Prologue
I was left all alone in that wretched place. I had nothing, nothing but a revolver with two bullets left in the chamber. I had been left there to die. Walls slick with blood from the creatures we had just killed, the stench of death all around, the pain at the base of my skull from where they had knocked me out to make their escape. Bastards.
You'd think they'd want the extra manpower on their side in this fight. Then again, no one ever said scientists had any common sense. They'd been studying me for over ten years now, and they were just going to leave their experiment in the compound...to either kill herself, rot, or be eaten by their other "little experiments". I didn't see it as fair, but I had never been given a choice as to how I lived, or ended, my life. I was poked, prodded, sliced open, exposed for the world to gape and gawk at because I was different. I was essentially "perfect", or so I was told. A sentient guinea pig, but it was "allowable and acceptable" because I was no longer "human" although I appeared as such.
I repeat-- Bastards.
I pushed myself away from the wall I had been slumped against and I picked up my gun; I knew what I was up against, and even if I only had two bullets there was no fucking way I was going out unarmed. Those beasts outside may be my kin, but they are less human -- and even less humane-- than I. I decided to save the bullets for anything bigger than me and put the gun into my belt for safekeeping. My muscles were sore and my head throbbed, but even injured I had more of a chance to survive than the scientists. Tough luck. They were probably already dead. I adjusted my sense of smell to the scent of rot that permeated the immediate area then I opened the door that led from my holding cell to the lab. I was practically knocked off my feet; even adjustments were not enough to shield my senses from the stench!
"Shit," I hissed. The bodies of the "escaping" scientists had been ripped to shreds. Innards littered the once sanitized floor, walls, tabletops, microscopes...Blood was everywhere. They must have been lying here for days, weeks possibly. Had I truly given a damn about my tormentors, I might have said a few words in their memory. Instead, I found the head of the chief scientist and picked it up by the man's thinning hair. I looked deep into his eyes, or would have had they not been gouged out. I could feel a smile come over my features; it was an expression I had long forgotten existed. This man, the one responsible for all the pain I had suffered, was dead.
Pity I had not been his Angel of Death.
"Professor Marainus," I said, the smile growing wider, "may your soul burn in whatever hell you may hold in belief for your transgressions. In due time, all the world shall know that it was YOU, the man they so trusted with the survival of their race, that has brought forth that which is to be their ultimate doom. Au revoir, mon ami. I will not miss you."
I slammed his head into a nearby table, shattering his skull with little effort. I threw what remained into the far wall, splattering gray matter and blood onto the hospital-white paint. I looked at the sight, marveling at the contrast of color; I had always fancied myself an artist. I left a message, using the blood of my tormentors as my paint and the wall as my canvas. It was crude...I had never really been taught to write or draw in my lifetime...
There was no doubt in my mind my message would be understood.
"BeWaRE tHe ReAper"
So I declared war. But war upon whom? The men and women who were the source of my madness had been annihilated by my own kind, therefore my pain and torment had been inadvertently been avenged. What was left? Destroy the beasts that they had created?
Why not?
And now I walk down the very halls I was raised in, alert as ever, awaiting my chance to strike. I don't need to tell you who I intend to use these bullets on, do I?
One for my mother, whose mind and body have been ravaged and destroyed and revived in an attempt to create the perfect soldier-- me.
And the last...I save for myself.
Only fate will decide whether or not I get the opportunity to stop this. Only fate can predict if I will be able to stop this with the source-- my mother-- and the end product-- myself.
I am nameless. I am alive, yet I am already dead. I need no food or water, I need no sleep. My injuries heal themselves so long as I am conscious. I have the strength of fifty men, yet I am as lithe and agile as one-hundred world-class gymnasts. I have been trained in every known form of armed and unarmed combat. My intelligence surpasses that of even the researchers that created me.
I am the final product of Project Daedalus, baby sister to the Tyrant series, Nemesis and the T-Veronica mutants, Alexia Ashford and Steve Burnside. I am the perfect soldier....
The human race had better not fuck with me. See you all in hell.