“I remember Cho,” Beck said. “He always struck me as a bit of a moron. Manifold security even caught him trying to sneak drugs into one of the facilities. I don’t know how he managed to keep his job after that.”
Salvatori bobbed his head in agreement. “Cho was a bit of a reptile himself, but he always had a way of surviving. I should have never gotten mixed up with him, but after Manifold was essentially shut down, I hated to think of how close I had come to making a significant mark upon the world. Cho gave me an opportunity to continue my work. He filled my head with lies, and by the time I learned his true plans, it was too late. He had used the resources of a splinter of the Chinese government, who hoped to prove the feasibility of world-wide communist domination to the government majority, to further his own insane scheme to achieve immortality.”
“You referred to him in the past tense. What happened to Cho?” Knight said.
Salvatori laughed then winced and clutched his side. “Like the angel Lucifer, Cho’s own vanity and pride were his downfall. Cho thought he had found a way to limit the side effects of his serum, but his manipulations to our original formula had actually caused additional side effects. He tested it on himself, and it killed him.”
Salvatori looked to the horizon, but then his eyes suddenly shot back to Beck. With surprising speed, he reached out and grabbed her arm. The sudden movement made Knight’s hand fly to his weapon.
“My God, Beck, in the excitement, I nearly forgot,” Salvatori said. “We have to get out of here. I activated the facility’s self-destruct system. In a few moments, the entire city will be leveled. Quickly, we must get to the roof. Cho has a helicopter up there, but I had no idea how to use it.”
“Don’t worry. I can fly anything,” Beck said.
Knight’s head jerked back to Jenkins and the kids. “Come on! We’ve gotta go now!” Jenkins ushered the kids from the vehicle and joined the others.
Salvatori turned toward the entrance to the building at his back, but Knight reached out and grabbed his arm. “Are you sure that Cho is dead and all of the research will be destroyed?”
Salvatori smiled. “Cho was paranoid. The only copies of the Hydra DNA and his research are contained here. No backups. And the changes he made to the serum surely killed him.” But then Salvatori’s eyes went distant for a moment. Knight waited, letting the doctor work through his thoughts. “Unless…”
The ground shook beneath his feet, and Knight said, “Is that from the self-destruct system?”
“No, it wouldn’t be causing any tremors. Besides, we have—”
The ground shook with increased violence, and they struggled to stay on their feet. A giant fissure cracked open in the middle of the street in front of them, and the pavement bulged upward.
“What the—”
The street exploded. Pieces of pavement rained down around them. A thick cloud of dust filled the air and obscured visibility. Knight grabbed for the children, pulling them back from the gaping hole in the Earth and the falling debris.
A giant roaring sound emanated from the dust cloud. It was so loud that it shook his eardrums, and his hands instinctively flew to the sides of his head.
As the dust settled, he saw the giant creature climbing from a hole that Knight assumed to have once been a subterranean research facility. The enormous monster was misshapen and disfigured. It was humanoid in basic form and shared some similar characteristics with the creature they had just destroyed. It was vaguely reptilian and had elongated front limbs.
But unlike the previous creature, this monster was forty feet tall. Its skin pulsed and bubbled, and its body was disproportioned. Its bulbous elongated head bulged at odd intervals with strange tumor-like nodules. It reminded Knight of some nightmarish cross between the Hydra, a burn victim and the Elephant Man.
The grotesque abomination didn’t seem to notice them. It stared at its hands and rubbed them over its malformed skull. It roared with one part agony and one part anger.
Jenkins, apparently struck with blind panic at the sight of the monstrosity, screamed and opened fire on the giant.
The bullet strikes had no effect other than causing the repulsive face to swivel downward and take notice of them. The massive creature that had once been Phillip Cho bellowed another deep roar. Then, as if smacking a bothersome insect, it slammed a giant misshapen fist down upon the final SAS survivor, grinding him into the pavement.
34.
Knight’s training kicked in immediately, causing him to formulate a plan and act upon it while the others stood frozen in terror. “Beck!” She turned to him, her eyes wide and frightened. “Get to the chopper! Get the kids and the old man out of here. I’ll buy you some time.”
Once again, she didn’t question his orders and instantly shoved the others toward the building’s entrance. The giant’s eyes followed the movement.