The trapdoor clicked, made a depressurization sound, and then opened.
I backed away, zipping up my pants, after tucking The Admiral safely back inside.
I took one last look around the area, sighed, and then began climbing down the steep stairs hidden there.
CHAPTER 40
T he entire area opened up when I reached the bottom of the stairs, and it all looked quite familiar.
This was the place that I had seen in a few of the Flashes episodes I’d experienced over the months. It was clearly different than the one I’d had with Shitfaced Fred. That one had happened in the old war.
I stood straight up at the memory.
Did that mean that the soldier who had shot Fred’s master was Gabe? And what did Gabe have to do with Shitfaced Fred anyway?
Something told me I’d be finding out those answers, and more, soon, but not until I reached the final leg of this journey that Gabe had set out before me. I couldn’t help but wonder how long all of this had been going on.
There was a door to my left and one to the right. I’d already been through the one on my left multiple times during those Flashes events, so I decided to see what was behind the other one.
It was locked.
I waited for it to open.
It didn’t.
I knocked.
There was no answer.
Okay, so Gabe wanted me to crack the code? I wasn’t exactly good at that sort of thing, so fortunately I had Turbo’s skeleton key.
I rubbed my fingers together as I held my nose and the tiny key appeared from my skin. At least some things went smoothly in this world. The key appeared far too tiny to be of any use, but as soon as it was within the distance of the keypad, a light pulsed and I heard tumblers fall into place. I guess that saying “It’s not the size, but how you use it” fit well for Turbo’s key.
The handle never turned, but the door clicked open.
I walked inside and found an enormous room that seemed empty. It had a ceiling that stood some thirty feet high, which was pretty incredible considering I hadn’t walked down that many steps. The walls were barren and the place was dimly lit.
“Well done,” said the familiar voice of Gabe, who began rising out of the floor near the middle of the large space.
He clapped his hands twice and the lights came on in full. I squinted at that. With all of this advanced magic and technology, Gabe relied on The Clapper to manage the lights?
“I suppose I should have known it was you all along,” I said, feeling like those meetings I’d had with the man at the Three Angry Wives Pub were a major clue. “Why else would you have helped me?”
“There could have been any number of reasons,” he replied.
I honestly wanted to just launch a magical barrage at him, blowing his stupid ass to bits, but I needed answers first. If I killed him now, I’d never know the truth. Part of me kind of preferred that, if I was being honest, but having spent the entirety of my life lost and not knowing who I truly was gave me pause.
“I’m sure you have many questions,” he said somewhat smugly, “so feel free to ask away.”
“Did you create all the ubers I faced?” I asked with some hesitation.
There were probably better questions to ask at that point, but those ubers had caused a lot of damage and had cost many lives. Knowing the truth behind their existence would help me better paint a picture of my ‘father.’
Yes, I was keeping with the hand-quotes around him for now.
Gabe crossed his hands behind his back.
“Some were created, yes,” he answered. “Others were merely enhanced, having lived full lives already but seeking more power all the same.”
“Did you send them to attack me?”
“Yes.”
That’s where my brain cramped. Why the hell would he give me hints and abilities to defeat the very damn things he sent to destroy me?
“Why?”
“Because you needed to be brought out of your shell,” he answered. “It had to be done over time or you wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Plus, you would have been discovered much too young, and that would not have done at all.” He let that sink in for a moment before adding, “Each ubernatural you defeated served to unlock pieces of your genetic code. That allowed me to gradually further your power.”
“But the vampire, he—”
“Belonged to me, yes,” Gabe answered. “Do you remember the blue liquid you saw me inject into your brothers during your last Flashes event?”
I nodded dumbly.
“That was only one tenth of the venom I put into you via Sylvester. What you have flowing through your veins is far stronger than your brothers could have ever handled.”
“But why?” I asked again, trying desperately to understand all of this. “I don’t get it.”
“Honestly, son,” he said after glancing at his watch, “the entirety of this story will take me too long to explain. Call on Flashes again and everything will be revealed within seconds.” He gave me an encouraging nod. “Don’t worry, I’ll wait.”
With a strong sense of trepidation, I closed my eyes.
Flashes.
CHAPTER 41
I didn’t recognize the faces I was seeing because they were going through that same mist crap that happened when I was sitting in the room with the Directors. Glimpses came through, but they disappeared just as fast, leaving nothing but a hazed memory that faded like a dream.
But the voices…
I recognized those voices.
Some of them, anyway.
“And you’re certain this will work?” asked O.
“It will take time and research,” Gabe replied, “but I’m confident, yes. There have already been numerous tests done to show that our level of genetic engineering is beyond anything ever previously imagined.”
Gabe was seated in much the same way I was during my meetings with the Directors, but this felt more like a congressional hearing. There were many bodies around the table in front of him, and they were all intently listening and asking questions.
“How have you managed testing?” asked someone whose voice I didn’t know. “Did you do it on supers, normals, or animals?”
“All three,” Gabe replied. “In every case, the tests have shown remarkable results.”
A slew of other questions followed, but I was fast-forwarded through most of them.
“The question on the minds of the Paranormal Police Department,” Silver chimed in as the speed of the replay returned to normal, “is whether or not we’ll be able to safely utilize these enhanced officers to police our streets.” He paused. “Will we?”
“In time,” Gabe replied with a nod. “I firmly believe this is doable. I also believe this is the only way we’ll be able to stop the spread of supernatural villainy.”
Unless Gabe was showing me the script he wanted me to see, doctored to make him look good, it seemed he was genuinely interested in keeping the public safe. But if that was the case, why would he have created someone like Kevin? And why would there be all these ubers, that he created, attacking the world like this?
“If we approve utilizing these test subjects of yours in the field,” asked Zack, “how can we be assured of a failsafe in the event that they malfunction?”
“Each of them has only a single genetic enhancement,” Gabe answered. “Therefore, they can be taken down by those who are not part of their kind.”
This sounded like he was just talking about the standard upgrades that the PPD cops got now. If it wasn’t, the Directors would have had more concerns…right?
Everything went dark and then slowly faded back into view. Years had apparently passed as the decor and technology looked quite a bit different than the last time. Plus, the panel was smaller than before.
“…Yes,” the voice of O was saying, “we agree that the individual enhancements have been quite successful, but you are now talking about turning already powerful supernaturals into somethi
ng far beyond that.”
“It’s no different, sir,” stated Gabe. “It’s merely the necessary evolution of the technology. The officers program that we implemented ten years ago has cut supernatural crime by nearly seventy percent across the board.” He put up his hands. “What I’m promising now is a one-hundred-percent drop in crime.”
“Yes,” agreed Zack, “but at what cost?”
“Agreed, Zack,” stated Silver.
“Now, wait a second,” EQK said in his snippy voice. “If this butt fucker can guarantee wiping out crime completely, why do you two jizz slurpers want to stop him?”
“Please refrain from calling members of the panel names, EQK,” O said in a tired voice. “Oh, and our esteemed Mr. Dexington as well.”
Dexington?
My name was really Ian Dexington?
That was just awful.
“Fuck you, O,” EQK responded without malice. “We’ve got this dick brain over here giving us a way to wipe out crime, and there’s a bunch of hippies on the panel crying about it. Maybe you’ve all come down with a ripping case of vaginitis?”
The event fast-forwarded again.
“We approve the use of genetic enhancements to bring one individual to the state of what we will call ‘ubernatural,’ Mr. Dexington,” O said, acting as the voice for the rest of the committee. “We expect to be kept completely up-to-date on each step of the process.”
“…But I just need a little more time,” Gabe pleaded. “This is a new science. It takes trials to be sure that it works properly.”
“You blew up half of Manhattan, you clit smacker,” EQK roared, “and you used a fucking pixie to do it!”
I had to wonder if the pixie that EQK was referring to was none other than Rot, the guy I had battled in a Joke-off a couple of months back.
“I admit that’s true, Director EQK,” Gabe replied coolly, “but we were able to subdue him rather quickly, and we are making strides to correct the issue that caused him to become unsettled.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Dexington,” Silver argued, “this is the fifth time in as many months that we’ve heard this exact testimony from you.”
“But, you must see—”
“See what?” Zack interrupted. “The only thing I see is that thousands of lives have been lost. Your Frankenstein monsters are not working, Mr. Dexington.”
“I would have to agree,” O noted.
It fast-forwarded again.
“All in favor of shutting down this program, please vote ‘aye,’” called O.
Everyone voted in the affirmative.
“You have thirty days to shut down the program, Mr. Dexington,” commanded O. Then he softened a bit. “We all know that you have done your best here, Gabe. Your heart was in the right place the entire time, but we just can’t risk any more lives being lost.”
We were back in the lab now. There were tunnels being carved out, mostly through the use of magic by people I’d seen before.
There was Reese the mage, Shitfaced Fred the necromancer, Charlotte the dragon, Rex the werewolf, Rot the pixie, and Sylvester the vampire. There were many others, too, but I didn’t recognize most of them.
The magic-users were carving out tunnels faster than anything I’d ever seen before. The others were carrying gear down and placing it in a large room. As Gabe scanned the area, I noted that it was the same place Gabe and I were standing in outside of Flashes right now. The difference was that this room wasn’t currently empty.
“Keep digging here,” Gabe commanded. “We’re going to head back for another round of equipment. We’ll return soon.”
Everything sped forward, showing a quick trip as a convoy of vans and trucks cruised out to the middle of the desert. Just as they were about to turn off the main road, a building in the distance exploded.
“Bastards,” Gabe hissed after a moment. “They were going to kill me and all of my creations.”
I had the distinct impression that the ‘they’ in that statement referred to the Directors.
“They’ll pay for that.”
Two children were in incubators. One male and one female. They were both sleeping as IVs dripped bluish liquid into their veins.
On the front of one was the name ‘Ian,’ the other said, ‘Wynn.’
‘Wynn Dexington’ wasn’t as fucked up as Wynn Dex, but it was still pretty fucked up.
“Okay, my little amalgamites,” Gabe said as he tapped the table that housed both my sister and me, “you are the future of the world.” He glanced over at four young boys who were lying on a nearby table. “Your brothers will one day help in your growth, but they just aren’t quite up to spec for what I need. Once you have reached your full potential, the world will finally be a safe place.” He sighed heavily. “However, I will have to choose one of you to stay while the other goes out and grows up as an innocent.”
He pulled out a coin.
“Heads, and Wynn goes; tails, and it will be Ian.”
We all know how that turned out.
Over the next few minutes, I saw wisps of my life as Gabe paid various families money to raise me, each unlocking a part of my potential before moving me on to the next set of foster parents.
That meant that none of them had ever truly cared about me.
They were simply hired guns.
Watching this was certainly not making me feel very warm and fuzzy toward Gabe. In fact, I was of the mind to kick his ass all over the place at the moment. Unfortunately, I had no control over his body, or I’d have had him punch himself right in the nuts.
The scenes continued, one after the other, until I finally landed as the chief of the PPD in Vegas.
“And now you will all be sent out to do what you were intended to do,” Gabe was saying to all of the ubers in the room. “You will each prepare and be ready the moment I call you.”
One hand went up.
“Yes, Reese?”
“What is our ultimate goal, sir?”
“You will destroy the evil one known as Ian Dex.”
Everything began to fade as three powerful words began to form inside my mind.
What.
The.
Fuck?
CHAPTER 42
I snapped out of Flashes and just stared at Gabe for a few seconds. I had no words. He wanted them to kill his own son? For some reason, this just didn’t sit well with me, especially since I’d been dumped into the system for my entire life as part of some grand training program.
What kind of parent does that?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gabe said. “How could I have possibly let the Directors strong-arm me the way they did, right?”
“That’s not even close to what I was thinking,” I answered.
“Oh?”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of how you could be such a fucking asshole?” I spat. “And then I started thinking about the best way to kill you for being such a fucking asshole.”
He bridled at my response.
Good.
“You will show me respect, Ian,” he hissed.
“Why would I do that?” I asked with a laugh. “Because you’re my ‘father’?” Yes, I did use air quotes that time. “I’m nothing but a goddamn experiment to you, Gabe…or did you want me to call you Dad, or maybe Daddy?” I then grimaced. “Okay, I’m not calling you Daddy. That’s just weird.”
“Agreed,” noted The Admiral.
Gabe took a few deep breaths, visibly trying to calm himself. I guess he wasn’t used to having kids who talked back to him. What was he going to do, though, give me a timeout?
“You saw what happened, Ian,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “The Directors cut my ability to continue the single most important scientific breakthrough in the history of our world.” His fists were squeezing rhythmically. “Then they tried to kill me and my creations out of fear that I would pursue my chosen path without regard to their damnable rules and ethics.”
“Which you absolutely
did,” I pointed out while giving him a they-were-right-to-do-so look.
“But they couldn’t have known I was planning to do that,” he countered, “which meant that they had decided to kill me before I’d even had the chance to shut things down.”
That was a stretch.
The Directors weren’t exactly on my Christmas-card list at the moment, but I doubted they’d just blow up a building they knew was full of people just because they wanted to silence them.
Then again, maybe they would.
All right, so the jury was out on that, but it didn’t fix the bit about my ‘father’ being a bloody psychotic.
“Fuck them,” I said, referring to the Directors. “What I want to know is why you told the ubers to kill me?”
“Ah, yes, that,” he said, nodding. “I can understand that you may have found that part somewhat upsetting.”
“A little bit, yep.”
“I knew they didn’t have a chance against you,” he explained. “Well, assuming you rose to the challenge and became what I knew you could be, anyway.”
“Meaning you didn’t know if they had a chance against me or not,” I corrected him. “Basic logic, Gabe.”
He bowed slightly. “Let’s just say we are living in the land of odds, and I was confident with my bet.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“As I explained before, each uber I sent your way unlocked more and more of you,” he continued, “but I wasn’t pleased with the speed at which you were growing.” He began to pace back and forth. “Fortunately, Officer Cress decided to leave the precinct. That was perfect because it put you in an emotional state. All I had to do was work to bring you out of your shell even further.”
“So, wait, you had Rex kidnap Rachel?”
“Correct,” he replied as if it were nothing. “That started you down a path of both anger and vulnerability. From there, I just needed to push a few more buttons before having you injected with venom.”
The Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 5 - 7 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department Box Sets Book 2) Page 41