Free Rise of the Transgenics by J.S. Frankel Page A

option meant going back to home base, telling
everyone what they knew, but option B...what was option B?
    “How about we listen to some music?”
Anastasia asked and switched on the radio.
    “Good idea.”
    Music always helped to calm a person down,
but this radio was old and not in the best of condition, and it
filled the car with static at first. As it cleared, the hard,
jangling sounds of a heavy metal song filled the air, and Harry’s
ears tightened painfully. He didn’t care for the genre. Apparently,
his girlfriend didn’t care for it, either, and she quickly changed
the station to something a little slower.
    “That’s better,” she murmured.
    Soon, the sounds of a soft ballad from a
local station came through, and Harry began to relax, if only a
little. His moment of peace, though, was interrupted by the high,
strident voice of an announcer.
    “We interrupt this program to bring you a
special news bulletin. The police have discovered the bodies of two
men in the Catskill Mountains, near Esopus Creek. Dylan Halsey and
Carleton Mathers, both employed by the FBI, were discovered a short
time ago, severely mangled, and the culprits are still at
large...”
    Oh crap, Harry thought. How did they know?
“What in the hell...?”
    “Quiet!” Anastasia commanded. “We have to
listen to this.”
    “Witnesses say that the suspect was a
teenager named Harry Goldman, age eighteen,” the announcer
continued. “He was accompanied by a female accomplice, name and
description unknown. They are believed to be in New York
City...”
    The announcer proceeded to give out Harry’s
description, a very accurate one. In a sudden burst of rage,
Anastasia punched the radio, smashing it and cutting off all
sound.
    Harry started to sweat, and it wasn’t because
the heater was on. “Well, I guess going back to headquarters is out
of the question, but how did they know it was us?” he began, trying
to think straight. “There weren’t any witnesses—”
    “Yeah, there were,” Anastasia interrupted.
“Those two things that attacked us, they were the witnesses. They
want the authorities to bring us in. And we were just seen at the
hospital.”
    In that moment, Harry realized he’d been
fooling himself. On the one hand, the rest of the FBI hadn’t been
told of his involvement with the program. In the eyes of the
average agent, he was a fugitive, and God knew what they thought of
Anastasia.
    On the other hand, he also knew that they
couldn’t be taken in. If they were caught and taken to a jail, a
local jail with relatively poor security, then that would
automatically make them an easy target. While he wasn’t sure if
they wanted his girlfriend, he was certain that they wanted
him.
    Anastasia reached over and touched his hand,
jolting him out of his reverie. “We can’t let them get us. The FBI
knows that we didn’t do it.”
    “No...they don’t,” he answered, grimly
thinking about his chances in a regular prison, if it came to that.
Oh, who was he kidding? In a jail cell with a bunch of hard cases,
he had two chances—slim and none.
    Still, there was only one way to find out
where he stood. Risk or no risk of being seen, he had to take a
chance. Taking an off-ramp, he drove to a self-service gas station
and spotted a payphone. “Stay down,” he said.
    He got out of the car, kept his head down,
and hunched his shoulders as he walked to the phone. He dug a few
quarters out of his pocket, fed them into the slot, and dialed FBI
headquarters. Immediately, a secretary’s voice came on the line, he
gave his name, and she transferred the call to Merton. The Director
sounded concerned. “Where are you?” he asked. “You’ve got to come
in.”
    “You set us up!” Harry yelled and then caught
himself. A few people who’d been filling up their cars stared at
him and he turned away, hiding his head with one arm. “You set us
up,” he whispered harshly. “We had to take Farrell to the hospital,
and the agents there