Three weeks after the Hilltop incident, I was growing pretty accustomed to my new life. Most of it thus far had proceeded along the same path as the first week. Training day in and day out. Studying all the time. They even assigned me this tutor—a guy named Professor Cockburn of all things—who assigned me topics to focus on and generate entries into my own private bestiary that categorized the sort of monsters we were likely to face and listed their strengths, weaknesses, and preferred hunting grounds.
Tabitha actually upped my training regimen and was now condensing what was typically a five-year program into a roughly six-week crash course. My body was undergoing changes almost by the day to keep up with it, and I had already lost that extra huskiness I had picked up in the first few days after my encounter with the dino-dickhead.
Derek woke up from his coma shortly after my first mission and had been spending his days learning how to become a wizard. Seriously. He was already casting hexes and making shit float, the whole nine yards. Also he and Bianca had been going pretty steady for the past two weeks. I asked him how he felt about the manner in which she had to interact with her patients as both a magic healer and a succubus—I walked into the infirmary one day to catch more than an eyeful of her going down on this minotaur guy while Derek was like…right there—, and all he said to me was, “it’s fucking hot,” so I guessed Tabby was right. Derek was a simp.
My life was falling into a new rhythm and I was pretty sure I was getting the hang of it.
That was until one day on my daily stroll when I overheard some shit I probably shouldn’t have.
I had just finished running Tabitha’s latest round of intense training—which is code for borderline torture, between the obstacle course, the shooting-while-running, dodging live fire, and the skintight outfits she wore the whole time…fuck—and decided to take a little jog to cool off. This monster blood was giving me deep reserves of stamina that not even the constant training could deplete so I was beginning to just start doing repetitive physical tasks like running or boxing as a way to calm my mind down.
I was running through headquarters when I decided to take a turn down a hallway I’d never seen before. Figured it was a good way to familiarize myself with the layout now that I lived here. I was running through the science section, nearing the end actually, and passing by labs filled with weird—but cool—shit that’s all blurring past too quickly for me to take in anything more than the fact that mad science was taking place all around me; when I spotted none other than Aleksei himself.
He and this middle-aged doctor lady—with total MILF energy—were talking in a hushed tone just past the main laboratory section, both of their backs were to me as they stared at a tablet together.
Aleksei and I still had a spotty relationship. After I embarrassed him by surviving my first mission he decided to try out pretending I didn’t exist and see if that worked. So far it was working out alright but there was this one incident in week two where we both wound up in the cafeteria at the same time and reached for the last slice of gourmet pepperoni pizza—with these delicious little green flakes all over the cheese, it’s just the best pizza I’ve ever had.
Our eyes met and his went slit-pupiled and I may have accidentally sprouted my dino-arm and we entered this awkward standoff for a few minutes…it was finally solved when this lamia chick slithered up and squealed with delight about how much she liked the pepperoni pizza so I—like a gentlemen—offered it to her and Aleksei—like a kiss-ass—placed it on her plate. Situation defused, but only barely.
So with that in mind, I stopped dead in my tracks the moment I heard Aleksei’s voice, spun in place and started running back the way that I came. This was not me fleeing from battle. This was a tactical retreat before a battle had even begun. The fastest and most effective way to survive a potentially violent—or socially awkward—encounter with the enemy is to take prudent steps to avoid placing yourself in a dangerous situation in the first place. The second most effective strategy is to make fewer enemies, but I failed in that regard on day one, so…yeah.
As I tapped the brakes and spun in place like a damn ballerina, concerned that I was acting or at least looking like a fool, the weight of Aleksei’s words finally hit me and I halted once more.
“... exceeding initial projections. Prolonged exposure leads to permanent physiological deterioration into a feral state. Whatever this is, wherever it’s coming from, this signal is the biggest threat we faced since we sealed up the sewer system back in—”
“Shh,” Aleksei whispered. “I smell something. We’re not alone.”
Fuck, he means me!
I started to book it when I heard new footsteps approaching from the opposite direction.
“Ah,” Aleksei said warmly. “Agent Boris. I trust your fact-finding mission went well?”
The newcomer, who I could not see from my place around the corner from the trio, spoke in an unnaturally deep voice that I figured he either had some sort of medical condition or he was a monster. Those were the only two options.
“Of course it did. Who are you talking to?”
Mirth was not a tone I had yet had reason to associate with Aleksei’s voice yet, but nonetheless it tinged his next words distinctly. “Only my number one agent, of course. Tell me what you have gleaned from our benefactors downstairs.”
Downstairs? Is there even a lower level to this place?
Boris’s already deep voice grew grave and solemn. “Nothing good, Alex. They are saying this is nothing they’ve ever encountered before. Whatever that signal is, what it’s doing to them…its origins are mortal. Mechanical, magical, perhaps both I do not know, but our allies downstairs were quite confident that they were not responsible.”
“Damn it. If this gets too far out of hand we’re going to lose control of Eastport.”
“What would you have us do, boss?”
Aleksei grew quiet for a moment before making the call. “Double up on our patrols. I want agents in every borough checking up on anything even remotely suspicious. Send out the graduates, too. Things are changing. We need fresh eyes on this.”
“Even that cripple with one hand?” the doctor asked, scoffing.
“Especially him. Go. And don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. If people start talking I’ll know it was one of you. Understood?”
What I mistook for silence must have been the agent and the doctor replying nonverbally, for in the next second I heard three sets of footsteps breaking away from one another and had to think fast.
Relying on some of the stealth training I had picked up in the last week or so, I backed up several strides, popped in my headphones, and started running toward the same intersection I had been heading for before catching a glimpse of Aleksei.
As the doctor lady passed around the corner I gave her a pleasant nod and kept jogging right past her. I made sure to nod my head a little as if I were listening to some nice tunes as I ran, and kept my eyes straight ahead. If she, Aleksei, or that Boris guy thought anything of it, they kept it to themselves.
I kept running all the way back to the Keepers’ barracks.
Later, when I was lying flat on my bunk, staring silently up at the ceiling, my mind reeled with possibilities from what I had overheard. During my fight with that dino-man he had exhibited signs of some sort of head pain. Likewise, those vamps had come out of the Galleria all calm and only attacked us after they had all winced in pain. I couldn't shake the feeling that the two events were related.
What if this mysterious signal was causing monsters to go crazy?
That may seem like a logical leap to take from two encounters with monsters and a snippet of an overheard conversation, but Hannah was a big movie buff and used to make me go watch all sorts of stuff as soon as it came out in theaters. I could think of at least three films she dragged me to that had some element of mind-control signals being sent out to make a populace behave in a certain way to further some jackass’s schemes for domination, and they were across several different genres too. I think that even happened in a kid’s movie one time.
If someone like me and Hannah had found out about monsters and seen enough movies, maybe they tried to take notes from the silver screen. From a certain point of view I could almost see it making sense, too. Making all the monsters go Feral forced us Keepers to step up our game and crack down, start hunting them all to extinction.
But what came next? What was the endgame? And why did someone want us wiping out monsters, especially if some—maybe even most—of them seemed pretty close to regular humans?
My mind kept replaying the moment when Tabitha snapped the dino-man’s neck, or that time I decapitated two vampires with one swing. At the time those had kind of felt like awesome moments. But now…now I wasn’t so sure.
Were we putting down savage, dangerous monstrosities, or were we just executing civilians going through a rough time?
Working at a gas station placed on the intersection of a city center, a busy surface-to-orbit skyport, and a famous national park meant I got to see my fair share of people in a variety of situations. Drugs were just the tip of the iceberg when it came time to list the ways a human being could be pushed over the edge of sanity into crazy territory.
If someone was out there making monsters go Feral, and Aleksei was declaring open season on Ferals…this was starting to feel very wrong on some levels I was feeling drastically under equipped to properly process.
Understandably, I didn’t get much sleep that night.