But there were the others, the best and worst creations of man. Some came from the island before it was destroyed, like these newest additions, which he called Tsuchigumo, or Tsuchi for short. In Japanese mythology, the Tsuchigumo were a race of spider-like phantoms. The YMkai. Like the chimera now consuming Johnson’s body, they could take on many forms, spiders and turtles most common among them. They were deadly and crafty. The name fit.
“You did well, Silhouette,” Brice said, as he turned around and removed his mask. Though it wasn’t necessary, he always wore a mask when dealing with uncomfortable situations. He’d never been good with people and was even worse with people about to die. The mask helped. Hid his emotions. He’d always wished he could be unattached, like a sociopath or a Vulcan, but he felt emotion like anyone else. He had experienced sorrow for Johnson since the moment he had chosen the unexceptional, very alone boy to transport the Tsuchi. But any misgivings he felt were dwarfed by his ambition, his desire to change the world—or perhaps even remake it. In his line of work, where emotions could be a liability, masks helped.
It was why he could speak to the man known only as Silhouette, whose eyes were always hidden behind those reflective sunglasses that made him look more like a State Trooper than the leader of the BlackGuard. He and his men—Shadow, Obsidian and Specter—were the best at what they did, which was to serve none other than GOD—the Genetic Offense Directive. In extreme situations, they could mobilize military assets if ‘national security’ was at risk, as they had done to ensure the island’s destruction. Most of the time, the BlackGuard did GOD’s dirty, wet and covert work.
GOD was an arm of DARPA, and their research was defined by two words: weaponized biology. Few in DARPA knew of GOD’s existence, and none of those few saw a need for oversight. Plausible deniability was essential for this kind of work. Killer robots remained acceptable, while anything organic was seen as abominable, despite being cheaper and deadlier. Aside from the island’s loss two years previous, they were making progress far faster than labs who had to abide by federal regulations. While the island had been GOD’s first outpost, their headquarters was now located on the mainland, hiding in plain sight. And thanks to their many patents and shell corporations, not to mention a sizable black budget that increased by 5% every year since 1959, they had more resources and a larger GDP than many small nations.
Silhouette gave a curt nod, but said nothing. His penchant for silence unless asked a question was another one of his redeeming qualities.
“No witnesses, I presume?” Brice asked, using the reflection in Silhouette’s glasses to fix his blond hair, sweeping it over the top of his head to cover the growing bald spot. He’d considered following Silhouette’s example and shaving his head clean, but he hadn’t found the time. He waved his hand, brushing away his words. “I know there weren’t. Silly question. And the ship? Sunk?”
“To the bottom,” Silhouette said.
“Were there many Tsuchi?”
“More than a hundred. In the mess hall.”
“And they’re all dead?”
“They can’t swim.”
“Would you say there is a margin of error?” Brice sat behind his gleaming white desk, which held only a laptop. He bounced twice in the swivel chair and then spun in a slow circle, marveling at the scope of his work. The three-hundred-foot-long lab was one of fifteen he oversaw, three per floor, housed in the building’s top five floors, which he had deemed Incubators. A row of glass domes, each containing various species or mixes of species, stretched from one end to the other. On the far side of the space was an empty walkway, at the center of which sat his solitary desk. No windows. No co-workers. Just Brice and his creations. But this incubator wasn’t a functional lab. It was simply his office, where the best, and most dangerous creations were kept under his watchful and admiring eye. The real work happened in the other nineteen incubators, which held as much lab equipment as glass domes, and in the more recently constructed five-hundred-foot-long hangar next door, which was less of an incubator and more of a morgue. “If there were one hundred fifty Tsuchi on board the Darwin, would you say there might have been a .75 percent margin of error?”
“Do you have a point?” Silhouette didn’t like games. Didn’t like much of anything.
“No fun,” Brice said, and swiveled his laptop monitor around. “This was taken from a dash cam and uploaded to Flickr an hour ago. Note the red circle with the words, ‘What the hell is this?’ above it. Can you tell me what this is?”
Silhouette showed no reaction beyond a tightening of his lips.