It wasn't exactly unheard of. The ISSP has all sorts of secrets.
All sorts of skeletons in the closet. And the ISSP isn't exactly a small
organization. The ISSP has an awful lot of closets.
It started small, no one knows how many years ago. You could trace it back to the first biological enhancement experiments ever embarked upon. You could trace it all the way back to engineered steroids. You could trace it back to the ancient orders who would smoke enough to make them remorseless and go out and hunt down their enemies.
The ISSP quietly funded the program. It started small-scale, the alteration of bacterial DNA, making them split at an incredible rate, until you had an army within seconds. Making them grow larger and larger until they broke out of sampling trays, dried out and died. Little successes made the scientists brave. They moved on to animals.
It was another long stretch of time before any progress was made. Or, at least, recorded. There were horror stories of mice whose metabolisms made their body temperatures rise so high that they cooked themselves alive. But that wasn't the success story. The first success was a mouse that had torn apart fifteen other mice overnight. Limbs and fur lay scattered about the cage, soaked with dried blood. The mouse had lost all its hair and was shiny-wet with blood, convulsing violently on the floor of the cage. Its eyes were glazed over with a milky-white film and gazed blindly, wildly about at the destruction it had caused. Its paws swiped wildly at the air, torn pieces of flesh waving like banners from each blooded claw. It died before any tests could be done on it. Dissection revealed pieces of mouse flesh and bone in the stomach of the mouse. This was a great success.
The researchers moved on. The bigger the animals, the more the research was concealed. And one could make a pretty good guess why. Scientists began disappearing. Their families changed names, changed locations, changed lives. Members of the families, when questioned, claimed that they had no knowledge of the man.
"I'm sorry.I don't know that name."
"Darrel Johnson? .No, sorry, I never met the man."
"What? No. I never heard of him. Never."
One subject was a dog, code named Lupus. Official reports say the experiment broke free, and was ordered to be put down. But the dog's body is full of bullets holes. Half of its head is missing entirely. Claw marks trace bloody paths in the fur of the creature. It's teeth are cracked, jagged and red. It's fur and skin are covered with a flaky black- red crust. The stomach is neatly emptied. Shards of fingernails and bone are buried deep in its throat. Bullets seem a rather unorthodox way of "putting down" a dog.
Despite the progress, the ISSP grew impatient. The head scientists of the experiment begged for a little more time. The contract was extended for a few more years. But the ISSP heads made it very clear that it would be the last of the funding given to the experiment. The scientists had no choice but to step up the experiment to its final stage.
And Project Tongpu was born.
It started small, no one knows how many years ago. You could trace it back to the first biological enhancement experiments ever embarked upon. You could trace it all the way back to engineered steroids. You could trace it back to the ancient orders who would smoke enough to make them remorseless and go out and hunt down their enemies.
The ISSP quietly funded the program. It started small-scale, the alteration of bacterial DNA, making them split at an incredible rate, until you had an army within seconds. Making them grow larger and larger until they broke out of sampling trays, dried out and died. Little successes made the scientists brave. They moved on to animals.
It was another long stretch of time before any progress was made. Or, at least, recorded. There were horror stories of mice whose metabolisms made their body temperatures rise so high that they cooked themselves alive. But that wasn't the success story. The first success was a mouse that had torn apart fifteen other mice overnight. Limbs and fur lay scattered about the cage, soaked with dried blood. The mouse had lost all its hair and was shiny-wet with blood, convulsing violently on the floor of the cage. Its eyes were glazed over with a milky-white film and gazed blindly, wildly about at the destruction it had caused. Its paws swiped wildly at the air, torn pieces of flesh waving like banners from each blooded claw. It died before any tests could be done on it. Dissection revealed pieces of mouse flesh and bone in the stomach of the mouse. This was a great success.
The researchers moved on. The bigger the animals, the more the research was concealed. And one could make a pretty good guess why. Scientists began disappearing. Their families changed names, changed locations, changed lives. Members of the families, when questioned, claimed that they had no knowledge of the man.
"I'm sorry.I don't know that name."
"Darrel Johnson? .No, sorry, I never met the man."
"What? No. I never heard of him. Never."
One subject was a dog, code named Lupus. Official reports say the experiment broke free, and was ordered to be put down. But the dog's body is full of bullets holes. Half of its head is missing entirely. Claw marks trace bloody paths in the fur of the creature. It's teeth are cracked, jagged and red. It's fur and skin are covered with a flaky black- red crust. The stomach is neatly emptied. Shards of fingernails and bone are buried deep in its throat. Bullets seem a rather unorthodox way of "putting down" a dog.
Despite the progress, the ISSP grew impatient. The head scientists of the experiment begged for a little more time. The contract was extended for a few more years. But the ISSP heads made it very clear that it would be the last of the funding given to the experiment. The scientists had no choice but to step up the experiment to its final stage.
And Project Tongpu was born.