Chapter No. 6 Cry of the Martyrs

Somewhere in the western range of the San Juan Mountains sits a small concrete structure about the size of those kiosks you often see in shopping malls. World War II Vets would mistake it for a machine gun bunker, and they would assume it belonged to an abandoned army-training site.

But it isn't what it seems.

Distant popping sounds invade the peace of this wilderness vista. Two hawks take to the air from nests high in the cliffs overlooking the bunker. A salamander scurries for safety under a nearby rock. Rising, swirling dust chases a family of jackrabbits away from its lair next to the rock.

The sounds grow louder, closer, adding a wind-cutting, whirling noise. Dust ablates from the rocky mesa in tornadic gusts as a helicopter settles down to a landing.

Two people emerge from the craft--a short curly-headed man and a thin black-haired woman--before it departs as quickly as it came.

The man presses a button on a small box. A split develops in the seemingly solid bunker, revealing a doorway. The two quickly enter and the split disappears.
All is peaceful again.

Only on the outside!

The man and the woman enter a high-speed elevator and are soon plunging deep into the mountain. The woman removes a cigarette from a silver case, places it between her thin lips, and lights it with the flame of a gold lighter decorated with the images of leaping dolphins.

She is free of snooping ears now.

###

Eric swirled a glass of Chardonnay and sniffed its contents before he took a sip. "Not bad . . . for a wine."

His wife gave him a smirk. "You're out of luck, dear. This isn't a beer joint."

"Amen to that."

He rubbed his beard. "Why didn't we go to Charlie's? This place is too . . . well, to put it mildly, formal."

"You're the one who suggested that we should eat at new restaurants so that they can't follow us."

"The only way they could follow us here is to have reservations--" He scanned his eyes over the menu. "--And a lot of cash."

"It's not as if we come here every day."

"I don't even know what half the stuff on this menu is." He glanced up at her. "What are you going to have?"

"I think I'll try the Sea Scallops and Shrimp with Truffle sauce."

"I'm not nuts about truffles," he said, twisting his lips to emphasize his disgust.

"No one said you have to have the same thing."

"I don't know, Love. A lot of this stuff has truffles in it. They must have gotten a deal on them."

"Le Crique's specializes in truffles."

He shook his head. "What I wouldn't give for a steak sandwich and a beer."

"I'm surprised that you don't recognize the nutritional value of sea food."

"I think I've had my quota of mercury for this month, Love."

"Whether you like it or not you're getting heavy metal in much of what you eat."

Eric flashed a teasing grin. "Ah, trying to poison me, are you?"

She returned a mock scolding frown. "If I wanted to poison you, I wouldn't be using a heavy metal like mercury. They're too easy to trace."

A ramrod-postured waiter appeared and flashed a courtesy smile. His well-oiled black hair was slicked back into a tiny ponytail alongside his thin angular face.
"Are we ready to order?" His voice seemed too high pitched for a male.

Eric looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Do you have anything without truffles?"

The waiter stared narrow-eyed at him for a few seconds before answering in a dry voice; "We have a sea-food salad."

"Oh, well. I guess I can handle some mercury."

"Dear!" She included an admonishing glare.

He smiled. "Ok, I'll have the salad."

The waiter rewarded him with an annoyed look and turned to Margaret. "And, you ma'am?"

"I'll have the Sea Scallops and Shrimp." She grinned at her husband. "With truffles."

"Would you care for another glass of wine?" he asked Eric in a voice that hinted of annoyance
.
"Sure. Maybe it will help digest the mercury."

"Dear!" Her eyes really scolded him this time.

The waiter spun and marched to the kitchen.

Eric beamed a triumphant smile. "Can't take a joke."

"I can't take you anywhere nice," his wife said with an appropriate frown.

"Hey, I'm going to the opera with you, am I not? At least you won't have to put up with me making cracks. I'll probably fall asleep."

"Yes. And you'll disturb everyone with your snoring."

He laughed. She smiled.

"By the way, Love, which opera are we enduring tonight?"

"You might identify with tonight's ordeal." She emphasized the last word. "It's Puccini's Madame Butterfly."

"Hey! No insults, please. That's the one where that American cad marries a Japanese woman and then abandons her. She ends up committing suicide."

She smiled. "I'm surprised that you, of all people, can remember the libretto of any opera. Perhaps there's hope for you yet."

He frowned. "There'd be more hope if I had a good steak sandwich and a beer."

She rewarded him with a frown of her own.

He pointed at her and smiled.

Her frown melted into a smile, accompanied by playful tilt of her head.

It was a familiar look, a signal that she was thinking of other more interesting appetites.

###

Marian pulled a drag from the cigarette dangling from her thin lips and after the smoke penetrated the deep recesses of her lungs, she allowed it to pour from her nostrils in curly streams. "Well, Julie, did you find out anything about our creatures?"

Julius turned away from his wife's demanding eyes. "No, my Pet. The authorities pursued us. We had to--"

"Julie, you are incompetent in these matters of intrigue. Why don't you entrust that aspect of the project to the military operatives?"

His face reddened. "Those bastards are impossible to deal with. They think they know everything. I hate them."

"You're just saying that because it's true."

He laughed, coughing from the irritation of her cigarette smoke.

"Oh, Julie. You are incorrigible." She laughed with him, but her laugh was gravely and followed by more violent coughing.

After calming down, she softened her face. "Did you find out anything, anything at all?"

He ran a hand through his curly hair and then down over his pudgy face. "The Institute is going back to the Galapagos Islands. I'm certain that they will mount a concerted effort to capture one of the creatures." He stared into her narrowed eyes. "We must not allow them to succeed."

"We? What can we do?" Her eyes popped wide, but they had a derisive glare.

"We," he said, emphasizing the word, "are powerless. If the Institute is successful in obtaining one of these creatures, your military cretins will destroy it."

"They are not my cretins."

"What difference does it make? They will throw the baby out with the bath water."

She pouted. "I desperately want one of those creatures. Isn't there some way that we can snatch one from the Institute scientists after they capture them?"

"You're assuming that they will succeed," he said with a frown, but it quickly transformed to a confident smile. "But, if they do, perhaps we can appropriate their catch."

Her eyes brightened. "Oh, Julie, I dearly hope so. Promise me that you will obtain one for me. Please."

He patted her hand. "For you, my Pet, I will promise anything."

That seemed to satisfy her, but he was never sure. He found it difficult to satiate her unusual appetites.

The elevator came to a two-gee stop and the two exited into a dimly lit corridor. The distant sound of rushing air hinted of air handling equipment.

"Not to change the subject," he said, pausing, "but how is our little experiment coming?"

Her lips pursed with a taunting smile. "Mama has provided us with her issue, but she will have nothing to do with it."

His lips twisted. "Why?"

She curled her finger at him. "Come and see for yourself."

He followed her to a lab deep within the complex, through dark hallways with darker shadows, past labs filled with large aquarium tanks teaming with strange sea creatures, some swimming in fluids that glowed with a blue luminescence.

Mysterious aquatic eyes followed them as they passed.

As soon as he entered the lab, Julius Stram's eyes widened.  "Ah! Our DNA fragment caused the flipper to differentiate."

"Yes, Julie, a porpoise with hands. But the mother will not suckle it. Its survival is in question."

"Can't we force feed it?"

""I've tried that. It is agitated. Without its mother's attention, it is impossible to control."

Julius placed his hand against the aquarium tank and blew out a deep breath. "Such a waste. We are so close but yet so far." He turned to stare at her gaunt face. "Put it in with the female Tursiops. Maybe it won't be so fussy."

"A surrogate mother. Very good, Julie."

He smiled, but his eyes were weary with failure.

A thin middle-aged man, dark eyes to match his dark hair and complexion, appeared from a back entrance. "Dr. Stram."

Julius spun around. "Yes, what is it, Franklin?"

"The subject is prepared in lab four, but Meckler is not back from Paris."

Marian's eyes brightened to accompany her enthusiastic grin. "Oh, Julie, let me do it. Please."

He smiled but his brow was wrinkled. "You are too eager, my Pet. I'm not sure that you would be objective."

"I am always objective. Why do you say that?"

"Have it your way, my Pet. But, take your time. There's no need to rush through it."

Her entire face exuded sadistic amusement. "Do not concern yourself. I will take all the time in the world."

He laughed, but his laughter was tempered by concern.

###

Margaret stared out of the passenger window and emitted a wistful sigh before she turned to examine her husband's rugged face. She had second thoughts about the upcoming expedition to the Galapagos Islands and it was increasing her anxiety.

Are we doing the right thing? What if we fail? They'll think we're senile and force us to retire. I'm too young to retire. I'm sure they think we're crazy. Why wouldn't they? God, I hate this.

Her husband noted her penetrating stare. "What?"

"I hate this constant running around. We never sleep in the same place."

"Would you rather have them kidnap you again?"

"No. It's just . . . well, I just don't know if we're doing the right thing."

"Someone must think we're doing the right thing."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, Love, think about it. Why are they going to all this trouble to dissuade us from finding these creatures? They must think we're on the right track."

"Either that or they're as crazy as we are."

He smiled. "You're starting to sound like George."

Margaret frowned. "No way! Stevens thinks we're old fools. The rest of the Institute thinks we're crazy."

"Let them think what they want. The world always paints pioneers as crazy. We'll just have to put up with it."

"It seems that we're putting up with a lot more than derision."

He sighed. "Yeah. I don't like it any better than you do. One thing is for sure: when we get onto the Nautilus, we won't have to put up with harassment."

She continued to stare at him for a few minutes before she returned to looking out of the window at the large estates along Buena Vista Drive. She was not as convinced as he was about their safety once they began the expedition.

###

Marian held the instrument in her narrow bony fingers with a grip strong enough to turn her knuckles white. The instrument was not an ordinary scalpel. The business end was angled and it terminated in a polished stainless plate with a tiny razor-sharp blade protruding from its center. Designed to make an extremely shallow incision, the instrument's cutting depth can be precisely adjusted by means of a micrometer mounted on the handle.

The unfortunate receiving end of this instrument looked roughly humanoid, but it was far from human. The face had large round black eyes set in a pate of silver scales. Large dark green scales covered the large egg-shaped cranium. Ringed with menacingly sharp teeth, the partially opened mouth revealed a wide throat illuminated from gill slits alongside a squat neck.

In contrast, the torso was smooth-skinned with tiny human-like nipples set in vestigial breasts. The upper appendages were shorter than a human's but similarly shaped. The lower extremity resembled that of a dolphin, except for the fact that its fluke was separated into two separate halves.

The one flaw that had condemned this unlucky creature to its final unholy fate was it's hands--they were undeveloped, stubs having substituted for fingers.

The naked subject was strapped down to a stainless steel table. Its smooth gray skin had a pale color of death under the bright illumination over the dissection table.

But, this subject was not dead.

Marian lovingly ran her hand over the subject's thoracic and abdominal areas, deriving tactile pleasure from the slippery feel of its bare skin, stopping occasionally to press her bony fingers into its flesh as if she were sizing it up for a meal.

Her exploring hand soon migrated down to the subject's genitals. She smiled when she wrapped her long skinny fingers around its fat penis. The organ felt cold and limp in her hot little hand, but she was not satisfied with just feeling it. She took delight in squeezing and pulling it as hard as she could.

The subject was not delighted one bit. Its mouth opened wide and its muscles tensed. Limbs struggled against restraints, causing its torso to buck and twist. Its scream was high pitched, piercing, blood curdling.

"You are wasting time, my Pet," her husband's voice boomed above the subject's screams.

She looked up at a camera mounted near the speaker and grinned. "I just want to see how sensitive it is." She released her grip and the creature settled down but still moaned from residual pain.

"I think you have your answer. It will need sedation."

She looked back down at the twitching muscles of her agitated subject and pouted. "Unfortunately, you are as observant as usual, Julie." She jerked her head up and smiled. "I will give it just enough to suppress its voluntary nervous system. It will still be awake."

"How will you estimate the dosage?" her husband asked.

She inserted a hypodermic into a vial and carefully extracted some of its potent liquid. After ejecting a few drops, she inserted the needle into a vein in the subject's arm. The subject relaxed after a few minutes, but its eyes were still wide with terror.

She looked back up at the camera. "See."

"You are as skillful as ever, my Pet."

She smiled, but it was a smile that telegraphed her pride, not pleasure. The effect of the muscle relaxant was just what she wanted. Despite what her husband thought, her fun was guaranteed.

She began by running the business end of the instrument along a line that split the creature's epidermis covering its rectus muscle from the navel to the pubis. A thin line of blood followed the instrument like a wake as its wielder continued to define a roughly sixteen-square-inch section of the subject's skin. When she completed the square cut, she placed the instrument in a pan and picked up a new instrument. She slid its thin curved blade under the incision and slowly began to slice the dermis layer away as if she were filleting a fish. While she worked, she wagged her pointy little tongue between tight lips and swiveled her hips as if she were dancing in place. She was having fun.

The subject of her perverse pleasure was not having fun. Unable to escape the pain and abject terror of being skinned, it screamed its extreme displeasure, the sounds echoing off the hard unfriendly walls of the dissection lab with a vengeance.
 
Her husband left her to her sadistic fun. Her emotional involvement disturbed him. He was interested in the pursuit of science, not perversity. Besides, he didn't really want to watch her remove the dermis of the subject one section at a time. His escape was not perfect. The piercing cries of her victim echoed after him as he hurried down a corridor.
His wife never noticed his absence. She was busy as a bee, cutting and scraping skin away from her screaming victim. Impervious to its suffering, she continued her work, piling the sections of its flesh on a pan to create a blood-soaked layered pile.

After she had skinned the abdominal and thoracic areas, Marian began removing the muscularazation over the intestines, cutting rubbery tendons and slicing through tough ligaments like an experienced butcher. At this point the creature was reduced to a whimpering wounded animal incapable of resisting the savage violation of its living body. It would not suffer much longer, especially when the scalpel began to incise its inner organs.

But Marian was not to be denied her fun. She used retractors to stem blood loss, and injected tranquilizers into her victim to prevent shock. She just loved the look in its eyes when it saw her piling bloody sections of its intestines into a pan.

What fun!

###

The shapely leg peeked at him from under a lavender terrycloth robe, and it was more than he could resist. The leg's owner lay there on the motel bed reading a book, trying to relax, trying to get control of her emotions, and here he was, about to disturb her peace.
Her lovely skin was too much of a temptation.

Eric reached out and gently touched his wife's calf at the midpoint before he slowly, silently, and seductively ran two fingers up her calf, around her knee, and then up her thigh. Her skin felt like silk, sensuous and smooth, spreading excitement like electricity up from his fingers, through his arm and into his body.

He was ready.

But, was she?

Margaret looked up from her book with surprised eyes. "Oh, it's you. I thought it was a bug crawling on me."

He smiled, but he was not happy with her reaction to his foreplay.

She recognized the pleading look in his face, the half-opened mouth, the squinting eyes, the look of longing and anticipation. She knew what he wanted.

"I'm sorry, dear. I just . . . I'm just too tired. I'm sorry."

He stared at her with a hurt expression, but he knew it was a wasted signal. Their love making required spontaneity and that had been lost because of his lousy timing. All he could do now was try to sooth the situation so that the stage could be set for the next opportunity.

"Maybe we need to get out of this motel and see if we can find something to do."

She gave him a puzzled look with a hint of scolding. "You're the one who said we need to keep a low profile. Now you want to go out?"

"I was just trying to be helpful, Love." He rolled over to stare at the ceiling. "You're right," he said in a dejected voice. "We don't want to go out. I'm sorry I disturbed you."

After a few minutes, she placed her book on the nightstand, sat up with a graceful swing of her torso, paused to straighten her back and then turned to smile at her husband. "You don't have to apologize, dear. I understand." Her facial muscles relaxed into an apologetic pout. "I haven't been very considerate of late. I'm sorry."

He looked at her with an apologetic smile. "That's ok. I realize how much of a strain the last few weeks have been. You don't need to--"

When she stood up with her back to him, he assumed she was going to the bathroom, but when she didn't move, he didn't know what to expect.

He had to wait several exciting seconds to find out.

After untying the sash and parting the two halves, she slowly slid the robe down, revealing the skin of her beautiful back in stages. She paused at her waist long enough to increase his heartbeat.

At first, he thought she was just removing her robe to take a shower, even though she seldom did so outside the bathroom. But, she didn't move. Instead she continued to lower her robe at a teasingly erotic pace over her shapely derriere.

Eric gaped at her magnificent form, slowly being revealed, and wetted his impatient lips.
He broke out in a sweat when she suddenly dropped the robe, spread her legs, and ever so slowly bent over to pick it up.

What is she doing? I thought she was tired. I hope she isn't just fooling around.

She wasn't.

His eyes were momentarily distracted from the more titillating aspects of his wife's posterior to a small tattoo in the center of her left buttock. When he recalled how she got that little red squid, he smiled. That night was their first time. He had only dated her a half dozen times before he was rewarded with the ultimate favor. Passion is the one aspect of their relationship that has never really faded with age.

She straightened up and turned just enough to allow a teasing side view of her breasts.
She smiled at him with a beckoning curving of her lips.

His eyes wide as saucers, he silently mouthed the word "Wow." And licked his lips as punctuation.

He eagerly following her into the bathroom and quickly undressed as he watched her turn on the shower and step into it. The next opportunity had come much sooner then he had thought it would.

###

Julius Stram looked up from a computer monitor at his exuberant wife. "How did the dissection go?"

"It was marvelous fun." Her eyes were wide with recalled excitement. "It lived for more than one hour. You should have stayed."

"I can't stand the yelling and screaming. It hurts my ears."

She sat next to him. "That's what makes it so much fun. I just love to see how long I can prolong its suffering."

His face twisted with imagined pain, and he turned back to the monitor. "And, what did you learn?"

"Most interesting. Our latest failure had four ruminants but they were much smaller than those found in dolphins." She cackled. "The lungs were most interesting."

"How's that?"

"They were very large, twice the volume of a human's, with alveoli that measured from one to three millimeters in diameter."

"Interesting." He sighed and shook his head. "We were so close on this one, but it was not to be."

"Do not lose heart, Julie. We will succeed. Every failure is a lesson."

"Yes, a lesson in futility."

She tried to cheer him up with a smile. "I will have a report ready within a day."

"You are most efficient, as usual, my Pet."

"Yes I am, Julie. You should have brought the Hauptman woman to me. I could have extracted the information from her."

His face hinted of offense. "And, how would you have done that?"

A grin transformed her face into pure evil. "If I had her strapped onto the vivisection table, I could make her sing like a bird."

He snorted. "I'm sure you could."

"And after I had enjoyed extracting the information from her, I would slowly cut her into pieces and feed them to the sharks right in front of her eyes."

Her husband felt his stomach turn. "She is too valuable for that. She is the key to the creatures."

She pouted. "You take all the fun out it, Julie."

"None of this has been fun, my Pet," he said, rubbing his face. "But, I will do my best. I promise you that."

She flashed a smile that telegraphed tacit acceptance.

He returned her smile, but the rest of his face was twisted with concern.