The Void

CHAPTER 21

Jack Hammerson’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. Aimee Weir sat in the back of the black SUV with her arm looped around Joshua’s shoulders.

“How’s school, Josh?”

Joshua shrugged. “Dumb, boring.”

Hammerson smothered a smile as Aimee nudged the boy. “It’s not boring.” She looked up. “He just finds the pace a little slow.”

Hammerson nodded. “Well, we’ve got some special classes in at the base ready for him if he’d like to take a look.” He raised his eyebrows. “They’ll be far from boring.”

Aimee’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so.”

Hammerson shrugged. “Self-defense, strategic thinking and analysis… and I hear they need smart young people who have puppy dogs.”

“Huh? That’ll be me.” Joshua turned, grinning widely.

“No,” Aimee said.

Joshua scowled. “Mom, I want to do it.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Aimee turned away.

Hammerson smiled. He’d wanted to get Joshua in for special testing for years. This was his opportunity.

If anything ever happened to Alex Hunter, or the man went rogue, it’d be good for his special military team to have a close relationship with the boy. In the future, his talents may be able to be exploited.

Joshua sat up straighter as they approached the security gates. “Uncle Jack?”

Hammerson grinned at hearing the boy refer to him like that. “Yeah, Josh?”

“Is that one of the Guardians?”

Hammerson looked back to the gates where a tall security guard had a dog sitting beside him. It was an enormous German shepherd that came to his waist, and must have weighed in at 140 pounds if it was an ounce.

“I bet it is,” he responded cheerily.

“Jesus, Jack, will ours get that big?” Aimee’s voice was awed.

Hammerson chuckled. “Only if you overfeed it.” He slowed at the gates and let the window down. He turned in his seat. “So not too many treats, okay, Josh?”

“Not too many.” Josh grinned. “Just some.”

Aimee groaned, but still smiled down at him.

Hammerson handed over his ID and the guard looked at each of them briefly. He stood back and the dog got up on its hind legs and peered in at each of them, inhaling deeply, doing its own security check.

It fixed its eyes on Joshua and stared. After another few seconds, it backed away and dropped back down.

“Creepy,” Aimee said.

“Cool. I felt it in my head,” Joshua quickly added.

For some reason Hammerson thought the dog had been standing up on its hind legs without needing to lean on the car. The guard waved them on, and he looked in the rearview mirror at the boy.

“In your head, huh? And can you feel inside other people’s heads, Josh? Like mine?” His eyes flicked from the road to the boy.

“No.” The boy smiled.

Hammerson felt relieved, but then…

“Unless I try.” His honest smile widened.

Hammerson cleared his mind. “Best if you don’t read other people, Josh. It can be intrusive. But we can talk more on that later.”

“Or not.” Aimee added.

They next headed toward the main building, the huge white edifice that looked like two slices of toast leaning up against each other.

Hammerson branched off on a side road, heading toward a smaller white domed building. “We’re meeting Doctor Albert Harper, the chief physicist at the animal facility.”

Aimee wound down her window. “Jack, these animals, they’re safe, right? You wouldn’t be putting some sort of experimental animal in with my family, would you?”

Hammerson saw concern in her eyes as he glanced into his rear view. The thing was they were experimental. But the Guardians were into the fourth-generational iteration of breeding stock, and Harper had developed a pure strain. He knew Aimee would never buy that answer — she didn’t trust him, and probably never would.

So he lied. “You have my word on it.”

They pulled off the drive to where a short, balding man waited for them with his arms clasped behind his back. He lifted one to wave.

“Here he is, the man himself, Doctor Albert Harper.” Hammerson stepped out and quickly opened the rear door for Aimee and Joshua. The boy nearly flew out, obviously expecting Harper to produce a puppy from under his lab coat.

“Albert.” Hammerson waved.

“Jack.” Harper gave him a small salute followed by a smile.

Hammerson stood aside. “May I present Doctor Aimee Weir, and a young man looking for a puppy dog.”

Aimee strode forward, hand out. Harper shook it firmly. He then shook Joshua’s hand.

“Looking for a puppy, huh? Well, you came to the right place. You’re a lucky boy, Joshua; these dogs are very special.”

“So is he,” Hammerson said, meaning it.

“That’s what I hear,” Harper said.

Hammerson felt Aimee’s eyes on him, as she was probably wondering what he had divulged about Alex Hunter’s son.

“Lead on,” he said to Harper.

Harper led them into the animal facility, and they passed through some administration offices with a few guards monitoring cameras and other equipment. Harper turned to Joshua.

“Have you ever had a dog before?”

Joshua shook his head, his eyes on the pens. “No sir, but I’ve read everything about them and I like them a lot. And I always wanted one.”

Harper nodded. “Well, that’s good enough for me.”

Aimee was tight-lipped. “A small one would have been a good start.”

Harper smiled. “Well. they all start small, right? And these guys don’t yap all the time, and in fact can grow to anticipate what you want. They’re smart.”

Then they entered the main animal pen area, and Aimee winced at the cacophonous sound of howls, yelps, and barks.

She snorted. “They sound pretty noisy to me.”

There came a single loud grunt from the rear of the room and it immediately quietened.

Harper turned to Hammerson. “Fen knows we’re here.”

“Who?” Aimee frowned.

“Big Fen, the sire,” said Harper. “He’s the pack leader, and the first of our new breed of Guardians. He’s perfect, and has an IQ that…”

Hammerson cleared his throat, and Harper shut down. He smiled, adding: “He’s their leader, ah, pack leader.”

Joshua nodded. “I can’t wait to own one.”

Hammerson turned to Joshua. “You don’t own these dogs, Joshua, you adopt them as a family member.”

“That’s right,” Harper said. “But first you’ll need to meet Fenrir, or Big Fen as we call him in here. Okay?”

Joshua eyes were wide. “But what if he says no?”

“Then you’ll just have to convince him to say yes.” He slowed. “Here we are.”

Harper had Hammerson, Aimee and Joshua stop before a large pen. Hammerson saw it was more a room than an animal cage, and seated in the middle of it was the largest damn German shepherd he had ever seen in his life. His mind immediately screamed: wolf, but he kept it behind his teeth.

“Oh, my, god.” Aimee’s mouth hung open.

The dog had a blanket over its shoulders, and its unnatural blue eyes stared into each human’s momentarily, lingering on Hammerson and narrowing for a moment or two, before then fixing on Joshua. There they stayed.

“Holy cow.” The boy stared back, unblinking.

Hammerson noticed the blanket over the dog’s shoulders looked weirdly lumped as if there were real shoulder joints there, and it was broad, and not the usual narrow, slim slope of a canine’s front half. He also had the impression it wasn’t sitting on its haunches, but resting like a person.

“Fenrir.” Harper nodded, but to the dog.

There was silence for a few moments, as the group took the large dog in. It was Joshua who broke it.

“Yes,” Joshua said, his eyes on the dog. “Yes, I will. I promise.”

“What, honey?” Aimee looked down, and then crouched beside the boy.

Joshua ignored her, never turning away from Fen. “I promise he’ll be my friend forever. No, my brother.” He nodded. “Yes, with honor, nobility, and strength, I promise.”

The dog grunted and closed its luminous eyes. Joshua turned, beaming. “He said yes.”

Harper nodded. “I knew Big Fen would. He can sense a good heart.”

Aimee scoffed. “You’re kidding, right?”

Harper shrugged, about to respond, when Hammerson silenced him with a look.

“Hmm.” Aimee raised an eyebrow.

Joshua led the way, his grin splitting his face. “Fenrir wanted him brought up with honor, nobility, and strength. I promised I’d do it.” He looked up at Aimee. “Torben is the firstborn of Fenrir and Morgana.”

They came to a larger area that housed eight tumbling puppies, all wrestling, rolling, and playing. All except one that sat at the gate. Joshua ran and then crouched before it.

“Torben.”

The puppy put its paw up at the wire, and Joshua did the same as they stared into each other’s blue eyes.

Aimee looked incredulous. “We have to ask its father for his permission to adopt, and then here it is with its travel bag all packed and ready to go — where’s its toothbrush and pajamas?”

Hammerson laughed. “I guess sometimes things were just meant to happen.”

On the way back out to the SUV, Joshua had the dog in his arms, and talked softly to it as it dozed. The trio had to wait as a school bus came through the front gate and pulled up, disgorging a group of boisterous teenage students.

One of the students, a tall young man, stood looking up at Fermilab for a moment, and Hammerson saw he looked to have Native American features. He turned to them and spotted the puppy in Joshua’s arms.

“Hey, nice pup — Shepherd, huh? I’ve got one at home.” He went to walk on, but Joshua spoke up.

“Yep, and he’s mine.” Joshua looked up at him. “His name’s Torben, but I’ll call him Tor.”

“Okay, cool.” He nodded, and stuck out a hand. “I’m Arn.”

“Joshua.” He shook Arn’s hand, his smile immediately dropping. “You’re going on a trip.”

Arn shrugged, and looked less than enthused. “Yeah, school excursion — to this place.”

Joshua shook his head slowly. “No, a lot further than that.”

“What?” Arn frowned, letting Josh’s hand go.

“Joshua?” Aimee stepped toward him, but the boy continued to stare up at the youth. Arn backed away. “A bit freaky, dude.”

Hammerson’s phone beeped and he pulled it from his pocket to check the message. “Excuse me.” He turned away as he read. There had been a significant incident at NASA’s astrobiology labs where the samples from the mountaintop had been taken. He felt a knot of unease coil in his gut.

Jack Hammerson put the phone back in his pocket and turned. He pasted on a smile and laid his hand on Joshua’s shoulder.

“Time to go, Josh. Let’s get your new pal home.”

Hammerson tapped his chin with a knuckle as he read the reports from NASA’s astrobiology labs. It was a fucking nightmare.

He gritted his teeth as he stared; give him armed combat, give him terrorists, or something tangible to fight against, and he’d prevail every damn time. But this was something that scared the shit out of him.

He replayed the footage from inside lab-45, seeing the two scientists first become infected, corrupted, and then, literally dissolve into lumps of mud, and just like Alex had said in his data squirt, mud that goddamn moved.

Whether it was some sort of aggressive mutation-causing pathogen in the atmospheric gas sample, or making contact with that creepy slime shit, the agreed prognosis from the NASA science teams was that as the temperature increased the biological matter became triggered, and its growth, aggression, and appetite accelerated. Bottom line: avoid physical contact at all cost.

The only upside he could take away was that the laboratory flash burn NASA initiated for full sterilization had totally eradicated everything. Significant heat left nothing but ash.

Hammerson then looked at the last of his related reports, the one that contained satellite data images of the Orlando crash site, viewed as a time-stamped progression map. The atmosphere bubble and the weird mist in the mountaintop crater continued to enlarge. Within hours, a few days at most, it would spill over the crater lip and begin to advance along the Alaskan Revelation Mountain valleyways.

He had ordered the retrieval, read confiscation, of the final samples that were in the NASA HAZMAT vaults and had them transferred to one of their military biology research centers. USSTRATCOM had their own specialized biohazard facilities that dealt with biological warfare defense and design and it was superior even to those of the CDC.

They’d done additional testing on the biomaterial from the mountaintop and the results were alarming, and, so far, a long way from illuminating. They found the gases were loaded with free-floating spores that seemed to seek out cells, inserting themselves into them, like sperm into the ova.

For one experiment, they introduced the material to two different laboratory rats in identical sealed capsules. In a few hours, one of the rats was nothing but a pile of gray sludge — that moved — just like what happened to the two scientists in NASA’s lab-45.

But the next capsule’s occupant had also been changed, but not in the same way. As the rat’s body became saturated with the spores, it had grown bigger, stronger, and had shed its fur. It then developed what looked like a carapace of armor plating and a face that made Jack’s hair stand on end. The rodent grew more eyes, larger teeth, and also a taste for flesh — it became an abomination from hell.

His scientists had told him the atmospheric gas sample had a unique biological content. The free-floating spores acted on an organism’s genetic material triggering changes at the cellular and DNA level. Basically, it was a rapid-acting mutagen unlike anything they had ever seen.

The scientists had postulated that it probably didn’t know it was causing problems, in fact, what it was doing was triggering massive changes — evolutionary — to cope with potential new surroundings. Anything inhaling, ingesting or even coming into contact with this stuff was going to be… altered, one way or another.

Hammerson ran one large hand up through his iron-gray crew cut. How did it choose? Why did one rat become a monster and the other absorbed? He read on.

They assessed that the biological material could have begun as a single spore, and then started to grow the more it ingested. They surmised that the spores acted on a creature’s DNA in different ways — some organisms it would bond with and accelerate their evolutionary changes to become a grotesquery. And others it would use to grow itself. This is what it had done with the NASA scientists — fed on them and converted them into itself.

He looked again at the before pictures of the rats — they seemed identical. But something in one of them had caused it to become a nightmare. Perhaps the spores had determined that one was strong enough to take the changes. And the other was fit only to serve as protein to be assimilated as a spore factory.

One became a warrior, and one became seeds — defense and reproduction, he thought. Perfect infiltrate, spread, and advance strategy.

Hammerson sat back; he still had so many questions. What would have happened to the scientists if it had found them worthwhile to be advanced to a new form of evolutionary state? And what would have happened next if the gray slime hadn’t been incinerated? And had there been any fragment of Harry and Sarah’s consciousness still existing in the new formless state? He blanched at the idea. Bad shit.

He then changed documents to reread Alex Hunter’s brief information delivery from the top of the mountain. They were in the hot zone, and commencing their search. All was progressing to schedule.

Hammerson steepled his fingers. The temperature in that mountain basin was still fairly low at between forty and fifty degrees. According to NASA this was just enough warmth to switch the stuff on, but not enough for it to go bat-shit crazy like in lab-45.

It seemed to be still contained within the crater basin… for now.

But if it got out? His lips pressed into a tight line. It had better not.

Jack Hammerson looked again at the final images of Harry McManus and Sarah Mantudo, and then at his mission countdown clock.

He sighed as he picked up the phone. He had to tell the boss. And he bet he already knew what he’d recommend.

“Get me General Chilton.”