Almost as it, every time he opened his mouth, his throat closed up on him.
In the end, Mitts could only squeeze out a single syllable, “No.”
Heinmein continued to stare hard at him. His gaze was unflinching, as if he was merely looking at a test specimen . . . and what else was Mitts to Heinmein?
“How long?” Mitts said. “How long have you been coming up here—how long has it been safe to leave the Restricted Area?”
Heinmein flashed his eyes, gave a slight sigh. “Well—
safe
—that really is a relative term, is it not?” He glanced beyond Mitts, in such a way that Mitts was almost convinced there might be someone standing behind him.
It took all his resolve
not
to turn and look.
Mitts wondered, haphazardly, if Heinmein might be armed.
He had come across several rooms on the Compound with assorted weapons.
But he had always left them well alone.
Could he really trust Heinmein would’ve done the same?
Heinmein nodded to Mitts, and then to his sports bag. “You have seen for yourself that I keep the power up and running for those battery packs, and that it is my custom to use one of those suits if up in the Compound for any sustained period of time.” He cocked his head to one side. “And if I go
outside
, why, then it is a necessity.”
Mitts tightened his hold on the strap of his sports bag.
It was time to go.
“So,” Mitts said, “are you planning to stop me?”
Heinmein remained straight faced for several moments.
And then his expression cracked.
His mouth widened into a jagged-toothed smile.
“Of course not,” Heinmein said, spreading his hands wide, “that was not what I had planned at all.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “But there was something which I believe you might have an interest in seeing.”
“What?” Mitts fired back.
Heinmein gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, still smiling that grimy smile. “The reason
why
you are still alive.”
* * *
Mitts made no move to leave his sports bag behind in the reception area, neither did he make any gesture to take off his suit. And Heinmein said nothing about Mitts’s decision to walk through the corridors of the Compound still dressed as he was.
Heinmein led him down a series of staircases, onto what Mitts calculated to be the third basement level. It was an area of the Compound that Mitts had never got around to studying.
Most likely because, when he’d looked at the plan, there had been nothing that’d immediately attracted his attention.
No store cupboards of particular interest.
Heinmein brought Mitts past a series of metal doors, each with etched metal plaques fastened to them. All of the plaques had long-winded names which Mitts never had the chance to take in fully.
When they reached the end of the corridor, though, and Heinmein produced a jingling keyring from within one of the pockets of his lab coat, Mitts made out what the plaque said:
Autopsy
Mitts slipped Heinmein a sidelong glance. “What was this place used for?”
Already focused on slipping the key into the lock, Heinmein gave a side-on shrug and mumbled, “Governmental purposes.”
As Mitts heard the key
snick
in the lock, he found himself reaching out, grabbing hold of Heinmein’s forearm. He felt how frail Heinmein’s bones felt, how layers of fat hung off his arm, and when he looked once more into the doctor’s black eyes, he saw that he was frightened.
Frightened of him?
“What did
you
do here?”
Heinmein’s eyes widened a touch more.
Then he looked away. “I did certain things with bio-chemical body modifications . . .”
Mitts tightened his grip. “What does that mean?”
Heinmein, trembling now, looked back, then said, “I conducted experiments on
humans
—on
soldiers
—certain projects that were designed to help the
Army
.”
“The ‘Army’? ” Mitts replied, finally releasing Heinmein’s arm.
“Yes,” Heinmein said, turning the key in the lock, and then pushing the door open. He outstretched his arm, and tilted his head to one side in a deferential, almost sarcastic, way. “Please,” he said, “after you.”
Mitts stepped in over the threshold and found himself, almost right away, overpowered by the glimmering metal in the bright light. He looked about him, to the wall.
A series of gigantic filing cabinets.
Each one with a tag assigned to it:
Alpha-numeric sequences that meant nothing at all to him.
But he supposed they meant an awful lot indeed to some shutdown database.
In the middle of the room, there was a stainless-steel table—much like the one which Mitts had become accustomed to back in the Restricted Area.
Mitts glanced to Heinmein, looking for some sort of clue as to what was expected of him.
Heinmein dipped his head, and padded off toward the enormous filing cabinet which filled the entirety of the wall. Then, scooting along to one of the drawers he had, apparently, already marked out in his mind, he fished another key from his keyring and turned it in the lock.
What Mitts saw next, he couldn’t quite believe.
Heinmein brought the drawer sliding out with an unbearable
screech
of hinges.
On the drawer Mitts observed the bagged-up form.
An overpowering stench of sulphur entered the air.
Spiked
the air.
Heinmein glanced back at Mitts. He batted his left eyelid. Nothing more than a nervous twitch; but a
nervous
twitch all the same.
He reached out and took hold of the zipper on the bag, and then, with Mitts moving closer still, to get a good look over Heinmein’s shoulder, he pulled it open.
Mitts looked down.
On the grey-purple flesh.
On the body which, at first, seemed to have no form.
Mitts felt his mind melting within his skull.
His heart rose up to his throat.
It beat hard against his skin.
He reached up to touch his pulse, to check that he wasn’t imagining this.
That this wasn’t another one of his lucid dreams.
“Is it . . .” Mitts got out.
Without turning to look at him, Heinmein gave a nod. He spoke his next few words through a sigh, “Dead, yes, when I found it.” He paused for several seconds and then added, “Outside the Compound.”
Mitts felt a dizzy spell catch him.
He breathed in deeply.
Tried to calm himself down.
But he could hardly keep himself still.
He felt his leg jigging, uncontrollably.
Energy bouncing through him.
Mitts tried to clear his vision. To bring his mind back to just what was going on here. That what he had seen—seven years ago—had in fact been real. He stared down at the body once more, this time hoping that he would better understand.
He started at the head.
An inflated mass of grey-purple flesh.
Then he moved downward.
To the neck.
The creature’s skin reminded Mitts of whale blubber, of what he’d seen of whales in nature documentaries. He wondered if the flesh was still wet to the touch.
Mitts thought about reaching out.
Thought about
touching
the skin.
But he held back.
Something told him that he and Heinmein might be in great danger here.
When Mitts reached the mid-section of the creature, he saw what resembled a stomach. It was bulbous, sticking out . . . it reminded Mitts of pictures he had seen in textbooks:
Round-stomached patients suffering from liver diseases.
There was a series of sewn-up scars down the creatures stomach, and this was where, Mitts imagined, Heinmein had conducted the autopsy; where he had attempted to bring the creature’s secrets out into the harsh, bright light of the room.
The creature had two arms, too, just like them.
But no feet.
As if he had read Mitts’s mind, Heinmein said, “Although I never saw it alive, I believe it would move by dragging its body across the ground.”
Mitts felt his chest tighten again. He thought back to that day. To the day when he had slumped himself up there, against the ventilation hatch.
Heinmein continued to gaze down on the creature as if this might be the very first time he had actually inspected it. Then he glanced back at Mitts. “You saw this before, didn’t you?”
Mitts had no idea what to say.
The question was so direct.
There seemed no way to dodge it.
“. . . Yes,” Mitts managed to get out, his mouth feeling impossibly dry and a stale taste smothering his tongue.
Heinmein went on, like a policeman reeling through his interpretation of events, stopping only briefly to have a witness confirm or deny his deductions, “I found this creature by one of the exterior air vents. It was dead when I reached it.” He turned to look at Mitts, with his black eyes. “You saw it alive, did you not?”
Again, there seemed no room for Mitts to deny the fact. “Yes,” he said.
Heinmein gave a nod, then turned his attention back down to the creature. “When I discovered the cadaver, out there, below the ventilation hatch, I looked around for more of them—it seemed to me that there
should
have been more of them.” He inspected Mitts very closely. “Did
you
see any more of them?”
“No,” Mitts replied, turning back to look at the creature.
Heinmein breathed in deeply and then sighed back out. He rested his fingers on the edge of the drawer, as if making to slide it back inside the giant filing cabinet.
But he hesitated.
He didn’t slide it back just yet.
“You noticed a change, didn’t you?” Heinmein said. “I mean, after you had the encounter with this creature—that was the reason why you got better, no?”
Mitts held himself still for a long while.
There was something just so surreal about this whole conversation.
He couldn’t quite get his head around it.
Although he had believed, all along, that his encounter with the creature had led to his miraculous recovery, within his own mind Mitts had promised himself that he would never share this inkling with anyone else.
But Heinmein had seen through him so easily.
Finally, Mitts replied, “Yes . . . ‘a change’ . . . and”—Mitts thought about it for a moment, and then decided there was no reason to leave any information out—“visions, strange dreams, these . . . just these
hills
. . . these dark-purple hills.”
When Mitts glanced back at Heinmein, he was surprised to see his mouth latched open.
As if he was in shock.
“Did you see them too?” Mitts asked.
Heinmein, clearly stunned, shook his head. “No, I have seen nothing of that.”
Mitts turned back to the creature, lying on the drawer.
He could feel Heinmein’s scrutinising gaze.
Like a heat lamp.
“All my life I have had trouble with walking”—Heinmein slapped his affected leg—“but soon after I brought this creature in here, as soon as I began the procedures, trying to determine what it was, where it came from, I too noticed a change in me.”
Heinmein stepped away from the opened drawer which bore the body of the creature. “Do you not believe that I have a—how should I say?—rather
youthful
look about me now?”
Mitts had to admit that he had noticed a change.
Heinmein was shaking his head, as if out of disbelief. “Never in my
life
would I have believed it unless I had seen it for myself.” He nodded to Mitts. “And you—you must feel somewhat similar, no? This is like a realm of magic, and mystery, something which could not exist—which
should
not exist.”
Mitts, though, felt his mind shifting gears.
Turning its attention to more practical matters.
“What does it mean?” Mitts asked. “Where did this come from?”
Heinmein continued to shake his head.
His smile became so wide that apprehension gripped him.
Mitts glanced down.
Saw that Heinmein, from somewhere—
somehow
—had grabbed hold of a gun.
He held it pointed at him.
Mitts glanced back up.
Took in the maniacal look in Heinmein’s eye.
The arched eyebrows.
He had waited so long for his human specimen.
Now he had his chance.
“Stop!” Mitts called out.
But it was too late.
Out of darkness, a bullet bit him.
Sam America could feel the winds gathering up their skirts, preparing to loop their arms and trot all the way down along the coast.
Pummelling all in their path.
Leaving nothing but desolation.
Despair.
Testing fortitude.
While he walked, he kicked at the stones. Sent them skittering down toward the tide—the tide which continued to slosh in; a long-suffering, terminal patient drawing its last breaths; only able to breathe with the aid of a ventilator.
The stony shore was a foreboding place for Sam America . . . for the last hero on the face of Planet Earth.
But he held himself still—he held himself tall—and, within his mind, he heard the constant reminder of just what he fought for.
Of all there was to gain.
Because mankind—the
world
—wasn’t a lost cause.
Not yet.
Not
quite
yet.
THE HUMAN SPECIMEN
M
itts came to his senses
, struggling to reach the battery-powered pack at the back of his suit.