The Nano Experiment

by Wid Bastian

  “General Lucas,” Schaffer said to his colleague, “do we have identities and locations for all living blood relatives of Cassia all the way down to her second cousins?”

  “We should, I’ll confirm,” Lucas answered.

  “Order them all rounded up and terminated. Begin with her son,” General Schaffer ordered. “It’s what we must do to remain in control. Do it now, General.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ferris was quietly playing in the back room of his house when he heard a mild thumping sound. A week prior, two officers dressed in their finest Western Alliance uniforms had informed him that his mother had died in combat and that his caretaker Cynthia was now his legal guardian. The news devastated Ferris. He became a recluse, ate little and refused to go outside or to talk with anyone other than Cynthia.

  Over the noise of the video monitor he heard heavy footsteps approaching. Peeking over the couch, Ferris saw six heavily armed men enter his den. In shock, his body became stiff and ridged; he dropped the toy he was playing with. As soon as the toy hit the ground one of the soldiers honed in on him and hit him with a dart containing a lethal dose of poison. Their orders were to transport young Ferris’ body intact to Forged Bay for intense scientific scrutiny.

  The soldiers stepped over the dead bodies they left in the foyer – Cynthia, a bodyguard and a caretaker - and preceded to ransack the house. The idea was for local law enforcement to assume a forced entry had occurred and a robbery had taken place. To validate that theory, they were dressed in civilian clothes with their faces and features disguised. They carried off anything of value.

  When they entered the office adjoining the master bedroom, the soldiers stopped short. Virtually every possible major combat medal and ribbon was on display in a case against the wall. Rather than smash the case and destroy its contents, one of the soldiers saluted it and was quickly shoved to the ground for his insubordination. The officer then sprayed Cassia and Rolf’s accumulated service medals with Light Rifle pulses until they were obliterated.

  In ten separate locations throughout the Western Empire, fourteen other executions were carried out on Cassia’s relatives. Her half-sister Alyssa, a peace loving mother of two, was the only other person hit with poison and then whisked away for post mortem examination.

  The respectful soldier who had saluted the medal case was Sergeant Eric Foote, formerly assigned to the personal staff of General Alandreian. He and his Special Forces comrades were given this covert assignment directly by the High Command. Further, they were told not to discuss or in any way disclose what they had done under penalty of immediate and summary execution for treason.

  Sgt. Foote had not known Rolf, but he had met Cassia once. He believed that there was no way in hell General Alandreian would sanction the execution of Cassia’s only son. Although he knew reaching out could mean his death, Foote was certain that he had a foolproof method of getting Alandreian a message without anyone being able to intercept it.

  Using an encrypted back channel, Foote wrote a short missive to his former commander, “We were ordered to kill Cassia’s child Ferris as well as all other close living relatives. Wanted you to know the truth, sir. EF.”

  Back at Forged Bay General Alandreian was trying to make some sense of the reports he’d received. Why would the Eastern Alliance raid the island where Ferris lived and kill not only him, but upwards of a thousand other non-combatants? Attacks on protected zones were rare and sure to invite an ever escalating round of retaliatory strikes. The islands supposedly targeted by the East had absolutely no military or economic value.

  High Command tasked him with giving Cassia the bad news. But it wasn’t just bad news, it was devastating. Ferris was her reason both for living and for dying. Over the past few days, Cassia had become even more distant. Her physical features had hardened and whatever was happening with her right arm was intensifying. She didn’t even wish to speak to him much anymore. The white coats would not let her out of her quarters, which were nothing more than a well decorated two room jail cell.

  Only a few minutes before he was scheduled to talk with Cassia, Alandreian received the encrypted message from Sgt. Foote. Realizing the explosive nature of the information, Alandreian committed the three lines to memory and destroyed the message and all evidence that it had been sent. He thanked the hand of fate for not deleting this old code back channel, one he had originally set up to avoid the prying eyes of scrutiny during his Special Ops assignment in East Asia over a decade earlier.

  Above and beyond any other implications, Alandreian was certain of one thing – if High Command had killed Ferris and Cassia’s relatives, they were certainly going to kill her too. But why? The other generals at Forged Bay had kept him in the dark. Did they have reasons of which he was unaware? While that was almost certainly true, what had Cassia become to merit such harsh treatment?

  As a loyal soldier of the Empire, Alandreian was more inclined than not to believe his fellow senior officers must have had extraordinary motivations to take such precipitous and drastic action. But Alandreian thought of Cassia as his daughter. Six men, soldiers which made it even worse, had been dispatched to kill his daughter’s only child, his grandchild. Then they lied to cover their trail.

  He had to know why this happened before he spoke with Cassia. The time had come to cash in one of his chips. He buzzed General Larsen’s office.

  “Good morning, Peter,” Alandreian said as General Larsen’s face appeared on the monitor.

  “Benjamin. How are you? The reports I get say that you’re developing according to plan, whatever that means. Soon you will be amazing us all, I’m sure.”

  “I’m calling about Cassia.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. Tragic. I’m told that a retaliatory strike on an Eastern enclave near the Black Sea is in the works. We will inflict more than a measure of pain in response to this outrage.”

  “Peter, is this a secure line?”

  “Not yet, but give me a moment.” Peter’s face disappeared, replaced by the Forged Bay insignia on the screen. A few seconds later General Larsen reappeared “We can talk freely now, Ben.”

  “Only a naïve fool would believe your cover story about an Eastern raid. Since I’m neither naïve nor foolish, why not give it to me straight.”

  “Don’t go there, Ben. What’s done is done.”

  “Cassia will not believe your story either. Since I have been ordered to tell her about the death of her son, you’re asking me to repeat what is clearly a badly thought out lie.”

  “It does not matter what Cassia believes.”

  “You’re not concerned about her reaction, not only to the loss of her son but to the perception that she is being deceived? How do you think this will affect her performance moving forward with the program?”

  “Now you’re treating me as if I were a naïve fool. You know what’s happening, Ben. Why tear yourself up over the details? Cassia knew the risks when she volunteered for the nano experiment. She is doing her duty. I suggest you do yours.”

  “Why lie to her, Peter? Cassia is the best soldier I’ve ever known. She deserves to know the truth. I deserve to know the truth.”

  “Ben, the truth is …” General Larsen hesitated. “The truth is Cassia is a threat to all of us. We could simply not foresee certain events… I can’t say more, and that’s damn sure more than I should have said. Are you trying to put my head in a noose?”

  “Okay, Peter. Am I free to make up a better lie? One that Cassia might actually believe?”

  “Tell her whatever story you think is best and copy me with the details. Say your goodbyes to her, Ben. I can’t tell you how much this personally disturbs me, but it must be done. If there were any other way, any other reasonable course of action... but there isn’t.” General Larsen hesitated and looked away for a second. He was obviously uncomfortable. “I know this won’t help, but I have never been part of such a gut wrenching decision in my entire career. If you were privy to all the facts, I have no do
ubt that you would concur.”

  “Alright, Peter. I have my orders. Thanks for going above and beyond for me.”

  “We never had this conversation,” General Larsen said.

  “What conversation,” Alandreian responded then clicked off the screen.

  Chapter Ten

  “General, I was given strict orders by Major Knox. Cassia is not allowed visitors, period. No exceptions.”

  “Sergeant, what rank am I?”

  “You’re a general, sir.”

  “That’s right. And how about Mr. Knox?”

  “Well, he’s a major, sir.”

  “Very good, Sergeant; now were on the same page. I’m giving you a direct order. Open the door and turn off the monitoring devices. Am I making myself clear?”

  “I… I need to check with the Major, sir. If you’ll just give me a moment I’ll raise him on the com, I’m sure -.”

  “If you do not open this door right now, you’ll be on the Arctic front freezing your ass off by morning. Once you let me in I don’t care who you contact. Open the door now.”

  The young NCO was now more than sufficiently intimidated. He opened the door to Cassia’s quarters and General Alandreian walked in.

  “Cassia - sorry, I haven’t seen you in over a week. You, I mean, you’re not the same…”

  Cassia’s right arm was now completely metallic in appearance and the catching device on the end concealed her hand from view. Her physique was statuesque; her muscular body looked spectacular, sculpted as if it were chiseled granite. Cassia’s blonde hair had turned a purplish black color. In contrast to her pale skin, it framed her face to make her look exceptionally beautiful. Her third eye in the middle of her forehead was focused on Alandreian. Her other two eyes blinked and then closed.

  “Why are you here, General?” Cassia asked. “Has the time of my execution arrived?”

  “The monitoring devices are off, at least for a minute or so. I’m not supposed to be here, so I’ll be escorted out shortly. We don’t have much time.”

  “Say what you came to say,” she said coldly.

  “Ferris is dead. He was murdered in your home. The cover story was the East launched a raid against the island and Ferris was killed in the fighting, but that’s a lie. Ferris was murdered by the Alliance as were all of your living relatives, down to second cousins.

  “They are afraid of you, Cassia. You have or are doing something, they wouldn’t tell me what it is, but they consider you capable of causing some kind of pandemic disease. I can’t say their fears are unjustified, but they refuse to tell me what’s happening to you.

  “You will soon be euthanized. I came here for one reason, to tell you the truth. The sacrifices you have made for the Alliance, you and Rolf and now Ferris, I could not in good conscience feed you these lies and ask you to accept them. You’re a hero and you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

  Cassia said nothing for a minute, but she did close all of her eyes. Alandreian really did not know what to expect. In a fit of blind rage, Cassia could easily kill him or Major Knox’s superiors could simply turn on the gas and both he and Cassia would die.

  “I thank you for coming, General. You should leave now,” Cassia said.

  “Please let me express -.”

  “Express what? The Alliance has made its decision. I am what I have always been to them, an expendable asset. I have wasted my life serving a corrupt, self-serving and entirely valueless authority. I regret every life I took for them, every battle I helped them win. They should vanish from the face of the earth.”

  “Cassia, I don’t … I do not have the words to express how -.”

  “General, I consider you to be my friend, my family. You are a victim too, even if you do not see it. These tyrants will stop at nothing to protect their safe, happy little lives while they throw millions into the sausage grinder, day after day, year after year. They deserve to die, all of them.”

  Outside, Alandreian heard Major Knox screaming at his sergeant. No doubt the monitoring devices were back on. How much they had heard of his conversation with Cassia was anyone’s guess.

  “Cassia, if there was anything I could do to stop this, to change their minds, to buy some more time, to bring back Ferris -.”

  “Leave now, General. I… you are not responsible for everything that is about to happen. It’s gone too far, the voices, the changes… you must go, General.”

  The door to Cassia’s quarters opened and three soldiers trained their Light Rifles on both Cassia and Alandreian. Major Knox quickly examined Cassia’s catching device and after assuring himself that it had not been opened or tampered with he allowed Alandreian to leave.

  Cassia made no attempt to escape and offered no resistance. After a minute or so, the soldiers left and she was again alone.

  But Cassia was anything but alone. Part of her, the human part, was fading, retreating into the background of her consciousness. She felt as if thousands, millions of beings were calling out to her like children waiting to be born. What are you? Cassia kept asking herself. Whatever they were, the voices wanted only one thing – life.

  When the lights dimmed in her quarters, Cassia tried to lie down. Sleep was increasingly rare for her – she didn’t need it. But when she was calm the human part of her was the strongest. She imagined Ferris, happy and at peace in their beautiful home, and then she saw his flesh being ripped apart by Light Rifles.

  The anger within her was intense and it was building second by second. It was a voice of its own, demanding vengeance. Death now dominated her thoughts – not only her own but death on a massive scale. Yet somehow she was not afraid to die. The voices within her desperately wanted to live and against all rational judgment she believed that she could not kill be killed.

  Her mind switched gears. Would they simply gas her in her quarters? Something told her that was not what they had in mind. They were afraid of her and whatever this liquid was that she was producing. She could feel it coming out at a steady rate. If her calculations were right, the soldiers and techs would be back to remove her catching device and install another one within the hour.

  Would they try and kill her immediately? Somehow she thought not. Once she was dead, there would be no more discharge and they were very interested in studying it. It was this liquid that made her unique, dangerous, a potential “pandemic” as Alandreian had said.

  These voices, these creatures, they were contained in this fluid. They were coming from it. The liquid was both her gift and her curse. Death to old life, but the beginnings of a new one; like children, but not exactly offspring, more like parts of her, clones but not duplicates. Soon she would find out exactly who these voices were and what they wanted to become.

  When they come for my catching device I will kill them all, Cassia vowed silently. Her reflexes were too quick for any human to counter. After killing everyone in her path, she would go to the Supersoldiers. Surely they could be convinced to see the pure logic, the inescapable truth. They would join her and together they would destroy Forged Bay and everyone in it.

  It was time to leave the past behind.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I could have your stars for that, Ben. What were you thinking?”

  “It was necessary, General Larsen. For the sake of my soul.”

  “Your ‘soul’? Get real, Ben. Disobeying a direct order is a serious offense; in this case it’s treason.”

  “Charge me then. I won’t try to rationalize what I did. I’d do it again.”

  “You’re confined to quarters until this matter is resolved.”

  “You mean until you put her down.”

  “You won’t be in there long. Listen, for what it’s worth, I understand. I’m just glad she didn’t kill you. Maybe it’s better for her to know. Hell, I don’t know, but this has to be done.”

  “How soon?”

  “They are preparing a special security enclosure. Before we euthanize her, they want to be certain everything i
n her body, especially that fluid, can be contained. When she dies there’s no telling where it might be released from.”

  “Have you told the other soldiers?”

  “No. That will be your job after it’s over.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that, Peter. Please leave now. I need to be alone.”

  “I’m sorry, Ben. I really am.”

  ^^^^^^

  Cassia spent the half hour between her visit with Alandreian and the arrival of the collection team in a kind of stasis. She found that she could shut her mind down, go almost blank, and then focus on any subject whatsoever. Her plan was simple. She expected three, perhaps four guards and two techs. She knew more than fifty soldiers were on call to respond to contingencies.