Russell:

I thought I saw black shadows running toward the bayou, running through the shifting rain. There were only a few lights on inside the plant, an early shift that started at 5 A.M. Puddles glittered and shivered in the half-light of early dawn, while rivulets of dark water forged a brave course, daring to band together to form tiny streams that thickened, broad cold veins that pushed toward freedom. I darted through the grumbling storm, reached the side doors and punched in my code.

A second later I breezed across the threshold, wet, a chill spreading over my shoulders.

My vision blurred, focused, blurred again. I stumbled through shadows toward the lab, legs and arms stiff from my genetic cocktail. I got lost once, turned down an empty, darkened corridor and tripped over a rolling cart that someone had left out.

A lifeless clone stared up at me. Eyes open, mouth parted.

It lay on the cart, draped in a white linen sheet, waiting—for life, for someone to claim it and make it real, to fill it with emotion and thought and purpose.

As if any of us really has purpose.

I shrugged it off, shook my head, felt the cold seeping through my clothes. I shouldn’t be here, I thought, as I stumbled away. I should have stayed at home and let the dark night pass. I should have curled at the foot of my daughter’s bed, glad that she was still safe.

But here I was, blundering my way through an echoing darkness, ignoring the occasional employee that darted across my path.

I was at the door to the lab now. Maybe I should just go home. Wait until my head clears. Let my flesh take one more step toward complete decomposition. Then I saw something. Light flooding out from beneath the door.

I forced the door open.

Companionship was something that I craved, an antidote to the space that flowed between me and everyone else. They were only lab animals, subjected to the worst treatment imaginable. But they were living creatures and I craved life.

I pushed my way across the room: my legs wooden now, all elasticity gone. The euphoric high would dissipate in a moment, my vision would clear. But the cages were empty. I snarled as I passed each one, growling uncontrollably, searching for some beast to meet me in this place of the animal that I inhabited. But there was no one.

I was the only beast here.

I knew then what I had seen outside. Ellen had been here, she had taken Omega and together they had run toward the bayou.

I felt a growl, deep inside my chest, reverberating, resonating. It ebbed and flowed, like river water through a tide of delta mud. I sucked in each breath, my lips hot, and my hands clenched at my sides. The muscles in my chest stretched and expanded in one last band of steel and I could feel the buttons on my shirt strain. I closed my eyes. Red flames roared somewhere in the back of my mind.

I heard footsteps coming closer, gentle and soft. It was her.

She had just murdered my mother and here she was coming, ready to kill my daughter too. The door opened and I grabbed her by the arm, pulled her inside, closed the door so no one could see us together. She was wet, fragrant from the lightning and the thunder. I know now that it was probably rain on her face and hands.

But to me she was drenched in blood.

My vision blurred.

Focused.

Ellen was on the floor, my hands around her neck. And then she was lying limp. Crooked. Her legs and arms twisted and unnatural. Something was wrong.

The dog was gone. The research, all the files were missing.

And now she was dead.

I sat in a chair, stared out the window. Saw the sun crest the distant trees, push its way through clouds. It wouldn’t win. Darkness and rain would prevail. It was the season of storms. I drummed my hand on the counter. Fingertips making patterns of blood on the ceramic tile.

Sorrow filtered through, remorse for what I’d done—emotions I hadn’t felt in years. Ellen was the only person I had been able to confide in, the only one who really understood. And now she was gone. I looked back at the floor. She was so still, so quiet. Suddenly something snapped inside of me.

What if she resurrects? What if she remembers that I murdered her?

I had to get her into an isolation chamber and make sure she didn’t download. Then I realized that I was going to need help.

I rinsed my hands in the sink, then tapped the Verse jack in my left ear. Commanded it to contact a familiar number. Heard a sleepy voice, a voice I’d known since childhood.

“I need you—I need you to help me with something.” My voice cracked, something I hadn’t expected. “How soon can you be at the lab?”

“Boss? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t, not now. Just hurry, Pete. Meet me in the isolation chamber up on the third floor, the one that’s right above my lab.”

“Russ, is you—”

“Just hurry.”

I couldn’t talk anymore. I had to dispose of Ellen’s body. I knelt beside her, this altar of flesh and bone that I had knelt before countless times when passion surged through me. But tonight the wrong passion had conquered.

And now my altar was gone.