Page 79 of I Dream of Danger
The hologram clearly showed all the data contained in the data infocubes at the forefront of the cage. Gender, genetic history, MRI and CAT scans, IQ test results, dosages and times of injections of SL-59.
The other bonobos had been sitting in their cages, movements slow, eyes lifeless.
Bonobo Number Eight, though. Ah, he wasn’t sitting listlessly. No, he was upright, well-balanced, brown eyes sharp. In the hologram, Lee stood studying him, and it was clear that the animal was studying him right back.
The camera had been at Lee’s back so he couldn’t see his own face, but he knew that he’d glanced down to see the EKG tracing at that point. Bonobos were peaceable within their own groups, but grew agitated in the presence of other species.
Number Eight’s heart rate remained unchanged.
Amazing. Either the bonobo had developed an ability to control its own heart rate or an instinctive fear had been overridden by the drug. Perhaps both. And then something remarkable had happened. The animal had checked Lee’s hands for weapons and his eyes for intent. There had been no mistaking the raw intelligence in the animal.
They had stood there for a minute or two, gauging each other, two beings on either side of a species divide.
Then the bonobo had smashed itself against the plexiglass trying to get to him, beating itself into a pulp.
But those few minutes had been enough to give Lee an insight into attenuating the intensity of the violence while retaining the intelligence, and that insight had led to a virus-borne bit of genetic engineering that he thought represented the breakthrough they needed.
SL-59 hadn’t worked and SL-60 hadn’t worked. But SL-61…ah.
And an hour ago he’d injected himself with the drug.
In the hologram he watched as the bonobo killed itself against the glass in a frenzy of ferocity. When the animal finally lay on the straw-covered floor of the plexiglass cage, a ruined sack of broken bones, Lee hit rewind.
He stood and watched, once more, that moment in which he and the bonobo faced each other down.
As he watched that moment again, he felt strength course through his system, oxygen flowing deep and rich in his veins, bringing blood to his muscular system. He felt each muscle almost separately, felt how well each muscle fit together with the others to form a strong and powerful whole. Though he was on the 22nd floor of a skyscraper in the Financial District, he felt as if he were barefoot in the jungle, connected to the earth through skin and blood and bone, taking strength from the earth, giving it back.
The hologram switched off and he went to the window to look out over the city. He lifted his hand and placed it against the glass, and it was as if his hand passed through the glass, out into the city, reaching down to the tiny people below, hurrying to get out of the inclement weather. He could swat them away so easily. Such ants, all that toiling and striving so essentially meaningless. Puny and weak and craving direction.
Soon their lives would be harnessed to a greater good instead of being so random.
He would head a triumphant army of supermen. Hadn’t mankind always dreamed of this—of a superior race that would come and lead? All those legends of the gods with immense power over the earth and its creatures—surely their species knew it was always going to end up like this? All Lee had done was speed up the process and place its agency in the right hands.
Of course, he had the power of the gods, too. He could feel it, feel vitality run through him, feel his muscles and sinews reknit into a more powerful whole. Feel his brain rewiring itself. His eyesight was so acute he thought he could see individual strands of hair in the ant-people down below on the street. His hearing was so keen he could hear the centralized air system’s gentle hum. It had started to snow, a bit of sleet mixed in, and he could hear each spicule ping against the window panes. He could hear?—
The door opening.
“Goddammit, Lee,” Flynn’s grating voice boomed. “What the fuck were you thinking?—”
A hot mist rose in Lee’s mind when he heard Flynn’s voice. The prick. The fucking prick. Every cell in his body pulsed with raw, red hatred.
Lee flew across the room, grabbing something shiny off his desk, hand punching forward. Flynn’s eyes bugged as he looked down at himself, at the very small shiny handle sticking out from his chest. The handle belonged to a pure titanium letter opener that was deeply embedded in his heart.
He was dead but he didn’t know it yet.
Flynn stood, staggered, righted himself, watching as a big red flower blossomed out from the handle, covering his pristine white Armani shirt. He staggered again, fell to one knee, head hanging. Straining sounds came from his throat though he wasn’t able to formulate any words.
Good. Flynn talked too much anyway.
Part of Lee admired the fact that from six feet away, having had to turn around and pass by his desk, he’d still instinctively been able to punch it straight between the ribs and bury it directly into Flynn’s heart.
Lee stood above the man, watching as the other knee gave out and he fell prone onto the floor. Flynn’s heart continued pumping blood for another two minutes, then the flow slowed, then stopped.
Lee looked at his reflection in the window, brightly lit against the snowy night sky as darkness descended in his mind. His eyes were wide, a slight smile on his lips. He watched for a moment, his ability to recognize the creature in the reflection draining away as quickly as Flynn’s blood had drained from his body.
Lee looked around, not recognizing anything familiar in his surroundings. He moved into a slight crouch, hands pulling up toward his chest, hands open like claws. Walls…he had to get out. Move. His body craved movement, craved blood. It was sheer chance that he moved toward the wall with the door and not to one of the other three walls. He walked forward and the door, biomorphic and primed to recognize his profile, opened.
He didn’t question that. There was very little reasoning ability left in him, just enough to recognize a door with an image of stairs and to realize that it led to an exit. The stairs led to the outside world, a world that awaited him.
