Free Rise of the Transgenics by J.S. Frankel

gasped out before collapsing.
    A guard appeared at the entrance and Harry
yelled out, “Get Doctor Lindstrom!”
    The guard eyed Farrell and disappeared
inside. A few seconds later, two orderlies pushing a gurney rushed
out the door, picked up the fallen man and placed him on the
gurney. One of the orderlies, a large man with cold gray eyes said,
“We’ll take it from here, kid. Wait for someone to come out and
take your statement.” They disappeared inside, leaving Harry
alone.
    What was with the statement? “They would
have to call me kid,” Harry muttered. Waiting for something
to happen, he scanned the area. An extensive array of bushes
surrounded the hospital, and a forest lay across the street, quiet
and serene and covered in white.
    It all looked serene, but then again,
the forest up in the Catskills had appeared the same at the outset,
and monsters had been hiding there. He remained tense and jumped
when Anastasia’s voice from behind him called out, “What’s going
on?”
    “We have to...” he started to say.
    “Put your hands in the air!” someone yelled,
and immediately, he clammed up. Two men in black rushed out, guns
drawn.
    “Put your hands in the air!” one of them
repeated. “Turn around, lean over the car, put your hands on it and
spread your legs. Do it now!”
    “Hey guys, we’re on the same team,” Harry
protested as he started to backpedal. Obviously, these guys hadn’t
gotten the memo. They continued to advance and he continued to do
the back-step shuffle.
    Anastasia poked her head out the window.
“We’re trying to help.”
    Her words had some effect, as the agents
stared first at her and then at each other. Taking that as his cue,
Harry ran to the driver’s side of the car, gunned the engine, and
took off. He needn’t have worried, though, as neither agent let off
a shot. They simply stood and stared.
    “I guess being a circus sideshow attraction
has its merits,” Anastasia commented wryly from the passenger seat.
She did, however, crouch down to dashboard level.
    “You’re not a freak, if that’s what you’re
saying.”
    Reactions to the different weren’t unusual,
Harry thought as he drove down the road. Still, his girlfriend
wasn’t a freak, not in his eyes. Anastasia raised her head long
enough to lean over and plant a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks.”
    She then slumped down in the seat and focused
her eyes on the blankness of the dashboard. “Will Farrell be
okay?”
    Harry answered, “I think so, but we’ve got
other problems. The rest of the agency doesn’t know about us, or
about you.” He shook his head in disbelief. “They were gonna arrest
me, and those two things up there wanted to capture me!”
    “I think they were after me,” Anastasia
pointed out and a thoughtful look came over her face. “Still...you
might be right about those two wanting to catch you. They could
have wasted you right away, but only that other cat-girl wanted to
take me on. Her friend didn’t seem like he wanted any of my action.
I wonder why.”
    Harry had been wondering the same thing. That
rhino-boar thing—Piotr—seemed pretty much unstoppable. Yet he
hadn’t attacked Anastasia at all. His words, though— you are
next —remained fresh in Harry’s mind, and he wondered what their
ultimate plan was.
    He stepped on the gas and the car shot
forward, but he kept his speed down to an acceptable level. Getting
pulled over was not on the menu. “Right now we’ve got to keep
searching. I’ll call in later on.”
    Driving back to the city, he wondered once
more if the two Russians were somehow trailing them. Anastasia was
obviously thinking the same thing when she asked, “Are we going
back to headquarters?”
    It was a good question, one that he couldn’t
answer. After the incident at the hospital, Harry had the feeling
that the agency wasn’t about to welcome him or his girlfriend with
open arms. He drove along, keeping his speed down, and wondered
what to do. The first