A head-high rock wall surrounded Dr. Avila’s compound, which Maddock knew from Letson’s satellite photos to consist of a main mansion and several out-buildings. What occupied his attention now, though, was the open gate set into the rock wall, with a guard standing in front of it.
He was armed with an automatic rifle and smoked a cigarette. Maddock was glad to recognize his demeanor for the detachment and boredom it represented; this guy was probably near the end of his shift, a long day on his feet where nothing happened for hours at a time. Such was the situation for guards the world over — the difficulty was in maintaining a state of readiness for what could require split-second reactions in the face of ongoing tedium.
Willis shot Maddock a look that said, now? Maddock mouthed the word, wait, and Willis nodded, returning his gaze to the smoking guard.
As they watched, a long-haired figure materialized out of the trees and pistol-whipped the guard on the back of the head, dropping him instantly. Bones dragged his body out of sight behind an SUV parked nearby and then joined his comrades at their hiding spot.
“Told you I could do it.”
Maddock and Willis looked at one another and shook their heads.
Bones threw his hands up. “What?”
Maddock waved a hand dismissively. “Don't worry about it. Let's just hope you haven't rattled that guy’s brain too badly. We need him to tell us how to get inside.”
Chapter 37
Fabi lay strapped to a cot in the same room she had found so eerie, the one with a group of people she had initially thought of as patients. Now, as she struggled to move her hands and feet against the shackles that chained her to the bed, she understood they were in fact more like subjects. Humans being experimented on by Dr. Avila… for what purpose she didn’t know.
The squeak of cot wheels drew near and then the door pushed open as a lab tech and a security guard wheeled in a new cot. Fabi lifted her head as high as she could, straining her neck muscles.
“Cassandra!” She couldn’t stop herself from blurting out her friend’s name. But apparently Cassandra had been sedated already, because she was slow to respond. Her eyelids appeared heavy as she turned to look in Fabi’s general direction, as if searching for the source of the voice.
Another man strode into the room, gaze shifting from Fabi to the tech and the guard, from there to Cassandra and back to Fabi. Dr. Avila spoke to Fabi while observing his employees wheel the cot to a station with a cluster of waiting IVs and machines. “She’s already been prepped for the main event, shall we say. She’s a bit unresponsive at the moment, so you’ll likely find her to be a less than exciting conversationalist right about now.”
“Don’t give her any more drugs, Dr. Avila. Please. She did not consent to this. You’re a physician, for crying out loud. What about the Hippocratic oath you took, the one that said you would always strive to keep your patients’ best interests at heart?”
Avila glanced over at Cassandra, who was now having her arm wiped with an alcohol pad by the lab tech, then quickly back to Fabi. “She’s not a patient. She’s a subject. Unless perhaps…”
“Perhaps what?” Fabi watched as the lab tech now uncapped a needle and held it poised over Cassandra’s chained arm.
“Perhaps you could tell me what I want to know about the treasure, and then I will withdraw this…” He nodded in Cassandra’s direction. “… subject from the experiment.”
Fabi slammed her head back against the thin cot, rattling its flimsy frame. “I told you already, Dr. Avila, I don’t know anything about any treasure. Okay, maybe my cousin David was looking for one; he had mentioned that to me a few times, but I wasn’t privy to the details.”
Avila gave a long exhalation before nodding to his lab tech, who promptly jabbed the needle into Cassandra’s flesh and depressed the plunger. He raised his voice over Fabi’s protests. “Listen to me: it takes one hour for the effects to take hold. Until they do, the treatment is reversible. Beyond that time…”
He looked over at Cassandra, her head lolling back and forth on the sweat-stained cot. He made an exaggerated and wholly insincere expression of sadness.
Fabi yelled at the top of her lungs. “I don’t know where it is!”
Avila shrugged. “I guess in an hour I’ll believe you.” He turned away from Fabi and huddled with his lab tech in quiet conference in a corner of the room while the armed guard stood watch. Unable to do anything else, Fabi called out to Cassandra.
“Cassandra! Can you hear me? It’s okay, hang in there, you’ll be okay.”
Cassandra uttered a couple of nonsensical words but never focused her eyes on Fabi while she tossed her head back and forth. She seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. Avila and his tech ignored them while the guard looked on passively, apparently concerned only with action, not words. Fabi continued attempting to communicate with her friend over the next few minutes, but her condition only deteriorated, taking her even farther from reality.
“Dr. Avila! Why are you doing this?”
The physician held a finger up to his lab tech and slowly turned around to face Fabi. “Why? To make people better, of course.” He beamed as though he had just uttered the most fantastic thing a person could ever say.
“How does carrying out unregulated experimentation on non-consenting subjects make people better?”
Avila took a deep breath, as though gathering his patience. “Fabiola, you are still a relatively young person, somewhat naive. How can I put this?” He stared at Cassandra while wrinkling his eyebrows into a mask of contemplation before continuing.
“Many people are nothing more than simple drudges. Near-mindless automatons, going about their daily life chores with a robotic detachment best suited to… well, suited to machine-like labor, really. That’s where my HAITI project comes in. It stands for Human-Animal Initiative for Total Indoctrination.”
Fabi bristled with hate as she recalled seeing the name of the project in the clinic files, blissfully unaware at the time of its abhorrent meaning.
Avila went on. “Why not let the zombie class serve the more capable, yes — dare I say it—better, more advanced people, people who will afford them a life of productivity, free from criminal urges?”
“A person’s station in life should not be dictated to them by someone else, Dr. Avila, that’s why not. You’re not talking about naturally letting people land where they may, are you? Why else would you need to drug them?” She nodded to Cassandra, who had stopped the constant thrashing but now uttered a continuous, low moan.
“I am simply accelerating their natural fate and harnessing it where it can do the most good.” He also nodded to Cassandra. “Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed that her skills are not exactly irreplaceable. I suspect that on your first day, you’ve already demonstrated you can outperform her.”
“What about free will?”
Avila laughed. “Free will is wasted on the inferior. Look at how the lowest of the low exercise it: murder, rape, theft, and countless other crimes.”
“That’s a messed up version of law enforcement.”
“There are more applications, though. Drug addiction would be thing of the past. Population could be strictly controlled. So many possibilities, and what is the real cost? Insignificant sacrifice by inconsequential people.”