Gremlins Mutation
Chapter 1: The Inspection
May 1998
"What you are seeing here is a creature unlike anything you have come across. It is extremely rare. From what data I have gathered there is only one other exactly like it."
"How did you come across such a discovery, Doctor Friedrich?"
"A good question, Doctor Henderson, a very good question, but the subject you see before you had only been fully created a few days prior, from the blood sample of the original creation."
"This is a clone?"
"Yes, Doctor Bivens, it is a clone. Last year they were able to clone a sheep and I have been able to clone various creatures before I successfully cloned this creature, surprisingly I did not need to use a brood mare to carry it and trying to find such a mammal would have been difficult. They claimed it was a rodent, but it does not look like one."
"I agree with you, it looks more like a primate, part of the suborder of Strepsirrhini. It is almost like a tailless galago or bush baby as they are more commonly called."
"Very astute observance, Doctor Cordova. The blood sample came from what I was able to salvage from the Clamp Tower eight years ago. From the notes of the Stanton twins this creature does not like bright light and I was informed it was called a mogwai."
"Mogwai is Cantonese word. It means devil, but I don't know why such a cute little creature like this would be called that."
"Maybe they originated from that part of China, Doctor Lei?"
"Possibly."
"Mogwai."
"He—it—the creature spoke.
"Yes it is able to communicate, it seems."
"What is it doing now?"
"It sounds like it is singing."
"Beautiful."
"Truly is a lovely sound, Doctor Cordova. We will continue to observe the creature, this mogwai."
June 25, 1998
"And this is just shrimp?" Gerald Hopkins asked as he finished the pasta like sample he was given. This was his third food sample in the molecular gastronomy lab that was located on the seventh floor of the Clamp Medical Science building.
His reason at being at the location was to investigate the different services and labs to see if they are still worthy to continue receiving the funding from Prescott Prestige. So far everything seems to be using their money wisely. The first floor that connects to the Clamp Corners Mall was Thompkins pharmacy and a walk in clinic. The second and third floors were devoted to radiology, mammography and blood work, fourth was a clinic making prosthetic limbs and various braces, fifth was a pharmaceutical developing different medicines and vitamins, sixth was leukemia research and seventh was for gastronomic sciences including something he had never heard of: molecular gastronomy.
"Shrimp salad to be exact," the curly haired scientist said. "We put in three kinds of vegetables and a bit of mayo before turning into pasta."
"Great way to serve it," Gerald said and held up a finger. "And I love the way you served the broccoli in a rice form and it didn't even taste like broccoli. This is going to help a lot of parents at the dinner table." He knew it would be welcome at his home. Both is daughters will eat vegetables but Lily only eats them raw and Maddie only eats them cooked. "Next time we will have a party at the bank we will ask you to be our caterers."
"We will see," the scientist chuckled. It was not a fake laugh but a laugh of delight and relief. They will still receive their funding.
"That last one was kind of fun," Gerald said as he rode the elevator to the eighth and top floor. "I wonder if this one will be as fun."
"North Sector is looking good," Charles "Chuck" Penderghast said into the walkie-talkie as he walked his route through the Clamp Corner's Mall. "Nothing suspicious today nobody is having any problems." He looked up and down at the nearest stores and all he saw were the usual consumers and few employees. It was the same every day since he started his job working security and nobody seemed to notice him. It was almost as if he was invisible or didn't exist. Well not everyone ignored him. His fellow coworkers in security did as did some of the employees at his favorite noshing stations and of course snobby teens would point and make jokes about him, call him a loser. Maybe he was one, but at least he didn't depend on mommy or daddy for money.
"Where is your exact location?" His boss, Stewart, asked from his office. Stewart rarely left his office. He had several screens behind him and a desk in front of him and two chairs. He liked to stay, watch the screens and give commands. Chuck didn't mind, but some of the language Stewart used made him cringe. He referred to the elderly as geezers, and he called all Hispanics Ricans for starters. It was almost as if he was absent from the sensitivity training seminar they were required to take not long ago.
"Heading towards Thompkins pharmacy and clinic," Chuck answered and stopped in front of the the pharmacy and glared at the directory for the medical building. He had no problem with the first seven floors but the eighth? That was for genetic research. He had no idea what they were doing exactly but knew it couldn't be anything good. They had to be cloning something or using gene splicing on something, heck they could be making dinosaurs or experimenting with something from another planet.
"Do you see anything?" Stewart asked in his usual bored tone.
"Just people walking in and…out." He lowered the radio when he saw her again. He usually timed it just right so he could walk by the building just to look at her, the beautiful woman in a lab coat. She looked young, early twenties like him and she had to be an assistant or an intern or else she skipped a few grades in school. Her dark brown waves framed her heart shaped face and she wore silver framed glasses on a pert little nose and had beautiful warm brown eyes. One of these days he was going to get the courage to say hello to her.
"Earth to Charles!" Stewart said, clearly agitated.
"Uh, sorry," Chuck said as he remembered he was still on duty. "I got distracted."
"Stop making up stories about government conspiracies involving that genetics lab like you always do and go to the West sector. Trevor said he thought he saw that creeper enter the mall before he went on break."
"Oh right, sorry, I'm on it."
It was one of the most boring half hour's Gerald had been through. He fought to keep his expression looking interested as he listened to a Doctor Trainer talk about how DNA can track a person's ancestor's but also pinpoint their ethnic heritage. The only interesting thing about the conversation was the fact the scientist was devoid of any pigmentation. His skin was pale pink, almost as white as his snowy hair and eyebrows and his eyes were ice blue.
"Uh yeah." Gerald reached up and pressed the side of his temple. "I do like the idea that I can just go up to a lab and give them a drop of blood and they can find out my great great grandmother sold baguettes to the people who built the Eiffel Tower." He was trying to not to sound bored.
"Not blood," Doctor Trainer said and as a strange chittering sound came from one of the labs. "If we keep working on it then it would be a saliva sample. Your saliva contains the cells from inside your cheeks we use those today for paternity tests."
"I see." He looked at his watch and heard the sound again. "What was that?"
"Could be one of the televisions," Trainer answered. "We do have a few here in our offices."
The chittering was heard again and Gerald felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise up. He remembered the last time he heard a strange animal sound, not just any animal sound but sounds he had never heard before, followed by laughter. It was right before several small green monsters forced their way into the bank of Kingston Falls. He had watched in horror as the monsters slam a clock down onto Mr. Corbin while he ran into the vault.
"Gerald, run!" was the last words from his boss.
"Are you feeling all right?" Trainer asked. His pearly eyebrows were raised in concern.
"I-I am going to be fine." Gerald closed his eyes. He didn't see any strange creatures, nobody had It was some nasty biker gang after releasing a gas that was stolen from a chemical plant. The gas made Gerald and everyone else in town believe it was small green monsters. Several authorities told him this, his psychiatrist told him this and even he told himself the fact.
"I'm sure Doctor Friedrich is ready to speak with you."
"Sure." He followed after the scientist as they made their way down the hallway and he only stopped when he heard a different chittering sound, similar to the first one coming from behind one of the closed doors. "What is that?" He reached for the knob.
"Nothing," Trainer said and stood in front of the door. "These closed offices and labs are to remain closed."
"Right." He followed after Trainer until they entered an office that was more organized than the rest. Everything was neatly stored in shelves or a case and the desk was clean and uncluttered. The gray haired man seated behind the desk didn't even look up at them. He was mostly focused on the microscope he was using.
"Doctor Friedrich?" Trainer asked. "Gerald Hopkins from the bank is here to speak with you."
"Ah so he has?" Friedrich said as he looked up at him. Bushy brows seemed to peak over the top of thick black framed glasses that rested on a beak like nose. The thin mouth formed no expression. "What would you like to talk about, Mr. Hopkins? What would you like to see? Would you like something to drink? Have you been offered a glass of water or a cup of coffee?"
"I am good, thank you." Gerald held up his hands. "And I would like to see what you have been working on and what you have worked on in the past."
"Let me show you my past data," Friedrich answered, still without expressing any form of emotion. "Our past data and what we have been working on."
Gerald tried to make sense of all that he saw from both the slides and the binders he read through. Most of it was still gibberish but he was able to glean a few details about natural pesticides and creating healthier and bigger poultry for food. He wasn't sure if he was reading some of information right but it looked like they were trying to create new animals that would go after various pests such as rats and cockroaches. They were also trying to develop a formula to improve the brain for those who had Alzheimer's, a vegetable growth formula and they had DNA for several different animals such as bats, snakes, moles, kangaroos, dogs, cats, bees, rabbits, cows, and armadillos.
"You seem distraught," Friedrich had said after Gerald had finished and the older man had finally cracked his face into a disappointed frown.
"Just, this seems more like science fiction than fact." He slammed the binder shut and placed down on the nearest surface.
"Visiting outer space was once science fiction."
"Yes but creating new creatures and cloning dead pets? I know people get upset when their dog or cat dies. I've held some funerals for a few hamsters myself, but we grieve and we move on and get a new pet."
"This is not it," Friedrich said in a nonchalant tone. He had his arms folded and his fingers were tapping against the other arm.
"I understand there may be more, and there is more I do not understand and frankly I'm not sure if everyone at Prescott Prestige will continue to fund your projects. I am not seeing much that can benefit mankind."
"You are only seeing what is on the surface, only the tip of the iceberg," Friedrich said while frustration oozed into his mouth before he smiled. "Come with me and see what I am developing for the military."
"The military?" Gerald blinked. What does the military want with a genetics lab? "You mean the United States Army."
"But of course."
Gerald followed him to a different elevator. It was almost the same size but it had a smaller control panel He looked around as Friedrich pushed one button.
"Where are we going?"
"My smaller private lab and well living quarters. I tend to work late and happen to be too tired to drive home. It is better for me and everyone else if I just sleep downstairs when I work late."
"Like an apartment?" Gerald asked as they continued their decent. "Why are we coming down here? Does it stop at any other floor?"
"Just to the basement and back up."
The doors opened to a small room with two doors. Friedrich entered the one on the right and motioned Gerald to follow him into another large room with two more doors. It didn't look like a lab, nor did it have a bed. It did have a screen, a bright orange plastic chair and a table with an overhead projector.
"Go on and sit down."
"You are going to show me your stills?" Gerald lowered himself to the chair.
"I will explain everything." Friedrich turned on the machined and placed a clear sheet of plastic with a drawing on it.
Gerald's heartbeat increased and he felt his eyes widened when he saw the picture. Small creatures with long arms and short legs and big ears and sharp teeth were crudely drawn with a marker. It looked like the same hallucination he had seen years ago.
"Eight years ago these same creatures were found in Clamp Premiere Regency Trade Center and Retail Concourse building and attacked the genetic labs there. I used to work there and sadly we lost the brilliant Doctor Catheter that day, but I was able collect some data, retrieve a few samples and talked with some of my former colleagues about these creatures. Their DNA is a bit unstable and they are easy to alter."
Another picture was placed with four different creatures each creature had a plus sign next to each one and after that was a beaker followed by an equal sign. The first bottle had an image of plant and its result was a creature with vegetables growing off it, another had an image of brain and a creature wearing glasses, then one with a picture of a bat and winged creature and the last bottle had a bolt of lightning and an electric looking creature.
"They can be changed by just simply ingesting the formulas. Humans can't be changed like that, but imagine having soldiers that could wield electricity or have the extra legs of a spider, or be able to fly."
"What, these, no." Gerald rubbed his head and felt how damp it was. "They can't be real. Those things can't be real."
"Oh but they are real, or were."
"They are killers. They can't be reasoned with." He couldn't believe he was saying that and more importantly he couldn't believe what he was hearing or if this crackpot believed what he was saying. "No they were not real. They were an hallucination. You suffered from the same hallucination and you are creating some crazy theory based off it."
"These creatures were real."
"No it can't, it cant." He placed his hands on his head and his hair was soaked with sweat. "Those monsters killed people. You can't mean to clone them if they were real."
"They may have killed, but this is what comes next." A third picture was revealed of a human man along with a plus sign and a creature and third creature looked like a combination of the two, resembling a goblin like being. "I am going to make soldiers out of hybrids and if my theory is right then they can be altered like the creatures, but they will have human intelligence, able to be reasoned with."
"This…isn't…real." Gerald rose to his feet and pointed a shaking finger at the madman. "You are insane this is pure science fiction insanity. I thought they weren't real, but that if I heard something upstairs that turned out to be these things…and…and you are going to try to control these things and make more monsters." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, no, no. We are going to put a stop to this." He pointed at himself. "I'm going to put a stop to this and we are going to pull the-" He paused when he felt something sharp enter his shoulder. He turned around to see a strange man with short carrot colored hair as he was lowering a syringe.
"I had a feeling this would happen." Friedrich said he became a blurred double. "You are going to help me with this theory."
"Heeellpppp," Gerald said as he stumbled. Everything he heard seemed to have an echo and he couldn't see straight nor could he feel his legs. "Iiiii Nnneeeddd heeeellllppp." He felt strong arms catch him before the world vanished.