Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Seventy-Three

When Tommy, Sam, and Christy Sue emerged from the breakroom more than 20 minutes later, the atmosphere of the medical center had changed. There were no security personnel yet present, but the halls were virtually empty, and those few people that they saw scurried away in the opposite direction at the sight of them.

Tommy had opted to leave the two women behind with instructions to stay where they were until he ordered otherwise. He couldn't trust himself not to throttle both, and Christy Sue knew the facility sufficiently to get them to Aaronov's office.

After soothing Christy Sue, Sam had taken Tommy aside and recounted the basics of her tale. Following her kidnapping, her captors at first had placed the young woman in a test group, but Aaronov had culled her from the rest when he found she'd had medical training. At first grateful, Christy Sue soon had realized the horror of her lot. The cadre had forced her to help with the test groups in giving injections, drawing fluids, and conducting other, more horrifying, procedures.

In March, she'd walked into a testing room only to see her old mentor and friend Amy Lascar bound to an examining table. As soon as the cadre discovered their pre-existing friendship, the director transferred Christy Sue to the genome project. She hadn't seen Amy since.

The facility was home to other horrors. On the surface, everything was aboveboard and professional. Behind closed doors, especially at night, staff members showed little restraint in their whims and caprices, treating abductees as sources of amusement and gratification. Christy Sue hadn't explained in detail, but Aaronov appeared to have taken an immediate fancy to her. He and other members of staff had kept her compliant with threats and intimations of returning her to the test group should she not perform to their liking.

Tommy had seen such behavior before. When petty officials are exposed to the lawlessness of those above them in government, all pretense of legitimate authority is soon abandoned. The Farm, like The Range, had devolved into a lawless subculture, where a prisoner could depend on nothing more than the stingy crumbs of charity their jailers might feel fit to bestow.

Even the women with whom Christy Sue worked in the genome department quickly had become domineering and petty once they'd found she was of a lower status than them. She'd lived the life of a serf. That fact filled her with sorrow and deep shame, but not as much shame as she felt for the detestable things that she'd been compelled to do to keep from living the short and piteous life of a test-group slave.

On their short journey to Aaronov's office, the path was clear, but on the two occasions that they rounded corners and encountered surprised people, Christy Sue took the opportunity to spit on the staff members and curse them vilely. Sam's strength and fury filled her and transformed her fear into rage.

Within five minutes, the three stood before a large metal security door with a keypad, combination dial, and cypher lock. The portal was very much like the sturdy vault door through which Tommy had passed days before, when visiting the diamond merchants.

Christy Sue bent and looked at the pad. "The old asshole was always paranoid. He's probably still inside, waiting for security to come bail him out." She pushed back a lock of hair and stood. "He shut off the keypad lock from the inside. Even if I had a key card and the code, I couldn't get us in." Worry and despair crept back into her angry words.

Tommy laid a gentle hand on the woman, pulled her aside, and with one sharp kick, drove the door from its hinges. There was a terrific clang, and the thick chunk of metal cartwheeled through the room that now was open before them with such force that it pierced the security windows and outer wall and bounced far into the street beyond.

Christy Sue froze in her tracks, and even Sam looked at Tommy for a moment in wonder and surprise.

"It musta been the burgers," the younger-looking man explained.

Turning from his friends, Tommy walked through the ruined doorway. The office was enormous and well appointed—this room alone must have cost the taxpayers a small fortune. Its stylish hardwood floor now was marred by a trail of deep gouges that led toward an upturned bookshelf near where the door had exited the building.

Off to his left, Tommy sensed a tight knot of people cowering behind a large desk about 40 feet away. Between Tommy and the people was a large oak conference table that somehow had avoided damage. Making his way toward the them, Tommy asked which was Aaronov.

None spoke.

He heard Sam and Christy Sue enter the room behind him. As he reached the midway point of the conference table, Tommy knuckled the heavy wooden slab aside with such sudden power that it cartwheeled twice and broke into pieces against the wall to his right.

When he reached the desk, it was obvious which was Aaronov. But he spoke again.

"I asked ... which one of you is Aaronov?"

An old man with a long face and a high forehead moved his lips to speak. Nothing but a peep came out. He now cowered behind the desk alone, those who'd been with him having drawn apart several feet in each direction.

Tommy sat on the desk, spun his legs to the other side, and placed his feet on either side of the seat of the old man's chair. Gripping the scoundrel by the lapel, he lifted him without a word and peered into the cold and pale blue eyes. The Russian's aristocratic face had that perpetual sneer and downcast frown of one who habitually looked down on others, and a quote came to mind about people having the faces they deserved by the time they were 50 years old.

"You've got cancer," declared Christy Sue. She said those words in a calm and even voice before continuing loudly. "It was one of the things he made me do. I had to use my Gift every fucking day to assure him he was in perfect health."

Tommy heard her move closer and saw her spittle land on the old man's face.

"And I lied every fucking day." She laughed and spat on him again. "I've watched you dying of cancer every single day for four years, you miserable old fuck ... you pathetic piece of human garbage. I saw it on day one. You could've treated it then. Now it's in your bones, you motherfucking sack of shit ...."

The sounds of her sobs soon were muffled as she buried her tears in Sam's broad chest.

The now wide-eyed and cowering old man began to make some semi-coherent sounds in Russian. Tommy gave him a firm shake by his shirt front and gently tapped his face with an open hand. To his surprise, an indignant look formed on the man's face.

"How dare you ..." the old man sputtered. "You two miserable strays," he spat out in heavily accented but otherwise faultless English. "Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

Tommy wasn't interested in the man's story. He would take it from him later, if he chose. Right now, he had only one thing in mind.

"You stole a friend of ours. Her name is Amy Lascar. Take us to her, right now," Tommy said in an even and reasonable tone. "Then you're going to release the other people you've abducted."

The old man laughed. The ease and alacrity with which he'd regained himself was astonishing.

"That was an impressive thing you did with the door," the man said. His voice was raspy and still somewhat unsteady, but he continued. "It was very impressive. But do you think you're the only two people who can do such things? The facility has already been surrounded by your kind. And our security troops are armed with weapons sufficient to kill the likes of you."

A fleeting image of Jeff passed through Tommy's mind. Christ, please, not another talker, he moaned inwardly.

Yet, talker or not, there was no taking this man seriously. Tommy looked back to Sam in mock horror. Suddenly the two friends began to laugh.

"Do you think we don't know that?" Tommy smiled amiably and reached out and broke one of the old bastard's fingers, a grisly snap that caused Aaronov's four companions to cry out, though not as loudly as did the old man himself.

"Every time you stall or delay, I break something new." Tommy dragged the man from behind the desk. "You idiots stay put," he told Aaronov's minions as he gave the old man a rough shove toward the exit.