Full Moon Rising - 02 (16 page)

“We’ve been in action for how many years?  So why now?” Donovan asked again.

“It might have something to do with what Jack’s wife came here to warn us about.” Mitchell interrupted.  “As most of you know, Nadia, that’s Jack’s wife, came here with a warning of some really big, dark threat that is looming.  She hasn’t clarified as to what it is because her clairvoyance simply doesn’t work that way.”  The colonel seemed exasperated as he searched for the words.  “She did her best to describe it to me, but…” he trailed off.

“It’s big and it’s dangerous.” Jack stepped in.  “That’s really all she can see right now.  And more than likely whoever or whatever was observing you in the field was some kind of scout or observer for whatever or whoever the threat is.”  He said, crossing his arms across his chest.  “At least, that’s the way we’re going to treat it.” He looked to Mitchell for confirmation who nodded.

“But Colonel, the threats we faced last night were minor compared to some of the shit we’ve seen.” Spalding stated.

“Speak for yourself.” Sanchez retorted with a half-assed grin.  “I almost became vampire chow.”

“You handled yourself quite professionally.”  Hank said.  Sanchez gave him a heartfelt smile and Hank almost returned it but caught himself, maintaining his stoic expression.

“But for the most part, for a full moon, it was pretty lame shit.” Apollo stated.  “Sir!” he added.

“All the better to help throw off whoever set up the activ
ity.” Mitchell replied.  “Look, it wasn’t ‘normal’ activity for us.  You and I both know that real monster activity comes in waves.  We may sit here for weeks or even months with nothing but training to keep us from going bat-shit crazy, and then out of the blue they go nuts and we’re up to our eyeballs in creeps.  Whoever ‘they’ are
created
this activity so that they could observe us in action.”  He watched their reaction and noted the squads nodding their heads agreeing with him.  “They don’t know what you’re truly capable of. This works to our advantage in a real shit-hit-the-fan situation.”

“Agreed.” Jack stated.  “And as long as whoever ‘they’ are doesn’t realize that, the better it is for us.”

A murmur of agreement went up amongst the squad members as they realized what the ramifications of the tests could have meant.

“Now…” Mitchell sighed.  “On to the show and tell.”

Jack was trying to figure out how Mitchell would broach the subject and he hoped the colonel had mentally prepared something before coming in.  Looking at him now, he realized the man was just going to wing it.  He prayed that however he decided to go about it, the squad members took it better than he expected them to.

Mitchell stood there a moment as he tried to think of a way to tell them they were all damned.  “I uh…”  he looked at their expectant faces and the words escaped him.  The door to the briefing room opened and Laura and Evan entered.  She a
pproached him and whispered in his ear a moment.  Matt’s eyes went wide and he nodded.  He then looked to Evan and nodded.

Evan cleared his throat and said, “Excuse me a moment.”  He pointed a small device at the corner of the room and pressed a button.  A very high pitched noise erupted from the device and the operators all grimaced and pressed their hands to their ears, along with Jack and Mitchell.  In fact, everyone but Laura and Evan followed suit.  After a moment, he explained, “As you are aware, all of the common areas are monitored.  Both video and sound are recorded for posterity.  Although we maintain the files ourselves, our Oversight Committee has access to those files at any given time.  In fact, at any moment, a team of IT geeks will probably come running down the hallway and burst in here to repair the damage I’ve just done.”

The operators all looked at him like he’d lost his ever loving blood-sucking mind.  Mitchell stepped forward to explain further, “Gentlemen…and lady.” He corrected himself.

“It’s okay, Colonel.  You can consider me one of the guys.” Sanchez offered with a smile.

“A guy with chesticals!” TD joked.

“And a really
nice
ass…et to their team.” Dom said, trying to pull his own joke.

“Don’t make me hurt you boys.” Sanchez warned while Apollo stifled a snicker.

“Pipe down.” Jack warned.  “This is serious.”  He watched as the team settled down and tried to get more serious.

Mitchell took a moment to gather himself.  Just as he was about to speak, the door burst open and two techs came in with a box of tools and some gear.  Mitchell stared them down and o
rdered, “Not now.  This is classified.”

“But, sir…protocols dictate that…”

“Go!” he pointed back out the door and the two techs nearly tripped over themselves pushing each other out.  Matt sighed audibly and gathered his thoughts again.

“Look, fellas, back in my day when the Monster Squad first started, it was just me, this one Marine and four other Army guys.  They were all Rangers or Airborne or...” he shook his head as he remembered the early days.  “They were good men.  They fought like hell.”  He got a far-away look in his eyes and he seemed to lose himself a moment.

“We hunted this one particular beast forever.” He finally stated.  “By the time we finally found her, I’d lost…too many good men.  Vampires, ghouls, zombies…you name it, we faced it.”

He took a deep breath and he faced them.  He stared them one by one in the face.  “A decision was made from people much higher than me and…things were done.  These CIA sc
ience types came in and…”

There was a long silence and the operators all looked to each other to fill in the blanks.  There were no answers.

“You’re all werewolves.”  Jack said.

You could have heard a pin drop.  Mitchell stared at Jack.  He had been trying to build up to how it happened and he just dumped the story out like that?  He wasn’t prepared…

Laura and Evan stiffened as they prepared for the worst, but the operators just sat there, some with their mouths agape, most likely from shock.

Slowly most of them began to nod.  But it was Apollo that said, “Wait, while that makes some sense, what with the i
ncreased speed and strength and all, but how come we don’t shift at the full moon?”

Evan stepped up to answer his him. “We found a way to prevent it.  In effect, you have all the positive aspects, but wit
hout the negative downsides.  In essence, you were genetically modified to give you the positive attributes of the werewolves, but we found certain chemicals that, if taken daily, will prevent you from shifting.”  He stepped toward the group and was using his hands to illustrate, “That’s also why as the full moon gets closer you find yourself with so much more energy and with the feeling of anticipation and anxiety.  The boundless energy and appetite that you experience? It is all part of it.”

“So, let me get this straight, we get all the
up
side, like the speed, the strength, the agility, hearing, all of that, but we don’t howl at the moon, hike on the furniture and hump each other’s legs once a month?” Spalding asked with a shit eating grin.  “I don’t see the downside at all.  What’s with the grim face, boss?”

“There is a down side, Spanky.  Nothing is ever free, son.” Matt sighed.  He walked over to the front of the room and sat on the edge of the table.  “The augmentation…it’s not reversible.”

“Okay.”  Spalding said.  “But as long as we take this antidote that the doc said, we’re good, right?”

“Yes and no.” Matt explained.  “As long as you take it, you won’t shift.  That’s true.  You’ll stay human and you’ll be good.  But you
are
a werewolf.” The sadness in his eyes was unmistakable.

Mueller spoke up, his face red, his jaw tense.  “Meaning if we ever had kids,
they’d
be a fucking monster, too!” spittle shot from his lips as he yelled.

Matt hung his head.  “Yes.”  He lifted his eyes and looked first to Apollo and then to Sanchez.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, Colonel.  I never wanted kids.” Sanchez said.  “I grew up dirt poor and I thought anybody who could bring a child into this fucked up world was crazy…and that was
before
I found out about these kinds of monsters.  I only knew about the human monsters and that was enough to make me not want kids.  Now?  Never gonna happen.”

“Don’t look at me, Colonel.  I’m her bitch.  She’s the boss.” Apollo said with a grin, earning a few chuckles.

“Yeah, don’t look at
them
.  Look at ME!” Mueller yelled.  “I’m the one with the wife and kid at home.” The veins in his neck were bulged out and his fists were clenched by his sides, trembling.

“Robert, stand down.” Jack said calmly.

“Stand down?” he repeated through clenched teeth.  “Stand down?  You tell us that we’re all
changed
into fucking monsters and that we can’t go home because we can infect the ones we love with it and I’m supposed to
fucking stand down?
!”

Jack stepped forward calmly, nodding his head.  “Trust me, brother, I understand what you’re going through…”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Yeah.  I do.” Jack replied.  “Trust me.  When I first found out, I wanted nothing more than to rip their heads off.” He no
dded toward Mitchell and Laura who both maintained their places, but both were guarded, not knowing what Mueller’s next move might be.

“Sounds like a helluva idea to me.” Robert’s eyes narrowed on Mitchell who didn’t flinch.

Jack approached the man slowly the rest of the squad making a path for him, scooting their chairs out of the way.  “Let me ask you something soldier.  And I want you to clear your mind for a second and really think about this for me.  Can you do that?”

Mueller stared at Jack a moment.  “What?”

“If we came to you while you were overseas fighting the Taliban and we convinced you that there was a bigger threat here at home…something that could come after your family…”  Jack waved his hand indicating he didn’t know their names.

“Babs and Bobby.” Robert said through clenched teeth.

“Okay.  If we told you what was really out there and convinced you that the real risk wasn’t the Taliban or al-Qaeda,  but vampires and werewolves and ghouls and…shit, you haven’t even had to face a demon yet!  If we showed you what a
demon
could do to Babs and Bobby…would you tell us, ‘thanks, but no thanks’?  Or would you have done what you did and man-up and join the squad?” Jack asked.

“What the fuck do you think?” Robert answered defensiv
ely.

“I think you’d be standing right where you are now.”

“No shit, Chief.” Mueller said sarcastically through gritted teeth.

“Okay.  So we’ve established that you know where the real threat is.”  Jack said, noting that the other squad members were watching him slowly move closer to Robert.  “And when you realized that these things were faster and stronger and deadly as hell?  If
they
,” Jack said, pointing to Mitchell and Laura, “came to you and said, ‘we can make you faster and stronger and four times deadlier than you already are’?  Then what would you have said? 
Even if you knew the risks
?  If you knew it would help you to protect Babs and Bobby?  What would you do then, Robert?”

Jack watched Mueller shake and the man’s face puckered before he burst into tears.  “God help me, I’d have done it!” He sobbed.  Jack pulled the man to him and held him tight and let him sob.  Robert grasped Jack and even though he was su
rrounded by his team mates, some of the toughest, meanest and most ruthless killers the planet had to offer, he wasn’t ashamed of his tears.  He was driving the last nail into the coffin of his once-wrecked marriage, finalizing his divorce.  He knew that no matter how much he loved Barbara, he could never go back and try to patch things up with her.  He could still love Bobby with all of his heart, and he would never stop loving Barbara, but they could never be together again for risk that any future children would carry on what he now was.  He could never risk accidentally infecting her with what he now carried inside his body.  As the sobs wracked his huge body, he realized that he was effectively a biological warfare bomb to the ones he loved the most.

Jack helped Robert to take his seat again and Robert conti
nued to sob, his squad mates patting his back and offering condolences.

“I truly am sorry, Mueller.”  Mitchell offered.  “To all of you, I apologize.”

“As do I.”  Laura offered.

“I could say that I was operating under strict orders of our Congressional Oversight Committee, but the truth is, I’ve i
gnored orders before.” Matt chanced a glance toward Evan who simply ignored him.  “I should have ignored these and at least informed the operators of what was happening to them.”

“Like you understood it.” Evan quipped.

“So, can you explain it a little better, doc?” Jack asked. “I understand we’re wolves, but…you said once that it was genetic engineering?  Like we were born with it?”  He asked hopefully.

“Yes.  The short end of it is, as far as your bodies are co
ncerned, you
were
born with it.  It’s much less traumatic than the transition that occurs with those who are bitten.” He replied.