Holes in the Ground by J.A. Konrath, Iain Rob Wright Page A

in front of him. “Thank you, Dr. Gornman. Finally, let me introduce Gwen Nester. She works in the library which is located to the east side of this room.”
    A young redhead directly opposite Andy gave a warm smile. “Call me Nessie. I’m the facility’s expert on ancient theology and belief structures. The boring stuff.”
    “If you don’t mind me saying, you look young,” Andy noted.
    Nessie shrugged her shoulders but didn’t seem to take offence at the comment. “I’m afraid there’s very little interest in cultures from three thousand years ago. There’s a limited talent pool to pick from. My predecessor sadly passed away this year. But I have devoted my entire adult life to studying the ancient world, so I promise you I know more than enough to be of use. Plus I used to watch
The History Channel
obsessively, back when it used to, you know, actually air history programs.” Nessie cleared her throat. “That was a joke, by the way.”
    Andy smiled politely, but he wondered if Nessie might be a liability. She was mid-twenties and brimming with positivity, but neither of those things tended to help when you were fighting for your life against hellspawn.
    “Pleased to meet you all,” Sun said.
    “Me, too,” Andy concurred. “Has work already begun on analysing the batling?”
    There was a collection of frowns and grunts around the table. Kane addressed the confusion. “Mr. and Ms. Dennison-Jones refer to our new arrival as a ‘batling’.”
    Dr. Chandelling nodded and looked amused. “As good a name as any. I was calling it flying goat thingy. The official channels have been referring to it as a ‘faustling”’
    “Have you discovered anything about it yet?” Sun asked.
    “Not much.” Nessie frowned. “It was captured in the woods above the entry hatch a few days ago.”
    The Head of Security, Rimmer, pulled at his scraggly beard and sniffed. “The weekly perimeter sweep discovered a pile of bodies in the clearing above. Dead mule deer, bobcats, big horn sheep. It was as if an alpha-predator had started wiping out all of the local fauna. When one of our security teams went out to investigate they found your batling feasting on the carcass of a cougar. They opened fire and tore the thing to pieces before bringing the remains underground. Within the hour it had completely healed and come back to life. Our subsequent attempts to harm it have resulted in temporary injuries at best.”
    “Bub could regenerate by manipulating his DNA, and the DNA of other organic matter,” Sun explained. “He’s got these—stingers—in his palms. They’re like syringes. He uses them to inject some sort of DNA mutator serum into tissue. He created the batlings, and looked exactly like them, only larger. Stands to reason they have the same ability to heal as he did.”
    Dr. Gornman nodded. There was a hint of disdain on her face, a slight narrowing of her eyes and downturn of her pointed nose. “That much is quite obvious. We need to discover the source of the ability, though. If we can harness the ability to heal instantly we can transform mankind. Just think of a world without injury, without disability. We would be the saviors of the human race.”
    Sun leaned in closer. “You don’t think people tried figuring that out at Samhain? They had Bub locked up for over a century and gained nothing from him. It’s tempting fate to even try. Stopping him should be our only priority.”
    “The Samhain facility was a relic, improperly administrated,” Gornman said. “Human error, and faulty protocol led to the security breaches there. Bub should have been brought here when he was discovered.”
    “Why wasn’t he?”
    “President Roosevelt didn’t trust anyone but the US to keep an eye on him,” Gornman answered. “Which turned out to be a huge mistake. They should have brought the creature to us, or to another Deus Manus facility. We have the very best security, the best technology, and the very best