Blood Bourbon

Genetic Limits

"We can't have the drones follow them directly, but we have a couple alternating flyovers and we're pretty sure this is the ship." Ryker had been watching the giant shipping freighter that was moving at a considerable clip, for the past several days. It hadn't made it all the way out to Guam but had come close enough that a helicopter that he definitely recognized as belonging to the Hunters could land and resupply.

There wasn't a lot happening on the deck of the ship, though people milled about at times and it took him until Mary explained it to understand what they were doing. "They're on smoke breaks, or fresh air breaks."

There weren't even many Hunters patrolling the deck, though he had counted five on board that he could see. The ship was already circling back their way, apparently making a large loop between the two american ports for resupply, though logic would dictate that they would need to come into port to get fuel, unless they had the ability to refill at sea.

He was standing in front of a live feed from the drones that showed the ship moving along, nothing in particular happening on board at the current moment. The room they were using was a conference centre in the local Knight Corp building complex on the east shore, just outside of Honolulu. The window normally overlooked the ocean waves and would be showing them a brilliant sunset if the black out blinds hadn't been closed for the vampire's comfort.

Ryker was still feeling his wounds,despite days of healing and the extra pain of the sunlight was more than he wanted to go through. Especially when he was around humans and his need to feed was still a lot more frequent than normal. This building was just a small satellite of their pacific offices. The presence of military on Oahu was enough that Knight Corp had established its main base in Maui, in the former tourist town of Wailuku.

"We've projected that they'll be several miles off land here in Oahu. We're best served going in at night with the RIBs, coming on board and then we'd have to do a sweep, and quickly." Charlie pulled up a digital map on the table, showing the ocean and the course they assumed the ship would be taking. The simulation stopped at a point just past the north part of the island, where the path began to swing back westward.

"We will hopefully be able to smell him on board." Tim offered a shrug. "But what concerns me is this..."

His boss pulled up a video from several days ago that the drone caught, of the hunters dumping a very large, very mutated body overboard. "They've engineered these fuckers and they're fast, hard to kill and indiscriminate. What intel we have, they stay in cages and the Hunters don't even trust them. But if they let one of them loose on a ship..."

Ryker paused the video for a moment, frowning as the camera settled on an image of a Hunter whose nose was bleeding, possibly broken. He looked like he had been slugged in the face a couple times and was mad. "One of those creatures didn't do this. His face would be clawed clean off."

No one said it. No one dared, but Ryker hoped that he knew exactly who had punched the Hunter and broke his nose. Not that it made a lot of sense, with all those Hunters. Daryl was still only human. Hunters were faster and stronger, better trained. It was a miracle than Janek had made it out of the alleyway. But still, Ryker held onto that hope, it was the only sign they had that Daryl was still alive and actually on that boat.

He hit play on the feed again and they saw a woman in a lab coat march up to the bleeding Hunter and begin yelling at him for something. They both marched off screen rather quickly and the feed ended there and Ryker zoned into the discussion the team was having about how to properly kill one of those creatures. Tim and Carbry had come across a couple several months ago, though the creatures had already been worn down and injured by an asset they currently didn't have access to.

"Just shoot for the head." Tim finally finished, before glancing over to him, raising a curious brow. "Ryke?"

Since when had he gotten close enough to his boss to warrant a nickname? Ryker scowled at the man, which didn't cause Tim to even blink, before he shook his head and forced himself to join the conversation. "We're going in quiet, so we're hoping they don't detect us at all, but if they have more of those creatures, they'll probably only unleash them if we're clearly winning and they're somewhere safe. They seem to be some sort of wolf-shifter hybrid, like they heard of lycanthropy and tried to turn it into a weapon."

"They can't... that's not what they're trying to do with Daryl, is it?" Mary murmured softly, looking up at the screen that had held the video of the ship deck but was now just blank now that the drone had continued its flight.

"Our scientists say that most of these things are born. That the genetic changes between original creature and hybrid, especially in something unnatural like that, would be impossible." Carbry shook his head slowly. "As far as we can fathom, Daryl was part of some sort of progeny program, to prime genes to be capable of more advanced alterations. Second generations are usually more stable and stronger. We think they hoped to make the next generation of Hunters out of it."

"But you had some of his blood yourselves, didn't you?" Charlie asked curiously, glancing up from the map where he and his team were discussing the appropriate approach technique.

"We pulled it when we realized there was something different about him." Alesky inclined his head. "We found gene suppressors in his DNA, which I'm going to assume that they would have removed. My people didn't have the correct formula to do so. His blood is, like the Hunters, potently alluring to vampires. But the scent doesn't invoke our baser instincts, it oddly enough, calms us down."

"How the hell does that help them?" Charlie looked at Ryker then, curiously, as if trying to gauge something.

"I've never tasted it, if that's what you're wondering." Ryker scowled at the man, crossing his arms over his chest. "Only seen him bleed once, after the cat attack."

"It might not help them. That's probably why the project was scrapped when he was a kid. It was an unwanted side effect. Based on what he's told us about the testing he went through, they wanted him to be more like Hunters." Carbry offered a careful shrug. "They must have figured out a way to utilize it, though. Or counteract it."

"He's not passive." Ryker murmured, glancing to Carbry. "He absolutely can't stand Hunters, it's like he can sense... when someone means him harm. He attracts the best and worst, depending on a person's... proclivity towards good and bad, I think."

"He's very empathetic." Mary offered, nodding in agreement. "He's great with animals because he seems to be able to just read them and work with them. Same with people too."

Ryker frowned at that, nodding to the woman and glancing over to his boss. "We're not bringing him back here to stick him in a lab ourselves. Hospitals, tests, all of it, he hates it. I can't... imagine how hard it is on him right now, assuming they've thrown him right back into their system. I was in his mind, his memories when he was telling us. I felt every goddamn emotion and fear that made him force himself to forget those years."

Carbry shook his head slowly. "We are not our enemy. We will make sure he is fine, that whatever they have done is not detrimental to his health."

He could see the expression of relief on Charlie's face as well, and the humans returned to their planning. They didn't completely trust them but Ryker supposed he hadn't either. Not that he didn't trust Carbry, but he understood that there were forces beyond the man's control at times. Ryker shook his head and distracted himself by falling into the planning of a rescue attempt that was out of the normal realm of experience for himself and his team.

Two days was an eternity. But he silently begged Daryl to hold on that long. Every hour was painful, wondering what was happening to the man in that ship. Two days would be torture.