He didn’t bat an eyelid, his gaze sliding over her. Like she wasn’t there. Turning back to his companions, he chuckled at a joke and they carried on down the corridor before turning the corner. Then they were out of sight and Toni slumped against the wall, leaning her forehead against the ancient plasterboard to drag a deep breath into her lungs. She had been sure the last guy had seen her. He’d looked directly at her, for fuck’s sake. Most times she could fool a passing glance, but direct attention or electronics like the cameras were beyond her. Or so she’d thought, but the tech had looked right through her and carried on. Then there was the weird buzzy feeling, like she’d injected boiling champagne right into her veins. Even now she felt antsy, as though she couldn’t keep still. Apart from the fact she hadn’t moved a muscle since she’d slid into the gap between the wall and the extinguisher.
What the f**k was going on?
She didn’t get time to think on it. Seconds after the techs rounded the corner, the doors were pushed open again from inside the lab. Without moving, she opened her eyes, using her peripheral vision to watch the figure that emerged.
There was nothing remarkable about the lead scientist on base, Doctor Bruce Jacobs. Of average height and build, he wore a white doctor’s coat over a white shirt, cream sweater and pale slacks. With gray hair and beard, pale skin and washed out blue eyes, the only other splashes of color about his person were the red of his tie and the polished chestnut of his shoes. He had a distracted air about him, like his mind was always somewhere else, mulling on a problem outside the comprehension of normal mortals. A weight, a gravity that made his staff treat him with respect and deference.
But Toni didn’t give a shit about deference. And respect? It was this man and those like him who had developed the three viruses. If it were up to her, they’d have been locked up months ago for crimes against humanity.
Sliding out of her hiding place, she blocked his path. Her sudden movement from unnoticeable statue to living, breathing being didn’t get a reaction because he didn’t look up, his attention focused on the notes in his hand as he muttered to himself.
“Uptake is slow… It has to be linked to the cellular regen—”
“Doctor Jacobs, do you have a moment?”
“Huh?” The doctor’s head snapped up and he blinked at her. The round glasses he wore gave him the look of a confused owl. “Oh, yes…Subj…err, Major Fielding, isn’t it? What can I do for you?”
Anger welled at the fact he had to stop himself calling her a subject, or using her case number, but she ignored it. She needed information from the guy, so pissing him off or threatening to rip his throat out wasn’t going to help her cause.
“It is.” Plastering a smile she didn’t feel on her face, she nodded. “I wanted to talk to you about the RAs we’ve been using on the cleanup operations.”
The doctor’s attention, which had been wandering back to his notes, transferred completely, the pale eyes behind the glasses fixed on her. She suppressed a shudder. Now she knew what a bug under a microscope felt like. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation at all.
“What about them?”
“Well…” She paused for a moment and considered how to phrase her request. “Have you ever noticed anything strange about the latest batches? Say…intelligence?”
“Hmm…” Jacobs pressed his lips together, his long white beard wiggling as he did. She wondered if he had to wear a hair and beard net in the sterile areas. “You mean traces of, or full-on intelligence? Sometimes we have one or two with vestigial traces of intelligence but it seems to be more of a knee-jerk reaction. Once advanced decay sets in, those traces disappear. We think it might have something to do with medication the subjects took in the months beforehand. We’ve never noticed any traces in known drug-users for example, yet those on certain brands of SSRIs…” He paused at her blank look and elaborated. “They’re a type of anti-depressant.”
“Ah, okay. Thank you,” she said but he had started talking again, enthusiasm written into every line of his expression.
“So those on SSRIs seem to display the most vestigial intelligence, which is perhaps something to do with the action of the medication within the brain. We definitely need further study on the subject…” He stopped and blinked. “I’m sorry. Did that answer your question, Major?”
She frowned and shook her head. “Yes and no. Have you ever had a subject display real intelligence and show evidence of retention of memory?”
Another blink, but she didn’t miss the sudden flash of interest. The notes hung ignored in his hand.
“Memory? Why?” His voice was sharp. “Have you seen any with intelligence? Out in the field? Oh my lord, naturally occurring self-awareness. We’d theorized it was possible…we need tox tests, dissection of the brain to isolate any structural abnormalities. For this to happen with the standard—” He stopped, visibly reining in his excitement. “Did you bring the body back?”
“The standard what?” Toni’s eyes narrowed. “No, we didn’t bring it back. You know the operating procedures, Doctor. All RAs are terminated on site.”
Jacobs tutted, annoyance and frustration washing over his face. “Yes, yes…I know. But when one of them exhibits unusual behavior, you should bring them back to me for further study. You shouldn’t destroy important scientific evidence. I can’t stress the importance of that enough.”
She shrugged. “Tell it to the Colonel, Doctor. You want ’em back, I’ll bring ’em back.”
“Hmmm, okay. That’ll have to do, I suppose. Do you know which subject it was? Perhaps I can pull the medical records from the pris—”
“It was Garry Stephens.”
The name dropped into the sudden silence between them like a brick down a well.
“Oh…” Jacobs blinked again, his dry eyelids sweeping over his eyes with an audible “snick” and looked away. A slight flush hit his cheeks—a pale pink which seemed, like the rest of him, to be a washed out version compared to his bright red tie. “Yes, I heard about that. A most…regrettable incident.”
Toni’s temper snapped.
“Regrettable. Is that it? That’s all you have to say after one of your staff was deliberately infected? You’re a freaking scientist, Doctor. You know what the virus does. And it was no secret Garry was terrified of RA infection.” She took a step forward, managing to loom over the older man despite the differences in their height. “Can you imagine what he went through, waking up to find he’d become his worst nightmare?”
“I—I…” He refused to meet her gaze, the flush on his cheeks deepening. “I should be getting back. Test results, you understand.”
“Of course, Doctor.” Toni stepped back. She wasn’t going to get anymore out of him. “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back to your work.”
“Thank you. Good day, Major.”
The doctor bobbed his head, still not looking at her, and made good his escape. Toni watched him go, concentrating on keeping her face impassive to conceal the emotions and thoughts rolling through her mind. She was in full view of the cameras. Sure, it was visual only but she didn’t want to give any impression other than the cool, professional soldier. Anything else and Fritz would find a way to use the smallest hint of unprofessionalism against her.
The doctor’s well-worn but expensive shoes were almost soundless on the freshly mopped floor. She didn’t think he was a bad guy. He’d been embarrassed when she’d called him out over Garry, but what counted as evil? Was she evil? She fit the description of Vampire—traditionally evil creatures—but she was just a product of the experiments Jacobs and people like him had conducted. So had they allowed evil to occur by dint of their science, then turned a blind eye to how the end result was used?
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Someone had said that, hadn’t they? Probably some stuffed shirt, sitting in a book-lined study filled with tomes on highbrow things a grunt like her had no business even trying to comprehend. But that singular point she got. If no one stood up against evil, it would flourish.
Flourish and grow until there was no stopping it. Like a cancer.
Her eyes narrowed when the Doctor shot a glance over his shoulder, caught her looking at him and sped up to round the corner, deeper in the bowels of the labs. She replayed the conversation in her mind, analyzing it. He’d seemed way too interested in intelligence occurring with the RA serum—no, wait. He’d started to say something…
For this to happen on the standard—
Standard what? Standard serum? If there was a standard serum, did it mean there were others? The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Fuck. What other horrors had the Project hidden?
Her instincts screamed at her. She had to get out of the labs. Forget what she’d heard and what she’d thought she’d heard, and not ask any more questions in case someone cottoned onto her. If anyone figured out what she was thinking, she’d end up with a one-way trip out into the desert and some extra ventilation in the back of her skull.
She turned and walked away, breathing a sigh of relief when she reached the door. The air was dry and arid but still better than the antiseptic stench of the labs. Anything was better than the air in the labs, loaded with the scents of experimentation and, buried beneath it, terror and despair.
She shuddered as her long strides took her down the paths between the labs more by memory than conscious direction. The path led to the Blood barracks and she trudged her weary way, feeling the call of her bed. She didn’t sleep often, no, but every creature—even one near dead like her—needed to rest sometimes.
Emerging from the back of the labs, she crossed the clear area between the main buildings and the residential ones. Everyone called it the “green” but out there it was anything but—the grass having long ago given up the ghost under the glare of the sun. Sticking her hands in her pockets, she flicked a glance at the series of broken down barracks on the left, each surrounded by miles of razor wire and steel fencing.
The Lycan barracks. Little more than shells of buildings for the creatures they contained. Which one had her wolf been kept in? She shuddered to think of Foster living in squalor. The other Lycans she’d had dealings with seemed more animal than man, so the conditions they endured had never bothered her. But Foster was different. More like a man.
Yeah, he was all man, a small voice sniggered at the back of her mind.
Vicious snarls erupted from the two end barracks. Furred bodies slammed against the barriers, rattling the wire and metal as the packs tried to get at each other. The shouts of the human guards filled the air. Soldiers ran, firing tasers and rubber bullets into the pens. Yelps and cries of pain, both animal and human, filled the air as the spat was suppressed with more violence.
Disgust rose sharp in Toni’s throat but she kept walking. Once she’d been one of those soldiers and would have thought nothing of doing whatever she needed to keep the animals under control. Would have, even a couple of days ago…