Still, it had been Pakow who’d made the final breakthrough on the Beta strain, or the “mystery virus.” At first the virus had been resistant to every form of mutagen, but he’d finally cracked it. That was about the time he’d first noticed the changes in Wake. The mood swings and the secretive tendencies, and now the facial tic.
Despite Pakow’s fears about Wake, he couldn’t help a flush of pride at his praise, as well as a healthy dose of curiosity. “Is it my imagination, or have I actually passed some sort of test in your mind, Dr. Wake?”
Wake’s smile faded, and for just a moment, Pakow thought he’d pushed too far. Then, Wake nodded gently, and spoke in that soft voice of his. “You’ve worked very diligently without complaint, and have proven yourself invaluable to this project, Dr. Pakow. I think the time has come for you to be given the whole picture. Follow me.”
Pakow rose and trailed after Wake without another word being spoken. Skirting the workbench that held the scanning-tunneling microscope, the two moved to the decontamination chamber at the far end of the lab. As they stepped into the small room, a spray of white mist showered over them. They gave the mist a moment to clear, then changed out of their biosuits and continued out into the corridor. The relative dimness of the white-tiled hall was gloomy to Pakow after so many hours under the bright glare of the florescents illuminating the clean room.
Wake had still not uttered another word, but Pakow continued following him to the elevators. Wake pressed his palm to the DNA scanner, saying, “Wake, Oslo.” There was a small beep from the scanner as it confirmed, then Wake said, “Level eight.”
A small shiver of anticipation ran through Pakow as he watched the elevator numbers, which ran in descending order. They counted down from the first floor, which was above-ground, to the tenth, at the lowest level.
When Pakow had first arrived at this small compound out in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen, a wasteland just on the outskirts of the Seattle sprawl, it seemed that he and Wake were the building’s sole occupants, though there was room enough to house a small army. And even though he’d been given the complete run of the top four floors, he was restricted from visiting the bottom six. That hadn’t really bothered him. He knew all about life in a research facility. Even with his high security clearance at Universal Omnitech, many areas had remained off limits to him. Still, he couldn’t help wondering about those bottom six floors.
The prospect that he was actually going to see what went on down there gave him chills.
The elevator reached level eight and stopped. The door, however, didn’t open. Pakow looked over at Wake. “Is there a problem?”
Wake had a strange look on his face. “There are things in this world that no human being should have to know.”
Involuntarily, Pakow took a step back. “Excuse me?”
Wake turned to him, tic jumping, and smiled softly. “I’ve had my reasons for keeping you in the dark about certain aspects of my research, but the gravest of them is that no person should have to know how close metahumanity is to extinction.”
Pakow was about to speak, when Wake raised his hand. “You are on the brink of learning something that will forever change how you view the world, Dr. Pakow, and if I didn’t need your help, I would never subject you to this knowledge. I’ve reached the extent of my skill in metagenetics. That’s why I drafted you.”
Fear pushed its way down Pakow’s spine. “I don’t understand.”
Wake nodded. “I know. Have you ever heard of an organization calling itself Ordo Maximus?”
Pakow thought a moment. “I think so. Aren’t they a bunch of rich British snobs with nothing better to do than play cricket or polo and flirt with magic?” He shrugged. “What have they got to do with any of this?”
“Everything. The fact that you think of them in those terms shows that their propaganda has been very successful. They are masters of misdirection, and they would like nothing better than for the entire world to believe the way you do. However, the truth is something far more sinister.”
Pakow laughed, though he didn’t know why. “You must be kidding.”
Wake smiled strangely. “Unfortunately, I’m not.”
Pakow stared at the other man for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’ll bite.”
Wake’s chuckle was a soft, almost frightened thing. “Appropriate choice of words, my friend, how would you feel if! told you that Ordo Maximus, those cricket-watching, polo-playing snobs, was actually a front for something very evil, something like a secret society of vampires?”
Pakow wanted to laugh again, because the idea was absurd, but the sound stuck in his throat. “You say ‘something like,’ but what you really mean is that Ordo Maximus actually is a bunch of vampires?”
Wake nodded.
“And just how do you know this?”
Wake laughed again. “Because they’re the ones funding this project.”
With that, Wake tapped a pad next to the elevator door, which immediately hissed open. “Welcome, Doctor Pakow, to the Terminus Experiment.”
The first thing Pakow noticed was the drop in temperature. The air from the room beyond was chill and damp. The next thing he noticed was the graveyard silence.
Peering around the door, he saw a cavernous room, stretching back into blackness, the ceiling shrouded in shadow.
“After you,” said Wake.
Pakow took a cautious step forward onto the bare cement flooring, and the room instantly flared into light. Brown acoustic tiling on the walls diffused the harsh light somewhat, but Pakow barely noticed.
To his left, a bank of plexiglass windows sloped upward to the ceiling, and a garish blue light filtered from somewhere below.
“This way,” said Wake, directing him to the windows. “I have plans to make this room a bit more comfortable, seeing as we’ll be spending a lot of time down here, but that will take a few weeks. Still, the facility is up and running.”
Wake stepped up to the plexiglass barrier overlooking a room roughly thirty meters in diameter. Like Wake’s lab upstairs, this one also had a pentagram carved into the flooring. Only the colors were different. Instead of black on red, this was green on white. Directly in the center, where the star formed a hexagon, rested a massive tank with plexiglass sides. The tank was filled with a glowing blue fluid, and it was from here the garish light originated. Pakow could make out the form of a naked man floating lightly in the fluid. The face was covered with a breathing mask, and wires attached at various places to his bare flesh.
“What is this place?” Pakow’s voice was a whisper, though it sounded loud in the quiet room.
“This, my good Doctor Pakow, is the culmination of all the work you have done in the last month.”
Pakow turned slowly to find Wake’s emaciated features looking at him thoughtfully. “You know,” said Wake, “its kind of ironic. When the people funding this project decided to give it the name Terminus, they were thinking of a terminus line, the line that separates day from night. Of course, terminus also means the end of something.”
Pakow looked down at the tank, at the man floating there.
“I don’t understand. What’s going on here? Who is that man, and what are you doing to him?”
Wake laughed. “What’s going on here is the biggest double-cross ever pulled off in the name of metahumanity. As far as that ‘man’ down there is concerned, his name is Marco D’imato, and he is a vampire. He was infected with the HMHVV virus about six or seven years ago, and he’s been leading a double life ever since. And with regard to what I’m doing to him, the answer is nothing. However, what we’re about to do to him is something that goes beyond anything this world has ever seen.”
Wake’s words hit Pakow like a bullet train. “You can’t be serious. You’re not going to-”