by Robert Lyons
Oh … my …God! Phillip choked.
“Nick! Let him go!” Clay Maxwell’s booming voice filled the lab. All activity came to a grinding halt. The man let go of Phillip, backing away.
Phillip had never been happier to see his boss.
“Do you ever go to sleep?!” Clay rolled his eyes. “Come on, you need to get out of here!”
Mister Maxwell?
Phillip was relieved to see a familiar face, although he did not have the mental energy to start drawing assumptions of why his boss was breaking into the lab. Phillip pushed ahead to reveal his discovery.
“I can't leave! Not yet!” Phillip stood up, catching his breath and dusting himself off. “I’ve made a discovery with the sample you gave me!”
All heads snapped in Phillip's direction.
Clay's face was tight, but still composed. “Phillip, we will talk about that later. Go back to your barracks…”
The frustration of being silenced when he had something to say drove Phillip to do something he never thought he was capable of. Taking a deep breath, Phillip looked his boss right in the eye. “I'm not going anywhere! Not until we talk about this!”
There was a flicker in Clay's eyes. “All right.”
“As far as I can tell, there is no Cipher Break to counter the new pathogen. That’s because it’s not a virus. It’s a—well, the long word for it is Idenshi o kaeru, but I call it an ‘Alter-gen.’” Phillip braced for impact.
Clay raised a skeptical eyebrow. “…And just what the hell is that?”
“In theory, it’s a pathogen that overtakes living cells and mutates them, forcing a sort of rapid evolution,” Phillip said with self-assurance he didn’t know he had. He almost scared himself with the certain tone of his own voice. “I know what that sounds like … but I have data and evidence now.”
A brief silence overtook the room before the murmurs began to rise from the men moving the research and equipment.
“So now we have Alter-gens … and you’re telling me that your Cipher Break is useless against it?” Clay sighed. “So there is no way to defeat this thing?”
Sweat began to roll down Phillip’s neck again. This time, the perspiration soaked into the yellowing collar of his once-white lab coat.
Before he could reply, he was struck by a flashback of himself as a child, standing next to a hospital bed while a feeble, trembling hand held his own. The person in the bed was withering away, their mouth opening but no words coming out, while tears streamed down Phillip’s young face.
If he didn’t follow through to pursue his ambition, Phillip would never have the ability to fulfill unsaid duty. He would rather die than break the silent oath he made on that fateful day.
“Perhaps there is a way to defeat it! Mister Maxwell, I propose we immediately begin research for Alter-gens—!”
CLICK!
The hammer of a gun engaging echoed throughout the silent room.
The pistol was pointed at Phillip.
Clay narrowed his eyes as he lined the young man up in the weapon’s sights.
“AH?!” Phillip choked.
“Phillip, truth be told, we knew. Well, kind of knew. The situation is that there was an entire village that was wiped out from that very same pathogen that I gave you to test. I agree that what we are dealing with is not a normal disease. We figured it was some kind of a biological weapon and we wanted to reverse engineer it.” Clay’s voice was flat, emotionless. “That’s where you came in. I knew that to a certain degree the program you created could at least analyze samples of pathogens to an extent. However, there is no point in reverse engineering anymore. There is a high chance it might flare up somewhere else, if it is a weapon.”
The formerly friendly persona of the NanoXLabs CEO was nowhere to be seen. Had that been some sort of false front? Was this gun-handling sociopath the real Clay Maxwell all along?
A biological weapon?! Phillip screamed in his mind. And here you are, holding me at gunpoint?!
“We’re initiating more aggressive measures to contain this threat. Thanks to your past contributions, we have narrowed down what direction we need to go in,” Clay said with a trace of appreciation. “Now you’ve arrived at a fork in the road, Phillip. You see, there are only so many people who can know about what’s going on. We have to keep it out of the world’s eye to avoid global panic.”
Clay Maxwell wetted his lips, pausing for a moment.
“So, you can stay at a secure facility near the disaster zone where this all started. You will be researching and combating the disease with the rest of the world’s professionals. The other choice is that I shoot you right here. We cannot afford to have someone leaking out information. That could cause fear … and that only spreads diseases faster.”
It wasn’t what Clay said that sent a shiver down Phillip's spine, it was the way his boss was delivering the conditions of living or dying with such a calm expression. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice. Clay had become a soulless monster.
“I’ll do it. I have a promise to keep!” Phillip straightened himself, shrugging off the ever-growing abnormality of the situation. Although you telling me the conditions, there’s really only one choice to be had!
Clay disengaged the hammer of his pistol and tucked the weapon behind him in the belt. “That’s the Phillip I know. There are some clothes for you to change into when we get into the jet. We’re heading out in fifteen minutes, so grab what you need to get your job done. Are you ready to uncover the truth, Advanced Projects Officer Delgado?
The ride in the SUV to the municipal airport was surreal, since Phillip ended up staring down the barrel of a gun and sighting the fabled category of lethal microorganism known as “Alter-gens” and was on his way to getting shipped out to his next assignment outside of the country.
This mysterious pathogen managed to wipe out an entire village, leaving no one to tell the tale. Later on, Phillip would learn that the settlement was near Rygozy, Russia. However, all of that seemed so distant as he nodded off in the backseat. The thirty-hour work shift finally came to a grinding halt.
PHASE 03
Underground Graveyard
Present Day.
March 17th, 2037. Local Time; 17:15
North American Continent, in the state of Montana.
1.
Buried five stories below the Flathead National Forest was a secret facility. This vast, underground tunnel system interconnected several highly secured rooms. The walls were composed of reinforced concrete with steel-plated ceilings and floors.
The formerly well-lit hallways were cast into utter darkness, as the generators for the facility were powered off. Formerly light-gray, concrete walls were now splattered with red splotches of spilt blood. Filtered, fresh air had grown beyond stale with the stench of rotting flesh proliferating throughout the halls filled with corpses. This place was the picture-perfect scene for the slaughterhouse of Homo sapiens.
The metal door leading from the upper-floor staircase was left halfway open. A beam of light came through the gap. Other beams of light appeared shortly afterward, moving about rapidly and jumping from the blood-splattered walls to torn-off limbs that were left in front of the door’s threshold.
A swift shadow darted across the door opening, taking shelter on the other side of the reinforced frame.
Ten silent seconds passed before the high-powered light fixed on the rifle was pointed to illuminate the long hallway beyond. The piles of spilled gore on the ground presented a slipping hazard.
The man pointing the light executed the first move, gliding past the door that was halfway open and weaving his way through the first twenty feet of debris before coming to a halt. John Kubovics, captain of the Ninth Force and leader of the specialized team, led his men into the fray.
No longer indulging in the calm before the storm, John’s small group filed through the door when his signal of a raised fist turned to a waving motion.
It was a five-man raid team, trai
ned specifically to be dropped in, complete a mission, and then vacate. Five minutes after their drop, the team already covered half the distance to the objective.
This site, which harbored so much death in its halls, was officially known as the Intel Gathering Facility.
Each of the five raid team members was outfitted with the best that body armor technology had to offer. Lightweight, damage-nullifying, gunmetal-gray plates overlaid the skin-tight under-suit. The armor’s plate design, shapes, and placement provided mobility and protection unlike any precursor model.
The Aeonian Armor System was tested for the past six months of missions and its performance exceeded all expectations. The system was capable of neutralizing compounding amounts of battle damage that would be fatal for the operator to sustain.
Keeping that in mind, John knew better than to entertain the notion that he was near invincible. After all, the reason he was sent here was that there was no one else who had better chances of completing the mission. Although he had his equipment, experience, and the highly trained team behind him, there was always a chance that he could come back in a box. Of course, that was assuming his dead body could be distinguished from all of the other mangled corpses that were left to rot.
The five-member team arrived at a small, cube-shaped room, slipping past the open door silently.
The lights fixed to the end of their rifles were now pointed at the lone entrance to the chamber. One of the team members typed on the keyboard that was set in front of a dimly lit display. Thankfully, the terminal had a back-up internal battery that kept the machine online.
“Almost set, captain. Fifteen seconds,” Dougie “Smokey” Spagnolleta remarked, his bloodshot eyes peering through the orange visor of his helmet. The progress bar on the screen slowly filled from the left to the right.
“Affirmative. Stay sharp,” John instructed, watching the door with the light pointed into the darkness.
Crouched in front of Kubovics was twenty-five-year-old Gunnar “Steeljaws” Trygstad. He aimed his weapon closer to the ground, providing more coverage of the hallway.
Steeljaws’ long, silver-white bangs pressed against his forehead. The helmet was securely fitted to ensure protection for his skull. His robin-egg blue eyes looked cautiously into the vast darkness of the hall. Thinking of all the corpses they stumbled over on the way to this room almost made him lose his cool. Steeljaws quickly reset his emotions. He couldn’t lose his self-control now.
“Located the control of the facilities’ power grid,” Smokey spoke over his shoulder as he pulled up a window with the map of the underground tunnels. The captain confirmed his suspicion with a glance before returning his attention to the hallway overtaken with darkness.
“Can you turn on the power and energize the security doors from here?” Steeljaws asked over his shoulder.
“Don’t you think the shit would already be on? The physical breaker has to be thrown to provide power for conveniences like security doors. I’ll need you guys to go here…” Smokey pointed to a square on the map about three hallways away. “At this location, you will find the switch. Once you throw it over, I will be able to electronically control all of the relays in the facility from here.”
“It will be done,” a female voice spoke up.
She was second in command of the team, mirroring John’s position of covering the opposite side of the hall.
“Zoe, take point! Steeljaws, fall in!” John nodded in approval. The female operative gave a quick nod, taking the lead with Steeljaws in close pursuit.
They made a brief exit from the control room into the hallway. The facility was likely full of traps, but John had faith in his two students. There were only a select number of creatures that stood up against Zoe and Steeljaws in the past and managed to crawl away in one piece before the two skillfully took the threat apart.
2.
“This was supposed to be a HAWK-secured facility? Looking more like the Chroma did whatever they wanted without any intervention,” Steeljaws muttered, keeping an eye out. His primary firearm, one of the best weapons for close-quarter combat, was the coveted UMP-45.
“We’re supposed to be filled in with what happened here and everything related to the classified operation by the end of this recovery mission.” Zoe nodded, holding her weapon, a Kriss Vektor loaded with .45 ACP rounds. The weapon also featured extended magazines, glowing sights, and a strobe lamp fixed to the end.
“We’ll see about that. The brass gets stingy about giving out information.”
“If they don’t give us what we want, I’ll make sure to show the upper echelon why the Chroma know me by name,” Zoe snapped back, making it clear that “small talk time” was over.
Zoe Arsenault was always short with Steeljaws in the past, but he noticed something was different as of late. After her marriage, Zoe’s behavior - and fighting style - started to change. Because they were raised together, no one quite knew Zoe’s defining traits like Steeljaws did.
When they were younger, Zoe was notorious for her insatiable desire to fight anyone and for impeccable skill at laying out opponents twice her size. Once she grew up and acquired over a hundred confirmed Chroma kills on her record, she received the prestigious tattoo on left her arm that only a few before her ever attained. In short, she was a professional killing machine. Yet, that all changed when she met that “special guy.”
Zoe was now far more cautious and tight-lipped, compared to the old days.
“Young love,” Steeljaws chuckled. “You’ve been moody … Did your hubby forget to call you?”
Zoe’s shoulders stiffened for a moment, but she extinguished the burning feeling of embarrassment. “Gunnar—drop it. We have bigger shit to focus on.”
Looks like he forgot to call Zoe…
The young man kept the rest of his opinions to himself. When it came to prying into Zoe’s thoughts, there was a certain line Steeljaws knew not to cross.
The two stopped in front of the designated room that Smokey had placed the navigation marker on. Footsteps were soft and breathing was hushed as they approached. The lack of red-eyed Chroma was starting to make him uncomfortable.
“Nice and slow—death could be hiding three feet from us in the dark,” Steeljaws whispered.
Zoe reached one hand behind her to extract a small, sphere-shaped object. She rolled the ball into the room by hooking her arm around the corner.
On the inside of her helmet’s faceplate was a Heads Up Display (HUD), which was linked to the object she tossed into the room. Once the scan from the device was complete, a three-dimensional projection of the room was displayed on the HUD for her to analyze. The small power cell located behind the thickest part of the chest plate powered the onboard computer inside of her helmet.
The polygon shapes of human bodies materialized in the image overlay of the room in Zoe’s HUD. They were crouched, holding weapons and pointing them out the door. She braced as she realized two out of five human-shaped polygons were rushing the door.
“Contact—!”
BRRAT! BRRAT!
A wall of bullets whizzed by as the barrels of submachine guns flickered with fire.
Body powered on adrenaline, Steeljaws jumped back, pushing Zoe out of the line of fire and shielding her with his own body. They both retreated to the closest place that offered some cover. From where they hid behind a corner, the line of fire could not reach the two operatives.
“Still kicking?” Steeljaws exhaled sharply, glancing down to where he shoved Zoe to get her behind cover as soon as possible. Even with all of her prior experience in battle, she appeared to be a little shaken.
She caught her breath in two cycles, flipping Steeljaws the bird enthusiastically.
A female computer voice spoke straight into Steeljaws’ ear. He studied his HUD, noticing the small, blinking icon toward the bottom of the screen.
“Status,” Steeljaws spoke softly, the built-in microphone in his faceplate listening for the input and processing t
he command with the onboard computer in the armor.
“Armor integrity, ninety-five percent. Damage detected in the right forearm plate. Health is minimally impacted. No immediate medical attention is required. Remaining power, ninety-eight percent,” the female computer voice rattled off Steeljaws’ newly acquired battle scar.
Just our luck … Steeljaws clicked his tongue.
Zoe slammed the back of her helmet against the concrete wall with a loud clank! “Out of all the shit that could hit us and it has to be friendly fire?!”
3.
John was still posted up in his spot, covering one side of the door. The longer the captain stood still, the more his body began to ache. John despised the constant reminder that his days of killing Chromas were slowly drawing to an end. There were only so many years left before it was his time to retire.
“Getting sore, Kubovics?” the man mirroring the captain asked, glancing over at him. David “Roadblock” Shubert was the fifth member of the team. He served as the squad's medic.
“Not a chance! Keep your eyes on the door, not me!” the captain barked out.
Despite his attempts to maintain focus on the task in front of him, a thought kept weighing in on the captain’s mind. The Chromas that Commander Jones warned him about were nowhere to be seen.
The Chroma not showing up means that they’re either waiting in ambush or we’re too late to catch up. Not that killing them was the primary objective, John thought as he slowed his breathing to calm himself. He wasn’t anxious; he was determined to kill the monsters responsible for this slaughter.
The Intel Gathering Facility was officially closed down two months ago, after a purple-eyed Chroma broke out of containment and ran rampant throughout the facility. Fortunately, the beast didn’t harm a single person, though it did destroy key reinforcement points in the underground structure.
After a HAWK unit was sent in and successfully stopped the rampant Chroma, the structural engineers assessed the damage done to the facility. The final word was that the structure was condemned. It had become a hole in the ground not safe enough to salvage. Kubovics, with his vested authority, prohibited further operations to take place at the location.