Autumn Rising (12 page)

Her eyes travelled around the room, taking in each of the scenes. They were too much. It looked like chaos out there! Was all of this really hap
pening, or were they watching recordings?

She asked Vivian.

“This is all happening right now,” the woman replied, matter-of-factly. She didn’t seem in the slightest bit fazed about the violence and chaos on screen. “When one incident is dealt with, we can move onto the next—and there is always a next. The army calls the incidents in and we give the commands to do what we need them to do.”

Autumn opened her mouth to speak, but a figure marching up to them made her close it again.
The man finished the call he was on, slipping his cell phone into his back pocket.

“What the hell is she doing out?”

Calvin Thorne stood before them, the fearsome scars marring his already angry face, making him appear even more formidable. Instinctively, Autumn stepped back, but Vivian Winters did the opposite.

Stepping toward him, she reached out, her long, slender hand cracking against the man’s scarred cheek. He grunted, though probably more in shock than pain, and lifted his hand to touch the spot her palm had met. His upper lip lifted in a snarl, and he glared at her with red hot fury in his eyes.

But Vivian didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated. “If you ever question my decisions again, being fired will be the least of your concerns.”

He opened his mouth
, but no words came out. He seemed to be struggling with what he was about to say, forcing himself to physically bite his tongue to prevent the retort Autumn felt sure would be trying to burst from his lips.

She risked glancing around. Everyone suddenly appeared to be even busier than they had been moments before, deliberately looking everywhere and anywhere other than the scene playing out beside them.

Finally, Thorne spoke. “Yes, Ma’am. I apologize.”

She brushed him off. “Apology accepted.”

Autumn could tell he was desperate to say more. He gave Autumn a narrow-eyed stare that she understood meant he was unhappy with the situation. Did he blame her, or Vivian? A man like him would be far from happy about being slapped in front of all of his colleagues. She couldn’t say she blamed him. Vivian’s behavior was hardly professional. She almost laughed at herself. Considering the situation, this wasn’t exactly the moment to start worrying about how professional people were being. They were off the grid here.

Across the other side of the room, a man stood, h
is hand raised for attention. “Ms. Winters,” he called out when she noticed him. “We have a situation where a number of youngsters are resisting arrest. Screen fourteen.”

Autumn saw something she hadn’t before, how each of the screen
s was numbered. She quickly found the screen he was talking about. A group of youngsters—late teens to early twenties—appeared to have barricaded themselves in a ground floor apartment.

Where the hell were all these cameras, she wondered. Were they in the army vehicles and positioned where they were needed? Or wer
e they watched like this all the time by satellite or whatever other technology they employed to keep them under surveillance? She guessed Big Brother really
was
watching.

Armed men in riot gear lined up outside
the apartment. The young people inside began to throw missiles of some kind, stupid things, whatever they’d found at hand. Plant pots, cups, plates, even DVDs came whizzing through the air, smacking harmlessly into the body-sized reinforced plastic shields the men held up.

Vivian walked over to the control panel the man had stood from. An
intercom or radio of some kind was on the panel. She pressed a buzzer which Autumn assumed would allow her to be heard.

“Take the lot of them out.”

Autumn couldn’t stop herself. “No!” she cried, stepping forward. “They’re just kids!”

She turned to her sharply. “I thought you were on our side.”

She tried to backtrack. “I am, but ... well ... they
are
just kids.”

“No, they’re not. They’re either shifters or people who are protecting shifters, and that makes them our enemy.” She pressed the buzzer again. “What are you waiting
for? I said open fire.”

“Roger that.”

Autumn watched in helpless horror as the soldiers put down their shields and stood upright, firing shots into the building. Right away, a young man was hit in the head. He wobbled in the open window for a moment and then pitched forward, falling from the window and onto the yard below.

Autumn turned to Thorne, a question and horror in her eyes. Thorne caught her look, but only pressed his lips tight together and gave a slight shake of his head. Whatever else Thorne did, she didn’t think he agreed with Vivian’s slaughter of these people.

Vivian however, didn’t appear in the slightest bit bothered. She clapped her hands, just once, and turned on her heel. “Anyway,” she said, as she strode off, leaving Autumn and Thorne, and the two guards, to hurry after her. “Enough of these distractions. You need to see where the magic is happening. Let’s go down to the labs.”

“
Are you intending on letting Doctor Anderson work, Ms. Winters?” Thorne asked, with ice in his voice.

“I’d like her to
act as a consultant for the work we are doing. She is one of the best in her field, after all, Thorne. She was brought in initially for a reason. Also, she’s proven to me that she’s not necessarily on the shifter’s side. Isn’t that right, Doctor Anderson?” The stern glare she gave Autumn as she turned to her made Autumn certain she would not dare to answer in any other way.

“Of course.” She forced a smile.

“And how did she do that?” Thorne said, adding, “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“She’s given us some information about the shifters. Apparently, all shifters run at a naturally higher body temperature than the rest of humanity.”

Thorne looked to Autumn. “Is that so?”

She hated that she’d told them something useful, her gut twisting with anxiety. But she nodded.

“Well that could come in handy when it comes to distinguishing who is human and who is a shifter. We can simply demand everyone allows their temperature to be taken.”

Damn.
“But some people run naturally hotter,” Autumn threw in, somehow hoping she could backtrack and erase some of the damage she might have caused. “People who are fighting off an illness of some kind. Even pregnant women, or women in different parts of their ovulation cycle, will register a higher temperature.”

“O
bviously it isn’t fool-proof,” said Vivian, “but it gives us somewhere to start if we’re looking at combing through the entire population of the United States. We can segregate all shifters so the rest of humanity can live without fear of being attacked by some monstrous creature when they’re going about their daily business.”

Autumn’s mouth fell open. “But when has that ever happened? Shifters have been living in peace and in hiding for hundreds of years.”

She lifted a finger to make her point. “Yes, but they’re not in hiding any more, are they? That wolf-shifter, Chogan Pallaton, made sure of that when he decided to broadcast his live shift on television.”

“Yes, you’re right
.” She couldn’t argue with that. In a way, Chogan was to blame for this whole mess.

Except the government had been abducting shifters before this, she reminded herself. That’s why Chogan did what he did, so they would have a voice.
But this whole thing had backfired on him, and now his voice had been silenced too.

Chapter
Fifteen

THE ELEVATOR WAS starting to get crowded.

Autumn
was squashed in with Vivian, the two big guards, and now Calvin Thorne joined them. She couldn’t decide if Thorne was coming with them because he didn’t trust her not to do something stupid, or if he didn’t trust Vivian Winters.

The car dropped down another level and the doors opened.
As a group, they stepped out. The next level down was a contrast to the floors above. Where the upper levels had all been glass and chrome, down here was more industrial, with cinder block walls and exposed metal girders.

After what she’d experienced upstairs, she was nervous about this next part of the operation. She was starting to think Vivian had only let her out of her room in order to shock her, to keep her in line. Even more worrying
was that this was simply how Vivian acted, and her treatment of people seemed to be no better than her treatment of shifters.

With Vivian leading
the way, she marched down the cinder block corridor, the space lit by harsh fluorescent strip lighting. Several rooms led off the corridor, big, heavy doors blocking the way. They reached the end, and Vivian unlocked the door in what seemed to be the manner throughout the building, with her thumbprint on an electronic pad.

The door buzzed open and they all walked in.

Autumn found herself in familiar surroundings. The layout of a laboratory was similar no matter what the lab was being used for, with chemicals, microscopes, computers, people in white coats and protective eyewear. Despite her reasons for being there, Autumn couldn’t help but relax. After growing up feeling like she was never really wanted at her father’s house, staying as an unofficial lodger at Mia’s parents’ house until she started college and was able to move into the dorms, she’d come to view the lab as home. It was the one place where she knew who she was.

As the scientist
s already working noticed the new arrivals, they stopped what they were doing. One of them, a middle-aged woman, nudged her colleague and widened her eyes in an expression as if to say ‘it’s her!’

“Gentlemen, ladies,” Vivian said in a loud voice to get their attention, though as far as
Autumn could tell, their attention had already been pretty much claimed. “I’ve brought someone to work with you who might just interest you.” She reached out and caught Autumn by the top of her arm, her long fingers squeezing too hard, her nails digging into Autumn’s flesh. “This is Doctor Autumn Anderson, the woman whose blood you are currently trying to replicate.”

The scientists all eyed her with mistrust, and the feeling of home she’d experienced only moments before evaporated. But unlike Thorne, they all knew better than to go against Vivian’s authority.

Vivian gave a bright smile. “I know what you’re all thinking, but Autumn has assured me she is on our side, and she wants to help. Don’t worry, I have taken precautions. I’ll make sure she has two guards watching her the whole time.” She looked toward the guards in question and blinked as if noticing for the first time that Thorne had accompanied them. She frowned. “Though we seem to have picked up an extra.” The woman gave her head a slight shake, and turned back to the scientists. “So anyway, which one of you wants to give us a progress update?”

A couple of the more senior looking scientists exchanged glances, and eventually an older man, with heavy jowls and glasses stepped forward. He didn’t seem to want to look at
Autumn, or Vivian either for that matter, but instead shuffled his feet and stared at the floor as he started to speak.

“It would seem that Doctor Anderson’s blood samples have sh
own some ... unusual properties …. Some irregularities. The
erythrocytes
—the red blood cells—have the ability to change shape and they do so when introduced to a different blood source. The cell shapes are what I would expect to see in someone suffering from sickle cell disease.” For the first time, he risked glancing at Autumn. “Frankly, I’m surprised Doctor Anderson isn’t seriously ill from the irregularities.”

Autumn shrugged, almost feeling as though she should apologize for something.

“We’ve also determined that the antigens on the surface of the blood cells are unusual. Antigens are normally used so the body can recognize its own red blood cell type, but Doctor Anderson’s antigens are unusual in that most host bodies would recognize them, so they wouldn’t reject her blood. It’s only a theory at the moment, but we believe this might help the host’s body accept her blood as its own.”

“And how does this make
someone a shifter?”

The man cleared his throat.
“The red blood cells don’t cause the change. It’s the white blood cells that seemed to be important in this part of the process. Red blood cells don’t have any DNA, but white blood cells do. When the host’s body accepts Doctor Anderson’s blood as its own, it also accepts the white blood cells, and these cells affect the DNA of the host cells. The two components work together to cause the shift.”

“And have you been able to replicate these properties yet?”
Vivian asked, her tone impatient.

He gave a nervous glance to one of his colleagues. “Well ... no...
But it’s only been a couple of days. We need more time.”

“In the meantime, let’s have a look at what happens when her blood is injected. I’m just curious.”

“What?” The scientist blinked. “How?”

Autumn’s stomach lurched. She thought ‘who?’ would have been the better question. Her heart began to race in her chest. Surely Vivian wasn’t going to do this? She felt the tension mount in the room. Nervous mutters were passed between the workers.

Vivian walked to the counter, scanning the test tubes and bottles. She spied a sample and picked up a vial, then took a needle from a box on a shelf above. She pulled the safety cap off the top of the needle, and plunged the point into the vial. Her eyes darted across the inhabitants of the lab, coming to rest on one of the guards. “Private Romero. I think you can be our first live specimen.”

The young man blanched. “What? You can’t be serious?”

“I’m always serious, Romero. Now step forward.”

“Ma’am?
I have a kid. I can’t be used as some kind of freak experiment.”

“Are you directly disobeying an order, Romero?”

“That can’t be an order. That’s crazy!”

Her
eyes went to Thorne and the guard beside him. “Thorne, Barber, please apprehend Romero and bring him to me.”

Thorne and Barber glanced at each other. Thorne, the higher ranking off
icer, was the one to speak. “Ma’am. I’m sorry, but you can’t expect us to do that. You have no idea how Romero is going to react.”

“I’m well aware of that. I’ve not been out in the field like you have
, Thorne. I want to see what happens when Doctor Anderson’s blood is injected, and since Autumn is so keen on helping out, I’m sure she’d like to witness the effect too.”

The woman was playing her,
Autumn realized. She had no intention of letting her work on the project. She just wanted to torment her by showing her the suffering her blood could put people through.

“Don’t be stupid, Thor
ne,” Vivian warned him. “We’re doing this for our country. Remember where your priorities lie.”

“Yes, Ma’
am.”

He turned to Romero, his lips thinned, nostrils flared.
“You’ll be all right,” Thorne told his colleague. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Panic settled onto the young man’s face as he realized this was really going to happen. Thorne took hold of his upper arm,
while the other guard, Barber, took the other.

He began to struggle, the whites of his eyes showing wide, shaking his head. “No, no. Stop! This is barbaric. I don’t give my consent for this to happen!”

Vivian gave a cold smile. “Since when has that ever stopped us, Romero? You as much as anyone should know that.”

And she stepped forward, pulled up the man’s shirt sleeve, and plunged her needle into the veins in his wrist.

For a moment, nothing happened. Autumn could tell people were thinking this had all been a big mistake, that her blood couldn’t do what they’d been told. But then the young man’s body stiffened as though he’d been electrocuted, his fingers spread wide, his face frozen, his body locked.

Someone, one of the women in the room, gave a scream of fright.

Vivian only continued to smile. “It’s happening.”

But
Autumn had seen this before. “Not fully, it won’t. My blood might change him, but it won’t be what you want. He won’t be able to control the shift.”

Romero let out a wail of pain, the rigor mortis his body seemed to have been in a few moments earlier
releasing his muscles. He fell to his knees, and lifted his hands to his head and began to batter on his skull. “I can hear them!” he shrieked. “I can hear all of them!”

“What’s he talking about?” Thorne directed the question to
Autumn.

“When the spirit connects, he gets the gift of greater senses. I guess he can hear the others in the building. Maybe the ones you are also keeping captive. The ones who are also in pain.”

His back arched downward, so the back of his head leaned back toward his bottom, and Autumn was sure his spine was going to crack. And then it did, the bone snapping, together with his arm, making him crumple to the floor. But quickly the bones re-knitted, only this time in different shapes and lengths. His face began to change. His mouth protruded outward, even as he screamed through it. His hair began to shed, revealing grey fur beneath, and his ears melded to the side of his head like melting wax.

Someone in the room said, “Oh God,” and she was aware of so
meone else turning their back on the sight and retching into the corner of the room, the stench of vomit filling the lab.

His face became animal-
like, a wolf’s head on a still recognizably, if somewhat deformed, human body. Romero turned, snarling and snapping at those close by. Some others screamed, several of the scientists running to the door, hurrying to get out. Others, in morbid fascination—or perhaps some were watching due to a professional interest, Autumn couldn’t be sure—stayed in the room, but made sure they kept back.

“That’s enough now,” Thorne said to Vivian. “You’ve seen enough. Change him back.”

“I don’t think we can,” she said, and Autumn detected a note of glee in her voice. She was enjoying this.

“It won’t stop,” said
Autumn. “He’ll keep changing. Something else is needed to make the shift complete, and I don’t know what it is.” She could hear the desperation in her own voice. Vivian had achieved exactly what she wanted. She’d made Autumn feel wretched about who and what she was. With Tala’s transformation, she’d at least had some kind of cruel satisfaction at the pain and fear Tala had gone through. After all, Tala had done it to herself. But this had been an innocent man, a soldier with a child, and now he was barely even human.

She needed to get out of here, and she needed to do it soon. She was nothing more than a pawn in the sick game Vivian Winter’s was playing.

Autumn remembered seeing Calvin Thorne ending a call on his cell as he strode up to them on the upper level, how he’d slipped the slim phone into the back pocket of his pants. Had he used the phone since then? Or was it still in his pocket?

Edging
backward, she stood just behind Thorne. Her eyes flicked down. A small rectangular bulge was present in the pocket of his pants.

Using the distraction
of Romero’s shift, she darted forward, slipping her hand inside Thorne’s back pocket, her fingers securing around the smooth plastic of the phone. Thorne barely noticed, too caught up in what was happening with his friend and colleague. But Vivian had noticed her movement, though perhaps hadn’t understood the reason for it.

“Bathroom!” Autumn
yelled, placing her hand over her mouth as though the sight of the man mid-shift had also made her sick. She ran for the door, throwing herself through it.

“Where the
hell do you think you’re going?” Vivian’s shriek chased after her. As the door slammed shut behind her, she heard the words, “Thorne, get her!”

Autumn ran down the corridor as fast as she could manage. Her hands slapped on the exposed brick, trying to propel herself along. Frantic, her head twisted from side to side, trying to figure out which door to take, but all of them had the same
keypad and fingerprint entry systems Vivian had used through the whole tour.

She took a right, heading down a new corridor. Her feet slapped against the floor, too loud, and her breath quickly became harsh from the exertion. She clutched the phone hard, pushing a button to bring the scree
n to life, but no bars showed. It was out of range. She spied another door at the end of the corridor, and this time the door was propped open by a bucket, a careless cleaner must have thought they would be fine to leave it like that for a moment.

She’d gotten lucky.
Running through the door, she kicked the bucket over with a clang, so letting the door shut behind her in order to buy her a few seconds.