. Scott’s backed up the video and hit play again as the colonel and Cruwell peered over his shoulder. There was no sound, but the image was clear. An underwear clad male stood in front of a smaller corpse pile, his arms at his side. An older looking technician produced a small pistol and fired, hitting him between the eyes. As soon as the body hit the floor, two lab technicians quickly picked him up and placed him on the gurney. After strapping the arms and legs down, they backed off. The older technician proceeded to inject a large syringe filled with a pink liquid into the body on the gurney. Within seconds it began to thrash and strain against its bonds. The video stopped abruptly.

“I don’t have any words for this,” the colonel said as his voice trailed off.

Eventually, the transport cart emerged into a vast cavern, carved from within the plateau itself and leading deep underground. Hundreds of rectangular storage containers were stacked along the walls; in addition, the cavern held construction equipment planned for use in the expansion of the base, which now was not very likely to occur. An open double door at the far end of cavern was manned by a squad of six heavily armed security officers. As the transport carts came to a halt, the elderly scientist got out, and the security leader approached him.

The pale, slime-coated figure had ceased its screaming, and it appeared it was no longer losing chunks of its fragile flesh. The figure was approximately six feet, four inches in height and appeared to weigh a bit more than two hundred pounds. The hairless body lacked visible reproductive organs. Numerous incisions across the chest cavity and the head had been stitched up, evidence of recent surgery. The facial features were unmistakably that of a human male. Chunks of flesh that had fallen off seemed to be regenerating, but in the commotion, no one noticed. Solid black eyes squinted at the bright lights in the cavern.

“Your shuttle is ready, Dr. Keitel. The pilots are already on board,” the security leader said in a quiet tone, so the others could not overhear.

“Of course, I understand,” Dr. Keitel replied. “I must go, do what you can to defend the base. I thought out here in fringe space we would have enough time, but I see I was wrong. No one must get out. Understand?” Dr. Keitel spoke rapidly, anxious to depart. The scientist got back into the transport cart, putting it in motion approaching a set of double doors.

Beyond the double doors, a long tunnel led upward to the surface, in a small clearing in the jungle. In the middle of the clearing sat a small, sleek silver craft capable of pulse-speed travel. The craft was camouflaged to be nearly invisible from the air.

Dr. Keitel supervised the loading of the hairless figure as it was helped inside by two technicians. Dr. Keitel noticed that he appeared to be moving mostly under its own power, with a minimal need for assistance, something he thought it would not be capable of this early. So far, this specimen had responded well to the solution and procedure. Dead tissue had been regenerated effectively. Most important was the brain. Most of the internal organs had been replaced with simpler, synthetic versions, the brain was the original. Parts of the body not deemed necessary were removed, such as the genitals. The two technicians came back out of the ship after getting the specimen inside. Dr. Keitel walked up behind them and brandished a small caliber pistol from within his white lab coat. He raised the pistol. Before either technician could react, Dr. Keitel shot them both with a pair of well- placed shots in the back of each one’s head, fired less two seconds apart. They died instantly. Another transport cart suddenly emerged from the depths of the complex, stopping just inside the entrance to the cavern. Dr.