Page 14 of Monstrous Rampage
I couldn’t help but shake my head and feel sorry for him. He didn’t have a name. He wasn’t even a number like that poor woman, test subject A99B47. He wasn’t considered “alive” as far as DSC was concerned until he was on a squad. “He’s a living, breathing person, not a widget in a factory.”
The computer had no response. Not that I was surprised.
I made sure to flip through all of the other files, allowing my new mindpower to capture the notes and images with these expanded capabilities. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with all the information yet, but I wasn’t going to leave any of these guys behind if I could help it. Even the spider guy. Nobody deserved to be patched together from pieces and parts in a laboratory and then held prisoner indefinitely.
If I couldn’t free them… I’d at least find a way to end their suffering.
Disturbed and uneasy, I sat back in the chair, staring at the diagram of BGR++. His massive skull and shark-like jaws. Where Axxol had brilliant blue markings and glowing eyes, this dynos was nearly black. Subtle darkness oozed around him. I zoomed in, trying to understand the feeling of menace and dread just looking at him instilled. Even though he wasn’t actively looking at me, his midnight eyes carried weight, sucking me under like a black hole.
Then it dawned on me. Snyder said they’d used a lower frequency of light waves to hide his jump rings. Lower frequency meant higher energy, which explained the feeling of weight and intensity I sensed, even if my eyes couldn’t register the light in his eyes or his markings.
“Can you show me this picture with a filter that makes his energy visible?”
“Certainly.”
The picture flickered—and shifted to glowing, vibrant purple. Waves of ultraviolet energy flowed around him in a slow swirl. Just like I imagined a black hole might look like. Shaken, I whispered, “Holy fuck,” out loud.
Snyder reappeared beside the screen. “Exactly, Miss Price. This dynos is incredibly dangerous. The probability of you surviving an interaction with him is approximately one in a billion.”
A wry smile flickered on my lips. Lohr would have been able to compute it exactly. “He’s my first choice.”
Snyder shook his head with a placating smile that made me want to throat punch him. “Come now, Miss Price. Do you honestly think I don’t know why you want to start with a pilot? You have no hope of taming one cell in this massive beast, let alone accomplish a successful mating.”
I shrugged. “Then help me come up with a plan to survive him long enough to win him over.”
“Any interaction with DSC methods only enrages him more. No sedative or manipulation technique will work with him. Think of Axxol’s lack of empathy and emotional understanding. At least he’s fully alpha and in command of himself and his squad. This candidate can’t control himself. He’ll never be alpha of a squad.”
“I think you’re discounting DSC’s programming capabilities,” I argued. “Look at how Axxol adapted to Natalie. Surely this dynos carries the same basic programming to learn from his mistakes and adjust?—”
“He can’t learn from you if he’s already eaten you,” Snyder interrupted. “No. Pick another candidate to try. I refuse to risk you.”
Not because he cared about me as a person, a living, feeling being. He only cared about his precious breeding program. If this dynos killed me, the chances of Snyder being able to harvest my cells were nil. Unless he developed a way to neutralize the BGR++ that hadn’t already been discovered.
Which only made this beast even more attractive to me. If I had to die, I’d rather go out as his feast rather than let Snyder experiment with my cells. But how to convince him to let me try?
Honesty might be the best policy. Especially if they had been able to pick up any of my internal thoughts and plans.
I stared at BGR++’s image, letting emotion fill my voice. “There’s something about him. I keep coming back to him. Something tells me to start with him.”
Snyder didn’t reply right away. I didn’t turn my head to look at him, but I could feel the intensity of his gaze. Watching, gauging the risks, trying to determine how likely it might be for me to win this monster over.
“You want me to believe you—a mediocre human of modest intelligence—will succeed where all the might and power of Draco Sirius Command has failed.”
I pulled my gaze away from the BGR++ to Snyder’s gleaming silver eyes. No pupil. No blinking eyelid or human ticks to betray him. “Yes. Isn’t that exactly why I’m here? I want a full squad. To do that, I need an alpha. He’s the only alpha you might have. He’s the key to unlocking the rest.”
“Very well.” Though he lifted his right hand, index finger pointing upward. “Provided you allow us to sedate you lightly at first to protect your systems from overriding your determination to see this through, and…” He lifted another finger. “You wear the bracelet so we can immediately remove you from his cell if he starts to injure you.”
The sedation made my stomach squirmy with dread. I wouldn’t be aware. They might go ahead and harvest all my cells and forget the trial. I’d never wake up.
But there was nothing to prevent him from doing that anyway.
“Okay.”
8
SYKO
Ismelled food.
