“Two? What about the other six?”
Christ.
“First things first,” I said. “Who are the people the guards were shooting?”
“They’re the New Men.”
“Why do the guards want them dead?”
The boy shrugged. “To hide the evidence, maybe. I don’t know.”
“ ‘Evidence’?” asked Bunny. “Of what?”
“Of what Otto and Alpha have been doing here. The stuff in the computers is just part of it.”
Bunny and Top moved among the groaning survivors and bound their wrists and ankles with plastic cuffs.
I gestured to the doorway through which the New Men had fled. “What’s through there?”
“Dormitories. It’s where they keep all the New Men.”
“Are they dangerous?” Bunny asked as he picked up his fallen M4 and checked the action. “To us, I mean.”
SAM shook his head. “They won’t fight. They… can’t.”
“Where are the computers?” I asked.
“We can cut through the dormitories and go around back. It’s faster than going back through the building… and besides, if the tiger-hounds are inside, then it’ll be safer out there.”
“Show us.”
“Will… will you help the New Men?” he asked.
I didn’t know how to answer that question, so I said, “We’ll see what we can do.”
He didn’t look deflated, but there was a look of disappointment in his eyes that had a lot of mileage on it. I didn’t know his story yet, but trust was not something he expected. That much was clear.
“Okay,” he said as he picked up his rock. Almost as an afterthought he took the knife from Carteret’s belt and staggered toward the open door.
Like players in a bizarre drama, Echo Team and I followed.
Chapter Eighty-Six
The Hive, Barracks 3
Sunday, August 29, 4:06 P.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 67 hours, 54 minutes E.S.T.
We stepped into hell.
The barracks was vast, stretching into the shadows. There were hundreds of cots set in neat rows that fled away on all sides of us. Figures lay sprawled or huddled on the narrow beds, or sat in rickety chairs, or shuffled around with their heads down. Everyone wore the same kind of thin cotton trousers, tank tops, and slippers. The clothing was a sad gray that made the people look like prisoners, or patients in an asylum, and I had the sinking feeling that they were both.
Top said, “Holy Mother of God.”
The New Men who had fled from the gunfire were clustered a few yards away. Several of them were wounded, and the others huddled around them, pressing their own wadded-up shirts to the bullet holes. None of them looked directly at us, though a few cut nervous glances our way, but each time we made direct eye contact with them they looked away. I saw no trace of anger, no rage at what had just happened. The only emotions that I could read on those faces were fear and a sadness that was endessly deep.
All of the people in the barracks had red hair, though that varied from a bright orange to nearly brown. They were short, even the men, and all of them were heavily built. The most striking feature was their heads. Their skulls were large, suggesting a larger braincase, but it was lower and longer than normal. They had sloping foreheads, thick lips, and no chins.
“What the hell’s going on here?” asked Bunny. “Who are these people?”
“They look like…,” began Top but left it unsaid, and none of us wanted to put a name to it, either.
“We have to get them out of here,” said SAM. He turned and grabbed my arm. “We have to get them off the island.”
I said nothing.
One of the New Men-a female-rose from the huddled group. She looked at SAM, then away, and then back. She looked scared, but she held the eye contact longer than any of the others. She was as brutish and ugly as the others, but there was an innocence about her that was touching.
“Master,” she said in a voice that was higher-pitched than I expected from her muscular bulk. She turned toward the main barracks and shouted, “Master!”
The call was repeated over and over in that high voice. Suddenly everyone in the barracks was in motion. The New Men all got quickly to their feet and began moving forward.
“Boss…?” murmured Bunny. He began raising his rifle, but SAM reached over and pushed the barrel down.
“No… it’s okay. They have to line up. They’re afraid not to.”
Bunny and the others stared at the Kid and then turned back to watch as the New Men shuffled forward, eyes and heads down, to stand in rows in front of their cots. Because they moved with their heads down they frequently collided with each other, but there were no grunts or growls of annoyance, no harsh words. After each collision they would separate and bob their heads as if each automatically took responsibility for the mistake, then continue toward their assigned spot. We stood rooted to the spot, unable to speak, as five hundred of these strange people formed into lines and slowly straightened as much as their stooped and muscular bodies would allow. One of them-an older man with gray in his red hair-who stood at the first cot in the line called, “Master!”
All of them dropped to their knees and bowed until their heads touched the floor.
Bunny wheeled on SAM and grabbed a fistful of the Kid’s shirt and lifted him to his toes. “What the fuck is this shit?” Bunny snarled in a dark and dangerous voice.
“Tell them to get up,” I said.
“Stand!” SAM yelled. “Stand.”
The New Men climbed to their feet, but their heads were still bowed like whipped dogs waiting for their master’s approval. I felt sick and angry and deeply confused.
“Farmboy here asked you a question,” said Top, leaning close to SAM, who was still up on his toes.
“Let the Kid go,” I said.
Bunny opened his hand and pushed the Kid roughly away. SAM fell back against Bunny, who twitched his hip to push him away. The Kid looked up and saw a lot of hard faces staring down at him.
“Tell us,” I said. “What are they? Why are they acting like this?”
“They have to. They’re genetically designed to be servants.”
“You mean slaves,” said Bunny.
He nodded. “Yes. Slaves. They did gene therapy on them to remove genes that code for aggression and assertiveness. The idea is to create a race of people who will do anything they’re told to do and…” His voice faltered, but he sucked it up and tried it again. “And accept any kind of abuse. No matter how bad you beat them or… degrade them… they’ll just take it. Otto and Alpha call them the New Men.”
“I didn’t ask what they’re called; I asked what they are.”
“They-Otto, Alpha, and their science teams-they took old DNA and then rebuilt it to create them.”
“They’re not human. What
SAM looked scared to even say the word.
“They’re Neanderthals,” he said.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
The Dragon Factory
