“Yeah, I know, jerk,” Allister mumbled, careful the soldier didn't hear the last part.
Bridget finished chewing and flipped her golden blonde asymmetrical cut. “Why don't you take your little pecker over there and poke one of your buddies with it before I make sure you never use it again.” She snapped her fingers and a spark jumped between them. The soldier moved away and she resumed control of the conversation, but didn't meet Allister’s thankful gaze. “We've all passed don't worry, none of us with flying colors though.” Bridget took a bite of dry chicken. “A little tip for the training session, the goal is to last against Lieutenant Delemar, not to beat her.”
“You seem bitter,” Allister’s words were muffled by the combination of chicken and vegetables in his mouth.
Dorian smiled and stared at Bridget. “Watch it, rookie,” she said, jabbing the fork in his direction, “She caught me off guard.” The metal utensil reacted with her emotional charge and shocked her. She dropped it and cursed out loud, cooling her hand on a cup of ice water. “There was so much working against me, like the level of access to my power. Word on the street is you put her face to the glass table without a second thought, that's sexy.” She twirled her finger inside the water and licked it off seductively.
Allister laughed uneasily and replied, “It was a reflex.”
“Even better.” Bridget avoided the fork. Dorian placed a plastic one in front of her. She nodded to him and ate a scoop of white rice.
“Did you sign up too?” Allister asked, sliding down two seats to be closer to them.
“Sign up!” Bridget laughed so hard she almost choked. “Do you know anything?” she asked him.
“The basics, I guess?” Allister said, snapping the bread in half to eat it.
“No, I didn't sign up. It was come here or go to jail for the rest of my life.” She sulked, poking at her food and rested her chin in the palm of her hand.
“That goes for any of you freaks with destructive abilities,” the same soldier said, returning to dispose of his unfinished second helping. “Although lunatics like you really shouldn't get a choice.”
Bridget half stood, grabbing his silver cotton uniform shirt and pulled him back. He slid across the table and stopped in the middle. Allister fell off of the bench in disbelief. She jumped on top of the soldier and placed her knee against his throat. “I am not a lunatic, you're an asshole. A dead one.” Dorian pulled her off and tossed her to the ground.
“Stay out of this,” she yelled, directing her aggression at him. Her arms resembled an overloaded fuse box; electricity pulsed outward and circulated around her hands.
“Whoa, whoa Bridget,” Allister said, playing referee, and stepped in front of her. “Dorian’s trying to help.”
“How did you know our names? I didn’t tell you my bloody name!” She shouted.
“Will you calm down before…”
“Don't tell me to calm down!“ Bridget’s hands connected with Allister’s chest, releasing the built up currents. He flew backwards and convulsed on the floor like he was being stung by a thousand wasps at the same time. Patches of fabric burned off of the once crisp uniform.
Allister coughed. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“But I…how did you…you should be…” Bridget opened her hands.
His mind got to work, as if sending an army of ants to build a colony. Cell by cell fresh skin erased any record of the 2nd degree burns and color in his face arrived at the same time as authority.
“Private Sparks. Not good,” Florence said, walking with command into the center of the room. “I can't believe you screwed this up after our discussion. One more time and you go in the vault.” She gestured to the soldiers who entered with her to take Bridget.
The troubled young woman struggled, “Don’t get in my way again, rookie.” Allister met Bridget’s menacing gaze.
“There won't be a next time.” Florence subdued her with a mental attack and they covered her hands in shackles. “Take her to her quarters and make sure she stays there until I say otherwise.” She turned to Allister. “I see you're already making friends.”
“I didn't know what to do,” he said.
“Don't get involved with her antics or it'll be you next.” Florence didn't look well rested and he decided not to argue his innocence. Dr. Giro was waiting for him.
NICOLAS DELEMAR
Washington DC April 2026
“Russell Ashur is lazy and unfocused,” Nicolas said, with his arms crossed in front of him. “But I expect that with a sense of urgency…his productivity will increase.”
“For your sake, I hope you're correct,” the Chinese director said.
“According to Dr. Belladonna's analysis, Private Adams doesn't know anything about his father.” Nicolas sounded more relieved than matter-of-fact. “But we’re still suspicious of his origins and motives.”
“Allister Adams is extremely important to us. Take the utmost care when handling him. He is as valuable, if not more, than the lieutenant. We see him as a potential leader in the field,” the US director reminded him.
Nicolas's lip tightened.
“At close of fiscal year we will no longer provide funding to project unless we have moved on to next initiative. All of you will either be out of jobs or terminated, depending on contracts, unless the gems are in our possession by end of month,” the Russian director said.
Nicolas nodded, shaking from anxiety and coughed into his hand. He thought the spell was over, but coughed a few more times. “Excuse me,” he said. Smothering silence filled the room. A kiosk of detrimental updates regarding the project rotated in Nicolas's mind. Not one could be shared at the time. “I believe Lieutenant Delemar is still our strongest weapon and we should reinstate her mission attendance.”
“Declined,” the North Korean Director responded. “Your emotional connection to her affects your judgment. She cost the program millions in personnel and public property damages. Strength is not a measurement of control.”
There was nothing further to discuss. The screens powered off and Nicolas was left in the type of darkness you encounter when closing your eyes. He relished in the stillness, then exited to his office. The wall slid closed.
Florence burst in followed by six soldiers. “General, we have an important matter to discuss.” She avoided raising her voice.
“Sir, we tried to stop her but she was insistent on locating you once lockdown was over,” said one of the soldiers stumbling in.
Nicolas hardly paid attention to the fiasco. He swiped through scrambled overhead images of the area they believed C20 recently infiltrated and shook his head in disappointment. “Good morning, Dr. Belladonna. Please excuse us,” he said, just loud enough for the soldiers to hear. The room emptied, leaving Florence and Nicolas to stare at each other in calculated silence. “How can I help you?”
“First, I couldn’t get into this blasted place yesterday morning because of some random screening procedure you implemented. Then last night when I went to leave, my Cynque watch was declined. Worse, I was manhandled into the holding cells reserved for our recruits going through the initiation process.”
“The screenings are precautionary. You also refuse to wear the suggested uniform. We change staffing so frequently do you really expect people to remember who you are?” He lowered the tablet after the rhetorical question. “As for your roaming privileges, we had to make some amendments to the terms on everyone's contracts except for mine.”
“Convenient,” she interrupted.
“Based on your discovery, the Andromeda Project is on red alert for any hostile action.”
Florence backed away to go over the same factors in her head. “In case you don't remember, I saved the entire Midwest and Eastern seaboard. I think I can handle a few misguided enemy agents.” She pointed to her head.
“No one doubts your gifts, but these policies were set forth by your dear friends in the government.”
Florence strolled to the door
without an ounce of aggression. Nicolas watched her hips glide right and left to a beat he couldn’t hear.
“The Andromeda Project is your livelihood, if it fails, I'm reassigned to another position. You won't be so lucky.“ She tossed her hair, checked her Cynque watch for a message and smiled. “I hope you can fix whatever mess caused my imprisonment on this base. And if not,” Florence shrugged as she placed her hand on the door handle, “I guess we can cross that bridge when we come to it.” She waited for his response because she knew there'd be one.
“I'll see what I can do,” Nicolas surrendered.
RUSSELL ASHUR
Washington, DC, April 2026
It was less than an hour before the updated timeline from Nicolas got back to him, sending Russell into a frenzied work session. He was the perfect hybrid of computer scientist and engineer, hired in 2005 to study the alien technology and work with Neight to make sure his resource needs were met. At the time, Russell was twenty years old and an early graduate of the California Institute of Technology. What he lacked in professional experience and common sense, he made up for with genius and innovation. His position had grown into something between a CTO and CIO.
Russell eyed the security grid around the base while adjusting his perfectly circular glasses. He'd spent the last few hours jamming signals from Allister's deactivated watch. An inspection of their data systems for foreign programs and viruses showed nothing out of place. Russell moved to the other screen where he decrypted the last page long text file from their fallen soldier. Password was Cluster to access, but it was written in C20's code language to avoid suspicion and it took him a day to figure out it read Found. Beast. Gem 2.
“What are you trying to tell us?“ his voice echoed in the hollow workspace. He placed both hands on top of his short, curly black hair and swiveled around. The big screen on the wall projected maps of the world; areas lit red were places he believed C20 activity was going on. Greece, Argentina, Egypt, and the Sahara. By studying those areas he'd gotten a few snapshots of light activity from their satellites, but there was no base that he could see.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Hello, Ashur,” the woman whispered, when he opened it. Bridget stood in front of him in leather shorts and a white short-sleeved blouse tucked in. Russell let his eyes travel down the see-through shirt, which revealed her black lace push-up bra. She sauntered in while grabbing his tie. He checked the hallways before closing the door.
“What are you doing here?” Russell asked her.
“You know why I'm here,” Bridget said. She leapt onto the table where he worked, leaning back so her slightly visible abdominal muscles were flexed below her perky C cups. Bridget's eyes were the color of a perfect storm; a reflection of her power and her tan skin, the result of her mixed Australian and Aboriginal heritage, glistened under the lights. “You've got the dampeners on high in here. I can't feel a thing.” She opened her hand and closed it.
“I heard you got in some trouble today,” he muttered, keeping his distance. “They probably turned them up everywhere.”
“A bit of a misunderstanding. No one got hurt. Everything's fine,” Bridget beckoned for him with one finger.
“Shouldn't you be locked up?” Russell walked toward her and placed his hand on top of her leg to caress it gently.
“It’s amazing what a pretty face will get ya.” She ran her forefinger over his protruding forehead and wiped a bit of sweat from his bushy eyebrows.
He stopped scowling for a moment and smirked awkwardly hiding his well cared for teeth. “I have an appointment I can't be late for.”
“You're smart, I'm sure you'll think of something,” Bridget replied, leaning up to snap his suspenders playfully. She undid his skinny tie then worked on the buttons of his crisp gingham shirt. She kissed his smooth chest and grabbed his grey dress pants by the waist to pull him in.
“If I was smart, I wouldn't keep doing this. We're going to get in a lot of trouble, Private Sparks,” Russell breathed heavily, pulling her hair a little bit to plant a kiss on her neck. She ran her fingers down his abs and opened her legs, he moved in between them. “Dr. Belladonna says you're not stable.” Before he finished the sentence, Bridget was removing her unbuttoned shirt as he kissed her shoulders.
“I'll bet you can't find a girl these days who is.”
He lifted her off the table. “I’m so glad your powers are turned off right now.”
Bridget left shortly after they finished their escapade. Russell redressed himself and checked the status of the dampener technology. It registered on high, evenly across the base.
Russell’s rise to credibility in the organization was slow. Neight had no interest in working with the intern and left him to oversee the delivery of supplies. Russell found it ridiculous to have Patrick lead the Cumberland development project without a top tier education. A few assessment tests proved Patrick’s intellectual superiority, effectively killing his argument.
Neight's people were known to access an infinite source of energy they called Zosma in various percentages based on heredity. The Zosma energy was linked to Neight's incredible spell-casting ability and his highly intelligent technology. Russell played with the Uragonian tech as intended and discovered ways of merging it with humanity’s. He found the location of the energy using an algorithm. Phase one of the dampening technology was a machine to hinder the use of Neight's magic. It only worked on the base, primary reason Neight was restricted to it.
The directors were pleased with Russell’s ingenuity. The following year Rabia came on board and they altered the dampener’s functionality for superhumans based on genetic expression of abilities. It allowed the Andromeda Project to assume control over their “gifted“ help while they while on base. Depending on the threat level, each area of the facility had different limitations and could be adjusted. The multi-unit device stopped the brain from producing power manifestations and went so far as to offer the option of inhibiting certain abilities out of a group or shutting them all off.
The computer behind him beeped. Confidential data was being downloaded from the server.
RABIA GIRO
Washington, DC, April 2026
The lab's inviting look gave the illusion of a family owned and operated medical practice in the middle of a small town. Despite his warm and welcoming workspace, Rabia was neither. He’d worked his way through the industry for twenty years, frequently publishing research on the acceleration of human genetics. The manuscripts circulated in a few science communities and fell upon the eyes of the directors, naturally they were intrigued. In 2013, the Andromeda Project recruited him to study Neight's alien genetics and how to incorporate them into the human genome through testing and manipulation. A few factors, including Neight's death, reduced Rabia to performing “physicals“ day after day.
“Hello? Am I in the right place?” Allister asked, wandering around the lab. He touched one of the surgical tools on the bleached clean counter. “Oh. Hey.”
Rabia glared as an old man who’d never experienced the curiosity of children would. He fished a disinfecting wet nap out of his lab drawer to wipe the tool clean and held it against the fluorescent lighting to inspect his work. The frown turned into a look of content, then he put it back in the proper place. Once the tool’s arrangement returned to its original perfection, Rabia pointed with his stubby forefinger to a sign by the door that read, “no questions.”
The geneticist weighed a few more pounds than he should. Unlike his other colleagues he never trained for combat, his mind was his greatest weapon. Beneath a white doctor coat he wore long, elegantly patterned robes everyone assumed were religious. His almost-brown skin gave him ethnic ambiguity and he combed his few strands of greasy, white hair back neatly.
Allister smiled offering an innocent handshake. “I'm Private Adams, it's nice to meet you.”
Rabia raised an eyebrow nearly the size of a squirrel’s tail. “No,” he said, annoyed at the silly trick. There wa
s an entire section of Allister’s file warning about hand-to-hand contact. “Will get to bottom of this,” Rabia muttered, bustling past him. “Make sure not happen again.” Over time his once thick Eastern European accent had mellowed into coherently-fragmented English.
“That's your job?” Allister asked. Rabia stopped twirling the ends of his white mustache and pointed to a second sign near the edge of the prep table, which also read “no questions” but bigger.
“I am to understand you and your gene and power. Everything else, leave to Nicolas,” Rabia said, forcing a tablet into Allister’s possession. “Here.” The recruit was to fill out the information pertaining to his medical records on the tablet, sign the NDA, and strip off his clothes. In that specific order.
Rabia retreated to another room and closed the door to review Florence's notes a third time. He thought she was a joke of a psychiatrist but it was a clever disguise for her steadily growing psychic powers. A bluish hue added light to the dim room from deeper in the lab. Rabia was familiar with every facet of Allister's background after blazing through the summary of what occurred during his recruitment process, including the brief note about a possible connection to C20. The document minimized on the screen.
When the doctor returned, Allister’s body was twisted uncomfortably to hide his spaceship patterned boxers. Hardly paying attention to the young man’s ironic choice of undergarments, Rabia nodded, making sure all forms were complete. “We proceed then.”
Allister positioned himself flat on the operating table, facing the Andromeda Project’s customized technology. Russell Ashur had taken design and functionality credits but it held the same mechanization as a Uragonian machine. A far more menacing looking version of what was used for CT scan and MRIs, except fifteen feet long and affixed to the ceiling. Rabia stepped back as it activated and the computer receiving the data automatically populated an outline of Allister's body, scanning the length of it a few times. The machine hummed, ticking and calculating while the computer entered text notes of any and all results. Rabia watched the genetic code unravel until it divided into sections. Its screen flashed a red error message, grinding its processes to a halt. As if the fire alarm beeping wasn’t enough, “Uragonian genetic code detected,” was repeatedly spoken out loud. Allister fidgeted, confused about what was happening.
The Andromeda Project (The Cluster Chronicles Book 1) Page 6