Prototype of unknown species' DNA synthesized at North Ridge Laboratory for purpose of injection and experimentation. Unsuccessfully tested on species N-5, N-6, and N-7 with molecular breakdown of host indigenous DNA recorded at 9:31:23 hours of implementation. HD-66 serum refined with molecular removal of 91.3 identifying Homo sapiens dual-strand proteins and isolation of transmitter molecules and receptor genes.
IMPLEMENTATION: 00:00:00 Hours
IA Injection unrefined HD-66 serum at 11:29 A 6 Hours into host organism.
2B Successful absorption of refined HD-66 serum by indigenous host DNA at 28:41:34 Hours: 0 percent.
3C Destruction of host indigenous DNA by refined HD-66 serum at 31:54:25 Hours: 52 percent.
4D Complete molecular breakdown of host indigenous DNA to HD-66 at 45:52:03 Hours: 100 percent.
FINALIZATION: All host systems terminated and destroyed in accordance with Level IV Biohazard Containment Procedures 0-010-000. Experiment terminated with nitrous oxide and host organisms destroyed at 72:13:43 Hours.
Refinement of HD-66 re-implemented at 13:00:00 Hours…
Hunter read more, a percentage analysis of lymphocytes, T-cells, granulocytes, monocytes, a diagnostic of the response neural network to generate white cell production…
Following every movement in the room by sound, Hunter returned to subject listings and something caught his attention. An instinct, almost like a ghostly touch on his shoulder, caused him to wonder what the video file "Security Video, Station One" contained.
The decision was made as he saw it, and he opened the file to a grainy black-and-white projection with the time—45:14:42 hours — displayed prominently in a lower corner of the screen. Sweating with the stress of hovering so close to the lab personnel, Hunter saw a security video of a large laboratory similar to this one bustling with generic technicians who seemed so nameless, faceless, and lifeless. But on the far side was a glassed-in chamber — a cell of sorts — where a man sat motionless and alone on a blanketed cot.
Without Hunter's direction the camera switched angles to show the man more closely. And for a moment Hunter stared, all the while following with his eyes two more personnel who had walked across the room and now stood six feet away.
He blinked sweat from his eyes.
What happened next made his skin crawl, chilling him even as he felt his heart rate increase, his breath deepen. For the man had fallen onto his face, writhing in pain. Then he clawed at his shirt, his eyes, and his face and began screaming, howling. He tore off his shoes and for a moment vanished beyond the camera angle, and when he writhed back into view Hunter was horrified…
Slowly at first, and then with appalling acceleration, the man's face altered, widening and distorting — transforming — and his hair fell in clumps and waves as he continued to scream and claw at himself. And then, in a maddened frenzy of rolling, beating upon any inanimate object that touched him as if it burned with fire, his body was grotesquely twisted by some tectonic collision of cells, hideously deforming him before he…before it…lay in a stillness far deeper than death.
Hunter recognized the primordial outline of that form, though far smaller in this video than it had since become. And he knew his enemy. Knew finally where it had been spawned, and how.
Recovering consciousness and breath, the creature rose slowly, sullen and sneering, from the floor.
On the left side of the monitor, the glass wall was visible, and Hunter saw innumerable technicians staring in horror, holding clipboards close. He did not need to see their faces to read their fear. And as the creature inhaled deeply, almost with savage satisfaction at his altered state of being, there was an unnatural stillness in them all. Then, striding forward with remarkable slowness, it simply walked into the six-inch Plexiglas, shattering it spectacularly with a hammer-like blow, and was among them.
Hunter did not need to see what happened next.
One less mystery.
Hunter raised sullen eyes to the suspended cylindrical type that hung inside an electromagnetic field — he understood the process because the bare copper wiring that domed the top and bottom of the cylinder fairly hummed with energy — and knew that inside that darkness lay another answer.
He had followed the movement of the four technicians, and rose as they came around the display where he crouched. He knew that they would have cried out if he had allowed them the chance, but Hunter instantly seized one by the throat, shoving him against the chest-high computer terminal. And before the other could react he pinned him also with his Bowie knife. Holding the blade against the technician's neck while easily controlling the first man who, not unsurprisingly, did not resist, Hunter spoke with threat to the others.
"Stay where you are!"
Already on their feet, they moved no farther.
"Don't touch anything!" he continued. Then he shoved the two male technicians toward the other man and woman, crowding them for control. He pointed to the cylinder. "Turn on the lights. I want to see what's inside the tube."
The woman, not removing her eyes from Hunter, reached down carefully to the computer dais. When her hand was close, she cast a quick glance and slowly pushed a switch, and Hunter stepped away from them, staring upward at the tube. His knife hung forgotten in his hand as the image emerged before him, green light washing slowly over a bowed, monstrous head, ragged wisps of hair floating in jade liquid.
The light flooded downward — shaggy gray hair doming a broad deep forehead above a heavy brow that shaded dark eyes, high cheeks that protruded stone-like on either side of a broad, flattened nose; then a wide mouth — a wicked, frowning gash with the pinpoints of long fangs visible through the jade — hanging open. And the hugely muscled, apelike neck and gorilla chest that swelled as thick twin shields beneath the chin, and, finally, to the knotted, powerful arms, matted and dark with coarse hair. And even farther the light descended to reveal long muscular legs — not like those of an ape, but of a man, yet so overdeveloped and powerfully defined that they could have undoubtedly propelled this colossus of human evolution to shocking heights or hurled that hulking weight with a cheetah's speed across the vined and tepid slime morasses of a world long buried beneath the awesome weight of time.
It was dead; Hunter needed no one to tell him that. And from the withered facial features, the smoothness of its flesh, he knew it had been dead for eons. Almost as an afterthought, he studied the large, powerful hands. Even the centuries had not dulled the fiendish aspect of those blackened claws.
Inhaling deeply, Hunter shook his head at the foolishness of man. Not anymore did he need anyone to tell him what they had done. Now the only question remaining…was why.
No alarms had sounded above; he felt no compulsion to rush. Nor had the laboratory technicians moved to flee, although he would have allowed them. Rather, they stood in absolute stillness, apparently fearful that he meant them harm, which he did not.
He heard the elevator open behind him, listened calmly as suppressed footsteps approached and counted their number: six pairs of military boots and the squeak of foam-soled working shoes — the kind that Dr. Hamilton habitually wore.
Sheathing his Bowie, Hunter continued to stare with amazed disbelief at the entombed monstrosity until, ever so slowly, Hamilton halted beside him.
Absolutely no registration of anger or disappointment was visible on the scientist's face; obviously, he was a man rarely surprised. His arms were crossed casually and his posture was that of a man admiring a fine painting. And when he spoke, a glimmering smile raised one corner of his mouth in what seemed to be admiration, even amusement, at what Hunter had discovered.
"And so," Hamilton began pleasantly, "now you know."