Yama ceased listening, at a complete loss to explain any of the babble.
Morals Police? Turning in your own parents? It was utterly alien to his experience, as if he’d landed on another planet. He couldn’t afford to waste precious time when he had a bigger problem to solve.
Namely, the staring policeman.
Yama knew he couldn’t delay much longer; he had to enter the sidewalk soon or the policeman would come over to investigate his unseemly delay.
He took a deep breath and girded himself, waiting for an opening.
The policeman was leaning forward, intently scrutinizing the man with the silver hair.
The loudspeaker suddenly went dead, absolutely devoid of all sound, even static.
Yama felt, rather than saw, a perceptible change in the crowd, an ambiguous change in attitude and alertness.
A raucous blast abruptly shrieked from the loudspeaker.
Twice.
Three times in all.
The reaction on the sidewalk was instantaneous and inexplicable. The people stopped and packed into two masses on either side of the lofty steps leading up to the Biological Center, clearing a path from the glass doors down to the parking lot.
Yama gazed up at the large doors, tinted black like the rest of the seven-story structure, as they swung outward, disgorging a veritable menagerie, a nightmarish collection of genetic deviates walking in double file, marching down the steps in synchronized precision. Ten. Twenty.
Thirty. Yama stopped counting. They reached the sidewalk and turned to the left, their route miraculously clear of all other traffic.
How did the Doktor do it?
Yama knew Gremlin well, even considered the creature a friend. But the Warrior couldn’t become accustomed to the results of genetic engineering, especially when those results could talk to you or eat with you.
Or eat you.
All of the creatures in the Doktor’s Genetic Research Division were bipeds; beyond that, any similarity was strictly coincidental. There were tall ones and short ones, hairy ones and scaly ones, many more bestial than human, some with exaggerated ears or extended fangs, others with fiery red eyes or claws for fingers. Each of them wore a leather loincloth and was fitted with a metal collar around its neck, the collar the Doktor reportedly utilized to monitor their activities and to electrocute them for disobedience if necessary. Every one of them was endowed with keen animal senses and exceptional strength. According to the intelligence provided by Gremlin, the defector residing with the Family, there were fifteen hundred creations in the Genetic Research Division.
Fifteen hundred!
There was a murmur among the people on the sidewalk.
An imposing figure stood at the top of the stairs, a lean man looming head and shoulders over everyone, and everything, else. He wore a flowing white robe, the fabric covering him from his neck to his feet. His eyes were deeply set in their sockets and seemed to glow with an inner light. He grinned as he walked down the steps, exposing a mouth full of tiny, curiously pointed teeth. His hair was a dark black mane upon his sloping head.
Without being told, Yama intuitively knew this was the nefarious Doktor.
A young woman walked at the Doktor’s side, attired in a brown robe.
Her lovely features were serpentine, her skin yellow, and her narrow eyes a shade of lavender.
The Doktor and his consort descended the stairs and walked to the left, followed by as many genetically spawned creatures as had preceded them.
Forty soldiers, armed with M-16’s and automatic pistols, brought up the rear of the procession.
The loudspeaker blasted three times as the last of the soldiers disappeared around a bend in the sidewalk.
Yama saw his chance.
The pedestrians were returning to the sidewalk, milling about in a disorganized fashion.
Yama quickly shoved his way through the throng and reached the bottom of the steps. He tightened his grip on the Wilkinson, feeling his scimitar rub against his back, as he ascended the stairs and made for the doors.
“Hold up, Citizen!” someone shouted behind him.
Yama slowly turned.
The policeman was walking up the steps, swinging his night stick in his right hand.
How would an Army officer address a policeman? Certainly not as a superior.
“May I help you?” Yama asked as the policeman reached the step below him.
The policeman’s blue hat was pulled down to his ears, his graying sideburns flaring below his cheeks. His eyes were brown and attentive, his jaw rounded.
“Yes, sir,” the policeman said. “I couldn’t help but notice you back there. You looked like you weren’t quite with it. Anything wrong?”
Yama mentally chided himself for his lack of self-control. “Nothing’s wrong. Just feeling a bit ill, is all. My stomach.”
“You’d better see the medics, then,” the policeman advised.
“I intend to,” Yama replied. “Thanks.”
The officer nodded, smiling, and started to walk off.
Yama faced the doors.
“Say, Citizen,” the officer inquired over his shoulder, “what unit are you with?”
Unit? How were the Army units designated? Yama recalled a comment Seth had made concerning the patrol at his ranch. “I’m attached as an auxiliary with the Genetic Research Division.” He paused and glared at the policeman. “Why all these stupid questions? I have business inside and you are detaining me!”
Yama could read the policeman’s features. The man was suspicious of the Warrior, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. The policeman was racking his brain, trying to figure out what it was about Yama he didn’t like, but he couldn’t.