The old man had lost track of time as the days, nights and weeks of imprisonment had begun to blur together. He wasn’t sure how long he had been in this place, and he no longer cared. Giuseppe Salvatori reached up to his face and rubbed through the thick gray beard. He felt an odd sense of shame at his shabby appearance. He had always prided himself on his hygiene. Before this, in all those years since he was a teenage boy, had he went a single day without shaving? He didn’t think so. The thought of dying in such a dreadful state filled him with sadness.
Most people found themselves imprisoned due to their shortcomings or mistakes, and Salvatori thought it amusing that he was imprisoned because of his genius and his skills in genetic science. Years earlier, he had mentored a brilliant young man named Todd Maddox. That same young man had gone on to crack the secret behind the legendary Hydra. But before doing so, he had also acquired a position for Salvatori within Manifold Genetics. He had no way of knowing at the time that aligning with his former pupil would eventually bring about his own downfall.
The meager space he had come to call home wasn’t exactly a dungeon from days of old. It was merely a concrete supply closet within a research bunker that had been equipped with an electronic locking mechanism to protect sensitive equipment and data. Of course, this meant that it also contained no cot or toilet, and he had been forced to endure the indignity of sleeping on a mattress on the floor and defecating into a five-gallon bucket that sat in the corner. The bucket didn’t get emptied often, and he imagined that the stench would overwhelm anyone who entered. He had grown accustomed to the smell long ago.
Salvatori heard footsteps in the hall just before a blinding light flooded into his cell. He strained for his eyes to adjust to the sudden illumination. The man that stood before him was impeccably dressed in a gray pinstriped suit that probably cost enough to feed a third world country for a week. Round wire-rimmed spectacles rested upon a small upturned nose, and the man’s salt and pepper hair was parted neatly and slicked back from his face. Salvatori wondered why Phillip Cho would dress like that when he worked alone. Behind the glasses, Cho’s eyes were bloodshot, and Salvatori could see the residue of a white powder beneath the man’s nose. Cho carried himself like some sort of aristocrat, but Salvatori knew that Cho was no less of a monster than the abomination that he had created.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Salvatori said, his voice dry and brittle.
Cho’s face showed disgust, either from the show of insolence or from the smell. He shook his head and made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I really hate to see you like this. Don’t you think it’s time that we end this little game?” Cho moved farther into the room, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I know that you can fix the serum. You hold the key. Maddox was your pupil, and if he could unlock the secret to immortality, so can you. It’s time that you share your secrets with me, old friend.”
Salvatori raised his eyes to meet Cho’s. “If I were thirty years younger...”
Cho laughed. “Too bad that you’re not thirty years younger. Maybe you were smarter back then. Now you’re just a stubborn old man that refuses to listen to reason. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will. I’ll make you beg me for death. Do you understand? I’m out of time, and so are you.”
Cho reached into his jacket pocket, and the locking mechanism of the door clicked open. He stepped into the frame of the doorway and then turned back to Salvatori. “You had better think about what I said. The next time I set foot in this place, I will have my answers.”
As Cho turned away, Salvatori quickly gained his feet and lunged out toward the younger man. He grabbed a fistful of Cho’s suit and struck him in the stomach, but the punch was weak and ineffective. Cho swept out a foot and tore Salvatori’s feet out from beneath him.
The old man hit the concrete, and Cho kicked him hard in the midsection. Salvatori’s vision filled with white spots as his breath was stolen from him. He clutched his arms into his chest and curled into a ball.
Cho swept a hand back over his hair and said, “Damnit, old man. We’ve been given the opportunity to remake the world, to do something that’s never been done. We could be gods.”
Salvatori coughed hard and sucked in a lungful of air. “You’re insane,” he said in a wheeze.
Cho chuckled and kicked the old man again. “It’s always been said that there’s a thin line between genius and madness. I’m going to check on our son’s progress, but I’ll be back soon. We’ll finish this discussion, and if you don’t help me, you’ll see firsthand how insane I can be.”
With the threat still hanging in the air, Cho walked out the door and slammed it behind him.
Salvatori waited a few moments before he moved. Then, still crumpled in a ball on the floor, he raised his hand to his face and examined the small device that he had stolen from Cho’s jacket.
He cursed under his breath. The device must have struck the ground when he fell and damaged the transmitter. He closed his eyes and sighed. But then he willed himself onward, popped the back panel from the device and set to work.
13.