Ripper (7 page)

“Excuse me, Sahib. I have held my tongue for far too long. You need rest. You are not seeing things as you once
did. While at one time your direction was merely reckless, it has now turned onto a road which will not only be your destruction, but many others on this plantation as well.”

Ambrose smiled and turned with a fresh syringe in his thick fingers. “Do I include you as one of those others, old friend?”

“My life has always been yours to either end or prolong. But was it not I that gave you the rare
poppy which in turn gave you your life’s work? I would like to see the potential of the experiments proven. Still, we must realize that our actions have attracted attention from north of the river, Sahib.”

“I am too close to finishing this. With soldiers such as these that I have created, foolish governments could never afford war mongering. If I had gone uninterrupted in London, the problems
in Europe would have ceased before they started. Men such as these in the holding cells would make moot the art of warfare—men that will kill and die without a second’s hesitation.”

Singh stepped up to cell number nine and looked at the man-animal crouching in the dark corner. The man was staring at him with eyes wide and his drooling mouth agape. The look of sheer murder that coursed through
his rough features was enough to make the giant Sikh want to turn away. For as large as he knew himself to be, he also knew the man in the cell could take him apart, piece by piece.

“For years I have watched you make men into something that was never meant to be. We have gone too far, Sahib. The taunting of the British authorities almost twenty-seven years ago nearly brought the world down upon
us. Your decision making was flawed then, and it is now becoming more so.” He watched the eyes of the professor as they remained neutral as he spoke. He decided to press further. “I was willing to allow this to go on as long as there were no more killings of the innocent. But it is now starting all over again. I assume you are planning to test these … soldiers on living subjects?”

Ambrose finally
turned to fully face his manservant. The syringe he held dripped amber fluid from the needle and struck the professor’s filthy boot.

“You
were
willing?” Ambrose chuckled as he ignored the stated question. His laugh was a cold, harsh sound in the darkness of the subbasement. “Wasn’t it you who carried me to Whitechapel in the old days in the coach? Was it not you who assisted in luring women to
that coach?” Ambrose took a step toward the very much larger Singh, who to his credit stood ramrod straight. “Old friend, was it not you who originally saw the potential of the splicing of the flower and its new seed? Maybe you were once just a willing participant, but now I believe you may be considered one of the architects of Perdition’s Fire.” This time the smile did reach his eyes just before
he turned to unlock cell number two. “After tonight there will be no more need for test subjects. Outside of training these men to not attack their own people, the process is perfected. Can you imagine a whole division of Berserkers? The earth would tremble.”

“And what nation would be willing to pay your price?”

Again, the laugh. “Just as soon as one side or the other starts losing the war in
Europe, we will have plenty of takers.”

The manservant watched as the cell door was opened and Ambrose stepped into the darkness. He heard the sharp rattle of chain as the test subject, a young Texan he himself had found sleeping off a drunk by the river, charged Ambrose. With every inch of thick chain around the subject’s neck stretched to its limit, the boy growled and hissed at Ambrose who
calmly kept his ground just inside the cell door. After a moment the subject settled and started sniffing. The test subject’s drool coursed down his chin and neck as he took in Ambrose. Only five previous injections had brought the test subject to this point of barbarity. The last injection would make him into what Ambrose dreamed—a lethal, brilliant killing machine—just as he had proven with himself
as a test subject in London. This man would soon be a soldier that was able to plan and carry out the most animalistic attacks ever seen. A soldier never seen before. The strength of a bull and the intelligence of the very man who made him into what he had become. He was now a beast that would send any civilized enemy running through sheer terror. And all of this was because of two small, little-known
poppy flowers that grew only in the remotest northern regions of India. That coupled with the stem serum would open up that which God may never had intended to be used—the opposite side of the brain. Full brain function coupled with animalistic fury.

As Singh watched, the professor slowly lifted his free hand and allowed the subject to smell the oils and sweat emanating from the pores of Ambrose.
The smell seemed to calm the boy down and the chain slackened somewhat as the man knew one of his own. Someone who released this scent told the Berserker he was amongst one who had also taken the formula. Ambrose had absorbed enough of Perdition’s Fire into his system over the years that anything that had also been injected with the script would know the other as an ally, one not to be feared
or attacked. It was a system of protection the professor had worked out years before through trial and error.

“Is it not amazing to you my old friend how the brain of the subject, even though it is ravaged with cancerous growth caused by the long-term injections, is still able to use its higher brain functions? This subject tested out at over a 165 IQ. Amazing, Singh, just amazing. This opens
up not just one avenue for the eventual benefits of Perdition’s Fire, but so many more.”

“It is not the benefits of higher brain functions that is the concern here, Sahib. It is the murderous abilities coupled with that intelligence that is the true danger.” Singh stepped toward the open cell, and that was when the test subject lunged at the manservant, almost knocking Ambrose over.

“That is
not wise my friend,” Ambrose said as he quickly reached out and jabbed the needle home into the arm of the boy. The test subject was so absorbed in his want, his very need to get at Singh, that he never felt the sharp jab. Ambrose quickly stepped from the cell and closed the door. “There, eight subjects more to go.”

“Sahib, we must—”

Suddenly, and before Singh could finish, the basement door
flew open and a man came through. He was armed with an old Winchester and wore the white clothing of one of the field workers.

“We have soldiers approaching, Jefe. They crossed the river an hour ago.”

Ambrose reached for another of the syringes and then turned to look at one of the many guards he had posted around the hacienda. “Federalies?” he asked.

“No, señor, Americanos,” the man said as
his eyes saw the boy inside the cell for the first time. The peasant saw the way the beast inside had the restraining chain stretched to its limit as it growled, sending the guard back a step. “There must be over a hundred of them,” he said, in a hurry to finish his report.

Ambrose slammed the syringe onto the table’s top, denting the barrel of the tube, and then grabbed the guard by the shirt.
It was that quick motion that not only sent the two men who had the final series of injections into a frenzy of movement and anger, but the other test subjects as well. Animal sounds started filtering through the darkness of all ten cells, sending chills down the spines of both the guard and Singh.

“You and the other guards will delay them as long as you can, dying in the effort if you have to.”

The guard looked shocked. He knew he and his men could never take on an experienced charge of light cavalry. Ambrose angrily shook the man, sending the test subjects into a fresh round of growling and other sounds that could never have emanated from the throats of mere men.

“If I do not receive the time I need, I will release these men into your village after they have finished with the soldiers.
Your wives, your children, they will all die a horrible death. Now go and delay this force of men while we get ready to abandon the hacienda.” Ambrose shoved the shocked and stunned guard away.

Singh half turned and watched the man leave the laboratory. He then faced his employer. “You would release these creatures into the villages around the hacienda?”

Ambrose grinned and then took another
syringe from the table. “I would release them into heaven or hell to get the time I need. Now you go and retrieve the Perdition journals in my office. The up-to-date series of formula is in notebook number thirty along with the antidote. That is most important. As for the viles of powdered solution in the secondary laboratory, dump them into the sand. The powdered form is far too strong. With the
liquid solution we have more control. Now go my friend and do as I—”

He stopped talking when the pistol appeared in the Indian manservant’s hand. Ambrose raised his thick brows at the sudden appearance of the weapon. It seemed as though the professor wasn’t surprised in the least by this latest development.

“This ends here, tonight, just as I should have allowed it to end in Whitechapel.”

“You brought the soldiers here, didn’t you Singh?” Ambrose asked as his eyes roamed to the still-unlocked cell door of test subject number two.

“Yes, I knew the American soldiers that are searching for Pancho Villa were within a hundred miles of here. I have arranged your demise through forces working with the president of the United States, Sahib. Forgive me, but I have been communicating with
your government for over three years now. I have been reporting on your progress—progress that has now gone too far with the new series of script you have begun. These men will never be controlled as you believe, and the Americans want this stopped.”

Ambrose couldn’t speak or move at first. He had never suspected his manservant could be capable of total betrayal until the deed had showed itself.
Instead he turned from Singh and then quickly slid the needle expertly into his own arm. As he did he moved to the left. The sudden motion made Singh adjust his position and he stepped in front of the still-open number-two cell.

“Please, Professor, place the syringe on the table top.”

Ambrose chuckled, a sound that sent chills down the neck and arms of the large manservant. Then to Singh’s horror,
he saw the syringe fall from where Ambrose had hidden it in his hand. It clattered on the flagstone floor—empty.

“What have you done?” Singh asked as he involuntarily took a step backward toward the open cell door.

“I do what always needs to be done old friend,” Ambrose said as saliva slowly ran from the left side of the older man’s mouth and traveled slowly through his thin beard. The distinctive
facial tick, indicating that the muscles under his skin were receiving information from the extreme frontal lobe of the brain, started on the right side of the face and seemed to spread into the upper reaches of the facial muscles, most notably just above the eyes, making the brow pulse and grow. The professor took another step to the right and then one quick step forward, forcing Singh to
step closer to the cell door. Ambrose smiled again—the once-straight teeth were now jumbled and separated. The professor’s blue eyes were now ringed with a red circle where the subsurface blood vessels had exploded from the massive rise in heart rate. He reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a small shiny object.

“An object lesson old friend—a bit of problem solving for the ultimate
soldier.” He held up the small key that maintained test subject number two securely bound to his chains.

“I’ll kill you before I allow the release of that beast from its cell. The test subjects must be destroyed,” Singh said as he cocked the British-made Webley pistol.

“Release them?” Ambrose said with a laugh.

The gesture allowed Singh to see the blood that had forced its way through the now
widening gaps between the teeth of the professor. The lab coat was now drawstring tight around the professor’s arms. The material was starting to give way as the now thriving right side of the brain started to activate and send out new signals to the nerves controlling muscle movement, growth and strength. Singh knew that Ambrose’s body was starting to take defensive measures toward its survival
as ordered by the expanding brain and the already overdosed and dying medulla oblongata.

“I said this was your object lesson. Problem-solving capacity amongst the strongest, most ruthless creature in the world has been obtained. They need no key old friend. The last journal explains it all. They have been opening and closing the locks on their chains since the third series of injections. So I
had to change the locks to a more advanced model. Now they have the reasoning to avoid capture, just like I had in London twenty years ago. It works, Singh, the formula works!”

Singh felt his heart jump in his chest as he absorbed the words from Ambrose. Then his heart stopped when he heard the cell door behind him open. He closed his eyes and then he suddenly realized what he had to do before
his own life became forfeit. He pulled the trigger.

Ambrose was hit in the chest and thrown back just as test subject number two jumped onto the back of the manservant. As the professor absorbed the large-caliber bullet and as he hit the table with the remaining syringes on its top, he heard the beast as it tore its teeth into the neck of Singh. He reached down and started to gather the remaining
doses of Perdition’s Fire from the floor. He looked down at the wound he had sustained and saw the blood pumping out of his chest from the bullet hole. He laughed as he watched the flow of life-sustaining blood dwindled to a trickle.

While the quickly dying Ambrose started giving the final injections to the last eight patients, he ignored the sounds of test subject number two as it did what it
was created to do as its brain functions started to die—it was dismembering, tearing apart, killing, and worst of all something else that had not been programmed into its cycle of violence during the professor’s long-winded readings to his test subjects, something the professor could never figure out—it would feed on the corpse of what it had just killed—a basic throwback to the primitive days of
beast against beast. The total brain function brought on more than just advanced IQ; in some ways the formula reverted it also.