Genesis Echo (Deathlands 25) by James Axler

“Until I’ve been a really good girl with the whitecoats. Is that it?”

“Sure.”

“What about Ryan and Trader? They must have come back during the night.”

“No news.” He hesitated. “Sorry, lady. Weather’s been triple cold and snowy. Chances can’t be that good for anyone stuck out there all night. Not with that giant grizzly on the loose.”

Krysty nodded. “Bear’s not born that could take out Ryan Cawdor and Trader.”

CRICHTON WAS WAITING for her, with Ladrow Buford hopping nervously about at his side. There were eight or nine of the other scientists gathered around him, and half a dozen sec men. Krysty was immediately aware of a barely suppressed air of intense excitement.

The old man greeted Krysty with a warm smile. “Sleep well, child?” he asked.

“Sure. Can we get one thing straight right away?”

“Of course?”

“I don’t like being held a prisoner. Don’t like being cut off from my friends. I guess they’re prisoners, as well. And I want to know what’s been done to send out search parties to look for Ryan and Trader.”

Crichton’s smile disappeared like a rabbit down a hole. “What you don’t like doesn’t matter. I’ve had enough of your outlander arrogance. This is the Crichton Institute, founded by my grandmother.” A thread of white frothy spittle sprayed from his lips. “We have been playing Mr. Nice Guy with you peasants far too long.”

“Peasants! Just”

“I will have you beaten unconscious by the sec men if I have to. Whatever it takes to shut you up. Your friends are our prisoners. We shall find uses for them. The albino boy might be interesting, and the black woman.”

Krysty felt a wave of anger swelling inside her. Despite her efforts to use the Gaia power to calm herself, she was aware that the rage was in danger of running the red arrow and getting beyond her control.

Buford was watching her closely, and he tugged at Crichton’s sleeve, whispering something urgently in his ear.

“You think she” Crichton muttered. “Not with all these guns around her, surely. If we could try the experiment while she is in such a vein it would be” Krysty couldn’t catch the rest of what was said.

Ellison caught her eye and winked at her. It helped Krysty break the vicious spiral of rising anger that had trapped her, and she felt her breathing slowing, control fighting its way back into her mind.

Crichton turned to her. “We have wasted enough time. For your information, we believe your companionsthe middle-aged man and the one with an eye missingare probably dead. We have sent out search parties. If they are found, they will be dealt with out in the field. Neither are of any value to us here.” He wiped his hands together. “Now, we will attempt what my colleagues call ‘the big one.’ The excitement is nearly too much to bear.” His face had become flushed, and Krysty noticed he was rubbing his left arm with his right hand. “Perhaps, Ladrow, you would give me one of my green pills. It would be a sad irony if I was to miss my date with destiny.”

Buford had reached into the pocket of his lab coat and fished out a small black box. He opened it and offered a tablet to his boss, who laid it beneath his tongue.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now, let us to it. This is the day that we have been working toward for a hundred years.”

“FEAR IS A BEAST that can be small and easily beaten, or it can grow and swell until it could swallow the world. The decision is yours alone.”

That was what Krysty’s mother had said in one of her lectures on life and living.

It came back to Krysty as she was marched, under escort, into the largest laboratory she had yet seen. It was divided in two by a huge powered door, and she couldn’t yet see what lay in that distant half.

There were a number of cubicles of different sizes, scattered around the part of the room where she stood. Most of them had walls of clear glass, though one or two were heavily smoked. The rest of the lab looked like sets for predark science-fiction vids, with bubbling retorts, whirring computers and flashing lights. None of it made the least sense to Krysty.