Rage of Rattus Norvegicus Read online

  Rage Of Rattus Norvegicus

  Chimera Chronicles, Volume 4

  L. S. O'Dea

  Published by L. S. O'Dea, 2018.

  Also by L. S. O'Dea

  Chimera Chronicles

  Rise of the River Man

  Feeding Fersia

  Breaking the Brush Men

  Rage Of Rattus Norvegicus

  Leaving Level Five

  Lake Of Sins

  Lake of Sins: Secrets in Blood

  Lake of Sins: Hangman's Army

  Lake Of Sins: Betrayed

  Whispers From the Past

  Lake of Sins: Escape

  Standalone

  Lake of Sins Series Box Set Books 1-3

  Chimera Chronicles

  A Demon's Gift

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Also By L. S. O'Dea

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER 1: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 2: SCOTTSMOOR

  CHAPTER 3: SCOTTSMOOR

  CHAPTER 4: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 5: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 6: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 7: SCOTTSMOOR

  CHAPTER 8: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 9: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 10: SCOTTSMOOR

  CHAPTER 11: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 12: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 13: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 14: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 15: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 16: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 17: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 18: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 19: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 20: SCOTTSMOOR

  CHAPTER 21: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 22: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 23: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 24: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 25: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 26: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 27: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 28: SCOTTSMOOR

  CHAPTER 29: RUFUS

  CHAPTER 30: SCOTTSMOOR

  CHAPTER 31: RUFUS

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  Leaving Level Five

  CHARACTERS

  The World of the Lake of Sins

  Author Bio

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  If this is your first foray into my books, you may want to click over to the World of the Lake of Sins section. I put it at the end since it’s just a little information about the world and class-societal structure.

  CHAPTER 1: RUFUS

  Rufus sat with his arm around Prin while Lee paced in the cage. “Sit down. You’re making her nervous.”

  “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” Prin’s big, brown eyes were filled with tears. Even sad his little sister was beautiful with long, curly, brown hair, a heart-shaped face and slender build.

  She and her twin brother, Lee, took after their mother who was a Hunting Guard. Whereas Rufus was larger and sturdier like their father who was a Protection Guard.

  “Nonsense.” It killed him to see her so sad and scared. She was his baby sister and he was supposed to protect her from things like this...from everything.

  “I never should’ve let Butchie...”

  “It happens, Prin. Don’t beat yourself up over it.” If he ever got out of here, he’d beat the crap out of Butchie instead. The cur had disappeared right after getting Prin pregnant.

  “You shouldn’t have run off. That’s what you shouldn’t have done.” Lee glared at his sister.

  “Shut up, Lee.” He didn’t need to deal with their bickering right now. “We’re all in trouble and the only way we get out is together. Just like always. So, shut-up and sit down.”

  “No. You’re always taking her side but she’s right. She screwed up big time.”

  Prin buried her face in Rufus’ shoulder and sobbed.

  “Stop it. She didn’t mean—”

  “She never means to get us in trouble.”

  “No one said you had to follow me.” When Prin had run away from their little home in the alley, he’d gone after her. They’d ended up in the wrong part of town at the wrong time and had gotten caught up in a sweep. Everyone had been taken directly to the shelter.

  “I...” Lee opened and closed his mouth.

  “Sit down. It’s not that bad here.” That was a lie. This was the worst place they’d ever been and that included waiting for their execution at the shelter.

  “Those smells.” Prin sat up. “What do you think they are?”

  “I don’t know.” That was the truth.

  “They make the hair stand up on the back of my neck.” Lee sat next to her.

  “Me too.” She took her twin’s hand. “I am sorry.”

  “I know.” Lee kissed the side of her head. “We’ll get out of this. We always do.”

  “Yep. Always.” Rufus smiled but he had a bad feeling about this place.

  “Remember a few years ago when that gang of Servants had us cornered?” Lee chuckled. “That’d looked like the end but we manage to outsmart them.”

  Not really, but he didn’t correct his brother. The Almighty Sweepers had happened by and everyone had scattered. It’d been either that or end up at the shelter.

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “We ran like crazy. I’d never run so fast or so long in my life.” Her smiled faded. “We should’ve run this time too. We should’ve attacked that...”

  Rufus put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t say things like that.” He tipped his head at the camera on the other side of the room before moving his hand away from her face.

  “It’s not even on.” She pointed. “No light.”

  “We don’t know for sure that it has a light.” He couldn’t risk having someone hear her say anything about attacking Almightys. If that happened, she’d be killed immediately.

  “We should’ve escaped from that Almighty, Scottsmoor, as soon as he took us from the shelter,” she whispered.

  “Nah. Then we’d still be on the streets.” He glanced again at the camera. They had to find out everything they could about it. When was it on? Did it have audio? Was it motion activated?

  “It’s better than here,” said Lee.

  “Hey, we got food and beds and we ain’t at the shelter.” He didn’t like this place any more than his siblings but he needed to put a positive spin on it.

  “Why do you think they took us if they were only going to leave us locked in this cage?” asked Prin.

  “They’re probably making sure we’ll behave and not run away.” He nudged her. “We can’t run away again.” Not until her young was born.

  “I’m not promising that. If I get the chance...if we can all escape, we need to go.”

  “Prin, give this place a chance.” He needed to protect her now more than ever. She was in a delicate condition and the streets were rough. “There are other Guards here. You’ve seen them. They seem happy.”

  “They aren’t in cages
and the looks they gave us...” She stared up at him, her eyes huge in her tiny face. “They feel bad for us. That can’t be a good thing.”

  “I don’t think they feel bad for us.” He was pretty sure she was right.

  “Oh, yeah. They pity us,” said Lee.

  He shot his brother a disgusted look. The kid never knew when to keep his mouth shut.

  “What’s going to happen when they find out I’m pregnant?” she whispered.

  “We’ll worry about that when you start showing.” He’d worry about that every minute until he had a plan. “Who knows? Maybe, they’ll be happy.”

  She laughed-a short burst of insanity. “Yeah, because Almightys always want another Guard.”

  “Hey, they bought all three of us. They didn’t have to do that.” Most Almightys would’ve bought one Guard, maybe two but not all three.

  “That’s true,” said Lee. “I wonder why they did that.”

  He smiled at his brother. “Maybe, so we’d have no reason to run away. As long as we’re together we’ll be okay.”

  CHAPTER 2: SCOTTSMOOR

  Scottsmoor was on the edge of his seat while he waited for Professor Conguise to finish reading his report on the female Brush-Man who’d survived the eradication.

  “A Phasmatodea lived through the poisoning.” Conguise flipped through the pages. “Amazing. Its DNA was altered considerably.” He closed the folder. “You still have samples?”

  “Yes. I used the smallest amount possible for the experiments. She was incredibly tiny, so I had to be very careful and precise.” It never hurt to point out his expertise and successes.

  “Good. Good. Continue the analysis and next time, save some eggs and recreate the process.”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “Is the secondary enclosure ready?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When?”

  “It’ll be several months before we can move the Phasmatodeas back to that enclosure.”

  “Do it as quickly as possible. We need to see living specimens of this aberration.”

  “Yes, sir.” He shifted on his seat. He didn’t want to waste time recreating what he considered a mistake. The surviving Brush-Man had been brittle, sickly and weak. There was nothing to pursue unless the professor wanted weak weapons.

  “How is the Rattus Norvegicus project proceeding?” Conguise put the folder aside and opened the other one on his desk.

  “Excellent. I’ve completed the serum and the hosts arrived a few days ago.” He was trying to come up with a common name for the project. It’d happen anyway, so he wanted to be the one who created it. Scottsmoor’s Successful Suplicants had a nice ring.

  “A male and a female?”

  “Two males and one female.” He was quite proud of this idea.

  “Two males?”

  “Yes, they’d been picked up as a group and they were all quite fond of one another. Both males are very protective of the female.”

  “But why purchase both of them? They may fight over the opportunity to mate with her.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Many of the lower classes share mates and if they do fight, the stronger one survives to reproduce.”

  “True. Either way, the best genetics win.”

  “Precisely and if two males mate with her there’s a higher probability that she’ll conceive.”

  Conguise nodded, scanning the documents. “Have you triple checked the ratio in the serum? You’ve had great success in transformation but this project is for enhancement of the host not the creation of an entirely new creature.”

  “I have, sir. The serum should work perfectly.” He hoped. He’d done well with his projects and the professor was looking to him to succeed where the other scientists had failed. So far, every host that was supposed to be improved had submitted to the foreign DNA and had become something else.

  “Have you met with Parson regarding the enhanced Crochimorea host?”

  “Yes, sir. It was very helpful.” He lied. Parson guarded his secrets as much as any of them. The younger scientist had been able to create a River-Man that hadn’t transformed completely. It was a step in the right direction, but still far enough from a success to give him room to crack the genetic mystery of enhancing instead of transforming.

  “Hmm.” The professor glanced up. “About that. The host died.”

  “What?” That was news to him. Good news, but he wished he’d known before lying about how beneficial their meeting had been.

  “Yes. Shame. Parson is starting over.”

  “Over sir? He had other specimens.”

  “Not good ones. The other three were fully transformed—a failure at this point in the project. When the partially transformed Crochimorea died, I told him to eliminate the other three and start again. No reason to keep them around.”

  “I agree sir. No reason at all.” In the past, even the transformed creatures were considered a partial success because most died during the process. It was good to know what the professor expected. No one wanted to disappoint Conguise.

  “Re-evaluate your serum and start the process tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.” He stood.

  “Oh, Viola is coming home for break next week and I’m having a small dinner party.”

  He held his breath. Viola, Conguise’s daughter, was an attractive, young woman and he’d love to make her his wife. That’d guarantee his promotion.

  “I’d like for you to attend, if you’re free.”

  “I’ll be there, sir.” He had to stop from shouting and jumping for joy. “Shall I bring anything? Wine? Dessert?” Flowers? An engagement ring?

  “No. I have everything.”

  “I shall see you then.” He stopped at the door. “Will this be a small, private affair or more formal?”

  Conguise’s blue eyes met his, and the professor tried not to smile. “Not formal but you aren’t the only one invited if that’s what you were hinting at.”

  “Absolutely not, sir.” It was and the professor knew it.

  “Scottsmoor, you’re an intelligent, talented young scientist and I wouldn’t be opposed if Viola took an interest in you. However, it is her choice.”

  “Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Good day.”

  He waited until he was in the hallway to frown. He’d have to compete for her affections, probably with others from the lab. With his thinning, brown hair, average features and slender build ladies seldom sought out his attentions but most of the others here were no catch either. Crackderr was too old. Parson was geekier than he was. McBrid could be a problem. Women found him very attractive. He had no idea why. The Almighty was almost as physically fit as a Guard. There were others too that could stand in his way. He’d have to do something about that.

  CHAPTER 3: SCOTTSMOOR

  Scottsmoor went directly to the Rattus laboratory. It was time to start the serum. The female Guard, Prin, smiled at him. She was friendly but Guards weren’t friends. They were subordinates or like these three, his work.

  The younger male, Lee, walked to the front of the cage. “Hey, can we go outside? I promise we won’t run away.”

  He looked similar to the female. Actually, they all looked somewhat alike with brown hair, slender faces and brown eyes, but that described most Guards. The older male, Rufus, was larger in build. He probably had more Protection Guard in his genes than the other two.

  Rufus stayed where he was, sitting on the floor and leaning against the back wall. He was more reserved than the others and smarter. The younger ones hadn’t yet learned their place in society. They still thought they could charm Almightys.

  “Give me your arm.” Scottsmoor walked to the cage.

  “Why? We gave blood yesterday,” said Lee.

  “And you’ll give more today.” Scottsmoor hated disobedient Guards. They needed to learn that charm didn’t work. “Or no dinner.”

  “Fine.” Lee shoved his arm through the bars.

  Scottsmoor plunged the n
eedle into his vein, smirking a bit when the Guard flinched. When the vial was full, he put it aside and pulled out another syringe from his pocket. This one was filled with serum.

  “What’s that?” asked Lee.

  He didn’t answer. The Guard had no business questioning him. He stared at Lee for a long moment until the Guard looked down. Good, maybe he’d remember his place next time. However, he didn’t need them to panic. “Vitamins. Keep you healthy.” He smiled slyly. “Actually, it’ll make you faster and stronger.” And hopefully, not turn them into giant rats.

  “Ah...” Lee glanced over his shoulder at the larger male who must be the leader.

  Rufus tipped his head slightly, as if giving his consent.

  Scottsmoor snorted. They had no choice—not in taking the serum, not in where they lived, not in anything. He jabbed the needle into Lee’s bicep.

  “Ouch.” Lee’s arm jerked.

  “Hold still.” Anticipating the pain, he’d tightened his grip on the Guard’s wrist. The serum always hurt, especially the first time. It was as if the body was protesting the poison. He emptied the plunger and tossed the syringe in the trash. “Next.”

  Lee rubbed his arm.

  “Are you okay?” asked Prin.

  “Yeah. It’s cold and stings at first but it’s fine now.”

  “Next.” Scottsmoor was losing patience.

  Rufus jumped up and walked to the front of the cage, putting his arm through the bars. “What if we’re allergic?”

  “That won’t be a problem.” They’d die and he’d replace them. Not a problem at all. Scottsmoor drew the Guard’s blood.

  “Maybe, us two males should go first. Leave her for later.”

  “You care for her.” He stared into Rufus’ brown eyes.

  “Yeah.” The Guard kept his arm through the bars even when Scottsmoor pulled out the vial filled with serum. He was offering himself for her and that was perfect.

  “That’s good. Very good.” He looked over Rufus’ shoulder. The other male was standing in front of the female as if protecting her. “You both care for her.”