“If that’s true, it might explain the attack on Delta,” Dale said, thinking.
“Perhaps that’s correct.”
“Again, how many?” Dale asked.
“That’s our problem, we can only guess.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because we think these things can breed,” Svetlana replied. “In a world that is out of balance, if they are breeding, these things represent the future. A few dozen, a few hundred would never matter. But if what York says is true, they’re breeding. And each generation is faster, more animal than human.”
“We’re really fighting monsters?” Dale said, shaking his heads.
“We call them humanoids, Sergeant,” Svetlana said.
70
“Psst. Thompson,” Clements whispered, pulling at the man’s sleeve. “Thompson.”
“Yo.”
“Who’s that chick again?” he asked.
“Dunno.”
“What’s all this science shit she’s talking about?” Clements asked.
“Dunno. Guess we’re fighting monsters or something,” Thompson said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Like, real monsters? I don’t get it, man.”
“I don’t either, but I know one thing.”
“What’s that?” Clements asked.
“I’d fuck her.”
Sergeant Thompson was young, good looking, overly confident but not enough to piss anyone off. He had a sexy, young wife and a three-year-old boy, yet Thompson was here of all places. The guy liked the action, hence why he was here. And like Clements, who remained quite single, Thompson couldn’t help it. He loved his job, his team. Loved them more than his own family, perhaps, though his son was always his first thought.
“Yeah, I would too,” Clements agreed, his voice still low. Then he looked to Thompson, a grin on his face. “What, you thinking about it?”
“Yup. She looks like she needs a good wargasm.”
“Ha! Good luck, bro,” Clements said.
“Hey, at least I have standards. Saw what you tapped last time we were in the States,” Thompson said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Clements said, hanging his head. “Nailed something worse a few months before that. Got pussy starved, ya know?”
“Worse than that chick… Andrea, was her name?”
“Yeah, worse.”
“Doesn’t make sense, bro,” Thompson said. He almost felt sorry for his friend’s lack of good taste.
“You take the cake for being picky when we do get leave,” Clements said in his defense.
“And I still get laid. Just don’t fuck the fatties, is all.”
“Yeah, can’t help it. The thought of turning down pussy… can’t imagine.”
“Your point? She’s no fattie,” Thompson gestured with his head toward Svetlana.
“Really think you got a chance?” Clements asked.
“To fuck her? Dude, I’ll probably fuck her in the next forty-eight hours,” Thompson said, quite serious about the matter.
Clements believed it. Thompson would try, and most likely would succeed. It bothered Clements, and in denial he said, “You’ll try… and fail.”
“A week at the most if she stays around.”
“And break your forty-eight hour rule?” Clements asked sarcastically.
“Yeah, with most chicks, if I can’t fuck ’em in two days, it’s not worth my time. But for her, I’ll give it a week. Ya know, ’cause of the language difficulties.”
“You won’t fuck her,” Clements argued.
“How much?”
“Twenty bucks,” Clements responded.
“Okay.”
“Ha! I’m going to spend that twenty bucks on a fat chick next time we go on leave.”
“Shhh,” Thompson said, attempting his hardest to maintain his laugher, trying much harder to not stare.
Clements did no such thing.
“Listen,” Thompson added. “She’s talking about sex, I think.”
“Mutation was instant. As their cellular re-growth took place, it was rapid. Almost too much for the body to withstand. But it held, and with that, other things hurried along. We estimate gestation is three months, not nine,” Svetlana said.
“Say again?” Dale asked. He gave the Russian woman a hard, cold look. “You’re saying these things are breeding?”
“Yes, sir,” Svetlana replied softly, lowering her head. The men in the room intimidated her, the Colonel perhaps the most. It wasn’t for lack of safety; no, she didn’t feel that. It was something else. The sheer intensity of the situation, the calmness of the men. That’s what scared her most.
“And they have babies every three months?” Dale asked.
“Yes, sir. Like the report says, their gestation period is three months. This is a guess, of course. We can’t be sure. But we’ve estimated how long they’ve been breeding. The compound reacted quickly, and most certainly the incubation of a child would increase. Anyone pregnant at the time would give birth a few weeks early. Any woman who got pregnant after the gas, the process quickened. And as they develop, as they breed, they seem to at furious rates. Like rabbits… that’s a saying in your country, no?” Svetlana said.
“Something like that,” Dale muttered. He was dumbfounded, as were everyone in the Delta group. Only Elizabeth seemed as if she knew the truth to the matter.
“Ma’am,” Rivers began, looking at Svetlana. “Don’t mean to interrupt, but I think we’re just trying to make sure we get this straight. You’ve stated that these people breed every three months, right?”
“Yes.”
“Sergeant Comstock asked a question you still haven’t answered. How many?” Rivers repeated.
“It’s impossible to know for sure,” Svetlana replied. “What we know of them is little, and we must assume much. We’ve ran algorithms, liberal numbers for safety sake. We assumed on some things,” she said.
“If you assume anything in battle, you die,” Dale stated.
“We did so the other way, Sergeant. We assumed the worst case scenario. To our best knowledge, we estimate the original count inside the cave numbered around eighty. A hundred at most. According to old reports, we calculated the cave had at least forty or fifty men. Most were probably young, maybe even in their late teens. As for child-bearing women, we estimate twenty. We hope much less.”
“We sure do,” Dale agreed.
“If we assume the worst, it’s this — twenty women could hypothetically be impregnated three times a year. Maybe even four.”
“Damn, three or four babies a year?” Dale asked.
“That is, if they don’t die in childbirth, sure. Again, we’re estimating to judge the scope of the matter. It could be less, but we’ll estimate more,” Svetlana said.
“Keep going,” Dale encouraged.
“That’s up to sixty, maybe eighty babies a year. This happened in nineteen eighty-four. About twenty- six years ago,” Svetlana said.
She noticed they were all trying to do the math in their heads, their eyes all looking up.
“That comes out to over eighteen hundred possible creatures you must kill. We actually rounded our numbers up to two thousand, just to be safe,” Svetlana said, delivering the mind blowing news.
Everyone was silent.
Mouths open.
Throats dry.
Then, one confused voice spoke, cracking, Thompson asking, “Now wait a minute, are you saying these things fuck?”