There’s a spiral staircase hidden away in one corner of the room, leading up to the hub of the underground den.
“Why didn’t we come this way instead of splashing down into the vat of blood?” I ask.
“It’s more fun entering via the hearse,” Kinslow grins. “We’re all about the entertainment factor here.”
Mr. Dowling leads me on a tour of the complex. He bounds along with the excitement and energy of a puppy going for a walk. He stops frequently to mingle with his mutants, pat their heads, clap their backs, join in if they’re playing games. At one point he even pauses by a large, fat man who is taking a crap, waits until he’s finished, then–and this is an image I hope to banish from my memory banks as swiftly as I can–wipes the giggling mutant’s bum with one of the human tongues that they use for such functions!
“That’s going way above and beyond the call of duty,” I moan to Kinslow.
“A touch on the extreme side perhaps,” Kinslow snickers. “Then again, the world might have been a better place if the leaders of the past had made a point of wiping a few of their voters’ backsides every now and then. It brings the mighty and the meek together.”
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your arses,” Mr. Dowling trills telepathically, and I have to laugh.
Images from the clown’s brain keep flicking through my head. It’s like catching glimpses of a photo album or a reality TV show through blinds that keep opening and closing without warning. Most of it’s mundane, flashes of him swimming, playing with his children, cavorting with his mutants, prancing through the streets of London. But at one stage I get a picture of him leaning over a test tube, studying a milky-white liquid. I can’t be sure, but I think this is Schlesinger-10, the virus that could wipe out the whole of humanity if released.
The image vanishes as swiftly as it formed. I can’t bring it back, but I pay more attention from that point on. It would be a major coup if I could find out where Mr. Dowling is storing his stolen sample of Schlesinger-10 and somehow get word back to Dr. Oystein.
Most of the rooms are familiar from when the babies were escorting me to Mr. Dowling’s personal chambers. But one place I haven’t seen before is a massive laboratory, tucked away behind a system of sealed doors. There are dozens of scientists and nurses at work. Some toil at lab equipment and computers, but others are experimenting on humans and mutants.
“This is where we were born,” Kinslow says, smiling nostalgically. “The first few generations of mutants were created elsewhere, in labs around the world, but Mr. Dowling has based himself in London for the last twenty years. Virtually all of us with him now started off our new lives here.”
“Are they volunteers or slaves?” I ask, nodding at the subjects. Some seem happy enough, but others are shuddering and screaming into gags.
“A mix,” he says. “Most of the mutants are here voluntarily. Mr. Dowling and his team are finding ways to fine-tune our forms all the time, but they need guinea pigs to work on. The majority of his loyal followers are willing to step forward when asked. A few have been dragged here against their wishes, if the scientists need a specific type of person to run a test on and nobody matching their requirements raises a hand. But the bulk have come because they want to.”
“And the humans?”
Kinslow shrugs. “Many are specimens we’ve captured, but others chose to take part. They want to join our ranks and they accept this as the price they must pay.”
“Specimens,” I sneer. “That’s how the soldiers and scientists referred to zombies in the complex where I was held when I first recovered consciousness.”
Kinslow shrugs. “What can I say? It’s a big, bad world. At least we don’t pretend to be the good guys. What you see is what you get with us.”
“How come he isn’t telling me all this?” I ask, nodding at Mr. Dowling as he trots off to check on one of his more unwilling subjects. “He’s hardly said a word since we left his digs.”
Kinslow sighs. “Our leader is a man of few words. It’s not easy for him, focusing his thoughts. His brain is immense, with many things running through it at the same time. You’ll realize that when he grants you access to the higher levels. At any one moment he might be agonizing over a dozen complex formulas, while analyzing data from experiments that took place years ago, and considering various chess moves.”
“Chess?” I frown.
“He’s a big fan. He’s studied games by all the grand masters. He replays them and looks for moves that the masters missed. Refinement is second nature to him. He’s always looking to improve.
“It’s chaos in that wild, wonderful head of his,” Kinslow continues sadly. “Any ordinary person would be mentally crushed beneath the weight of what he deals with every day. You or I would be a vegetable if we had to process even a fraction of what he does in any given hour.
“It’s taken its toll. The madness isn’t an act, but he can overcome it to a limited extent when he needs to. Externally he’s a mess–he lost control over his body years ago–but internally he can drag himself down to our level, or close enough so that he can address us in a way that we can comprehend.”
“You’re trying to paint him as a tragic figure?” I snort.
Kinslow glares at me. “There’s nothing tragic about Mr. Dowling. He sacrificed his sanity gladly. He’s the greatest genius this world has ever seen. You should be proud that he considers you worthy of his attention and time.”
“I’d rather he just ignored me,” I sniff.
“That’s why you’re an uncouth young lady,” Kinslow snarls. Then he smiles. “But Mr. Dowling will educate you and raise you up in the world. He won’t dismiss you as a lost cause, even though anyone else in his position would.”
“Tell him not to do me any favors,” I mutter, faking a yawn, and I love it when Kinslow bristles and shoots me an evil look.
The tour continues. The rest of the rooms seem uninteresting after the lab, until we come to the nursery. I know that’s what it is because the word is painted in blood, in large letters, over the door. I expect Mr. Dowling to say something at this point, but he just pushes in as if it’s the same as all the other rooms.
There are several sections to the nursery. We first enter a room full of cribs, all sorts of designs and sizes. Most are vacant, though I spot a few of the fanged, white-eyed, pint-sized monstrosities at rest. Their mouths move softly as I pass, each of them whispering the same word, “mummy.”
The next room is full of toys. Soft dolls, beautifully carved houses, replicas of cars and guns, model planes hanging from the ceiling, mobiles, carousels, inflatables, jigsaw puzzles, board games. It’s like an Aladdin’s cave for very young children.
“Stunning, isn’t it?” Kinslow says.
“There’s too much,” I croak, head spinning as I look around. “I can’t take it all in. The babies must go wild in here.”
“Actually they’ve no interest in toys. Mr. Dowling put the collection together because he thinks it would be good for the babies to play, but they ignore every toy he’s ever brought. That distresses him. He wants them to have fun, but their brains don’t work that way and he hasn’t been able to refocus them, as hard as he’s tried.”
“Well, that’s the trouble with breeding a crop of savage rug rats,” I murmur.
Kinslow nods glumly. “He keeps trying to introduce an element of play into their genetic code, but I doubt he’ll succeed. They’re a solemn bunch.”
“He should have let them hang out with Dan-Dan,” I say sourly. “There was a killer who knew all about play.”
We push through a door into a classroom. Scores of the eerie babies are sitting in rows around a teacher, staring at her expressionlessly as she holds up large pictures for them.
“Repeat after me,” the teacher says. “A is for apple.”
“a is for apple,” they whisper.
She puts the picture aside and picks up another. “A is for ape.”
“a is for ape.”
She nods and picks up a picture of a killing field, bodies ripped apart, guts everywhere, blood soaking into the ground. “A is for atrocity,” she sings.
“a is for atrocity,” the babies repeat.
“Very good,” she purrs.
I stare at the teacher with shock. It’s not the pictures that stun me, or the way she holds the attention of the little monsters so artfully. It’s the fact that I recognize her, that I’ve sat in a classroom with her before and had her lecture me in much the same way as she’s now dealing with the babies.
Nudging forward, I raise a hand as if asking a question in class in the old days. (Not that I asked many questions back then.) The teacher appraises me coolly, then purses her lips and nods.
“Yes, Miss Smith?” she gurgles, her voice deeper and more cracked than it used to be. “Can I help you?”
I clear my throat, lower my hand, gape at the teacher for another few seconds, then wheeze incredulously, “Mrs. Reed?”