Here is the rework of my story Rio: Poaching Epidemic, which i finaly posted (I procrastinated), so sorry to anyone who was waiting. This will be much better than my other story, and thanks to concolor44 , who agreed to beta this, it will be much better than i originally thought. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Rio (Theres a suprise), but the oc's are mine. Concolor44 is the beta (check out his stuff, it's really good!)

Prologue

- 3:00am, Amazon rain forest, 10 years ago -

I can hear them, scurrying around up there, trying to get in. They will succeed eventually, but I have a surprise for them once they do. As a particularly large explosion rattles everything in the room, I can't help but wonder how it ended up like this. Where did my life go wrong? I had everything going for me: my position as head of the NSF was almost settled, I had recently bought an engineering firm worth millions, and I was on my way to becoming the most famous scientist in history. But I guess publicity can attract the wrong kind of attention, something I wish I had thought of sooner. People that weren't satisfied with what they had – and countries that would do anything to pull ahead – all focused their attention on me. Though these past months have all been mixed into a blur of nothing but fear and pain, I can clearly remember how this started two years ago.

- 6:00am, southern New Jersey, 12 years ago -

Beep beep beep beep.I was jolted out of bed by the stupid alarm clock, and then spent the next few moments trying to turn it off, eventually succeeding by yanking out the power cord."I have decided what my next project will be,"I thought while straightening out my clothes from my meeting with the floor."I am going to find," I thought irritably, "a better way to turn off alarm clocks. Even if it kills me." Catching sight of myself in the long mirror on the back of my bedroom door, I paused, blinking. The usual ensemble stared back at me: lanky, an inch over six feet tall, with brown hair, my green eyes still bleary with sleep. Looking at my reflection, I realized I had slept in my lab coat again. "At least there's nothing on it like last time," I muttered, with an involuntary shudder. Last time this happened was after I spent the day in Genetics Lab 23, where the head scientist failed to notify me there were some escapees. It wasn't a pleasant way to wake up, as testified by the stains still on the ceiling.

Shaking myself free from these thoughts, I grabbed some fresh clothes from a nearby closet and headed to the bathroom. Once in the shower, I let the water flow over my shoulders and relaxed a little. Even though this daily routine should be comforting, I couldn't get rid of the feeling that something was up. I was usually paranoid about everything (not without cause!), but this time … this time it felt that maybe I truly had a reason to be worried. I tried to shake the feeling off while dressing and eating breakfast, but it refused to be ignored. On my way out, I finally managed to push it to the back of my mind when my neighbor called out in greeting, "Good morning Mr. T!"

I couldn't help but feel better after seeing the smile on my young neighbor's face. "Good morning to you to, Drake," I said while waving my hand. I lived in a small cul-de-sac twenty minutes away from where I worked. It had the kind of people in it that would help you with anything and do it with a smile on their face, regardless of whether they knew you or not. Well, at least almost everyone. Drake, my fifteen year old, 6'2", blue eyed neighbor was definitely an exception. He wasn't bad or anything, he was just extremely lazy, a fact which showed by his slightly overweight and under exercised body. Strangely enough though, he had a seemingly limitless supply of energy when it involved science or engineering. So, as you can imagine, having a world famous scientist living next to him was a dream come true.

"Have you been keeping up on your studies in school?"

"Of course! If I don't I won't be able to get into a good college."

"It takes a lot more than just getting into a good school to be good at your career."

"I know, but that's where you come in," Drake stated. I had been helping him with some of his projects recently, mainly by giving him information and being his parts supplier. I walked down my driveway while thinking about all his little experiments, almost all of which failed. As I got into my car, I remembered something else. "By the way, I think I'll be able to get you the neon sign transformer and capacitors today."

"Thanks Mr. T! See you later." As soon as he finished talking he ran into his house.

"Bye, Drake," I said while chuckling to myself. He had an extensive list of things he didn't like, including warm weather, sunshine, and just being outside in general. As I started to pull away, a thought came to my mind, why was he out here anyways? I couldn't help feel slightly worried about that, and the smoking hole in the pavement where drake was just standing did little to ease my worry. He was a good kid, but sooner or later he was going to get someone killed. And with the industrial strength parts he was getting today, I decided it would greatly increase my chance of living past fifty if I stayed away from his experiments.

After carefully steering around the remains of his "experiment", I headed off to my lab. I worked in a large research facility specializing in genetics and weapons. It seemed to be an odd combination to most people, but with some thought, they actually went hand in hand. I was in charge of three genetics labs and four weapons labs. Due to the fact that the labs I was in charge of produced far more results than any others, I had managed to get a position that had made me millions, which attracted the attention of the government as well. After I bought the company I used to work for, the U.S. government had made me an offer to take over the NSF. I had accepted and was close to having my position finalized.

While I was going through the recent events of my life, I had subconsciously parked next to the building I worked in and had gone inside. Someone brought my thoughts back to the present by calling my name. Turning around, I saw a blonde head bobbing my way, and recognized my employee Elizabeth. She was only a couple of inches shorter than me, so those steady brown eyes had no trouble meeting mine. Though we spent a lot of time together, our relationship had never been more than friendship.

"There's a man that wants to talk to you on line two. He said something about a job for you," she told me.

"Thanks," I called behind me as I headed into my office. When I stepped in, I headed over to my phone and hit the button marked '2'.

"Is this Dr. Throckmorton?" a voice asked through the phone.

"Yes, this is him, but I prefer to be called Mr. T."

"Well, Mr. T, how would you like to earn some extra money?"

"That depends on what you want me to do."

"It's nothing you couldn't do without too much trouble."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Always straight to the point I see." The man chuckled on the other side of the phone.

"But I suppose I could tell you. You see, my government has taken quite an interest in you and you experiments. They are also particularly interested in project C-45."

The moment he said that, all the blood drained from my face.

"How do you know about that?" I screamed into the phone, subconsciously grateful that my office was soundproof.

"My government has its ways." he replied, chuckling darkly.

I had gripped the edge of the desk to keep myself from falling over. My face was pale, and I couldn't stop my erratic breathing. I was starting to sweat as I thought about this problem. How did he know about it? How much did he know? What did he want? As if reading my mind, he continued on talking.

"My government feels that the US has too much power, and doesn't want it to have any more. So, we are willing to pay double whatever your government offered you, if you would just hand the plans for the weapon over to us…"

Whatever he was going to say next I cut off by slamming the phone down hard enough to crack the casing. After I collapsed in my chair, I spent the next few minutes trying to regain control of my erratic breathing. After about half an hour, I managed to restore some color to my face and return my appearance to normal, at least normal enough to keep everyone from thinking I just learned the world was ending."If they get their hands on that information, that may be the case," I thought to myself.

I tried to work, but my worries about what I heard kept distracting me. The phone calls, though not particularly threatening, had my paranoid side acting up. My worries became so strong that I couldn't even sleep on the least two nights before the hand off. Though the phone calls could easily be written off as some prank, I couldn't help but fell skeptical that a prankster could obtain to secret information. On the day of the hand off, I decided to drop by my lab to pick up some papers. I was so caught in my thoughts of how good it would feel to be rid of the plans, I almost ran into Elizabeth who was blocking my way.

"Elizabeth, could you please move? I need to get to my lab." I said tiredly.

"Not until you tell me what's going on."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about. About a week ago you come out of your office all shaken up, and then randomly start taking your papers out of your labs. And of course there are those strange phone calls that keep coming in. What the heck is project C-45, and why do these people want it so bad?" she asked me in annoyed tone.

I did not need this today.

"Look Elizabeth, you're my best friend, and I've never tried to hide anything from you before. But believe me when I say this isn't something you want to know." She finally sighed in defeat.

"I'm just worried about you, that's all. These strange things going on, combined with the fact that you look like you were up all night and your office is barricaded from the inside, has gotten me really concerned."

"I look like I was up all night because I was up all…" it was then I realized she had said something odd.

"Did you say my office was barricaded shut?"

When she nodded yes, the dark, foreboding feeling from earlier came back at full force.

"Get Security to open the door; I don't care what they have to do." She must have heard the dread in my voice, because she took off at full speed to find them. When two of the big guards ran over and started smashing in the door with hammers, the feeling of dread that had taken over my body seemed to be saying, you should have listened. I didn't even wait for the guards to open the door at this point, and jumped through as soon as there was a hole big enough.

I gasped when I saw what was on the other side. There were destroyed notes and books all over the floor, and almost as many hanging from the ransacked shelves and desks, most of which were shoved against the door I came through. But that wasn't what made me so alarmed. The words You Were Warned were scratched into the wall. All of the graphically violent messages instantly came back to my mind. I quickly jumped back out of the hole, almost getting hit by the surprised guard's hammer. I got up of the floor and managed to scream, "Everyone get out!" just a moment before half of the building was blasted off its foundation.

- Back to the Amazon -

I walked away from that incident with barely a scratch, but I would be emotionally scarred for life. The only reason I was even alive was Elizabeth, who blocked the shrapnel that would have hit me. But by doing so, she had sealed her fate. Knowing your best friend died for you was something that you could never truly recover from. You can learn to live with it, something I had to do in order to stay alive, but that still doesn't change the fact that it happened. I thought of all the people that had died for me, and even helped me fake my own death. Their efforts appeared to do little good, because sooner or later someone always found me.

That last fact pulled me from my line of thinking and brought me back to the task at hand. Looking up at the monitors stationed in front of my desk, which were miraculously still working, I assessed my current situation. All of the upper levels were breached, and they had started to pick off the defense turrets in the first lower level. I watched through the only intact camera as the invaders tried to destroy the turrets. The turrets were well designed, and had taken out approximately 40 men each, but they weren't built to take this kind of a beating, and were quickly failing, allowing more people to come in. I zoomed in on one of the infiltrator's uniform to get a look at it, but apparently someone had noticed the camera and shot it off the wall. This was not a problem, for the time I had was plenty to identify the group.

I've escaped large countries and organizations with resources from around the world, and I'm finally brought to my knees by a group of smugglers, I mused. It didn't really surprise me though, since they had some of the most resourceful men on the planet. And by having those men in their ranks, this group had become the largest smuggling company in the world, along with many other equally illegal and tasteless ventures. They weren't really into weapons dealing; they felt they already had attracted far too much attention, which means they saw my supposed "Super Weapon" for what it really was, and could be. I sighed; it was going to be a shame to destroy the only people that could really see the potential behind the technology.

I was brought from my thoughts by whining and mewling coming from the basket next to me. I smiled fondly at the 3 occupants of the basket next to me. There was a small black kitten running around the basket, obviously having a panic attack, and a German shepherd puppy suffering from the same condition. The basket's third occupant, a baby eagle, was frozen in place, unsure of what it should be doing. At first glance, they seemed to be normal pets , with the exception of the eagle, but if you were to examine them more closely, you could see a faint red glow coming from under their fur or feathers.

These animals were the embodiment of my research; all of it was put into making them and what they carried. They were engineered to be far stronger, faster, more durable, and have greater stamina than any other individual in their species, as well as have intelligence equal to a human. They also had been designed to be a carrier of my last project, nanites. They weren't the super weapon everyone seemed to believe they were. Though they could potentially become what those countries sought, they were far from it at present, and this batch was designed for a much different task. They made the animals, to put it simply, advanced hard drives.

This may not seem exciting at first, but once you get into detail, it was easy to tell what type of science fiction they came from. They could store over twenty times the information in a similarly sized hard drive, as well as have a processing speed unheard of in microchips. They were so far ahead in these fields that they rivaled a human brain, meaning that AI's could become a reality.

That last notion made me look at the fourth occupant of the basket, a large metallic spider that was folded into a ball. It was the reason I was on the run. A small tube was dripping the last batch of nanites into the mechanical/electrical spider, making it the most advanced medical instrument in the world. The contents of this spider were the final test I would conduct, nanites that could replace a brain with an AI computer. The nanites integration process worked fine in the three animals, evident by the glow, but they were built to take it, and I needed an unmodified subject to test. If this worked, it would completely destroy the brain while leaving the subject's memories intact. Just switching brains was simple enough, but transferring memories would be a very slow and, most likely, painful process. I would never wish that kind of pain on anyone, but this would be the only option if someone with a brain disease or cancer wanted to live. Knowing that someone died when you could have kept them alive would bring guilt far worse than causing them pain. Just giving people a chance at life would make the cure worth anything I had to go through to make it.

Which is why, I thought determinedly as the last of the nanites went into the spider; I won't let anyone stop this. The people who were killed in this effort will not die in vain. I will make sure the world gets the cure; people will have a choice, no matter what. If I have to die trying, so be it. I glared at the people in the monitors with enough intensity to light a match. I quickly broke away from the screen and started to prepare my escape. As I readied the four creatures for their departure, I paused to give one last look at the screen. They had already made significant progress in the few moments I looked away, and were doing everything in their power to make sure I couldn't leave alive.

I sped up my preparations, and after setting up the lab to self destruct, I ran to the emergency exit, which in reality was a subway built for occasions like this. As I started to step inside, an idea popped into my mind. The only way they will stop chasing me is if I died. I smirked as an ingenious idea emerged in my mind. Well, I guess I'll have to do just that. I ran down the hall to prepare the self destructing lab for the arrival of the group, and to set the stage for my "death".

- Smuggler-in-Chief -

As I strode down the halls of the recently captured base, I couldn't help but chuckle as I remembered the scientist's futile efforts to keep us out. I walked up to my second in command as he was listening to a report from one of the grunts. When he noticed me, he quickly dismissed the other man and turned to salute me, a gesture which I returned. I wanted to make sure everything was in order for my interrogation.

"Is he in his lab?"

"Yes, he is."

"Is it secure?"

"Yes, once again. The idiot didn't even bother to keep a weapon in there. Just sat and watched as we filed into his lab."

I smiled at his report and walked into the lab. The only light in the room came from an interesting looking projector, which conveniently shined right in the eyes of the scientist. He noticed my approach and started glaring at me.

"I'll never tell you anything."

"What makes you think I need you to tell me anything?"

"Well, for starters, you haven't killed me yet."

I flashed an amused grin in his direction. "I haven't had you killed yet because I wanted to do it personally. And we don't need your help with the machines; all we have to do is figure out who will pay the most for them. Any electronics company in the world would kill to get them, along with many other businesses."

"You don't know what you're dealing with."

"Well, you certainly aren't in a position to do anything, and you won't destroy the base while you're still in it." As soon as I said that, the constant chatter in my earpiece turned to static, and the monitors covering the room's walls started going haywire. I froze in shock as the erratic lighting revealed what the strange projector's true purpose was.

"You're assuming I'm still here." Those were the last words I heard before, with a deafening explosion, the world went white.

Well, what did you think? leave a review and tell me your thoughts!