by Kipjo Ewers
“Target has been captured…prepare to terminate…” the Lead Shock Trooper ordered.
“My name is Special Agent Mark Armitage of the FBI!” yelled Mark at the top of his lungs, “You are under arrest for charges of murder and kidnapping of a minor! Agents now know where I am, and they will be coming for me and for you! Believe it…you sons of bitches!”
A last ditch effort for a condemned man, but it was enough to have the Lead Shock Trooper turn and talk to whoever was giving him commands from behind the scene, with one swift motion the Trooper pulled out his side arm and fired a shot into Armitage’s neck without hesitation, only it did not feel like a bullet. The world started to go black. He imagined this was probably what Dunbar’s world was like.
Mark would here the trooper utter one final sentence before going into the darkness, “Secure the perimeter; bring the transport so we can take him back to the base…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Light slowly came back into Armitage’s world along with the taste of cotton mouth; he braced himself for probably being butt naked with something stuck in him in the intersection of the town of Klamath Falls for all to see, but that wasn’t the case. They removed his body armor along with all of his gear and weapons. He was in chained shackle restraints. Under arrest was his second thought, prepped for agents coming to take him back DC to face disciplinary action for going rogue.
The room he was in was more of a large sterile conference room with a large silver table that stretched from one end to the other with one of those comlinks that he hated using in the middle, extremely uncomfortable chairs you see out of the Jetsons, and a huge flat screen like monitor.
Two guards wearing lighter black armor versions of the ones that captured him stood at attention on opposite corners of the conference room confirming his suspicions that he had made it alive inside of the base in somewhat one piece.
He adjusted himself in his seat bending forward to shake the cobwebs off; his movements did not make the guards jump at all, which meant they were highly trained to expect the unexpected, not the obvious. In his current state, he was not going to fight his way out of that conference room, even if he got lucky, they would gun him down the second he exited the room with no clue as to where he was.
His best hope was to sit tight, gather as much information as he possibly could, and pray that Dunbar made it out in time to contact Dustin who would be here with some agents on the ground looking for him.
“Any chance a guy can get some water around here?” asked Mark out of nowhere.
Still no reaction, but he really did need water, the cottonmouth was getting to him, and he did not have anything other than the breakfast that morning. Just then, the door in front of him slid open and his prayers went up in smoke.
Eric Dunbar a little bit worse for wear also in chained shackle restraints walked through with another guard bringing up the rear.
“Sorry man…I ran as fast as I could,” said a disheartened Dunbar, “Everything just went black again…”
“It’s okay kid,” he smiled, “It’s okay…”
The guard gave Dunbar a sharp tap on his shoulder with the butt of his rifle to keep moving forward escorting him to one of the chairs where Eric took a seat. The guard then positioned himself by one of the vacant corners of the conference room.
A minute went by before Mark turned to address Eric, “They give you water when you woke up?”
Dunbar gave him a weird look, “Uh…no…”
“Me neither,” Mark shook his head, “What a stingy joint…”
A minute later, the door slid open one more time. The devil himself would walk through with his entourage of Agent Slater and Ms. Barrett bringing up the rear holding her tablet, still walking in her trademark pink flip-flops. Armitage stood up ready for anything, Dunbar did the same trying to mimic him in looking tough; Rosen however ignored Mark all together and made a beeline straight for Eric.
Director Rosen walked up grinning with his arms open, “Eric! Eric! You made it Eric! You made it!”
Mark and Dunbar looked at each other with utter confusion as an approaching Director Rosen gave him a warm hug rubbing his back. It was like some twisted scene out of Wily Wonka and the Chocolate factory…the Gene Wilder version.
“Great to see you Eric…finally great to see you in person,” the Director let out a sigh of relief as if they were old college buddies.
Eric gave the Director a weird smile pretending to know him, “Yeah…okay…who the hell are you?”
Rosen with a smiling hurt look, tried to jog his memory, “Come on Eric! Veterans Memorial Park…the police chief’s patrol car…candy store…City Hall.”
“City Hall?” Mark turned to a now livid Eric.
“Son of a bitch had me drunk on a bench in my boxers wrapped around a goddamn blowup doll…” Dunbar bared his teeth.
“That’s not too bad,” shrugged Mark
“It was a male doll,” seethed Eric.
“Candy store is my favorite,” the Director beamed wagging his finger while walking away; “Francine the store owner didn’t know whether to laugh or be mortified with you sleeping in the jelly bean pit in just a diaper and bib.”
Rosen sighed clasping his hand smiling like a father with pride, “Eric you’re like my Wile E Coyote, time and time again venturing up here looking for us, no matter what embarrassing, humiliating, or hysterically funny situation we left you in after we bag and tag you. Well…here you are, you’ve made it…you’re not crazy Eric or some drunken reprobate. This is a covert government facility with the sole purpose of creating advanced weaponry ensuring that the United States of America remains a Super Power in the world for like forever.”
After finally giving Eric his golden ticket the Director gave a saddened sigh, “Unfortunately…as wonderful as it is to see you Eric, you now know far too much.”
Eric nervously smirked, “So what? This is where you blow my brains out?”
“Come now Eric…I told you…I like you…” Rosen scoffed at him making a ridiculous assertion, “But we are going to do something to your brain…Ms. Barrett…”
As the guards moved into position around Armitage, Ms. Barrett looked at her tablet typing something in, instantly Dunbar’s face went blank as he dropped to the floor a drooling catatonic mess. Armitage lost it attempting to rush the Director but because of his own restraints, the guards in the room quickly overpowered him
“You son of a bitch! What did you do to him?!” Mark roared.
“Nanites Special Agent…nanites…” the Director explained.
“How do you think we were able to stay fives steps ahead of him? After his third attempted try to breach our perimeter here, we decided it was best to keep close tabs on him. You were right…we did know you were coming. We were considering notifying the local authorities to deal with you especially with the “firepower”, you came with,” Rosen chuckled, “But seeing how resourceful you’ve proven to be…we couldn’t risk probably bringing more problems to our doorstep, so we decided to let you come and deal with you in house.”
The Director walked over kneeling down next to Eric rubbing his head, “These are in their early stages, the programming for something so small to do complex things is very difficult, but these were given the specific functions that allow us to both hear and see everything around him, as well as track him. In this case, they performed a high precision lobotomy leaving him in his current yet somewhat functional vegetable state. One day they’ll be able to permanently correct erectile dysfunction in men.”
“You fucking monster!” Mark shrilled fighting to get free.
Director Rosen got up and moved closer to Armitage with an irritated bewildered look, “I’m a monster? You blaming me for this Special Agent?”
He pointed at him baring his teeth, “This is your entire fault. You brought a civilian to a highly classified government facility jeopardizing national security when given strict orders not to pursue this case any
further. You did this to Eric. I could have you shot for treason.”
“You tell me, where’s the national security in murdering a family; and kidnapping a little girl you sick piece of shit?!” Mark snapped back.
“An unfortunate necessary evil that had to be done to ensure the creation of the ultimate defense for this country Special Agent,” the Director said somberly before motioning to Ms. Barrett, “Please take Mr. Dunbar out of here…make sure he’s found in a hiking accident. Make sure there’s an anonymous payment for his medical bill…make it look like a bunch of his conspiracy theorist followers pulled together on his behalf…looks good…pay off any debts he may have too…it’s the least we can do for him…”
“Yes sir…” She motioned to two of the guards who shouldered their rifles; they walked over grabbing Dunbar off the floor and dragged him out as Ms. Barrett followed them.
“Also bring in Ms. Dennison,” he added to his request, “Might as well have her present since I hate repeating myself.”
He turned to Armitage, “You want the James Bond treatment…you got it…”
A minute later after Ms. Barrett leaves with Dunbar, the doors flew open again as Sophia walked in. Her arms and hands still donning the huge shell like restraints, while she still wore her battle worn clothes from yesterday flanked by four heavily armed Shock Troopers; bringing up the rear were the remaining members of the D.E.A.D partially out of their gear. She appeared to be quite calm and relaxed despite her current predicament.
“You alright?”A concerned Mark asked.
“Doing good….pretty…pretty…pretty good,” she nodded with her best Larry David impersonation, “You come here to rescue me?”
“Yeah…” he nodded.
“Good job…” she nodded with a sarcastic smile.
“If you two are done with the plot filling banter,” Rosen interrupted, “Allow me to quickly explain why you,” he pointed to Sophia, “Are here, and you,” he turned pointing to Armitage, “Should not be here. Project Evolution or the Olympus Project as it was known back then was started the same time the Manhattan Project was created in 1942.”
“You mean 1939…,” she snidely corrected.
“Yes…give or take a year…” he turned sneering back at her, “You see our government at that time realized that the Nazi were right…in order for us to remain a super power in this world we as a nation had to evolve not just on a technological level, but a physical level as well. So while one division was creating weapons of mass destruction in the light for all to see, this division was kept in the shadows working on creating advanced weaponry and biological technology to would make us in the near future forever independent of nuclear arms.”
He began to walk around, “You see after Hiroshima and Nagasaki we came to the obvious realization that nuclear war is ineffective. Sure, you can drop a bomb and devastate an entire country…kill millions, but at the end of the day, you end up destroying billions upon billions of dollars in land and natural resources. War at the end of the day is about making a profit…and it does not pay if you blow your profit to shit. Germ warfare and dirty bombs hold similar problems…that on top of the possibly of accidentally infecting your own troops and country is just too damn high…you don’t need to see “31 Days Later” to reach that conclusion.”
“Love that movie by the way,” he stopped to interject, “Conventional warfare though not as destructive still costs, and is one of the reasons why this country is now in astronomical debt…due to our current leader putting two wars on a credit card. While our enemies not even spending a quarter of what we currently spend in defense, still achieve very high and effective body counts. That’s because as “hardcore” as we claim to be, our enemy is more hardcore with no fear of death, and no remorse for who they kill as long as it’s in the name of their god and achieving their objective. The only logical solution is to take death off the table in regards to us. That is why we have been feverishly working to upgrade the age old tool that has won wars for centuries and is cheap…man…”
“Another damn super solider project…” Mark muttered in disgust.
Not “another damn super solider” project,” the Director mocked Armitage’s voice, “A super human project…and in order to build the perfect superhuman it’s been concluded that it needs to be done on a genetic level. Drugs produce temporary changes with long-term extremely harmful side effects…sometimes fatal. Cloning although unethical to the bleeding masses is one option, but takes too damn long. Only in the embryo stage can we achieve successful gene alteration, we need effective soldiers like yesterday.”
“But by creating a virus that when injected into the body would destroy, replicate, and mimic the functions of whatever cell it encounters…becoming a superior cell in every shape and form of the way…we could create a superhuman from the inside out in a matter of days,” said the Director proudly.
“Sounds like the perfect version of the A.I.D.S virus…” Sophia snorted.
“How’s the saying go? Can’t make an omelet without dropping a few eggs?” the Director coldly said to her, “Unfortunately the homosexual community got a bad rap due to an infected agent with an uncontrollable heroin habit which we thought was suppressed in a time when idiots who did that shit shared needles. Back in the early stages of the project there was a process each D.E.A.D agent had to go through before injected with the virus so it did not reject and kill you by attacking your immune system. Those that did not go through the process…well you get the idea.”
He sighed shaking his head, “We did our best to try and contain it, but in the end we were forced to cover our tracks and cleanse the rest of the agents in our stable…set our D.E.A.D project back two years…but that’s what happens when you recruit a junkie serial killer.”
Sophia and Mark had mirrored looks of grimace realizing what Director Rosen was talking about as they looked into the eyes of the remaining D.E.A.D.
“That’s right people…members of the D.E.A.D are beta testers for a more superior and elite America,” said the Director finally introducing them, “The Disavowed Extermination Assault Division was created after the Vietnam War. Once again, our government realized that there were monsters in this world so terrifying and so ruthless; regular soldiers would be incapable of dealing with them. Nor were they capable of executing certain unnerving tasks needed to deal with such monsters.”
“So we went looking for the most homicidal sociopaths in this country, made them dead on paper virtual ghosts,” the Director motioned with pride, “Genetically altered, trained and equipped them with the most highly advance weaponry no one has ever seen before. We then sent them out with one command…to kill and slaughter any and anyone we see as a threat to the national security of this country.”
Mark motioned to the remaining members of the D.E.A.D in total disgust, “So you spit on real soldiers, by turning these sick…”
#4 having enough of Mark’s mouth walked over and took the air out of his lungs with a gut shot doubling him over. The enhanced punch was powerful enough to lift him off his feet dropping him to his knees. #4 went to pull him up for another one but the Director waved him off.
“You...put the trust this country into the hands of murderous scumbags…” he coughed getting it out.
“These “murderous scumbags” are still Americans serving their country, and I trust them far more than I trust you;” Rosen walked over patting #1 on the shoulder, “Especially since each of them are implanted with the same nanites that were implanted into Mr. Dunbar.”
“You’re out of your goddamn mind…,” Mark sneered.
“You’re out of your goddamn mind…” the Director mocked him again, “Aren’t we playing the hypocrite…you were a solider once Special Agent. You know first hand the ravages of war. If there were a way to save one man from dying on the battlefield…if you could stop coffins with flags from coming home would you not take it? I’m saving the economy and making sure all of the young men and women, we send
into battle come home alive and in one piece. You tell me where in that am I out of my goddamn mind?”