Edge of Human
by
Michael D. Britton
* * * *
Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Britton / Intelligent Life Books
The seemingly imaginary glow of false dawn teased Raife Crenshaw’s eyes as he used his digi-lenses to spy out the last known location of his prey.
Today had to be the day.
If he could not bring him in – alive – his employers would evoke a new paradigm and require termination of the subject.
And he preferred not to go there.
Not that killing this beast of a man would be a hardship. It’s just that a live capture was worth ten times as much, and Raife hated to waste the opportunity to sock away that kind of money.
Heck, he could retire on that much gold.
Why they wanted the one they simply called Cain to be brought back alive was a mystery. This abomination was a test tube baby genetically spliced together from the DNA of the twentieth century’s most vile mass murderers, and was thoroughly irredeemable.
His “fathers” had harvested DNA from Mao Zedong with his seventy million murders. Joseph Stalin and his twenty million. Adolph Hitler – fourteen million. Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, among others. The blood of over a hundred million people on the hands of the genes of Cain.
Word was the government had created this monster as a eugenics experiment, an attempt to harness the power of those genes without the evil. They said these men had a genetic predisposition to charismatic leadership, with powerful strategic and tactical thinking ability and remarkably strong will. Properly harnessed, these attributes could be used to develop a man who could bring peace and prosperity to the world.
The timeless “nature or nurture” debate had had its pendulum swing clearly to the camp of “nurture” for a decade, and the experts all agreed that given the right building blocks and the ideal developmental environment, a superleader could be brought into existence to cure the world’s ills and unite the people.
Idiots.
As usual when men try to tamper with nature, it went disastrously wrong. This guy was pure evil from day one. No matter what they tried, no matter how many therapists they brought in, the little horror just got worse and worse, until one day, at age seventeen, he slit the throats of two nurses and escaped from the compound he was raised in.
Since that time seven years ago, Cain had been directly linked to over two hundred individual murders, and the rise of a cult of bloodthirsty followers who killed at his command – a trail of bodies nearly two thousand citizens long.
And the man was a genius – untouchable, untraceable, a devil to try to pin down.
He’d surrounded himself with layers of protection.
But this December day, in the cold air of a clear morning in the Utah high desert, Raife felt that little butterfly in his stomach that he always got when he was very close to success on a job.
He could almost taste it.
Down below the foothills, in a compound at the edge of the small town of Ferron, Cain was moving around – checking his supplies and organizing his teams for – whatever it was he was planning next.
Raife watched Cain’s heat signature through his telescopic infrared night vision contact lenses, making his own plans. No matter how hyper-intelligent Cain was, he was still human, and therefore subject to mistakes. And Raife only needed him to make one.
And he’d be there for it.
Trouble was, it had to be today.
So Raife considered his options and formulated a Plan A. He’d worry about Plan B later.
Moving silently and stealthily, like a panther stalking prey, he moved down the hill – tree to tree to tree – always staying out of sight.
He eventually reached the bottom of the hill as the world started to become plainly visible in the frosty dawn. He stepped out into the small clearing in front of the chain link gates topped with razor wire and strolled forward nonchalantly.
Raife wore a full, bushy brown beard, ratty baseball cap over a thick swath of hair, and a large framepack on his back. His jeans were stained and his hiking boots were worn.
One of the two guards at the gate pointed his weapon at Raife and said, “Stop! What’s your business here?”
Raife chuckled. “Business? Heh, do I look like a business man to you, brother?”
“State your business or die.”
“Whoa, dude! Chill. I’m just passing through. I’m a long-distance hiker. Working my way up from Mexico to Canada, actually. Just dust on the wind, my man. Say, what is this place, anyway?”
“Never you mind. Just move along.”
“Love to, man. Thing is, how do I get around? I mean, this place looks pretty big. Which way should I go?”
“Back the way you came.”
“You gotta be kidding me.” Raife pointed directly at the compound. “I’m headed that way, man. Just tell me what’s the fastest way around your little secret special place – left or right?”
As he spoke, Raife swaggered casually toward the guard. He was glad to see that the guard’s weapon was muzzled with a silencer. That would help things.
When he was about ten feet away from the guard, he bent down and tied the boot laces of his right boot. Then he stood and reached into his jeans pocket, pulling out a mushy-looking granola bar. He took a bite. With mouth full, he extended his hand and said, “Want some?”
The guard cocked his weapon. “Turn around and go back the way you came. This is your final warn –”
Raife tossed the granola bar over the guard’s head and sprung at him with incredible speed, wrenching the weapon from his grip, placing it over the guard’s head and twisting with a sharp snap to break his neck.
With the guard limply in front of him, still using the weapon to hold him up by the neck, he pointed the gun at the other guard and placed one silent shot between the eyes.
It all happened in less than three seconds, before the other guard could do much more than turn to face the assault on his partner.
Raife dropped his human shield and dragged both men to a nearby shrub, where he pulled off the fake beard he’d been wearing and changed into the larger guard’s clothing.
He then opened his pack and pulled out a device the approximate size and shape of a can of spray paint. He touched a button on the side and the end lit up. Then he held it above the dead guard’s face and waved it slowly back and forth, scanning the features with a grid-lined beam of light. He then entered another command, waited ten seconds, and turned the device on himself. He pressed the end of the unit to his neck and it hissed briefly as it forced a stream of nanotech (along with a dose of painkiller) through his skin.
The painkiller was to help him control his reaction to what happened next.
First, the skin on his face suddenly became slimy and malleable. Next, his bone structure seemed to collapse momentarily, then reform in a new shape. The skin tone changed and the details of his face morphed. After about a minute of this flux, his face finally solidified into an exact replica of the dead guard.
Raife opened and closed his mouth, stretching out his flesh, and rubbed at his new cheeks, blinking hard. He slid open a small window in the device to reveal a little mirror.
Yep, it worked like a charm.
The disguise should last about thirty minutes before his immune system rejected the nanotech and returned him to his normal appearance. That would be just enough time to get in and do what needed to be done.
Raife dragged the other guard’s body back to the gates and used the guard’s electronic ID badge to unlock it, then slipped in with the body and closed the gate behind him. He propped the guard against a nearby shack, sitting up with his arms across his knees and his head hanging down.
Raife kept alert as he s
trolled toward the center of the complex, ready to either play the part that matched his face, or take out anyone who wasn’t buying the charade.
He turned a corner, and found himself face to face with his mark – the beast known as Cain.
“Humphreys, where’s Unger? You know you’re never supposed to be alone. The buddy system, remember?”
Before Raife could react, six armed body guards appeared right behind Cain. He quickly assessed the situation and decided he needed to play this game out.
“Yes, Sir. I apologize for breaking protocol. But you insisted we not break radio silence today, and I needed to report something.”
“Well?”
“It’s Unger, Sir. He was fine one minute, then he doubled over, moaned, and fell down. I don’t know what happened.”
“Is he dead?”
“I dunno. I don’t think he was breathing – I felt it best to report in.”
“Very well. Tell Dr. Schatz that Unger is sick – maybe dead – and grab Miller to replace Unger, then return to your