Chapter Twelve #2
Bryn followed Russo from the room because there wasn’t much else he could do and he had to admit he was curious. They walked through a maze of corridors and he guessed they were underground. The basement of a big building maybe. There’s no natural light down here. Reminds me of The Facility.
A gray metal door opened into a lab where several people were working at computers and benches. Dr. Frost was among them. He was haggard, a fresh bruise darkening his left cheek. A flicker of guilt and fear crossed his features when he spotted Bryn. When Russo walked into the lab, everyone froze.
“Carry on, everyone. Frost, show him,” Russo commanded.
The hum of activity restarted while Peregrine Frost went over to what looked like a large cooler.
He entered a code on its digital lock and the lid hissed open, releasing a plume of vapor.
Frost removed a transparent cylinder containing what appeared to be tissue samples suspended in a clear solution.
“Thanks to the enhanced version of Thanacrine, the genome integration has progressed,” Russo said. “Our latest enhanced subjects can regenerate tissue at remarkable rates and possess strength well beyond normal human or gene-enhanced capacity.”
“What do you want these ‘super’ people for?” Bryn asked. “You’ve killed so many wolves and vamps already. Your own lab staff in Boston too. Innocent people.”
“Collateral damage. Inevitable when we’re working on the leading edge of science. The lab staff…well, that was down to you and Boston PD. Couldn’t have an augur poking around in their heads after all.”
“You’re experimenting on real people!”
“To make them better. It’s called evolution. We’re still crawling out of the primordial swamp. Imagine the advantage we would have in so many situations. We’d be invincible.”
“We?”
“The United States, of course.”
“So, the funding is coming from the government. They couldn’t do this legitimately so they’re using you in exchange for what? Money? Power?”
“Governments come and go. Politicians think they know everything. They don’t.”
“And my role in this?” Bryn asked.
“Your ability to read people, their memories, their intentions, whether they’re telling the truth, we want to understand it.
Map it. Potentially replicate it in our subjects.
” Russo’s eyes gleamed with unsettling enthusiasm.
“Imagine it. The perfect interrogators, the perfect spies, the perfect hunters.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Bryn said. “It’s not something you can extract or duplicate. People have already tried.”
“Perhaps not directly,” Russo conceded. “But with Dr. Frost’s expertise in genetic manipulation and neural mapping, we may be able to create something similar. And at minimum, we’ll have you.”
“I won’t cooperate.”
“You don’t need to. We just need your brain.” Russo smiled. “Though your cooperation would make things considerably less…invasive.”
“Are you deliberately going for the supervillain vibe, or is that accidental?”
Russo’s expression didn’t change but he curled his fingers into a fist. “You have tonight to consider adjusting your attitude. Take him away.”
The guards dragged Bryn out of the lab. They weren’t gentle as they shoved him along more gray corridors then into a small, windowless room.
The cell wasn’t much larger than the average closet—a concrete box with a narrow cot bolted to the wall and a stainless-steel toilet in the corner.
A single light recessed into the ceiling cast harsh illumination that couldn’t be turned off.
Russo’s goons had removed his handcuffs before shoving him inside, but the heavy metal door had sealed with an ominous thud that made Bryn flinch.
He sat on the edge of the cot, the thin mattress providing little cushion against the metal frame beneath.
The room was cold, and they hadn’t left him a blanket.
Probably deliberate, another discomfort to wear him down before whatever Russo had planned.
He’d known worse. Russo could learn a thing or two from Giles Delacourt.
Bryn rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had been and ignored the ache in his lower back.
His thoughts kept straying to Gunnar. The image of his partner, his lover, falling played on repeat in his head.
“He’s alive,” Bryn whispered. “He has to be alive.” But doubt gnawed at him.
He’d seen the way Gunnar had dropped. He’d been shot and taken a blow to the head.
His survival would depend on help arriving quickly.
My tracker was still active when he went down.
The GCR team will have found him. The mission had gone sideways so fast. One moment they were getting useful information, the next the world was on fire.
Bryn stood and paced the small cell, five steps in one direction before having to turn.
“I should have been faster. Should have sensed the trap.” When he’d shaken Frost’s hand, there had been no indication that Frost knew he was being played.
His intent had involved a juicy steak and a single malt.
Russo was right about that. Frost is na?ve.
I doubt he had any idea what he was really getting into.
“If he’s gone…” Bryn couldn’t contemplate life without Gunnar.
He sank back onto the cot, dropping his head into his hands.
He could hear the faint hum of the light above, the distant mechanical sounds of ventilation systems, but nothing human.
No footsteps of guards patrolling, no noise from other prisoners.
The air smelt and tasted metallic. It was as if he’d been sealed away from the world.
Hours passed, marked only by increasing hunger pangs.
When exhaustion finally overcame discomfort, he lay on his side, knees drawn up for warmth.
He closed his eyes, trying to quiet his mind enough for sleep.
His last thought before drifting into a fitful doze was of Russo’s words.
“Everyone has a price, Mr. Ashton. Or if not a price, then a pressure point.”
Bryn now understood with terrible clarity what his pressure point was. He hoped Russo didn’t know it too. Please be safe. Please.