convinced that this will result in our two timelines being forced, and quite honestly, they may even be right. Built might also make the situation worse. There simply is no way of telling.
“The point is,” Lucas continued, “in order to accomplish their aims, they have to send soldiers through into our universe by way of confluence points, where our two timelines intersect. If those soldiers succeed in disrupting our timeline and bringing about a timestream split, then they will never be able to get back home again and the Special Operations Group had a plan to insure that these troops would be unquestioningly obedient… and totally expendable. Moreau was part of that plan. He had originally intended to use genetic engineering to create humans who could be designed to perform specific tasks that ordinary humans couldn’t do, to be stronger, more adaptable, able to survive environmental conditions that would be hostile to normal humans. He honestly believed that he would be introducing a stronger, more versatile strain into the human race that would eventually result in an improvement in the breed. But as often happens, his obsession gave him tunnel vision. He didn’t foresee all the staggering implications of what he planned to do.
“The Special Operations Group established a top secret military lab for him to carry on his work.” said Lucas, “and Moreau believed he had their full support, that they shared his aims, but in fact, what the Special Operations Group had, in mind was something altogether different. What they wanted were genetically tailored, cannon-fodder soldiers, intellectually inhibited and emotionally stunted, with their pain centers blocked and their minds programmed so they could fight like automatons. Moreau wanted no part of it and his frustration and sense of betrayal made him vulnerable to Drakov, who was working with the Special Operations Group at the time. Working with them entirely for his own ends. I might add. Drakov abducted Moreau from Project Infiltrator, along with all his notes and experiments in progress, and he brought him to a hidden laboratory he had set up especially for him. He convinced Moreau that he had the same goals as he did and that he shared in Moreau’s sense of betrayal. What Moreau didn’t know was that Drakov, himself, was already an accomplished genetic engineer, as well as a lot of other things, and a genius in his own right. He watched Moreau and worked with him and learned from him and then he took Moreau’s work and carried on from there.
“A hominoid is nothing more or less than a human clone, developed from human genetic material. The only difference is that hominoids are mules, incapable of reproduction, and their genetic material can be altered or augmented to suit a specific purpose. Drakov took those purposes much further than Moreau ever intended. He created a wide variety of hominoids, some from ordinary human genetic material carefully selected for specific traits, some with human and animal genetic material combined, and he sent them back through time, so that they could mature and he could clock back and make checks on them at various points of their development.”
Lucas saw a reaction in Moffat and realized that he had struck a chord.
“The result was that years would pass for the hominoids while they matured, but only days or even minutes would pass for Drakov. With some of those hominoids, at various points in their development. Drakov would bring them back to his laboratory for conditioning or biological augmentation brought about by complex surgery. At the end, some of them looked perfectly normal, but some of them were monsters. He created genetically engineered giants, harpies, werewolves, vampires, even a centaur. Because, you see Drakov may be a genius, but he is hopelessly insane.”
“No.” said Moffat, shaking his head, his voice barely above a whisper. “No, it cannot be.”
“What do you know about Nikolai Drakov?” Lucas asked him. “What do you know about his past?”
Moffat moistened his lips and shook his head. “Nothing.” he said. “It was not my place to ask such things. It was-”
“I’ll tell you about his past.” said Lucas “I’ll tell you who he is. Have you ever heard him mention General Moses Forrester?”
“Yes,” said Moffat. “Often. I know that he is your commander. The director of the T.I.A. My creator’s greatest enemy.”
“And also his father,” Lucas said. Moffat stared at him with astonishment.
“Hle never told you that, did he’?” said Lucas. “Nevertheless, it’s true. If you could see’ Moses Forrester, if you could look at his face and eyes, you’d have no doubt that he is Drakov’s father. When Forester was a young temporal soldier. out on his first mission, he became stranded in time Trapped in 19th-century Russia. He was badly injured, crippled, and he believed he’d never get back home again. A young Russian gypsy girl nursed him back to health and they fell in love. She became pregnant with his child. Forester planned to spend the rest of his life with her, but our people finally found him and he had to go back to the future. He did not belong in that time. Only Vanna, Drakov’s mother, could not go with him. Forrester knew that if he told his superiors that Vanna was pregnant with his child, they would abort the fetus. He simply couldn’t do it, so he never told them she was pregnant. He said good-bye to her and tried to explain why he had to leave, and though their hearts were broken, they each understood it had to be.
“But in the brief time that he had with her.” Lucas went on, “he couldn’t fully explain all about time travel and the antiagathic drugs that extend our lifespans and make us immune to disease, and she would never have understood all that anyway. What she did understand, she told her son. but what she didn’t understand, she filled in with her own superstitious beliefs and imagination. The result was that a young, impressionable boy came to believe that he was somehow the result of a supernatural union between his mother and some sort of a demon from the future. That, and the hardship that they suffered, and her subsequent death, and his failure to understand why he never became sick and why he aged so much slower than everyone else around him resulted in a raging hatred for his ‘demonic’ father and a deep self-loathing. Over the years, it drove him utterly insane.
“What Drakov wants,” said Lucas, “is to strike out against Moses Forester, against time travel, against the very world that brought him into existence. And you are an unwitting part of that insane plan of vengeance. And there’s something else you may not know. The real Nikolai Drakov is dead.”
Moffat stared at him with incomprehension.
“At least, we think the original Nikolai Drakov is dead.” said Lucas, “but we really can’t be sure. Because, you see, one of the things that Drakov did with the process he stole from Phillipe Moreau was to use his own genetic material to replicate himself. We don’t know how many times. The man you know may be the original Nikolai Drakov, but for all we know, he might be a hominoid just like yourself.”
“No.” said Moffat, his lower lip trembling. “No, that isn’t possible.”
“It’s not only possible,” said Lucas, “it’s very probable. Chances are he doesn’t even know himself. But one thing is for sure. Nobody can make life out of nothing. You may not have been born in the conventional manner and you may not be able to have children, but you are the result of genetic engineering. You may have been cloned in a Petri dish and gestated in an artificial womb, you may have been programmed and conditioned with certain psychological imperatives, but you’re as human as the rest of us. You think. You bleed. You feel. No matter what you’ve been conditioned to believe. Your own independent thoughts may have been subverted in some ways, but what do your feelings tell you?”
“Oh. God.” said Moffat. very softly. “Sally…” A tear rolled down his cheek.
Lucas stood. “Leave him alone now.” he said softly, he shook his head sadly. “Poor bastard.”
They left the room and softly closed the door.
9
Johnny Small was frantic. He couldn’t find Andre and the others anywhere. The innkeeper at the Peacock Tavern said he hadn’t seen them and there was no one home at Hunter’s house on Long Lane, either. It was as if they’d all simply disappeared without a trace. It was his job to watch them and now he had no idea where they were. He fingered the Liberty medallion Sam Adams had given him. Adams had expressed confidence in him and now he’d failed him. He had no idea what to do.
As he walked through the dark streets of Boston, he tried to think where they might have gone. They wouldn’t have gone to one of the radical taverns, surely, because except for Hunter, they were all posing as Tories. The last time he had seen them. Andre had been on her way to meet with Hunter, so perhaps they were with him, but where? He tried to think where Hunter might have gone, who his close associates were. Perhaps one of them could tell him where Hunter could be found. He tried to think and then it came to him.
Hunter had been sponsored into the Sons of Liberty by Ben Edes and Ebenezer Macintosh. The hour was late
