“Someone like me?”
Hawkins didn’t know a lot about psychology, but understood human nature and could bullshit with the best of them. He needed to keep Bennett distracted so he used the information Kam had revealed about Bennett’s upbringing and launched into his prognosis of the man, doing his best to make it sound convincing. “You were born here. Raised by scientists, who, let’s admit, are generally obsessed with their work and don’t make for very loving parents. You were smart. Uncommonly smart. But you were still a child, and children need the love of their parents in order to thrive. Desperate for affection, you feigned an interest in your parents’ work. It sickened you. How could it not? You were a kid. But your parents were finally paying attention to you. Maybe celebrating your early accomplishments. Their recognition made you feel loved, probably for the first time in your screwed-up life, so you tried harder. Pushed further. And with each success, you felt an outpouring of affection. Each successful experiment was followed by a rush of dopamine. After a few years, the experiments alone provided an intense feeling of love. No need for praise from Mommy and Daddy.
“When you hit puberty, your mind began to release gobs of hormones and chemicals and you actually started to get off from your experiments. The more horrific, the bigger the thrill. Eventually, your addiction began to make the other scientists, including your parents, afraid. So you pulled away. You didn’t need them anymore. You could get your rocks off all by yourself. But then something happened. Maybe they confronted you. Maybe you overheard a conversation.”
Bennett’s eyes twitched.
“That’s what it was. Who was it? Your parents, right? They used to be so proud and now they wanted, what? To kick you off the island? Lock you up? Kill you?”
Bennett twitched again.
God, no wonder the kid went off the deep end.
“So you killed most everyone here, including Mom and Dad, except for the staff that could help with your experiments, and Kam because you were raised together, like brothers, and he never publicly judged you. Or maybe because you knew how much he feared—”
“Enough!” Bennett shouted. All traces of humor had vanished from his face.
“How’d I do?” Hawkins asked, mimicking the way Bennett had asked the question. “Pretty accurate, right?”
As the words came out of his mouth, Hawkins knew he’d gone too far. He watched as Bennett’s left hand came up, the small, black remote clutched in his fingers.
Pulse, pulse, pulse.
Hawkins spun, looking for an attack. But he saw nothing. Just a line of trees, some brush, and a prickly-looking bush, like a cactus with long spines.
Black and white spines.
Like a porcupine.
That’s when he noticed that the spiky bush, which had been there all along, was breathing. The huge form shifted and Hawkins found himself staring into the rectangular pupils of Kaiju, the strange beast.
46.
Bennett laughed as Hawkins stepped away from the shifting jungle. Though she was the combination of several different species, the monster—Kam’s mother—had black skin and black fur. The only parts of her not black or a shade of gray were her yellow eyes and the streaks of white on her spines. In the shade of the jungle, her features were nearly impossible to distinguish, but when she stepped into the light of day, her horrible form was revealed.
The first thing Hawkins noticed was that her face and various parts of her body had been slathered in mud. Hawkins remembered tan skin on her face and green crocodilian skin on her forehead. And Kam had mentioned a polar bear claw, which should have been white. She was, after all, a patchwork of multiple DNAs, not a hybrid. Covered in drying mud, she looked like a single, unified species. She looked alien. A true monster.
That she’d been created from knowledge garnered from Japan’s World War Two atrocities, and seventy years of continued barbarism under the control of a fringe DARPA program, made her even more of a monster. Kam would no doubt want Hawkins to see her as a victim and, to a point, he did. But he saw her in the same way he saw Jim Clifton—she’d been tortured, experimented on, and abused to the point where her life had been reduced to a subjugated killing machine. Ending her life would be the right thing to do.
Of course, it was far more likely that she would kill him.
Hawkins took another step back and drew the machete, holding it in his right hand and the bolt stunner in his left.
She stalked slowly toward him.
Where are they? Hawkins thought, annoyed that the cavalry had not yet arrived, despite the fact that the cavalry would likely try to kill him, as well.
“What are you waiting for?” Bennett shouted. “Get on with it!”
Pulse, pulse, pulse.