Protectors of the Veil

by Dawn Matthews

  He no sooner got the words out of his mouth when all four vehicles they had just passed went KABOOM. That was the last problem they encountered. They made it to their destination and when Vince got home, his kids each had a box of Hoyo De Monterrey cigars for him. Kek certainly delivers on his promises, and in this case, he doubled it.

  ***

  A year later Vincent Reilly was retired and had enjoyed his time off. He could see Chaos and Order splitting in half, not only in America, but all over the world. He knew the Temple of Kek would come for him soon. If he were to be honest with himself, he was actually looking forward to it. Retirement was relaxing, but he was more of an action kind of guy.

  Vince was having dinner with a friend at a restaurant when a man walked by and left a paper on his table in front of him. His friend didn’t notice until Vince opened it and started reading it:

  The time has come, meet me at Norristown State Hospital in the front by the columns at 8pm. ToK

  Norristown State Hospital was formerly known as The State Lunatic Hospital at Norristown. Much of the hospital was abandoned, with only the newer parts still in operation. ToK, Vince realized was Temple of Kek.

  “What’s that about?” his friend asked.

  “Oh nothing, just an ad,” Vince said.

  His friend, Travis Atkinson, knew something was up. Vince’s whole attitude shifted to something much more tense and serious. It was like he was in Sarge mode. He thought something was wrong, that Vince might be in trouble.

  Vince looked at his watch, and realized he only had 30 minutes. He flagged down their waitress and asked for the check. He realized he had alarmed his friend. He was excited to go to his meeting. “I promised Nat that I would do something and I totally forgot about it.”

  At this point, Travis could see right through him. He decided he would follow him. “No problem, we should do this again next week.”

  Vince wasn’t sure if he’d even be around next week, but he said, “Yes, we absolutely should.”

  Vince paid as fast as he could, he apologized quickly, “Sorry for running out on you, but I’ll call you soon.”

  “No worries, brother. You do what you’ve gotta do,” Travis said.

  They both walked to their cars and got in at the same time. Travis figured Vince was in too much of a hurry to notice he was being tailed, but he kept several cars in between them. When he pulled into the asylum, Travis parked down the road and walked up to the asylum. He saw Vince meeting with a man.

  “You’ve got a follower,” the man said to Vince.

  “What?” Vince said. “Shit, it’s gotta be Travis. Well you did drop a paper off at my table that I had no idea was to be secret. He knew something was up. I’ll go talk to him.”

  “No, don’t worry about it. We have people for that. The IVA will handle it,” the man said.

  “The what?” Vince asked. “They won’t hurt him, will they?”

  “Only if they have to,” the man said and led him to a car.

  Vince was taken to the Temple of the Temple of Kek. When he walked into the building, he realized it felt like Kek. It was like a part of him was there in the same way a part of him was in that cave in Afghanistan. There he had to perform another dedication ritual, this one to the Temple of Kek. He had to pledge his loyalty, and thus add his energy to theirs.

  “Now your training begins,” the head priest said.

  END

  “Your immediate assignment is to find Travis Atkinson and try to convince him he didn’t see anything important. After you’re done, you will be taken to the Temple of the Temple of Kek. Jero will be your partner today. Good luck, Agent Beaubien.”

  Jon got in the car and instead of closing the door right away, he said, “Hey Jero, how’s it going?”

  “I am well, Jon,” Jero replied. “How are you?”

  “Well, I’m intrigued by this case. I’m very intrigued by this case,” Jon said. “Do you know why they want me to go to the Temple of Kek afterward?”

  “I do,” Jero said, “but I will not tell you. You will have to wait to find out what that is about.”

  “Aw, come on,” Jon prodded.

  Jero laughed, “You’re like a child getting a present, you’ll have to wait. It will be worth the wait, I promise you.”

  Jon sighed, “Alright, fine.” He closed the door and they were in the parking lot of the Norristown State Hospital, right behind Travis Atkinson.

  “Sir,” Jon said, “you want to tell me what you’re doing on the property?”

  Travis looked like a deer in headlights. “Um…I was just…there were some people here, I…I thought they might be in trouble. I stopped to see if they needed help, but they left. I’ll just go now.”

  “No,” Jon said, “you’ll come with me.” He guided them with a flashlight into one of the abandoned rooms.

  “What are we doing here? I thought you were security for the asylum,” Travis said nervously.

  “I am,” Jon said, “but I need to find out what’s going on. Clearly, that story you just told me was made up.”

  “Okay, okay,” Travis said holding his hands up in a kind of surrender, “you got me. I had been eating dinner with a friend and some guy put a paper on the table. He read it and I don’t know, his demeanor changed. He got really serious. I thought something was wrong. So, I followed him here. He was talking to some weird guy. There was something really off about that guy. They got in a car and left. Then you showed up. I swear, that’s all I know.”

  Jon already knew this, of course, but he was pleased that he had this man completely fooled and broke him so easily. To him each case was a game. It made life more interesting. When he went home, he spent his time on Facebook trolling people with memes. Praise Kek! The job was basically the same. He trolled people who had no idea what was really going on.

  “Well,” Jon said, “that does sound pretty likely.”

  While he was having fun, Jero was in the man’s head trying to throw in suggestions of what he saw. He was also trying to convince him that there was nothing strange about the man. Jon really just had to keep him busy.

  “Oh, I promise you, that’s all I was doing,” Travis said.

  “Okay, then tell me all about this man you saw. We can’t have people just wandering the property. We have patients here that could be in danger. What did this man look like?” Jon asked.

  “Well, he was…he was…” Travis couldn’t get it out. Jero had affected his mind and it was working well. “I just had the image of him in my head and now it’s gone.”

  Jon fought to keep the smile off his face. “Really? You claim your friend was talking to a man but you can’t tell me what this man looked like.”

  “I don’t know what happened, why can’t I remember what he looks like?” Travis was getting concerned, so Jon switched the line of questioning.

  “What about this friend of yours?” Jon asked. “Who is he?”

  “You’re not going to tell him I followed him, are you?” Travis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jon said. “That depends on how cooperative you are.”

  “I’m cooperating fully,” Travis said, “his name is Vince Reilly.”

  “It is done,” Jero said in Jon’s head. “We can go now.”

  “Alright then,” Jon said, “why were you following him, again?”

  “I…I…” Travis paused. “I can’t remember, but I’ll certainly never do it again.”

  “Good,” Jon said, “go home and forget all about it.”

  Travis got up and went to his car almost as if he were on autopilot. Once he got home, all he could remember was that he had dinner with a friend, he couldn’t even remember which friend he was with.

  ***

  Jero and Jon headed for the car, but before they got there Jero said, “Good luck, and have fun!” Then he disappeared before Jon could get one word out.

  The one great thing about this job, besides the trolling, was that you never needed a GPS or an address. Th
e car went wherever it was supposed to go automatically.

  Jon was so excited that he didn’t give Jero another thought. He jumped in the car as fast as he could and slammed the door.

  Jon’s car instantly was in front of the actual temple of the Temple of Kek. He got out of the car and something happened that had NEVER happened before. THE CAR DISAPPEARED!

  Jon got a huge grin on his face and took the tons of stairs leading to the Temple two at a time. In his excitement, he didn’t even notice that he was in the middle of a forest. This was not the same Temple as Nephthys’, but it was hidden the same way.

  At the top, Jon was met by High Priestess Hestia. She was dressed in gold with different colored accents. “Welcome, Jonathan. You certainly belong with us.”

  “Is that real gold? Isn’t it heavy?” Jon asked.

  “Hahahahaha, yes to both questions,” she said. “Come with me, I have something that will definitely interest you.”

  She took him inside the temple. The room was open, with pillars holding up the roof. Priestess Hestia seemed to push down on the floor with her foot, but Jon couldn’t see if there was a button or something she was pushing. However, a door opened up in the floor with some stairs leading down into the pyramid. On the first level were comedians in training, watching Sam Kinison’s standup acts. The second level down was like a dream for Jon: it was a network of computers and people trolling on those computers. He looked to his left and saw a familiar face.

  “LIAM!!!” Jon yelled in excitement. “I didn’t know you left the IVA!”

  “JON!” Liam yelled back, “It just happened! Good to see you here!”

  They did a one-armed man hug/handshake.

  “I see you’re in good hands, and I know you already know how to do this,” Priestess Hestia.

  “I have leveled up!” Jon said.

  CHAPTER 18: VAMPIRES

  Bertha knocked on Sam’s door and walked in. “Hey Sam, I’ve got another one of those weird cases that probably shouldn’t involve humans.”

  “Okay,” Sam said, “I’ll take care of it. You look stressed, girl, you should go have fun.”

  “If only I could,” Bertha said. “I don’t know what is going on, but this seems to be the busiest day we’ve ever had.”

  “Things have been increasing lately,” Sam said. “Maybe we’re nearing the end.”

  “You mean the Ancient Ones are coming?” Bertha asked. “Well, how bad can it be? I’m ready for gibbering madness. What am I saying? I’m nearly there now. Good luck!”

  “Thanks, hon!” Sam said. “Don’t stress too much!”

  “Ha!” was Bertha’s only response as she closed the door.

  Sam put the case number in the program and the familiar female voice came. “Good evening, Agent Strongbow. The story of this case is…”

  “ANTISOCIAL ENGINEERING”

  “It’s viral. It develops in every test subject at almost the exact same time, no matter how securely we isolate them. I’m sorry, but I don’t see a way to make this work.” Dr. Jensen was a natural pessimist. I could appreciate that myself, being a natural pragmatist.

  I fished a cigarette out of my shirt pocket, lit it, exhaled a thin stream of smoke and laughed at her. “Dr. Jensen, as much as I admire your tendency to tell the truth about things, let me tell you what is going to happen if you present those findings to our benefactors. They’re going to nod politely. They’re going to thank you for your honesty. Then someone will garrote you with piano wire after you’ve left the office, and dispose of you in a 55-gallon drum of sulfuric acid. Then I will get a phone call, and they’ll tell me to make the goddamned thing work anyway.” I took another pull from my smoke.

  “This isn’t some Big Pharma contract or work for the CDC. This is a project that will never officially exist. And when they hear something they don’t like, then people who work on the project that doesn’t exist, end up not existing themselves. Capiche? Save the ethics for a job in the real world. We’re here to build better soldiers.” I couldn’t believe I had to tell this woman the facts of life after almost a year of R&D here.

  She shook her head. “But the test subjects! They’re...”

  I held up my hand to stop her. “Dr. Jensen. They are all volunteers. THAT is the operative word. They knew this might be dangerous. They knew they might not walk out of here, but they chose to do it. Their families will be very well provided for. Hell, even their grandchildren won’t need to work. Times like these? That’s a very big incentive to do what they’re doing. So, let it go, yes?” She was upset, visibly so, but she nodded assent. I stubbed out my cigarette in an empty Petri dish. Hopefully, she wouldn’t bring this up again. If she did, I’d have to report it. If I didn’t, they’d disappear both of us.

  Four months have passed since that discussion, and great strides were made. The virus problem had finally been solved through engineered protein strands. The virus could not develop once the protein had been introduced into the operating cells. Still, there were some fatalities among the test subjects. Two of them, however, thrived; one male and one female.

  Dr. Jensen and I watched them make their way through the combat course. We permitted the subjects to choose their own names. Rather odd, I confess, but the test subjects were no longer remotely human. I watched the male, who took the name of Vincent, power his way through the robot soldiers inside the combat course. He was inhumanly fast, his powerful legs moving him almost too quick to be seen. Vincent preferred using his hands and feet in combat, opening metal and carbon fiber with merely a stroke of the four-inch retractable claws on his hands.

  Olivia, on the other hand, was sudden death with any weapon you issued her. While not as fast as Vincent was, Olivia possessed other gifts, such as perfect balance, perfect spatial and sensory awareness, and, as we saw her lift twin pistols in two different directions, perfect aim. Her guns moved in a blur from one target to the next, each target falling with shot groups that could be covered with a quarter. Dr. Jensen and I made our way down to the changing room when the test subjects finished their exercises.

  Olivia and Vincent were dressed and waiting for us as we entered the room. As we moved toward them, I saw Olivia’s eyes change color. When in combat, her sclera turned a green so dark, it was almost black. She had the ability to see in more than the visible spectrum.

  She had enhanced night vision, thermal imaging, and eyesight so acute that she could see a lit cigarette from several kilometers away. Vincent’s eyesight was similar, but not as advanced as hers. He possessed a greater sense of hearing than Olivia, a gift which nearly drove him to suicide before he could bring it under control. Imagine hearing every single sound in a building, and not being able to tune out any of it. He had come a long way in the last month. They both greeted us in the way they often did. They had the uncanny ability to speak in unison, often completing each other’s sentences. It confirmed what I had recently suspected, that they had telepathic abilities. I had not included that in my reports to the Agency.

  “Good morning, Dr. Tyler. Dr. Jensen. How may we help you?” they said. Dr. Jensen rarely spoke to them, only to issue orders and the like. I, however, treated them like anyone else. They both knew they were test subjects, but I felt there was no need to treat them as such. I smiled as I sat down in front of them.

  “Good morning to both of you. Dr. Jensen and I were observing your exercises today. I’m very proud of both of you. You’ve both far exceeded our expectations of you.”

  Both of them looked at me and smiled. “It’s why we exist, is it not, Dr. Tyler?” Vincent said. “Olivia and I are prototypes. Prototypes for future combat operatives. It is our duty to push ourselves to our limits, and beyond.” He turned to look at Olivia, who then looked at me.

  “We have changed a great deal over the last few months. We still feel human, but we know we would never be accepted as such again. When compared to the importance of this project, our feelings are... irrelevant. Vincent and I know what we are. All other
considerations are secondary.” She smiled. As she did so, I noticed something I hadn’t before. Her canines were slightly elongated, and sharper looking than I remembered. Vincent’s were as well. I made a mental note to speak to Dr. Jensen once we left. I stood from my chair.

  “Olivia, Vincent, we won’t keep you any longer. Please make yourself available to me after lunchtime today. I have one last battery of tests to run before you are released for field trials.” They both nodded in assent, then I left with Dr. Jensen. She began to speak when I silenced her with a motion of my hand. We didn’t speak until we reached my office. I walked over to the drink tray and poured two whiskeys. Jensen sat down, and I handed her a glass.

  “Tell me you saw what I saw, Jensen,” I said.

  She looked at me and nodded. “The teeth. A mutation. But how could it manifest itself so quickly?” she asked, taking a long sip of her drink.

  I downed mine in one swallow, then went to pour another. “I have no idea. Elongated canines? I know we coded the need to eat anything that the tactical situation demands, but why would there be a mutation indicative of a carnivore?”. I shook my head.

  Jensen finished her drink, then gave me a very worried look. “If we missed the teeth, then what else can we have missed?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “We didn’t miss anything. Because they weren’t there yesterday.”

  Two weeks after the final physicals on the test subjects, they were flown to the proving grounds in upstate New York. Dr. Jensen and I traveled with them, although we rarely spoke. We spent most of the flight calibrating the equipment that would be used to monitor them. Before we landed, I fitted two remote sensors to their combat armor. The sensors would give us real-time data such as heart rate, respiration, blood oxygen levels, and other data sets. As the flight attendant made her way to open the hatch, Vincent and Olivia looked at me. They smiled, then nodded. I gave them a thumbs-up and watched the security team escort them to the secondary hangar, where the exercise would begin shortly.

  We were met at the command center by Admiral Mason, the project head. He offered his hand and escorted us inside. His aides offered us coffee, which we gratefully accepted.