Polestar Omega Read online

  “We need to take blood and tissue samples before we can admit you to the redoubt’s general population,” Dr. Lima said. “If you don’t cooperate, we will sedate you and take the samples anyway.” He nodded at his assistants who flourished loaded syringes from behind their backs. “The choice of course is yours.”

  “What kind of contaminants are you screening for?” Mildred asked. “You don’t need blood to test radiation levels.”

  “It appears we have an expert on the subject,” Dr. Lima said. “Where did you receive your training?”

  “University of Deathlands.”

  “Well, Doctor,” Lima said, “you will certainly appreciate the fact that ours is an isolated population, without acquired immunities. We are therefore theoretically vulnerable to hostile microorganisms and toxic chemical compounds from the wider world. We must take all necessary precautions.”

  “What happens if we come back ‘contaminated’?” Mildred said.

  “You will have to be quarantined until you are treated and cleared.”

  “A nice, restful sleep might be welcome,” Doc said, displaying a set of remarkably fine teeth for a man apparently in his sixties. In reality, the old man was more than two hundred years old, having been time-trawled from his own Victorian era to the final years of the twentieth century, then cruelly discarded by the scientists who had kidnapped him, flung forward beyond an impending nuclear apocalypse to its terrible aftermath—Deathlands. The serene smile and a shifting of weight onto the balls of his feet said if called on, Doc was more than ready for a fight, even a hopeless one.

  “Give them what they want,” Ryan said.

  Ricky looked at him in disbelief.

  “You heard me. We know when we’re beaten. Take your samples.”

  “Pequeños cabrónes,” Ricky muttered. But he, too, stood still for the personal violation, letting them draw a vial of blood from his arm and swab the inside of his mouth with a stick tipped in cotton.

  “We will bring you some food shortly,” Lima said. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

  The whitecoats exited with the samples, leaving them alone.

  “Why didn’t we fight them?” Ricky asked. “Why did we just give up?”

  “Bad odds, hands tied, no blasters,” Jak told him.

  “We find ourselves in somewhat of a pickle, young Ricky,” Doc said. “And as pleasurable as a round of fisticuffs would no doubt be, getting out of this with a whole skin is not that simple.”

  The youth turned to their one-eyed leader for an explanation.

  “We don’t know where we are, Ricky,” Ryan said. “If this redoubt happens to be under one of the polar ice caps, the only way out may be that mat-trans. We don’t know who these people are. We don’t know how or why we ended up here.”

  “That head whitecoat mentioned something about ‘netting’ us,” Mildred said, “which could mean they have the power to control the mat-trans system in a way we have never seen—the power to divert transfers in-progress to their own location. If that’s the case, jumping isn’t going to get us anywhere but back here.”

  “And even if it does get us away this time,” Krysty added, “we could never safely use it again. Do you understand? We could never jump again.”

  “Santa Maria, now I see the problem,” Ricky replied.

  “There is a time to fight, and to the death,” Ryan said, “but we aren’t there, yet. Not by a long shot. We’ve been stuck in tough places before, mebbe even places worse. At this point we don’t know what we’ve stumbled into. Finding the limits of the situation is our first priority. If we keep our heads and our eyes open, there’ll be a crack in this trap, and when we find it we’ll attack it.”

  “And if it turns out this trap has no weak point?” Doc said. “There is always a first time for everything, my dear boy.”

  “I guarantee you one thing—we won’t die in these chains, Doc.”

  Ryan’s voice sounded confident and in control, but that wasn’t how he was feeling. From this vantage point, it looked like way too many dominoes had to fall for them to escape the redoubt. And even if they did break out, crossing ice and snow on foot was not a happy prospect. As Mildred and Krysty had said, chilling a few orange-suited bastards to get to the mat-trans wasn’t going to suffice if the redoubt survivors could divert them back in midjump. Chilling them all was the obvious answer, but they didn’t know how many they faced or where they might be. Why were they “netted” in the first place? Was it random or were they specifically targeted? What did these bastards want?

  After what seemed like an hour, but was more like half that, the door opened again. Whitecoats trooped in bearing clipboards. There was none of the promised food. They were all still wearing respirators. Ryan took that as a very bad sign.

  “I have the test results,” Lima said. “Only two of you are uncontaminated.” He pointed his clipboard at Mildred and Doc. “Everyone else will require quarantine and a course of treatment.”

  “What exactly are we contaminated with?” Ryan asked. “And how do you intend to treat us?”

  “I seriously doubt that you would understand.”

  “Try us,” Mildred said.

  “Do you know what genes are?”

  “Of course, they’re what nukeday messed up,” J.B. said. “What caused the plague of muties.”

  “Yes, but only indirectly as it turns out,” Lima said. “Do you know what gene expression is?”

  “Which genes are expressed, turned on or off, determine the end product, the phenotype—the individual and its homeostasis,” Mildred said.

  “‘Homeostasis’?” Lima repeated. “You really do know the terminology. How about viral modification of gene expression?”

  “Also known as genetic engineering,” Mildred replied. “Specially tooled virus trips specific gene on-off switches, or introduces new pieces of DNA, which alter the genotype and phenotype of future offspring. Where is all this Genetics 101 going?”

  “Prior to the nukecaust,” Lima said, “geneticists working in secret in the U.S., Britain and Switzerland made major inroads into this research. In another five years it could have revolutionized the treatment of all the ills of humankind. This infectious viral research was considered so potentially dangerous to human life that it was subject to Threat Level Five, nuclear weapon security. But that wasn’t enough to protect their facilities from an all-out, global thermonuclear exchange, and subsequent shock waves, earthquakes, landslides, floods, fires and power failures.”

  “We’ve heard this fairy tale,” Mildred said. “Every little kid in Deathlands over the age of six has heard it. It’s one of the two stories about where muties came from. They were either caused by the aftereffects of fallout, or whitecoats made stickies and scalies and all the rest as some kind of lab experiment. The muties escaped on nukeday and then multiplied like flies.”

  “Flies on shit,” J.B. added.

  “Neither story is correct, I’m afraid,” Lima said. “Radiation can’t cause speciation—the appearance of radically new creatures—in such a short time span. Most radiation-caused mutation is not viable because the effects on DNA are random, and usually harmful. The escape of a few lab experiments doesn’t explain the wide spectrum of native species that have been modified in the last century or so.”

  “If you have another story to tell, then spit it out,” Ryan said.

  “These predark geneticists were all working with the Cauliflower mosaic 4Zc virus and tailored variants of same. After nukeday, containment was lost. The virus was carried into the upper atmosphere along with the smoke, ash and nuclear fallout, and when the fine debris descended, wherever it descended, so did the live virus.”

  “Why was it so dangerous?” Ryan said.

  “Some of the variants that existed on nukeday had been engineered to test specif
ic uses in particular species. Others had not. In its most raw state, Cm4Zc is a crude tool, a metal pry bar that cracks open the DNA treasure chest. And like a pry bar it is nearly universally applicable—that was part of the original intent and design. The geneticists’ goal was to be able to modify any species they saw fit by making small changes to the basic tool they had created. As a result, most living things—animal, plant, it made no difference—were subject to this highly contagious infection. Some organisms had natural immunity and passed that immunity on to the next generation. The weakest and most susceptible died in a matter of days. Some surviving organisms only showed its effects in the genotype—the DNA—and lived to pass on those changes. Changes that made their offspring very different in phenotype—and vigorous.

  “You need to understand that this pry bar was in a sense magnetic—as it tore open the treasure chest, moving from species to species, it sometimes snipped out and picked up bits of chromosomal this and that, which it then spread. Without direction, without specific tooling and targeting, Cm4Zc turned out to be an engine of genetic chaos. The alterations it made in the infected host DNA appeared full-blown in the next generation and they were inheritable. Induced mutations that were not viable ended with the deaths of the offspring. The survivors lived to reproduce. In just three generations the progression went from human to mutie. Pure-breeding speciation was achieved, and on a global scale.”

  “So you’re saying five of us are infected with this awful mutie shit and we can spread it?” J.B. asked.

  “We’ll need to take more tests to determine the level of genetic alteration, and what course of treatment is best for each person. I assure you, we have done this many times before and our success rate is high.”

  Doc rattled his chains behind his back. “This is pure rubbish,” he said. “You do not have to treat any of us. You could just send us all to another random location. That would be a far easier fix for all concerned.”

  “Yes, an easier fix but it denies us the opportunity to add to our knowledge base. Trust me, if we cannot decontaminate you, we will escort you back to the chamber and send you on your way.”

  “What about that food you said you’d bring us?” Ricky said.

  “Of course, but first we need to separate those of you who are unaltered.”

  He turned to Mildred and Doc. “You two will be taken to a workstation inside the redoubt core and shown what to do. Everyone has a job to do here, everyone who is able works. There are no exceptions. The rest will remain here while we prepare the quarantine area.”

  At a nod from Lima, two whitecoats moved quickly to unshackle Mildred and Doc from the wall. With manacles still around their wrists, they were rushed across the room and out the door.

  When Lima stepped toe-to-toe with him, Ryan could hear the wet, rhythmic sucking sounds of his breathing through the respirator. It reminded him of boots tramping through ankle-deep muck. With a bemused look in his eyes, Lima scrutinized every inch of his battle-scarred face.

  “Again, I bid you all welcome to Polestar Omega,” he said.

  Then the whitecoat kneed Ryan square in the balls.

  Chapter Two

  Mildred walked down the gritty, gray hallway two steps ahead of Doc, still bristling over what she had been subjected to during the forcible change of clothes. The orange bastards had taken full advantage of the situation—the hood over her head, their gloved hands holding her wrists trapped at her sides—to feel her up as if she were a prize pig at a county fair. As they squeezed, pinched and prodded her naked flesh, though muffled by the respirators their laughter was still audible and sorely grating.

  The time would come for payback-plus she hoped, but there were much more pressing concerns than that—in particular, the level of organization and technical sophistication their adversaries seemed to present. “Seemed” was the operative word, because up to this point as far as she was concerned it was all just talk. Even so, it was clear their captors weren’t the run-of-the-mill, incestuous ville barons and lackey louts, nor a roving band of jolt-crazed coldheart murderers or a swarm of flesh-eating cannies.

  Mildred could hear Doc mumbling to himself as he shuffled along behind her. The mumbling got louder and louder, then he closed ranks and growled out of the corner of his mouth, “I suggest we dispatch the minders now. Easy pickings.”

  Mildred glanced over her shoulder at their clipboard-bearing, whitecoat escort. They had removed their respirators. The woman was a stick figure, her lab coat looked two sizes too big and flapped as she walked. Slicked with oil, her mousy brown hair was drawn back and coiled in a tight bun at the back of her head, which made her cheeks look all the more gaunt. She wore heavy soled, lace-up shoes. The male whitecoat was likewise undernourished looking, pale and prematurely bald, with narrow wrists and spidery fingers. Doc was right. Even with hands cuffed behind their backs, they could dispose of these adversaries with a few well-aimed front kicks. The trouble was, they didn’t know if the whitecoats had the keys to the cuffs. To really improve their situation, to help themselves and the others escape, they needed their hands free and that outcome wasn’t guaranteed by turning on the escort.

  “No, not yet,” Mildred whispered back. “Keep your cool. We need to recce this place. For the time being, better to look docile and compliant.”

  Doc grunted his assent, but he immediately resumed mumbling to himself like a deranged person.

  He didn’t like the restraints. Neither did Mildred.

  “In-for-ma-tion,” Mildred repeated with venom. “Focus, you doddering old fool.”

  That shut him up.

  The redoubt appeared to be fully functional, which was somewhat unusual of late. Everything worked. Power. Lights. Heat. Air. There was no sign of trash in the corridors, no mindless vandalism of the furnishings, which made Mildred think the place had not only never been looted, but that perhaps the same people and their children and their children’s children had occupied and maintained it since nukeday.

  The hallway ended in a T and a pair of elevator doors, which opened at the push of a button in the wall. The whitecoats shoved them into what looked like a freight elevator and made them stand side by side at the back of the car. When the doors shut, the woman pressed a button in the console and with a jerk they began to descend. The concrete shaft passed by in a blur.

  An unpleasant fishy odor filled the car; it seemed to be coming from their escort. Doc noticed it, too, because he wrinkled his nose and made a sour face at her. It was a long way to their destination, and they didn’t stop in between. When the doors finally opened, they faced a corridor lit by bare bulbs in metal cages set at intervals down the middle of the ceiling. Along the right-hand wall were a row of metal hooks, from which hung plastic bibfronts and rubber gauntlets.

  The whitecoat female pointed at the heavy protective gear and said, “Put them on. Hurry up.”

  “Just so you know,” Mildred said as she stepped into the bibfronts, “we don’t do toilets.”

  “I think you’ll do whatever you’re told,” the woman said. She waved at the pair of swing doors on the left with her clipboard. “Through there...”

  As they approached, Mildred could hear music coming from the other side. She used her shoulder to push the door open and nearly choked on her next breath. The reek of animal blood and rotting fish was that thick. Wall speakers pumped out the saxophone stylings of Kenny G, which mingled with the clatter of cutlery and rhythmic rasp of handsaws. The gray concrete room was lined with rows of stainless-steel tables and rolling steel carts. The latter were piled high with what looked like heaps of raw liver except for the red knobs of bone sticking out. About two dozen people in bibfront slickers labored with saws and knives and cleavers, either at the tables or on the gigantic carcasses hanging from meat hooks set in heavy rails on the ceiling.

  At first glance Mildred thought they were si
des of beef. Or enormous hogs. Then she looked closer and saw the stubby wings, taloned web feet and feather coats.

  “By the Three Kennedys,” Doc said, his eyes wide with amazement, “those immense creatures are avian.”

  Two men in black overalls strode up to them. From the truncheons they carried, Mildred assumed their job was to keep the butcher shop running smoothly. They were joined by a third man in bibfronts and dark blue coveralls.

  “Some newbies for you to train, Oscar,” the female whitecoat said to the latecomer. His ruddy face, and his chest and arms were splattered with an impasto of blood, pinfeathers and fish scales. “When you’re done, turn them over to the fertilizer crew.”

  The whitecoats unlocked and removed the handcuffs, then turned and left the room.

  “Over here,” their instructor said, waving for them to follow him.

  They stepped up to one of the hanging carcasses.

  “What kind of bird is that?” Mildred asked, practically shouting to be heard over the Muzak and the clatter.

  “Clonie pengie.”

  At least she now had a clue where they had jumped to. “‘Pengie’? You mean penguin?”

  Oscar scowled and looked at her as if she was crazy. “No more questions,” he said. “I’m going to show you the ropes, then you’re on your own, so watch carefully. You screw something up or work too slowly, and those men in black will pound the living hell out of you.”

  Oscar selected a nine-inch boning knife from the array of razor-sharp blades on the tabletop. Raising his hand above his head, he plunged the point into the middle of the penguin’s torso, then slashed downward, smoothly unzipping the wet, gray feather coat from breastbone to pelvis, revealing an inches-thick layer of grainy brown fat beneath.

  A horrible stench gusted from the incision, making Mildred take a step back. Doc coughed and covered his nose with his hand.

  “You want to cut just deep enough to open the cavity,” Oscar said. “Be careful not to puncture the stomach.” He aimed the knifepoint at a bulging reddish sack the size of a basketball. “You don’t want to release the sour bile from the glands, these ones here, here and here.” He indicated compact, twisted, cordlike globs of gray tissue. “Prick them by accident and the meat is ruined.”