Stripes of Gehenna Page 7

Sighing, tightening my wet laces, and taking a long breath in, I began to run back, Bryce at my side.

  Chapter Eight: GH10

  Richy stood, waiting in the open doorway when we got there. He wore white shorts and a black button up beneath a heavy white lab coat that hung below his waist. It had to have been custom made based on the size alone. Above the right pocket of the coat was the same text as all the other lab coats. His name tag hung from a brown lanyard. Richard Speer. All Access Keycard. He glanced at his watch and then smiled at me. "So prompt!" He looked to Bryce, then dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Their lack of verbal communication seemed a bit unnatural to me, but maybe Bryce was the classic strong silent type.

  "You finally ready to see some tigers?" Richy led me inside through the lobby.

  "Now?" I was incredibly eager to see them, but I anticipated taking a shower before interacting with anyone. "I wanted to ask you about something though. My phone…the battery is completely corroded and--"

  "The sea air does that. So much salt and sand. It ruins technology. Sorry, we’re a bunch of the wrong kind of smart here." He placed a hand on my shoulder and urged me down the hall.

  "But your phone must work. You’ve been calling my mom--"

  "Mine works, yes. I’ll let you use it when we’re done here. The best signal is in my office. But for now, we have to go see the tigers."

  "Right now. Because I was going to shower--" He cut me off again.

  "Yep, they’re getting hungry and I’m so excited to show you!" We walked very quickly down the hall, and I glanced out the side window on my left more often than a paranoid driver checks his speedometer. I'd seen tigers plenty of times in my life, at the zoo, on a train ride, at a circus, but I knew in my heart that there was going to be something amazing and special about these ones.

  My heart fluttered as we entered a large round room that overlooked what appeared to be the entire tiger enclosure. It was huge and I couldn’t actually see the back end, but there seemed to be a cable running from our building on back beyond my line of vision. There was a very simple control panel at the front of the room.

  "I call this my Observatory, and while I know that is generally reserved for seeing stars and celestial bodies, my tigers are my stars and their bodies could be described as no less than celestial." He laughed at himself, and I smiled so as to not be rude. "Besides, there’s nothing up there that I’d rather see than what I can see from right here."

  Alec sat in a huge, black swivel chair at the control panel and another technician was unobtrusively watching from the corner.

  Richy turned to him, "Everything ready?"

  He nodded, his hands clasped nervously in front of his lab coat.

  "Okay then, bring them in!" Richy commanded. He turned to me. "I have a few others here for a little presentation. You are really gonna enjoy this. Go ahead and step right up to the glass." His huge hand on my back pushed me forwards until I was only a foot from the clear glass, staring at the greenery in front of me.

  Behind me, a large white screen rolled down. A projector lowered from the ceiling and in an instant, twenty or so men and women video called in. In the bottom right corner, I saw what they saw. Richy, the Observatory, and me. Why me?

  Their digital presence made me very conscious of my attire. The morning run was seeming like a bad choice.

  Richy’s voice was loud and excited as he began talking. "Welcome, welcome. I am truly delighted to have you all here today. It is with sincere elation that I present to you the dramatic effects of GH10 on animals. While I recognize that there are a few of you in attendance who are apprehensive concerning the effects on humans, let me personally stand as a witness to the possibilities of humankind." He flexed his pecs and forearms getting very few chuckles from his audience.

  "Already, steroid use is approved to help chickens lay more eggs, to help cows produce more milk, and to make livestock larger so loss of life is minimized. These are such trivial successes compared to the potential of humankind. I know that some of you are nervous because you think that this is about baseball or The Tour de France or the Olympics. To some people steroids are about sports, but that’s not what it is to me. I’m not suggesting enhancement drugs for sport or entertainment. I am talking about the possibilities this could imply for curing sickness and building stronger generations. This growth hormone is a fountain of youth."

  Richy turned to Alec, and he pressed a button which immediately mobilized the windows. I stepped back in surprise as the glass lowered, letting the jungle breeze into the room.

  "While I know that human testing has not been advised, I and several of my staff members can willingly testify to how our individual lives have been enhanced. We never get sick. We need very little sleep, and the strength, well, that part should be evident." He grinned and winked at me.

  "Alec, turn on the intercom." Richy walked forward to a speaker on the wall. "Amala! Amar! Come out, come out! It’s playtime!"

  The speaker resounded through the trees causing birds from all around to squawk, chirp and fly away. A low growl began, and then very suddenly, in the clearing below there were two tigers unlike any I'd seen before.

  Their paws made marks in the ground that could be sinkholes. Their tails swung back and forth like long, thick snakes. Sunlight reflected off the pristine whiteness in their coats and whiskers. One yawned, exposing a red tongue at least the size of my torso. From looking at them and knowing from Shardul that generally tigers weigh only 300 pounds, I knew these ones had to be closer to 900 or 1,000. Even though I was several stories above them, the sight of such large, powerful creatures in real life made me want to run and hide. They say that the way we respond to frightening situations is fight or flight, and mine was absolutely flight.

  A growl shook the trees and my legs. Their mouths were filled with huge white teeth. Their coats were bright and beautiful. If I hadn’t been standing there, seeing them for myself, I wouldn’t have believed how gorgeous they were. They were absolutely the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen. The drug had made them much larger, but also somehow lovelier.

  I was only brought back to reality by Richy’s voice. "First, I will release two deer unaltered by any steroids." He looked to Alec who pressed a few buttons.

  If I blinked, I would have missed all the action entirely. The tiny deer ran from somewhere beneath us and were immediately pinned and eaten almost in one bite each. They didn’t avoid the bones. They didn’t even play with them in the way I had seen cats play with mice or injured birds. These tigers were very clearly bored with the deer.

  "Now I will release some deer that were given a full dose of GH10 shortly after birth."

  The deer bounded out looking more like gigantic bull moose with legs that sprung them high into the air. Their brown coats looked as soft as a down comforter. I was saddened as I realized their hapless fate. The chase took maybe two minutes as the tigers each picked their prey, chased it, injured it, let it run again, and then eventually began to eat the meaty treats in only a couple bites each.

  The crunch of the bones in their dinosaur teeth made me dry heave. I clutched my stomach and tried to steady my breathing. I dry heaved again, right on camera, right in front of all the business people. I’d tried to act professional, nonchalant, but the violence that I’d just witnessed was scarring. The sound of the dying deer repeated in my ears. The bones…no…I couldn’t think of them as bones. My breakfast rapidly approached my throat. I could feel the bile like acid on my tongue. Not bones. Leaves. Dry leaves underfoot. Not bones. I repeated.

  The tigers were impressive, but the hugeness, grace and beauty of the deer should not have been overlooked. However, there was no way to enjoy them now.

  "As you see, the tigers require bigger prey, and both species were enhanced by GH10. Their natural abilities were magnified. When GH10 is injected at a younger age, it works much more effectively."

  Then I heard a question. "Dr. Speer, if I may, I would be interested in interview
ing your daughter."

  The comment was nothing like what I anticipated, and suddenly I felt like I had a much different purpose here than I first suspected.

  "Sure, sure." Richy waved me over. "Kat," he leaned to whisper in my ear. "This man is looking to give out scholarships and academic honors to you. Most of these guys are here to talk about my research, but a few of them called just to talk to you. I have told them about your school projects and your incredible intelligence. You just go talk to them, and I’ll finish up my presentation in here."

  I thought all of the men had been on Skype. I hadn’t noticed the one man who must have slipped in after we got started. His military haircut revealed a round head. His red tie hung exactly between the belt buckle on his pressed pants. I have no idea where he found an iron.

  "But why is he asking to talk to me right now?" I didn’t feel like Richy was being honest with me.

  "Because he doesn’t care about tigers and steroids. He cares about you and giving out the money that his school has reserved for intelligent students like you. That’s the whole reason he came." He then pushed me forward to follow the man into the hall, but despite my uncle’s reassuring words, I didn’t believe a man would fly to New Guinea for the sole purpose of interviewing me for college scholarships.

  Adjusting the strands of hair that had fallen out of the tight bun and walking quickly to keep up with the technician that led us down the hall, I tried to figure out just why this man wanted to talk to me. I knew better than to flatter myself thinking that my uncle was telling the truth.

  We entered a conference room. Despite the fact that I did not think he was there to interview me, I still felt quite out of place in my running clothes and tried desperately to focus on something else.

  "So, it’s Kathryn Speer?" he asked, looking at a file in his hand.

  "Yes," I made myself fold my hands in my lap so I would stop messing with my hair.

  "I’ve got your PSAT and PACT scores here. These are quite impressive. A 35 on the ACT. Well done,"

  True terror coursed through me. First it was the strangeness of being in Papua New Guinea. Then it was standing witness to the murder of multiple animals in bloody ways. And my friend, maybe the only friend I’d ever had went missing and then appeared out of nowhere. If I believe in alternate realities, I would assume I’d entered one.

  Now I was on trial. I had to play along, despite my terror. I couldn’t let this man know how traumatic this morning had been. The crunch of the bones resonated in my head and the image of the blood squirting out of the huge deer flashed in my head again.

  "Straight A’s all through high school. President of NHS this year. Five on all of your AP exams except history. Very impressive." Yes, except history. U.S. History. Somehow Shardul had scored a five. Where was he anyway? I pictured his face again, his dark hair and his smooth, brown skin. I let that image fill my head in place of the dead animals. Shardul.

  Think about Shardul. I even tried to invent a proverb for the situation. Some phrase to give me relief from my pounding pulse. Writing a resume is stressful enough. Standing there while he read my accolades made me want to curl into a shell, a nautilus preferably.

  "You attended Girls State and won the chess tournament. Aren’t you a little young to be attending Girls State?"

  "Well, as you can probably see in my file, I’m a year older than my classmates. They let me go over the summer," I explained.

  "I see. You’re currently ranked number one for GPA. Good, all good. Clearly above average," he said. "I see here that you aren’t strictly academically involved."

  I didn’t know what he was getting at. I had participated in a few after-school clubs and recreation sports but never on a team.

  "This is what it says in your letter of recommendation: ‘Kathryn possesses brilliance that she uses for the betterment of others and, occasionally, hilarious hysteria.’" He waited for me to elaborate on that last bit. I didn’t.

  "Pranks?" he asked, and I felt pressured to tell the story behind the letter.

  "My chemistry teacher, Mr. Abuselmi wrote that letter. And yes, I did a few pranks, but you have to understand my school is very prank-driven. We are all but encouraged to think of appropriate pranks. I assure you all mine had been…" I tried to phrase my sentence carefully. Professionally. "They had been thoroughly researched to ensure that they were completely safe." I didn’t care to explain to him what I had done in the off chance that this really was all about possible scholarships.

  "Please tell," he persisted, pursing his lips. I had done several, but I would only tell him about the least impressive one.

  "I put baking soda in the plastic bottles of ketchup in the school cafeteria."

  "You added baking soda to the bottles of ketchup?" He began, offering me another chance to elaborate.

  "It was the end of the year and I knew they would be cleaning the entire cafeteria anyway."

  "Why did you add baking soda to the ketchup?"

  I cleared my throat. "Because I knew that the baking soda would react with the vinegar in the ketchup to produce carbon dioxide gas, and that the pressure would result in a minor… explosion." I didn’t feel guilty at the moment, but when my chemistry teacher called me into his office after the cafeteria had been ‘painted’ in orange and red, I had genuinely felt bad. The guilt didn’t persist though. They didn’t understand the difficult balance I was trying to maintain. The teachers loved me. All of them. Yes, they made me help clean up the mess. A small price to pay really. But the students didn’t see me as another student. I had to do something immature to blend in. It’s high school, for goodness sake! I can’t be viewed as another teacher by my peers.

  "Kathryn, that was brilliant!" Mr. Abuselmi commended me. "You’ve found some of the real joy in chemistry."

  It was his encouragement that led me to make the match-head stink bomb that I opened right after school let out for the summer and seemingly light the money we'd collected for NHS fees on fire. With pranks, I’d found a way to please my teachers and my peers.

  The man looking at my file from high school smacked his lips together loudly, and I wondered if he was waiting for more details about the pranks. While I hadn’t personally read my letter of recommendation, I had assumed with confidence that my teacher had not mentioned any more of my shenanigans.

  "So, it was just the exploding ketchup?" he asked, and I noted a chuckle. He seemed amused, and contrary to my previous assertion that I would not divulge any more details of my mischief, I did.

  "We had about 200 dollars in cash at the end of our NHS meeting. Everyone paid their dues, and as the new president, I wanted to do something memorable. Prior to the meeting I made a water and alcohol solution with a little bit of salt and set it beside me on the grass. See, we held the meeting at a park near the school because I certainly wasn’t going to bring any form of alcohol or matches on school property.

  "I set a handful of the bills in the solution and then lifted them up, let the excess liquid drain off while I walked to the podium, and then got everyone’s attention. I began by saying, ‘Thanks to everyone who paid their dues. We are gonna burn through this money!’ and then I whipped out a lighter, and set the fistful of bills on fire."

  "You did what?" he interjected, and I regretted telling him. I quickly began to give details.

  "A combustion reaction occurs between the alcohol and oxygen, producing heat and light and carbon dioxide and water. Because alcohol has a high vapor pressure and the money is made more like fabric than paper, the alcohol remains on the outside of the bill and the money stays wet. I didn’t actually light the money on fire, just the alcohol on the money. The temperature at which the alcohol burns is not high enough to light the bills because the bill is soaked in the water. Water has a much higher specific heat so-"

  I stopped myself. I had been talking excitedly and quickly and very likely wasn’t making much sense. He stared at me, blinking, not speaking. I wanted to ask what he was thinking, but in
stead I just stared back.

  "I’m looking at your health records. You have no allergies, you’ve never had surgery, and you are overall quite healthy." He wasn’t asking me but his toned seemed unsure.

  The sudden topic change surprised me, but I answered him. "I have had my wisdom teeth removed." I didn’t know of any scholarships that were health-dependent. Insurance plans were, not grants. Right?

  The questions continued in this way--he read information from my file such as AP courses, test results, the time I broke my leg on a hike with my friends, how quickly I healed, how my emotional health was. Then his most poignant question. "Are you sexually active?"

  I must’ve heard wrong. "What?" I whispered. My heart drummed and the veins in my neck pulsed.

  "Are you sexually active?" he repeated.

  Quickly, to end this conversation and any more that would cover such a personal and sensitive topic, I shook my head, heat pounding in my face. Though I didn't say it, I thought of telling him to go to hell.

  The picture of the tigers entered my mind again, somehow giving me relief from the question he’d just asked. I felt like we were playing dodgeball, but I was the only one dodging, and he was throwing the questions at me without hesitation.

  It must have been nearly an hour when he seemed pleased enough, thanked me, shook my sweaty hand, and left me alone in the room.

  Feeling rather exposed and confused, I ventured into the hallway and meandered my way down the halls. Why had I even dignified that question with a reply? After only a few minutes I was relieved to find my door until I walked up closer and saw that it was already open a crack.

  Chapter Nine: Mankind is a Mystery

  Cautiously I pressed the door open, and the catastrophe I predicted was worse than I feared. My clothes were all removed from the drawers, my pillows shredded, the rugs were up from the floor, and the lovely gourd lamp shattered. I gasped, my hand over my mouth, trying to imagine who did this and what they could have possibly been looking for.