Countdown to Apocalypse, page 15
It was a similar situation to what had happened in Texas, with most of the markers lining up perfectly.
Most.
Hale’s friends had given her a clue, and that was the first avenue she went down in this bout of tests. An avenue that was looking to be incredibly profitable to follow, no less.
Someone is playing a dangerous game, Pierson yawned, blinking away the fatigue as best she could as she examined the open line to three of Japan’s leading genetic engineering research facilities. They had some of the best minds in the world there, people who had pioneered genetics research, but what she was looking at was so far beyond all of them that she could hardly believe it was happening at all.
“Doctor Miamasa,” She said, getting the attention of one of the doctors on the live feed. “Can you confirm my findings here?”
“Yes, Colonel Pierson,” The doctor replied, “The affected genes have been tailored to enhance the production of monoamine oxidase, and it goes beyond your findings. The new gene samples show quite clearly that there have been alterations of previously non-associated genes that now produce the compound.”
Pierson winced.
She hadn’t found that, but her system was far more limited than the research lab’s which was why she was offloading so much of the work to them.
“Only in the new samples?” She asked.
“Indeed, while the original samples clearly show an enhancement of monoamine oxidase production, it has been tripled again in the new ones.”
“That is not good news.”
The doctor snorted softly across the connection at the understatement.
“Whoever is behind this is not running some odd medical test, nor even a clandestine weapons program,” Miamasa said firmly, “It is my considered opinion that they are unleashing a plague. Quite possibly the least efficient plague I can imagine, but a plague nonetheless.”
Pierson nodded tiredly.
She wasn’t certain she entirely agreed with that assessment, but it was clearly a high probability option at the moment, and one she couldn’t afford to ignore.
“I’m going to run this by a few others,” She said, “thank you for your help, Doctor.”
Miamasa laughed, “My dear Colonel, this is perhaps a project that comes along once in a thousand lifetimes. It is my honor to participate. I will continue tracking down the alterations and piecing them together into as coherent a whole as I might be able.”
“Thank you still.” Pierson said before she turned away.
I need to speak with Hale.
*****
USS Ronald Reagan, East of Taiwan
The deck was quiet as the dawn light spilled over the big ship. Alex had woken up a half hour earlier and gotten dressed in more comfortable gear, a pair of fatigue pants and a khaki tee as well as his own boots. After being forced to fly around Hong Kong in office wear, it was practically luxurious by comparison.
He stretched out, feeling the burn from his exertions the day before as though he’d done a hard workout. Given that he’d free lifted a main battle tank at one point, Alex honestly wasn’t sure how to take that. He supposed it was probably a good sign, he always did feel better after a good workout.
“Sir?”
Alex glanced behind him, nodding to the Ensign who was approaching.
“What is it, sailor?” He asked casually.
“Message for you and your team, Sir, from Okinawa.”
My team?
Alex hoped that meant that his friends had arrived during the night. He’d crashed so hard he was glad he hadn’t made a hole in the ship, so he really wasn’t available to be reached until morning. It was for the best, again he supposed. It was probably going to be another long day.
If not today, then tomorrow.
“Alright, lead the way. Is my, uh, team there?”
“they’re being fetched, Sir.”
“Excellent.”
*****
The briefing room he was led to was already occupied and Alex couldn’t help but grin as he recognized the faces waiting for him.
“Cap!”
“Tee,” He said, nodding to the SeAL, before turning to the others, “Lana, Verte, Sarge, Rosie…”
He blinked, looking at the somehow even larger form of Ogre Crook.
“Holy…”
Lana hugged Ogre’s arm, glowering at him openly, “Charles is fine, Captain.”
Ogre smiled wanly, “Don’t mind her, Cap. It’s always Ogre to you.”
Alex nodded, examining the physical changes he could see in the big man. The much bigger man that he now saw. Ogre Crook had always been a terrifying sort to come face to face with, his size and homely appearance was enough to make you feel like you were being sized up for how much flour your bones could be ground into… but now…
“Ogre,” Alex said finally, forcing a smile. “It’s good to see you. To see you all.”
“We’ve been in better spots, Cap,” Rosie said, attracting his attention. “How about you?”
“Never felt better.”
“Liar,” She countered with a wry smile.
Alex shrugged, “Physically it’s the truth.”
“Mentally?” Lana asked softly.
“I’ll let you know when I do,” Alex said simply, “I don’t know how I feel mentally. It’s like nothing I’ve been trained for. I think I feel good, most of the time, but then something happens and it’s like something deep in my skull was just waiting for the trigger to be pulled, if you get my meaning.”
“Yeah, boss, I think we all do,” Ogre offered up.
Alex nodded slowly as he examined the larger and more muscular form of the man he knew. He hadn’t really changed physically that night, at least not obviously. There was clearly some sort of healing factor at play, likely in all of them based on what he had seen with the people he fought, but his muscles and body seemed to be generally close to the norm.
Ogre, however, looked like the man had been body building for years… and hadn’t skimped on the steroids in the process. It wasn’t just that, though, the muscle growth was all wrong for a dedicated bodybuilder. It looked strange, ungainly and ugly, but Ogre seemed to be moving smoothly and without the normal issues with range of movement Alex had seen in overly muscled specimens in the past.
“Oh good, you’re all here.”
Alex twisted toward the voice, spotting the source on the main screen of the briefing room where Colonel Pierson was looking back at them.
“Colonel.” He nodded, “Did you get my package?”
“I did, thank you, Captain,” She said, “That is one of the things we have to discuss, as it has provided a glimpse into the enemy’s mindset.”
“The enemy?” He asked sharply, “Do we have an identity?”
“Unfortunately, not,” Pierson said with a light scowl. “However, it is clear that we’re dealing with an organized attempt at destabilizing world politics at this point. The move on the Chinese makes that clear and, worse, they’re accelerating their attempts.”
“How so?” Alex asked the screen as he took a seat at the table.
“We’ve been able to determine that the changes in the samples you brought back included a, frankly terrifying, increase in genes that produce monoamine oxidase.”
Alex just stared blankly, not recognize the words beyond his basic chemistry nomenclature.
Lana, on the other hand, hissed in recognition.
“The warrior gene,” She said aloud before he could ask.
That brought him back sharply as he looked between the Navy Medic turned Doctor and the Army Colonel on the screen. “Does that mean what it sounds like it means?”
“Yes and no,” Pierson said with a slight frown, “Honestly calling it the warrior gene is more that a little insulting, however the genes involved do seem to account for a significant level of natural aggression. Generally, studies that have examined this have found that the aggression linked to these genes is often uncontrolled.”
“Ah,” Alex grimaced.
Insulting indeed. A Warrior had to be aggressive, certainly, but never uncontrolled.
He sighed, “So the Chinese subjects were tinkered to be more aggressive then?”
“Yes, as were you all,” Pierson said, dropping the bomb into the middle of the room.
Silence reigned for a moment, only Lana seemed unsurprised.
“That would explain the Cap’s choices,” She said, “How bad?”
“Wait, what do you mean it would explain my choices?” Alex demanded, cutting off any response Pierson could offer.
“Come on, Cap,” Rosie shook her head as she entered the conversation, “You’re a talker. You don’t go balls to the wall without exhausting all other options, and you don’t taunt the enemy once the fight starts. You just put them down, clean. You’ve been acting like a new recruit, all piss and vinegar, since this happened. We saw the recordings.”
Alex frowned, but was silent as Pierson cut in.
“The Chinese samples show that they’ve decided to up the aggression factor by several times, but once I found it there I went back and looked at your samples as well. The changes are more subtle in you, but they’re definitely there.”
Verte snorted, punching Ogre lightly in the shoulder, “I pity the next poor Army SOB who meets you in a bar, non?”
Ogre snorted, a rumbling sound that could be felt through the room, “Maybe you should worry about yourself, Beanie.”
“Ah, we are amis, my friend, you wouldn’t do that to me.” Verte grinned.
“Not in public.”
“See, mon amis? You do love me,” The irritating Cajun grinned at the hulking Marine.
Alex, in the meanwhile, was rapidly thinking over his decisions, trying to determine how much of what he’d done had been how he would normally react, and how much had been some nebulous aggression influencing him without notice.
“I’m not entirely convinced,” He said finally, arms folding over his chest. “I agree, normally I prefer to talk, but talking hasn’t exactly been an option for me over recent events. The bikers were hardly going to surrender without a show of force, and I can’t speak any of the local languages in these parts.”
“It isn’t just that, Cap,” Sarge spoke up gruffly, “You taunted the bikers. That’s not you at all. You’re a clean kill man. Put the enemy down, start helping the survivors. You played with those bikers.”
“They wouldn’t die!” Alex protested, though he felt a niggling doubt eating at him and he sighed finally, “Look, maybe you’re right, but I don’t know that I had a lot of options. I’ll keep in mind, going forward.”
Sarge nodded simply. That was all he could, or would, ask.
“How much worse is it with the Chinese?” Lana asked, “Or do you have exact numbers?”
“Nothing exact as of yet, we’re still sequencing the samples,” Pierson said over the screen, “However it’s at least three times the production of monoamine oxidase and connected compounds.”
“Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean three times the aggression factor,” Lana sighed, “but it doesn’t seem good either.”
“The man who called down the Dragon, he was in a rage at first, but after a time it seemed to fall into a near trance.” Alex said thoughtfully.
“Adrenal burnout, possibly,” Pierson suggested. “That might be a weakness of the enhanced chemical production.”
“Maybe, but it didn’t stop the Dragon until I dunked the bastard in a pool…” Alex countered, “Though, honestly, I’m shocked that worked. Those were not normal fires, they had solid form. Water, well, I’m surprised it had any effect.”
“The immersion might have simply broken the man’s focus,” Tee said, speaking up quietly and drawing their attention, “the dragon we saw in the videos that were snuck out of the city was… wildly variable. Larger than buildings in some moments, little more than a dozen or so feet in others. If it is like… our abilities, then control is an issue.”
The Navy SeAL unconsciously flexed the muscles in his arm, the color of his flesh changing with the ripple of motion under the skin.
*****
Hong Kong
Major General Ziao Lin Wey had a rather bad day twenty-four hours earlier.
Of course, to be frank, so was all of Hong Kong and he wasn’t going to vouch for how good a day anyone in Beijing had for that matter. The first whisper any of them had about it had been so innocuous, he remembered seeing the news report about the missing Triad members and thinking, at the time, good riddance to the bunch.
Wey supposed that he should have known better than to assume that they wouldn’t have found some method for causing more trouble no matter what had happened to them. Criminal filth had a tendency of doing that, no matter how much you tried to prevent it.
The first he personally was involved was when the massive dragon of fire and force had risen over the city and several buildings burned. Casualties were still being counted on that event, but it would be in the thousands, with dozens dead at the very least, before it was all totaled.
All because of this man in front of me, somehow.
Wey examined the shackled man with a cold gaze, quite uncertain how to take what he was seeing. The man was barely such, more a boy really, for all the devastation he’d left in his wake. He didn’t seem to really understand what he’d done, didn’t even really remember it if he were telling the truth.
We’ll see what the interrogators say about that, Wey supposed, but his gut was telling him that the boy was telling the truth.
His police record was clean, no Triad links anyone could find beyond the same sort that most anyone had. He had a couple distant cousins in the gangs, but so did Wey for that matter. The Major General was well acquainted with the normal results of an in-depth background check, and the boy’s was fairly average. He’d not have blinked if one of his staff had returned similar results.
His gaze shifted to the others sitting beside the boy, similarly shackled while PLA soldiers held guns on them from less than two meters away.
Those, on the other hand, were far more along the lines that I expected to find.
Their background checks read like something out of the local cinema’s wet dreams. Petty crimes as far as he cared to scroll down the screen, and enough more serious ones to tempt Wey to simply have them shot here and now and write it down as attempting escape.
His orders were to bring them North to a Party owned Laboratory where they could be tested to determine where, exactly, their abilities were derived from. He wasn’t entirely happy about that, but it was clear that someone out there in the world was playing with technology that China needed to acquire.
Super soldiers the like of which they’d dealt with the day before couldn’t be left only in the hands of other nations.
The Americans clearly have at least one they consider reliable, Wey thought sourly.
Lack of uniform or no, there was no disguising the abilities the one the media were calling The Marine had shown. He had been in Hong Kong, which meant that… officially or otherwise, the Americans had been in Hong Kong. There was no proving it, of course, since the man wasn’t acknowledged by the Americans currently, but Wey was no one’s fool.
The world media was entirely besotted with the figure the Marine cut, which Wey could understand as much as he found it irritating. The world obsession with Superheroes had built to something of a plateau in recent years, popular franchises still returning billions of dollars to their studios but the growth had previously slowed to a near halt…
Wey rather suspected that the next film from either of the two big studios in the genre would likely explode well beyond any previous projections. He knew that even in China the American Marine had become disturbingly popular, in less than two weeks since his media debut there were already dolls and other merchandise on the marketplace.
Now, however, whatever it was that had afflicted the Americans had come to them… and they didn’t get a PLA soldier in the mix. Just a lot of Triad murderers… and this boy who somehow called down the Dragon to torch the city.
*****
Yan scowled as he looked out over the city from his Penthouse.
He disliked being forced to retreat, given the power he held normally he always had but now even the power of the Triad was a joke compared to what he wielded… and yet he had still run the day before.
The military and police response had been a bit more than he’d expected, though he supposed that he shouldn’t have been as surprised by it as he was. The Dragon had ensured that the eyes of the Party were fixed directly on the city, there was no doubt about that.
The American, however, had been entirely unexpected.
Yan gingerly rubbed his chin where he’d been struck with enough force to kill a hundred normal men. He’d never been struck that hard, even relatively speaking, in his life. The soreness of his jaw even a day later, given that all his other minor injuries had entirely healed in that time, spoke for itself.
He was a man who had been beaten, shot, knifed, and many other things in his climb to the top of his Triad… yet that blow…
It had been something out of a bad American movie.
Being struck hard enough to not only go flying, but blow through an office building in the process?
Absurd.
However, the absurd seemed to be the order of the day.
He flexed his muscles, closing his hands into fists as he felt the strength of his own change run through him. He could live in the absurd, if it gave him power like this.
“Boss.”
Yan turned, nodding to his second in command, “What is it, Yui?”
Chan Lo Yui stepped forward, “Reports from the men you had watch the military, Boss. They’re preparing an armed convoy. The rumor is that they’ll be transporting the prisoners, including our men and the Dragon north out of the city.”
Yan nodded slowly, “Unsurprising. The Party would not leave power like that here where it isn’t fully under their control. They’ll want them all in a Party laboratory where they can control all aspects of their environment and keep any hints of what they’re doing away from the outside world. They are still being watched?”
