Mega 4: Behemoth Island (12 page)

Chapter Six- Better Choose Now

The air was thick with the smell of copper. It was a smell that Thorne knew too well.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he tried to open his eyes. The pain in his head was almost too much to deal with, but he willed his lids to obey and quickly wished he hadn’t. “Double fuck.”

He was hanging upside down by his ankles, his hands bound together and hanging below his head, which was the only reason he was able to wake up since most of his blood was pooling in his arms and hands instead of his head. Thorne had done his share of stringing people up over the years and knew that even with the blood rushing to his extremities, he didn’t have long before cerebral hemorrhaging began and he’d be dead as fuck.

“Uncle Vinny?” Shane whispered and Thorne looked to his right.

“Shane,” Thorne sighed. “How do you feel?”

Even hanging upside down, Shane was able to shrug sarcastically. “Oh, you know, just hanging out.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Lucy groaned. “He made that joke when I asked him the same question. Then again when Darren woke up.”

“Stick with a good one when you find it,” Shane replied. “And, fuck, man, when will I get another chance to use a pun like that again?”

“Probably the next time Ballantine sends us to our deaths,” Darren said.

Thorne rotated his head slowly, already feeling the pressure start to build to lethal levels.

“Injury report,” Thorne ordered.

“We’re good,” Darren replied. “Except for the obvious.”

“We haven’t been hanging for too long,” Shane said, his voice serious for once. “My vision is good. Hasn’t started to darken yet.”

“Mine is,” Lucy said. “We have what, five minutes before we bleed out our ears?”

“Probably,” Thorne grunted. “What do we know?”

“Modern facility,” Darren said. “Metal walls, metal and tile floors, halogen lights above us. There used to be tables in here, so I’m guessing it was a lab.”

“Messy lab, considering the drain in the center of the floor,” Shane said.

Thorne looked over and spotted the drain. He also spotted the dark stains around the drain. There were similar stains directly underneath him.

“We aren’t the first they’ve put in here,” Thorne said.

“Yeah, we know,” Shane said.

“Any sign of who brought us in?” Thorne asked.

“Not so far,” Darren replied. “But we’ve only been awake for a few minutes.”

Thorne looked about and tricked his brain into righting the images. It was a skill every SEAL learned since hanging upside down while keeping your wits was definitely in the job description. Darren was correct- metal walls, metal and tile floor, scuff marks and outlines where table legs used to be. They were in a former lab. But it was much more than that.

“Abattoir,” Thorne said.

“Oh, man,” Shane said.

“A what?” Lucy asked.

“Slaughterhouse,” Darren said. “We’re the meat.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lucy nearly shrieked. “What the fuck?”

“Yay,” Shane said. “I get to be a Reynolds burger. I always thought I’d go out in a blaze of glory, not as part of someone’s bowel movement.”

“It’s not over yet,” Thorne said. “They’ll be back to get us soon. Letting us hang upside down like this is actually spoiling the meat. This is intimidation, not torture.”

“Gonna have to argue with you on that point, Uncle Vinny,” Shane said. “Gravity is shoving my balls up into my brains, so I’m going with torture.”

There was a rattling at the door and Thorne grinned.

“We’re about to find out,” Thorne said. “Hurry. Weapons?”

“Pretty sure we’re stripped clean,” Darren said. “Except for our boots. My arms are dead asleep so I haven’t been able to check.”

“Me neither,” Shane said.

“Same,” Lucy added as the door opened and six figures came lurching into the room.

Figures that Thorne could only describe as mutants of some kind. They certainly weren’t human. If he’d been on the B3, he would have heard Mike’s naming suggestion.

Croanderthals.

The lead croanderthal grunted and more lights began to flicker and come to life as someone hit the switch.

“Ballantine,” the lead croanderthal said.

Thorne had no idea how to respond. He didn’t know what he was responding to, let alone how to form the words.

Shane, on the other hand, had no problem.

“Holy shit,” he said. “It’s the fucking mutant Flintstones.”

There were several snarls and hisses from five of the six, but the lead croanderthal only raised a thick lip to reveal a couple very sharp teeth.

“Ballantine,” the figure said.

Recognition slammed into Thorne’s brain and he realized he knew the figure. It was the same face he saw as he was paralyzed in the jungle, before unconsciousness took him.

“What about Ballantine?” Thorne asked.

“Ballantine come here,” the lead croanderthal, a woman by the anatomy that peeked out from the tattered remains of the dirty rags she wore. “Ballantine come you.”

“I don’t think my uncle and Ballantine are close enough for Ballantine to come him,” Shane said.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Thorne snapped. “Seriously?”

“I plead defense mechanism,” Shane said. “Or too much blood to the brain.”

The croanderthal woman motioned and four of the other croanderthals, all men by their obvious anatomy, moved to the wall behind Thorne and company. Thorne felt his bonds lurch then the floor was racing up at him. He hit hard, but most of his body was numb anyway, so he didn’t feel too much pain. That would kick in later, he was more than sure of it.

“I would totally beat the living shit out of you caveman fucks,” Shane said as he lay in a helpless heap, half his body draped over Lucy. “But that would mean moving. Which isn’t happening.”

“Wait until the pins and needles hit,” Lucy said. “Abattoir or not, this is about to turn into a torture chamber.”

“Good point,” Shane said. “Hey, Grog and friends, you guys got more of that numbing shit we can save for later? I really hate it when my leg falls asleep then wakes up. That shit hurts like a mother—”

One of the croanderthal men grabbed Shane from behind and slammed a heavy, hairy fist into his head a few times until Shane’s eye rolled up and he was out.

Thorne felt guilty for all of a split second at the brief relief that his nephew was finally silent. That relief turned to rage almost as fast, though, and Thorne focused back on the woman.

“Why do you think Ballantine will come here?” Thorne asked.

“Ballantine like that,” the croanderthal woman replied, shrugging her huge, hairy shoulders. “Ballantine like tidy.”

“She’s right about that,” Darren said. “He does like tidy. No loose ends.”

“No ends,” the croanderthal woman agreed, nodding her heavy browed head. “He come. He find. If not dead.”

“If not dead?” Thorne asked. “Why would he be dead?”

“No tell,” the mutant woman said. “Not front them.” She pointed at Darren, Lucy, and even the unconscious Shane. “Just you. Leader talk. Me. You. Talk.”

“Leader talk,” Thorne agreed. “But my Team stays here. Whatever you want to say to me, you say to them too.”

“No,” the croanderthal woman said. She shook her head and snapped her thick fingers. “No.”

The croanderthals behind Team Grendel grabbed up Darren, Lucy, and Shane. There was nothing any of them could do about it. Their limbs were still completely asleep and numb. Thorne could barely keep his head upright.

He was forced to watch helplessly as Darren and Lucy shouted and screamed at the mutants that dragged them out of the room. Two of them carried Shane, making sure his head smacked against the door jamb at least once on the way out.

That left the croanderthal woman, and a croanderthal man that stood back by the door. The croanderthal woman walked closer to Thorne and crouched close to him. But not too close. Despite his obvious incapacitation, and the binds that still held his wrists and ankles, she kept out of reach. Thorne made a mental note that the woman may have been physically mutated, but intellectually she appeared sharp, despite the stunted speech pattern.

“Leader talk,” the croanderthal woman said.

“Fine,” Thorne replied. “Leader talk. Leader have a name?”

“Liu,” the croanderthal woman said.

“Liu? I know that name,” Thorne said.

“Ballantine only name care about,” the Liu croanderthal snarled. “Talk. Now. Leader me, leader you. Talk Ballantine.”

“Like I said before
,
fin
e
,” Thorne said. “We talk Ballantine.”

***

“It’s been a year since the explosion?” Kinsey asked. “And you’ve been surviving in this cave since then?”

“Not quite,” Dr. Logan said as he placed the stethoscope’s disc against Kinsey chest and listened for a second. “We were in a different facility for several months. This is recent.”

“Recent? Why? What happened to the other facility? Did it explode as well?” Kinsey asked as the disc was moved about her chest.

“Hold on,” Dr. Logan said. “Stop talking and give me a couple deep breaths. This suit is not easy to hear through.”

Kinsey reluctantly let the questions drop and breathed in and out several times until Dr. Logan nodded. He removed the stethoscope from his ears and draped it across his neck in that classic motion all doctors use.

“Alright. Breathing sounds good from what I can tell. Slightly thick, but that is to be expected after your encounter with the nectar,” he stated. “Heart rate is elevated, but once again, it is expected considering you are in a fight or flight situation.”

“No flight,” Kinsey said.

“Understood,” Dr. Logan said and nodded. “Your abdomen sounds good as well, which was what I was more worried about in case you had ingested any of the nectar. That stuff will eat you from the inside out, believe me.”

“You’ve seen it happen?” Kinsey asked.

“I have,” Dr. Logan said, his face a sudden mix of anger and somber resignation.

“Okay, okay, I’m getting confused,” Kinsey said. “You weren’t in the facility that exploded? You were in a different facility? Why? What’s the difference?”

“I was in charge of the Alpha, which was command and observation,” Dr. Logan said. “Dr. Ann Liu was in charge of Omega, which was where the matrix facilitator was housed. The two facilities needed to be on opposite ends of the island so readings were clean and not influenced by their respective power grids. It took years to build and was all gone in seconds.”

“What’s a matrix facilitator?” Kinsey asked.

“You don’t know?” Dr. Logan asked. “I’d assumed that was why you were here.”

“We’re here because Ballantine brought us here,” Kinsey said.

“Aren’t we all,” Dr. Logan chuckled. The look on Kinsey’s face stopped the chuckle quickly. “Yes, well, the matrix facilitator is a machine, a connected hive of machines, actually, that takes genetic codes and rebuilds them into fully fledged life forms. Basically, a 3D printer for life.”

“And what could possibly go wrong with that?” Kinsey sneered.

“Really, not much,” Dr. Logan said. “There were safeguards upon safeguards upon safeguards. Nothing in that facility should have had the power needed to produce an explosion of that size. It was designed to specifically avoid any catastrophes. Everything was small scale, tiny. The matrix facilitator couldn’t produce a life form larger than a small dog. Everything that has happened, should not have happened.”

“Said every scientist in the world right before they fucked up,” Kinsey said.

“Believe me, I am very aware of that,” Dr. Logan sighed.

“So, you were in the Alpha facility and this Dr. Liu and her team were in the Omega facility,” Kinsey said. “Omega goes boom and everyone dies. Then you find out, what? That your matrix hoodickey has grown some dinosaurs that are a lot bigger than small dogs?”

“No,” Dr. Logan said. “You are getting ahead. Let me explain events in order, otherwise you won’t be able to understand where you are.”

“I’m in a fucking cave,” Kinsey said.

“Funny,” Dr. Logan said. “Do you want me to keep talking or not?”

“Talk,” Kinsey said.

***

“How did you become the leader?” Thorne asked the Liu croanderthal.

“Always,” she replied. “How you?”

“Always too,” Thorne said.

“Not always,” the Liu croanderthal said, shaking her head. She pointed at Thorne. “You soldier. Soldier follow. Lead later.”

“I’ve been leading a very long time,” Thorne said. “So pretty much always.”

The Liu croanderthal nodded as if that made sense to her.

“Ballantine come. When come, me, leader, kill,” she said. “You, leader, not stop. You stay. You help me leader.”