During his continuous hacks, he could not find anything relevant about Perkons, his whereabouts or the reason why he left, but he did find a trail. Unfortunately, he could not follow this alone so he asked Irina to help him. As part of the front of house staff, she had access to other parts of the system and knew the official layout of the building, so he told her that he was looking for Perkons and asked her to cooperate in that search. For Irina, her cousin’s behaviour was normal as he was a bit dry and not very affectionate towards any living human being, but she had to admit that it had been more obvious than usual since he stopped contacting anyone, including his family back in the small villa where they all used to live. Reluctantly and completely sure it would not trace back to her, she managed to get a key from a room where paper filing took place but it all turned out to be a dead end when Taran finally got inside. The trail ended up with operation STEP, which was highly classified and there was no mention on any of the documents and terminals that Taran hacked. All of his determination faded when he got a substantial pay rise to extend his participation in the studies. He knew it would come at a price but he was excited as he was playing an important role in something so unique, bigger than anything. The three doctors came up with different theories every week until, one day, a proposal fitted what they were looking for. The key was a pair of gloves able to enhance his condition because they would help him to polarize the charges. They would be adjustable at the wrist level, with drugs of easy absorption to balance the loss of chemicals in his body due to the electrical discharges, which would be bigger from now on. Many experiments were carried out in different environments, all of them aiming to determine the amount of electricity he could take from the surroundings and how he could direct it. Far from being a Taser boy, he was someone able to create currents based on the ones around, the static in the air or even polarized sources. He was not a battery ready to fire his power, but his ability to tip off the natural balances and withstand them was still remarkable. The part of being able to direct the discharge was somehow in the air because, clearly, it was not by pointing a finger like in the movies. Electricity obeys the laws of physics, not the ones of theatrical performance, so when finding a source or a charged object, the triggered current would go to him if there was not a closer item or mass to ground that discharge. The gloves allowed him to intensify the circulation of electricity and still be able to emit little discharges, but nothing worth calling home about like the small displays he was able to pull in front of the doctors. The trio seemed worried about his health for the first time and warned him about side effects like headaches, heart complications, kidney stones and nervous breakdowns to name a few, so he tried to eat the healthiest he could, do exercise supervised by them and have periodic check-ups and psychological evaluations. They asked him to sign a confidentiality agreement and he could not take the gloves outside the installations of the institute unless he was supervised by a legal representative. Taran was not interested in becoming a circus freak or an internet sensation (anymore). His salary and his hacking experiments were rewarding enough at this point of his life, maybe if he managed to save enough he would be able to buy a house and travel around. Although his height was average, his geeky features and social awkwardness had caused him to give up searching actively for a girl, until one day he saw this shy, distracted subject running at the back of the building. She was supervised by a Doctor who seemed foreign. Taran was already suspicious of the institution because of Perkons’ disappearance, but became even more concerned when he confided in the therapy that he felt attracted to the girl running at the back of the building and then he met her a few days later in a private interview. Although he was feeling happy about that because she turned out to be great, he found it strange, if not confusing. Perhaps they were forcing her to meet him or even paying her to talk to him and he did not want to be part of something like that. They were insisting in moving him to the facilities but he remained reluctant due to Perkons’ disappearance, so this could be a different tactic to enticing him to do so, but it was having the opposite effect because he hated being coerced into something. However, she seemed to be a genuine girl and he was curious about her role at the institution. They did not mention she was a patient but it was obvious to him due to the circumstances. However, she was conducting the interview and Taran felt confused by it. He wondered what kind of disease or condition made her do it or what she could gain with all that. Nevertheless, she seemed like an open book. Ciana smiled a lot when he was just babbling about stuff or every time he thought he was being funny but wasn’t making any sense. He gathered she was meeting other people, men and women, but he ignored the reasons. Maybe they were looking for someone to team up with her for a project. Whatever he did, it worked because they asked him to meet her on a regular basis and as for the reasons why, they were not specific and only mentioned that Ciana needed help to adjust to her new treatment. According to their records, they thought it would be beneficial for her to spend time with him so if he was up for it, it would be of great help. Well, when they put it that way, it was hard to resist for Taran. Maybe it was just what he wanted to hear, maybe they knew him too well by now, but he could not refuse anyway. Ciana was beautiful and great company. They enjoyed spending time together and, slowly, seeing her became the highlight of his day. Despite new developments in the research, work was no longer that exciting in comparison to seeing her. One of the members of his trio of doctors was interested in the idea of creating some sort of E.M.P. effect with Taran. Electromagnetic pulses were used to destroy all electronics within a certain radius, they were part of the current arsenal in modern warfare. Dr Souza, was not interested in a massive radius of influence because Taran would not be able to handle those high levels of electricity, maybe something smaller but still useful enough to neutralise a car, a house or the servers of a company. The other two doctors were more focused in the way that Taran could manipulate the electric charges and kept working on improving the gloves and his recovering strategy, yet Dr Souza insisted and was even developing a small device to implement the fake EMP. It was more of a ball but like a battery, he would have to charge and then activate it somehow to release all the energy. The problem was how to activate it without touching it, otherwise he would be the most likely recipient of all the energy blast. Though none of that was a match to being able to help Ciana. He was informed that she needed to get out of the building and deal with being in a public space full of people flowing in different directions. They did not explain why such a situation could be difficult for her or be a threat to her safety, only that it was of vital importance to protect her. A medical team and security personnel would be around at all times and Taran’s role was to be the main liaison between them and Ciana. He should report via a panic button anything threatening her life such as a medical emergency or a panic attack. They would keep their distance and let them be, but on a short leash. He would have to report every fifteen minutes by text to let them know everything was alright or if there were any signs out of the ordinary. She was carrying a tracking device on her wrist, just in case, and also a special bracelet measuring her pulse. The walk went well, she was safe and could not hide how happy she was for being with him. They had never been out of the institution and this seemed to be a great step for her. She started embracing whatever she was feeling in that moment, to the point of confiding in him and revealing her condition. This woman was from another planet as he had suspected. Her brain was super-evolved in comparison to his as he could barely remember what he had for breakfast, but her memory was as powerful as a supercomputer, even before she had her enhancement and now she was able to “feel” people around, identify them, and track them. Taran felt slightly silly and tried to avoid the subject of his condition which would be difficult to explain. He was a Taser but not just yet, or an EMP in the making, someone who could pretty much manipulate electricity. Ciana’s ability was fascinating, so he focused on her, asking her as many questions without being too inqu
isitive. Taran was worried that she would think he saw her as a circus freak, so he tried to be as casual as possible about her condition and her new “features”. More dates came and Taran couldn’t believe how lucky he was. Spending time with Ciana, getting to know her better and basically sharing their experience at the institution had been perhaps the best time of his life, but just when he thought they were in the best moment, she cooled off with no explanation and stopped seeing him that often. Soon, she became more distant and was not even concerned that he hurt himself a couple of times in the experiments. Maybe she was seeing someone else or he was not the only one from the very beginning. Girls were not his strong point, he never had a girlfriend at high school or uni and the only chance he had to interact with women were occasional and rare one-night stands led by alcohol and followed by an awkward silence the morning after. Disappointed, he shifted his focus to work, where the fake EMP was not going that well but the Tasing gloves were improving a lot, ironically thanks to the concept of the EMP ball. By throwing a ping pong-sized ball made out of a specific alloy and a special capacitor inside, the just-charged gloves would direct the discharge towards the ball or at least in its direction, behaving like a cordless Taser. Sometimes, they followed the ball but then ended up in an object nearby. Also, he had to ditch one of the gloves to manipulate the ball with his bare hand, otherwise, the ball would absorb the energy of that glove. He looked silly with only one glove, so he tried to find a similar match in the market and avoided looking like a weirdo. The improvement was considerable and his abilities, training, enhancing drugs and equipment were paying off, to the point of being tested on a mission. Awkwardly for him, Ciana was part of that mission and, actually, she was fundamental for it. After locating an individual, they had to neutralise him. Taran would be the last resource; only to be implemented if the first teams failed to fulfil the mission, which was highly unlikely. Reluctantly, she accepted to be in the same helicopter with him so that was not the best start. However, they got to talk while everything was getting ready and she seemed like the same Ciana he got to know on their first dates. She was a bit scared of flying and the whole mission in general was unnerving due to the number of weapons and security. They were both wondering why they needed to catch the guy themselves as opposed to leaving it to a third party, either from the government or a private contractor. Nevertheless, it was so cool to be flying for the first time in a helicopter, especially with her. The idea of Ciana being there as bait for him, to keep him tied to the institution was vanishing. Her vulnerability, the attempts to give him the cold shoulder, and her nervousness were all real and could not be faked. After covering some distance, she closed her eyes and started doing her thing, whatever that was. He was free just to look at her, admire her beautiful features and sometimes he wanted to say a few words but was afraid of distracting her. There were two agents with them but they seemed to be focused on the operation while he was just focused on being there for her. He finally asked her how she was doing and although only a few words were answered in return, he was happy to see her smile. The helicopter was covering a lot of ground, circling entire towns a few times until, after a while, she opened her eyes and looked at him. Taran wanted to say so much, and in that moment, he felt she was about to say something important as well, only to be interrupted by a new mood: She had just located the target. It was crazy, Ciana was a really big deal and he wanted to say it, he wanted to verbalise with the right words that she was amazing and beyond that, but he just blurted some meaningless sentences instead, saying how good she was. By the time Taran was regrouping, they landed and a van was waiting for him. They were separated so Ciana was out of danger and he was with one of the teams in a different van. Keeping her safe was one of the priorities of the mission, which meant that the guy was more dangerous than the bosses wanted to admit. Team Alpha and Beta were tackling the building from different directions while Team Omega, with Taran included, were in the most probable escape route in the unlikely case the subject was able to neutralise and outrun those twelve highly trained agents. The idea was to capture the guy alive and provide him with medical and psychological treatment. The operation started developing and they would get mainly the audio feed coming from the lead agents in each team and the head of communications who was in charge of keeping Team Omega in the loop. After a few agents were rendered down, Taran and his team got the order to assume their positions. Team Alpha was mostly down and Team Beta was heading in the same direction, so Taran asked himself why the Omegas would be any different. He was sure that the subject was enhanced somehow but for a reason beyond his pay grade, they hid that from him. It would be silly not to tell him how the other guy was “upgraded” so he would know what to expect. The whole two main teams were already down except for two agents who were pursuing the subject with firearms. That meant weapons had not been effective so far with the subject. What was he made of? Taran reminded himself to get training with one of those guns, however, it was most likely a bad idea as he was told his sparks could trigger the gunpowder in the weapons. They started running to intercept the subject who was going directly into a forest nearby at an incredible speed. As he was considerably slower than his teammates, by the time he reached the forest, he saw two agents down. The head of communications said in the audio feed that half of the team was already out of play. He heard fast noises around him, grunts, movements in the trees but could not see anything. When he looked up, the subject was jumping above, falling onto him, so he barely got time to activate his gloves. The plan of his opponent was clear because if he wanted to kill him, he would already have done so. Braith wanted to render Taran unconscious by locking his enormous biceps around his neck. He was scared to punch him as he would have most likely broken several of Taran’s bones in one go. That was probably what Braith did with the rest of the agents who seemed to be a better match for him. Luckily for Taran, he managed to activate the discharge and they both felt the powerful sting. Each one managed to crawl away from the other, and while recovering, they both looked at each other.
“You are different.” Braith said. “You are enhanced, like me.”
“Surrender yourself! We have you surrounded. More agents will come.” Taran warned him.
Taran incorporated himself, held his ground and activated the gloves again. The trees tended to absorb most of the static in the air but it was a particularly dry day, so the currents started to flow here and there.
“I know, they have been after me for days and they won’t stop.”
“Come on, man. I don’t want to do this.”
Taran was beyond scared inside but was trying to hide it from Braith who easily had double the amount of muscle mass than him. Enhanced or not, he would not dare him into a fight under any circumstances, but it was too late for that. His opponent was taller, hairier, bigger, and more menacing by just his strong stare.
“Listen to me, kid, they are not what they seem. You cannot trust anyone in that building. To them, you are a lab rat, they are going to use you the best they can and then put you down like a sick dog. I have evidence and they know about it, that is why they are after me. You and me, we are both on the same side. There is a locker in a gym in Central London by Tottenham Court Road where I have some files.”
In that moment, they heard a helicopter passing by and Braith quickly put his hand inside his jacket. Afraid he was about to pull out a gun and shoot him, Taran threw a conductive ball towards Braith and pointed the charged glove towards him. The flow of energy hit him hard and knocked him down. Slowly, he approached him and what he saw was a key in his hand. Braith turned out to be unarmed and what he tried to do was give Taran the key. He was probably tired of running, perhaps he knew he could not do this for much longer and wanted to pass him the information. Taran took the key and listened to a call from one his unconscious teammates. His communication device was not fried like his due to the electric party that took place a moment ago. He informed them that the target was down and asked if Ciana
was okay. He left the scene to see how a medical team came to pick up Braith. When he arrived home, he was about to check his phone for information about gyms near Tottenham Court Road but the paranoia of being spied on led him to use a dodgy internet cafe nearby. The list of places was short, and after a few tries, he found the locker with some printed files and a few USB drives. Most of it was encrypted beyond his level of knowledge but then he managed to decode a few bits worth following. There was a list of subjects worth being recruited, the file of a woman called Mercy Rogers who was particularly long and also a brief of Operation STEP. Perkons was part of that operation but he ignored how. He was scared to take the documents with him, even he did not want to take pictures of them in case they had tabs on his phone, so he kept going to the locker at the gym to take pictures with a traditional camera and stored them in a new Google account created only for that purpose. He became a member of the gym, paying in cash, and instead of hanging out with Ciana, he was going every day to “do some cardio” and read the documents inside the toilet cubicle or the private changing room. Operation STEP was the relocation of several personnel, including Perkons, to other offices but he could not find the exact location of those offices. Perkons said he left for San Francisco but there was no mention of it in the files of STEP, instead, several codes were mentioned, including The M Eight, where a place for Mercy was reserved. Mercy Rogers was a troubled subject suffering many suicidal attempts and despite the recommendations of the board to terminate the experiments and transfer her abroad, one of the doctors kept fighting tenaciously against that. However, there were procedures in place, ready to be activated just in case her case got out of control. There were countermeasures for many of the enhanced subjects if similar situations were to arise. Ciana was listed as Amber Alert but Mercy was definitely in Red Alert. His name was not there yet but the number of subjects was larger than he thought it would be. Irina got very inquisitive about why he was arriving home so late and argued that he could use the fitness facilities at the institute. His paranoia led him to the point of wondering whether Irina was working for them too. This thought raised his level of anxiety since Irina was related to Perkons and gave him access to the room in the building where he found out about STEP. However, Braith’s words remained and he did not know if he could trust in anyone but Ciana. One day, when going home, Ciana herself intercepted him out of the blue like a beautiful apparition. He so wanted to tell her everything, but he could not. It was obvious by this point that she was a valuable asset, given her worth that was shown in the recent mission and her multiple mentions in the files. It was for sure that she was being followed, so he could not say anything to her. He continued to nervously answer the questions she had for him about Irina being his girlfriend or Mercy, which was crazy. Perhaps somebody fed her the wrong information at the institution, maybe she was confused about the fact he was living with Irina, but all of that seemed trivial at the time. He just wanted to hug her, which he did and it was perfect, even if it was just for a moment. Ciana’s ability could be of help and, effectively, she told him that they were surrounded by agents or people related to the institute. Coincidence or not, he could not take the chance of saying much and just waited for an opportunity to let her know the latest developments. Sadly, it proved very difficult to find that chance and while the training for the fake EMP intensified with better but not perfect results, his paranoia grew. The fake EMP ball was redesigned many times, the latest improvement featured a mechanical timer in case Taran’s energy could break an electronic one. Several procedures were tested but the best one seemed to be just throwing the ball up in the air, directly above him. The results were mixed and the type of blast turned out to be irregular at best, with only a few successful attempts. Dr Souza was very optimistic about Taran’s performance and said it was a matter of when, not if. Some demonstrations were performed for a board of Doctors and Scientists he had never seen before. They were all very impressed with his progress and he wondered why there was nothing about him in those files and why Mercy and Ciana were considered a threat and not him. The reading of the files continued but there was still no trace of Perkons except the one of his transfer to the M. Eight. There were preparations to move Mercy Rogers and Braith Van Hoy over there too but the exact location of the M. Eight in the US was not disclosed in any of the files he could read. Finally, he decided to go back to basics and try to find a mention of M. Eight by hacking into the system without any luck. One day, he could not resist any longer and asked one of the team agents, someone not so high on the ladder but not totally at the bottom. He was surprised to know that Taran had clearance for stuff like the M. Eight details.
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