CHAPTER 25 - "THE NURSERY"
It would take several minutes - perhaps up to an hour - to lower the readings of the stasis pods to optimum levels before Dr. Sykes could revive Berto and Kat. They were in hyper-sleep, and much like regular sleep, it was best to bring them out gradually, so not to startle their nervous systems.
Max left it up to the doctor. But he found it frightening that the doctor could clone his friends in such a short time with accelerated growth hormones. How on earth was he - if able - going to including Berto and Kat's neuro energy into their clones? It was something only of science fiction, and he left it there.
But he was conflicted one issue. On one hand, he was glad that Dr. Sykes had tricked Dread into giving Dread "empty" shells, but then on the other hand, he felt like kicking the man in the teeth for violating the sanctity of the individuality of his friends, regardless of choice. He knew Berto would be fascinated by his clone, despite dead - it's vital signs flat-lined when Dread shot the oxygen hose to the self-sustaining capsule - but Kat would be furious and would demand her clone be destroyed immediately.
He was elated to find his friends alive. After this whole mission, he was afraid one of them would die - as did one agent at the Sykes home where Max fought Vitriol, and where Psycho kidnapped Tommy. Max knew the man would receive an honorable funeral when everything settled down, and Max would be there.
"Dr. Sykes, I just want to thank you for everything you've - "
Max stopped, his super-hearing triggered. He heard a small but low cry. Not a person in distress, but something else...
"What is it, Mr. Steel?" Dr. Sykes asked.
Max wandered around the room, but found himself heading out towards the inner lab as he followed the sound. "I don't know, but I hear something..."
He stopped at a far wall, and the crying continued even louder.
"Is there another room adjacent to this lab, doctor?" he asked.
"Not that I'm aware," Sykes replied, coming to stand next to him. Sykes told the agents to keep an eye on the stasis pods and to inform him when they were ready to activated to let Dr. Martinez and Kat Ryan out.
Max knew that the doctor was telling the truth. Normally he could tell just by the tone of a person's voice if someone was lying to him. The doctor's pupils didn't dilate either indicating untruthfulness.
"John Dread placed me in this lab and told me what he wanted done, but as soon I succeeded in one thing, he would remove it and put me on another project, but all associative to my skills."
"I believe you, doctor. But there's another room behind this wall."
Max felt the wall, but couldn't feel a switch or trigger, and his infra-red vision didn't detect a heat source of any electrical door either. So the door to this room was somewhere else. So he turbo'd up and punched through it, ripping the wall for enough of an opening to walk through.
There was indeed another room beyond the lab, illuminated in bright lights and filled with electronics and… a nursery? The room was filled with baby cribs, all with infants.
Max walked into the room and examined one of the infants. Sykes examined another one.
There must have been thirty babies, all with electronic monitors, feeding tubes, and other items attached to them. And at the centre of the room was standing floor to ceiling an incubation chamber with something or someone floating inside buoyant medical fluid. This someone was curled up in a fetal position, was naked, had blond hair with a breathing mask around its mouth and nose, and a feeding tube. It was a boy.
"Dr. Sykes..." Max said.
Dr. Sykes came over to the chamber and examined the controls monitoring it. He brought up details of what this chamber comprised of - a boy, cloned. "According to the information, this boy is only three days old."
"He looks ten, doctor."
"Accelerated growth," Sykes explained. "And there is a variance in this child that the others are missing according to their monitors, keeping this one healthy. These are probably the prodigy of Dread's engineering, his super-soldiers he hoped to educate to infiltrate world governments."
"What's wrong with the others?"
"The monitors all indicate a genetic flaw. Some of them are dead, the one you hear now is probably crying because it is in pain. But it won't be for much longer."
"What can we do?"
Sykes shook his head. "Hope for a quick and humane death."
Max felt sorry for the child and all those that Dread had brought into the world just to die, but he had to stay focused. "What's the variance in this one that's keeping it alive?"
"Just barely," the doctor said. His hands danced over the keyboard of the controls. "It appears to be infused with a foreign anti-body with an intelligence I've never seen."
A picture appeared on a monitor in the control panel with a live view of this anti-body swimming around killing virus-like cells, but the virus seemed to be winning as the anti-bodies were losing intensity.
Max nodded understandingly. "Berto could probably make better sense of this, but I think I've seen this before. They're nano-probes. Dread probably figured he'd infuse this clone with my DNA and nano-probe's because the others were failures. But he neglected on thing. Like the nano-probes swimming in my body, I need a daily dose of Transphasic energy to remain alive to feed them. These nano-probes in this child are starving to death, using every bit of energy to do what they've been programmed to do - but losing the battle. Jefferson - my Dad - should see this." Something caught Max's eye about the clone. "Dr. Sykes, this child looks like your son Tommy."
Sykes looked up from the computer controls and gazed at the face. But he didn't seem surprised. "Yes, he does." He looked back down at monitor and keyed in something, bringing up the vitals of the child on the transparent glass chamber. "He also looks like you when you were Tommy's age."
Max gave Sykes a sharp glance. "Me? When I was ten? I don't understand?"
"Remember when I told you Jefferson and I've known each other years back?" Max nodded. "Well, I also knew your parents. There wasn't anyone who worked for N-Tek who didn't."
"Forgive me for sounding rhetorical, but you knew my parents?"
"I was much like young Dr. Martinez when I worked for N-Tek, working under John Dread when he was N-Tek's director. But I decided to move into a more diverse path of biological and technological engineering, but I still worked for N-Tek from time to time on certain projects. Which is probably why Dread kidnapped me, to use my skills and knowledge to further his plans."
"That I can understand. But why does this cloned child, Tommy and me at ten years old, fit into this?"
"This child was probably cloned from your DNA, extracted when you were captured, which is why it has the nano-probes. And as for Tommy and yourself, Tommy is adopted - which he knows - and over the years, Jefferson and I have suspected he may related to you somehow."
"You're not making any sense, doctor. I'm an only child. I don't have any siblings. And my parents died before I was ten years old."
"I can't give you an answer to your questions, Mr. Steel. But perhaps when Dr. Martinez awakes and is refreshed, he might be able to provide some assistance."
In the thirty minutes it took for the stasis pods to open and to allow Kat and Berto to awaken, the hanger bay had been cleared of all Dread's troops, minions and even Dread himself, and only one helicopter remained. Berto and Kat had been taken up the hanger bay and were given blankets and a hot beverage to stabilize their body temperatures. In stasis, both their temperature and breathing were reduced to bare minimum, and even with the pod levels at optimum level to release them, their bodies still had to regulate themselves.
During this time, they were both filled in on what had happened since they were put into stasis by Dr. Sykes, to protect them up to now, and against Max's better judgment, they were also told of their clone duplicates. And as Max thought, Berto was fascinated in the science of it, but Kat felt utterly violated and demanded her clone he destroyed immediately, even though it was just a shell without brain activity. Berto wished his was still alive to examine.
Max told Berto how he thought it had been him and almost killed Dread because of it.
Returning to the nursery, Berto helped Dr. Sykes examine further the child in the incubation chamber, and they confirmed Max's worse fear - that the DNA was a clone of him, or rather of his alter ego Josh McGrath, and confusingly, also of Tommy Sykes.
Tommy was waiting back in the hanger bay with Kat - while Max, Sykes, Berto and Jefferson, with other agents secured the lab and adjacent nursery.
Max had one question: Why?
"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Jefferson asked.
"100% sir," Berto answered, then turned to Max. "Max, this child, and the small sample of blood we took from Tommy just before coming back down here - all have the same genetic code, with slight variances in each. However, near impossible to duplicate unless with genetic manipulation or..." Berto and Sykes looked at each to confirm, "...natural birth from a family member, like that from a sibling."
"But I have no siblings," Max said.
"Then it appears we have a mystery on our hands," Jefferson said.
"Berto, explain to me how would it be possible for a natural birth? I would need to have been like twelve for Tommy to be naturally grown, to be ten years old now. And I know that didn't happen."
Berto shrugged. "When Dread awakens from his injuries, we should ask him if he knows anything," he. "We should also check adoption records; see if we can locate Tommy's biological parents."
"Wait, that makes no sense," Max put in. "For the sake of argument, let's just say, Tommy and I do have the same parents - that would mean he is a clone or was grown via infertilization methods, and therefore, has no real parents to speak of. If this is the case, Tommy could be my little brother - that someone, somewhere down the line, got a hold of my DNA ten or so years ago and grew him, then put him up for adoption, where you and your wife, Dr. Sykes, adopted him as an infant without any past records."
"From what I remember," Dr. Sykes said, "a woman brought her baby to the orphanage one winter night, and he wasn't given the name Tommy afterwards because he didn't have a name. This is what the adoption agency told us. My wife and I couldn't have children, so Tommy was a blessing."
"So, what should we do with this child?" Max wondered, gazing into the chamber. "Take him out?"
"No need," Dr. Sykes said, and Max had a dreadful feeling. "Despite this child having your nano-probes, he has no brain activity. It appears John Dread was still experimenting. His plans had not gone to fruition."
"So all these children…?" Max looked around the nursery. Some children already passed on, others were near death, one or two were crying for help...
"Won't survive," Sykes said flatly.
To be continued…