by A. R. Crebs
“TROY!” she screamed.
Aria couldn’t hear Troy’s approaching footsteps or Camery’s terrible cries as her heart pounded noisily within her chest, the blood pumping in her ears. Directly before her was the most unexpected sight she could have imagined. Clones: yes, she expected that. Androids: sure, why not? Demons being researched and experimented on: that was believable. But in no way did Aria imagine that the massive test-tube in the center of the back bedroom would contain the body of a little girl. No less, it was a little girl with a white dress, dirty-blonde hair, and pale dead skin. But it was not just any little girl; this was Sapphire.
"Think I'm A Good Pilot?"
Chapter 6
In three steps, Troy was by Aria’s side. He twisted his torso, aiming high over her head and halted. His trigger finger twitched, nearly giving off a round. Gaping, jaw unhinged, the male slowly lowered his weapon as he stared at the young girl inside the placental container in the cramped lab.
“What…what the hell is this?” he whispered.
“I’m not entirely sure, but someone has a lot of explaining to do,” Aria said between the gnashing of her teeth.
“Aria?” President Clarke worriedly called down the hall.
Grayson had managed to keep Dr. Camery under control, but since the secret was revealed, the previously crazed scientist seemed defeated. Aria felt no pity for the man, however, trudging down the hall as she shouldered her weapon.
“What in the hell is going on?!” Aria shrieked.
Grabbing fistfuls of Camery’s shirt, she pulled the older man out of Grayson’s grasp. Camery fumbled over his steps as the woman tugged him down the hall. Troy immediately joined her side, gripping the man's arm. Roughly, he slammed Camery against the doorway. The doctor’s pale eyes promptly fled to the little girl.
“You want to explain this to us, Dr. Camery?” Troy hissed. “You want to explain why this little girl shares an eerie resemblance to the same little girl that tried to kill us?”
Clarke and Grayson were by their side in an instant, Aren following behind. Clarke’s expression of curiosity and alert changed to one of shock.
“Kill you?” Clarke asked. “What do you mean she tried to kill you?”
“This girl,” Aria shoved Camery inside the room, “is the one who is behind everything. The demons, Euclid, everything.”
“A-Aria…” Clarke muttered, walking up toward the pale child. “This is….” He looked to Camery, a saddened frown taking over.
Camery sighed, resting his hand against the glass near the child’s face. “You are one of the few in the entire corporation that even noticed the photograph on my desk,” he whispered.
“Who is this?” Aria asked.
“My daughter,” Camery spoke dismally. “Sapphire is my daughter.”
“But…she…what?” Troy stammered, running his palm across his forehead.
“It’s kind of complicated,” Camery murmured.
“We’ve got all night,” Aria said, sitting on the edge of a power generator. Her green eyes narrowed on the doctor, flickering between him and his daughter in the tube. Just the sight of her made the woman feel uneasy.
Camery fidgeted uncomfortably, his hands shaking. Giving an exasperated moan, he took a seat on a small work table beside the container. He rubbed his face, his fingers pressing against his eyelids. It appeared as though he hadn’t slept for a long time.
“Well,” he dropped his arms, fingers clasping in his lap, “where shall I begin?” He glanced over his shoulder at Sapphire. “Sapphire is my dearest only child. She is no longer alive…hasn’t been for nearly twenty years.”
Aria looked upon the child, noticing how one of her legs was missing outside of a few thin wires and scraps of dangling metal.
“She was on her way home from school one day when tragedy struck. The bus she was supposed to take was running late. For some reason, she boarded the wrong one out of desperation. I imagine it was because she was scared, worried that she would miss dinner or something. I never liked her riding those things, but as busy as her mother and I were, we couldn’t always pick her up. She had her automated drone with her; I could only assume that its logistics system had a reason for allowing her onto that bus.”
Camery paused, staring at his shoes. “The bus route went through the Nex-Text business district.”
“Twenty years ago? That was during the False Syndicate War,” Troy said, looking to Aria.
“Their biggest competitor, Browning Smith, decided to take out their competition in a rather unorthodox way.” Camery’s laced fingers tightened together, his nails digging into his flesh.
“We know all about that,” Aria grumbled. “The amount of explosives they used took out an entire city block.”
Camery nodded. “And the bus that Sapphire was riding…of all the buses....” He gave a haggard sigh. “Of all the days…she had to ride the one bus that drove through that district right when the bombs went off. She was killed. Her mother and I were devastated, of course. The little light in our world had been extinguished. We were never the same. I drowned myself in work. My wife spent most of her time in the Underbelly with her sister. We had a small funeral for Sapphire, but what I had kept secret from my wife was the fact that Sapphire’s ashes weren’t actually in her urn. I had taken the body back to the lab.”
“For what purpose?” Aria asked.
Camery looked up, his face holding an expression of surprise. “To start my Biomechanical Research and Development program, of course.”
“You wanted to clone your daughter?” Aria asked.
“I wanted my daughter back!” the doctor shouted. “I wanted my little girl who was so ruthlessly taken from me! You cannot tell me that she was fated to go out that day! She was not meant to die in such a cruel way.” Camery quickly composed himself. “And I knew my wife wanted Sapphire back as desperately as I did. I wanted my original girl back, so I did not clone her. Instead, I repaired her internal organs with mechanical parts. Her brain had suffered severely from massive hemorrhaging. I had to replace parts of it. It took lots of time, lots of trial and error, but, once it was complete, my daughter was alive again! When her blue eyes opened, I burst into tears of joy.” Camery paused, his face falling. “But she wasn’t the little girl that she was before. I had replaced too much of her mind with crystal core computerization. She could see me, but she did not recognize me. Her eyes were empty. She had…no soul.”
Aria watched Camery; her angry demeanor faded.
“It was no longer my daughter but a machine. Still, I had hoped that we could retrain her. She would just have to relearn who I was and who her mother was. Simple, right? When a baby is born, it knows nothing of the world. Sapphire was just a newborn again. So, I brought my wife into the lab to see her. It was a surprise. I wanted to see her cry tears of joy at seeing her baby girl once again. Only…it didn’t work out that way. And…my wife…she screamed. I never saw her so angry. She had thought I created a monster. It was not our little girl. It was an empty machine.” Camery nodded slowly. “It was the worst mistake of my life. My wife immediately packed up her things and moved in with her sister in the Underbelly. So I stayed in my lab, working on duplicating DNA. Walten granted me permission to use dead soldiers’ bodies for experimentation.”
Noticing the other’s looks of trepidation, Camery raised a hand. “They were orphans or without any living family members.” Aria narrowed her eyes. He said it as if that made it all the more acceptable to experiment on their dead bodies. “And that’s how I was able to gather my resources to create my biomechanical androids and clones. All was going well. I had enough prototypes to send out onto the battlefield. One after another, the bodies filtered in. It was easy to repair them, to replicate them. They were like a renewable resource. Every android created had an average of three life cycles. Think of the numbers of lives we could save.”
Camery noticed the disgusted stares coming from Aria and Troy. “And that was the mora
l debate that caused my operation to be shut down. At least…that’s what I thought had happened. It turns out Walten had other plans for them all along.”
“So you have nothing to do with the fact that the clones have been relocated to Ives?” Aria questioned.
“It wasn’t until later that I realized the clones hadn’t been exterminated, once I heard a woman named Ivory was brought back with you along with the Sorcēarian.”
“You know something about Ivory?” President Clarke spoke up.
Camery laughed. He laughed loud and hard. The doctor appeared to be at his wits end. “Of course I know Ivory. She’s my niece!”
“What?!” Troy and Aria sounded in unison.
He sighed. “My sister-in-law was Ivory’s mother. After my wife had left me to live with her sister in the Underbelly, there was another incident. The two women were later murdered while they were out late one night. They were twins, oddities you could say. Sure, I was devastated, but it had been years since I had even seen or heard from her at that point. It wasn’t until Ivory’s body came into my lab nearly a year ago that the full brunt of the pain hit me. Her pale skin, her blue eyes, and her blonde hair….She was a spitting image of her mother, the same as my wife. It was like looking at my young wife’s corpse...and that left me wondering if Sapphire would have grown to look like that.”
Aria glanced at Sapphire’s body. It was beginning to make sense. Now that Camery mentioned it, Sapphire and Ivory did share a resemblance to one another, each one apparently holding their mother's traits.
“But you said the only bodies that ended up in your laboratory were soldiers. Ivory was not a soldier,” Aria said.
“And that’s when I found out that Walten had been lying to me. Not only had he no regard for soldiers’ bodies, but he thought of the Underbelly as a wasteland full of potential soldiers he could use. They filled all the urns of the dead from the Underbelly with dust and brought the bodies to me so they could be used for my experiments. I couldn’t say anything at this point. It was my biggest and most profitable project. I had to do simply what I thought best for the bodies. I made them stronger, more deadly. Next to Sapphire, Ivory is my most dangerous creation. I’ve equipped her with an Amasser Particle Beam. This weapon pulls in particles and amasses them into a high-density beam. Its blast can penetrate through nearly anything; its heat and pressure can turn matter into glass, sometimes diamonds. Only Ivory can withstand the temperature and force it takes to operate a weapon like that. There’s no wonder why Walten wants her. She’s perfect for destruction.”
“But you said Ivory is only the second deadliest next to Sapphire. What is Sapphire equipped with?” Aria asked.
Camery’s eyes locked onto Aria’s. He casually entwined his hands before his face. “A nuclear warhead.”
James shouted, “You equipped her with a nuclear warhead?!”
Troy took a step back, nervously eyeing the little girl in the tube.
“You have to understand. When I operated on Sapphire, I had only one goal in mind–revenge,” Camery simply stated.
“You were going to destroy Browning Smith,” Aria said with wide eyes.
“Actually, destroy the entire city-state since they owned nearly 75% of all the corporations,” Camery muttered.
“These are some serious war crimes, Camery,” James sternly said.
“And you think I really care?” the professor growled. “I lost everything because of them! I would have done it without hesitation if Team Phoenix hadn’t beaten me to the punch.”
“Sorry, we stole your thunder…” Troy mumbled sarcastically, running a hand through his hair. He gave a frustrated growl. “Am I the only one still missing something?” The group stared at Troy, waiting for him to work things out in his head. “If that girl in that tube is the real Sapphire…and you never cloned her, then who in the hell is the girl we saw on Ives?”
All the attention returned to Camery. The professor narrowed his eyes; his hands shook before his face. “That thing is not my daughter,” he hissed. “That thing is the goddamned devil!”
Aria peered at Troy, her blood running cold. The male soldier returned her fearful look. Even if he had his doubts, Camery’s conclusion was chilling enough, especially when he had previously seemed so skeptical about the idea of the creatures having any biblical connections.
“You…you mean you think that girl in the cave is…” Troy started.
“Don’t even utter his name! You have no idea what he is capable of!” Camery shouted. “I don’t know how…I don’t know why, but that thing is projecting an image of innocence for all to see. He has chosen my daughter to hide behind. He’s locked between dimensions and is desperate for a way out. He thinks that he can use Sapphire’s body as a vessel. If he inhabits that body, he will have full access to her nuclear warhead. That damn Walten has no idea what he’s unleashed.”
“How did Walten even do this?!” Troy asked in amazement. Sarcastically, he continued, “Hmm…I’m feeling a bit bored today. Think I’ll do some corporate trading, buyout a small city-state, and somewhere between lunch and dinner unleash Hell on Earth! Why is he even doing this?”
Aria twisted her mouth into a forced frown, trying to maintain a serious disposition.
“Believe it or not, but this whole operation was started by Walten’s father. Right before he died, it was rumored he became fanatically religious. He had hopes of breaking the barrier between dimensions. He had thought he could bring Heaven to Earth this way. He wanted the Creator to come back. It was all nonsense. He was a sick man. No one took anything he said seriously,” Camery explained.
“Obviously his bastard son did,” Aria replied.
Camery nodded slowly. “Young Walten had grown up listening to his father's ludicrous ramblings. After his father had died, he followed in his footsteps and continued the project by having a mining team tunnel beneath Fountains. The miners discovered a high-frequency point below the Earth’s crust. Walten believed it to be a gateway point. Due to the electrostatic frequencies and vibrations caused by the miner’s drill and an ancient frequency tuner, they had somehow cracked it. That’s when…the thing crossed over. He cannot enter our world without a vessel. He wants Sapphire.”
“And what’s his goal after he receives the body?” Aria asked.
“Global domination. The details are vague on my end. Walten and Sapphire…no, the thing, do not share much with me. It’s angry with me.”
“Why?” Aria pried.
“Because I will not share the location of Sapphire’s body. Sapphire was originally supposed to be in the disposal container along with the other clones. I was unaware at the time what was going on, and I did not want her to be destroyed, so I stowed her away here in an emergency vehicle.” Camery looked over at the small girl. “I imagine it’s only a matter of time before they find me, however. I mean…you found me easy enough.”
There was a noise outside, the sound of glass crunching underfoot. Aria instantly pieced it together–the sound of the security cameras they had shot out left shards all over the ground surrounding the home. They had already been discovered.
“Get down!” Aria gave a harsh whisper just as the power went out, the generator rumbling to silence. The room dimmed into darkness.
All was quiet until the placental container kicked on, its backup system starting up while the generator recalibrated itself. The tube containing Sapphire’s body cast a sickly glow around the room once again, creating long dark shadows. Troy was crouched beside the doorway, Grayson opposite of him. James was behind a side table, a hand gripping his shoulder. He didn’t look too good, sweat covering his forehead. A shuffling sound alerted her to Aren’s position safely behind her. Camery was on his hands and knees beside the tube. He caught Aria’s intense stare and moved, his hand slamming against a button on the side. The cylinder vibrated against its holding clamps.
“What are you doing? You’ll alert them of our location!” Aria hissed.
�
�I’m not letting them get her,” Camery whispered desperately.
The container sank into the floor, lowering inch by inch just as the front door of the home was kicked in, the wood giving a splintering crunch. Before they could move, the hallway lit up in a bright flash, setting off an alarming blast of noise. Aria and Troy activated their mental chips, blocking out the shriek, their optical retinas shielding their eyes from the harsh light. James and Camery hunkered down, trying to protect their ears. A low groan came from the pilot as he covered his head. Grayson remained unfazed, being the enigmatic badass that he was.
Troy rounded the corner low and fired while Grayson provided cover, and the gunfight began. Sprinkles of colored light flickered down the hall, the enemies’ ignition rounds bursting in sprays as they hit the doorways, furniture, and walls. Aria immediately moved to where Troy’s previous position was. As he fired down the hall with Grayson, she caught the shadows moving behind Troy through the window. Aria shot, the rounds splintering through the wall. The eruption of noise from the gunfight was too loud to hear if any enemy soldiers were hit, but her thermal optics easily revealed the jerking forms on the other side of the wall.
Troy glided into the dining room, his attention on the soldiers within that space and the kitchen. He took cover behind the chairs, giving a sharp push to knock the heavy wooden table on its side to form a barricade. All around him were crackles of light, shards of liquid fire burrowing deep into the walls and his cover. The centuries-old china within the cabinets was shattering to pieces, giving high-pitched tings amongst the warring sounds. The enemy gunfire was relentless. There were too many of them.
Lifting his barrel over his head, Troy fired above the table, his optic camera feeding him a clean view. He easily took down three men, but the shadows kept filing in through the kitchen door and windows as others came from the living room. His eyes were stuck to the front; he hoped his partner had his back. Just then, a warning message popped into his senses. Aria’s mental chip was alerting Troy of an enemy that had slipped through the window at the end of the hall behind him. She had shot him, but he was in full body Goliath armor and was aiming directly at Troy. He processed the info within a split-second. Troy spun around the left of the table, his finger on the trigger as he shot horizontally across the room. His spreading fire took out a couple men in the kitchen area. While the others dove for cover, it provided Troy enough time to roll back to the opposite side of the flipped table to face his approaching armored enemy. Troy slid, his foot kicking the rifle from the Goliath’s hands, and then he fired a whole clip into the enemy’s armor. The large soldier stumbled back a few steps, colliding with the wall.