Elizabeth nodded to herself, everything was just about ready. Looking into the lab through the window her husband was putting restraints on the girl so she couldn't move throughout the entire procedure. After she convinced him that she was the perfect one for this he immediately went to work first patching her up and slowing the bleeding then they both changed her so she was only wearing a medical band that covered her breasts and a pair of medical underwear. He then started prepping her for the neural upload with a skull cap with sensors that led back to his work station and a computer guided needle underneath meant to be inserted straight into the brain stem.
He came back into the control room looking at a data pad walking straight to his work station "she's ready for the upload" he said without looking up from the data "she has excellent brain activity." He reached his station and she saw him look through whatever it was showing him, then turning to her he smiled wide "well I say we should begin. How's everything on your end?"
"The prototype Mark II nanites are keyed into her DNA and the adamantium is ready to be injected" she said smiling back at him watching him cringe at her name for the metal they invented. Yes she could admit she read too many comic books growing up but the mixture her and another scientist came up with on accident was just too good an opportunity to miss. A mixture of osmium and titanium superheated with an unknown metal found in a meteor dug out of a crater in New Mexico and they had found a metal lighter than aluminum and virtually indestructible. Plus reading comic books while growing up had given her plenty of ideas that she was actually able to create in real life, a few were going to be used today and was excited beyond belief.
Steve turned back to his work station and typed in the command to begin and watched in the video feed the needle being injected exactly where it was supposed to go "beginning neural upload, stimulating the cerebrum" he paused for a moment "accessing the frontal and temporal lobe."
Elizabeth kept an eye on her vitals, the neural upload could be taxing on the whole body and with the condition she's in it was best to be sure. She knew her husband had spent the last two years developing what was being uploaded into the girl, she knew he was extremely proud of what he'd done and wanted to do the upload on himself. The thing was that it was designed to work in concert with the enhanced body frame, everything was designed to work in concert so you couldn't have one without the other.
"Upload 90 percent complete and no signs of distress" he looked over his shoulder "Liz, I'm gonna go ahead and upload package B while you're doing the Nano-plating" he shook his head when it looked like she was going to interrupt "she can take it Liz but the only thing is there might be some memory loss" he paused and grimaced for a moment "she might not remember her old life right away but we'll deal with that if it happens and the more we can prepare her the better off she'll be. You know if word gets out than she'll become a target for every Alpha and Beta out there, if she's to have a chance than we'll have to give her everything we can."
She sighed "I know Steve, I just hate the thought." Elizabeth turned back to the screen with the vitals but was thinking about why this whole thing was necessary in the first place. The Alphas were a group of special ops soldiers from all around the globe brought together by one unknown person who funded the whole program. The group was formed on the principle of making the world a better place, taking out the worst of humanity like drug lords, mass murderers, and rapists to name a few. They became assassins, always working in the shadows never loyal to any certain country and never offering their services for a price. Each target was researched and voted on by at least three other members of the Brother Hood so no one member could just decide to kill whoever they thought needed it.
But whoever funded the assassins also funded the research and development which paid her and a hand full of scientist that were all leaders in their field. Five years ago there was a break through with Nano technology as her and another scientist finally developed the Mark I prototype, it increased strength and speed along with highly increased healing, also enhancing all five senses. They were tasked with developing enough for the seventeen assassins that made up what they called The Brother Hood and at the time she knew it was being done for the good of humanity. But that all changed almost a year later when The Brother Hood changed their tactics and started taking out questionable targets and offering their services to the highest bidder and in some cases taking over leadership of small independent countries.
Not even a year later they learned they could donate blood actively sharing the Mark I nanites creating what they later called Betas. The seventeen were calling themselves Alphas who were about three times stronger and faster than any normal human on the planet and the Betas were only half that. Of course they had no idea of what was going on until each one of the team of scientist were dying of mysterious circumstances until there were only a few left.
Her husband had the foresight to plan ahead incase anything like this would happen, stashing everything they needed to start new lives along with backups of everything they had. She thought he was just being paranoid until a gas line mysteriously ruptured in the kitchen leading to the stove destroying their house, the only thing that saved their lives was a sealed clean room in the basement where they both were working at the time. They met up with Dr. Samantha Green two days later who was her partner in developing the Mark I nanites and the three of them went underground, after keeping on the move for a little while they finally came up with an idea on how to fight back against the Alphas after ending up in New Mexico for a few weeks. After a break through on the material to make the skeletal frame stronger they went to work producing and developing the nanites to actually take full advantage of not being able to break any bones. The completion of the Mark II came to a halt when Samantha was killed in a car crash, she was trapped inside and burned alive when her car caught on fire.
She shook her head and focused back on what she was doing, the process of injecting liquid adamantium wouldn't be possible without the Nano-plating process first. Two long looking tubes moved all around the body coming in contact with the skin and a specially designed delivery system using a needle with a width of 65 microns that extends from the tip every time in less than a one tenth of a second injecting a titanium bit on every bone in her body, the whole process introduces around thirty thousand injections to the periosteum. "B package complete, vitals are holding" she heard Steve say, she nodded "Nano-plating ninety two percent complete" looking over the readings from the plating process she silently marveled at her own work, it was a network of precise injections so they could be magnetically charged as the adamantium is injected in several different places in the body simultaneously ensuring a coating on every bone in the body.
"Plating complete, blood pressure starting to fall, we need to start phase two immediately" she said. After typing in commands she watched as Steve walked into the lab and put a breather mask on the sedated brunette, he walked back as she hit the proceed button. They both watched as the clear plexiglass table she was laying on was hoisted off the top of the lower table and moved over to what looked like a clear box filled with water surrounded by several large injection tubes. Elizabeth turned to a seemingly blank wall and watched as a hidden panel opened after typing in her password revealing a glowing tube ten inches long. Grabbing the nanites she handed them over to Steve "after injection the Mark II should find any damage and repair it in seconds but will also destroy the sedation being used not leaving us with much time." He nodded and turned to walk into the lab while she went back to her console getting ready for the most dangerous and final part of completing the procedure, he stood waiting for his wife's go ahead to inject the Mark II.
Elizabeth double checked everything then made eye contact with Steve and gave him a nod indicating to inject the nanites. With the brunette suspended in air on the clear plexiglass about chest high he was able to press the tube into her thigh with six delivery needles piercing her skin, he pressed a button and watched as the tube was emptied. Elizabeth watched the full body scans in real time as the Mark II nanites spread throughout the young woman's small frame, taking her eyes off the screen to watch as Steve pulled the bandage away after about two minutes from her abdomen and picked up the used bullet and smiled when there was no sign of damage. He looked to her damaged face watching as the swollen eye healed in seconds turning from purple to light red to beautifully tanned unmarred skin.
Elizabeth smiled and looked back to her real time body scans, a moment later just as she expected there was a crack making her wince slightly. She saw Steve look back to her in alarm hearing the same thing she did "bone reformation of forearm and wrist in progress" she announced and ignored his stare only watching her screens. After a two full tense minutes where Steve had come in to watch what she was looking at it was about done "bone reformation complete, new muscle growth in progress" she looked over to her husband and smiled wide "it's working perfectly."
He could only stare back at her in wonder "I can't believe you gave her claws." He knew she was a closet comic book geek, reading one too many of those things but this was something else.
She shrugged, it was more than wanting to create one of her favorite comic book characters it was basically just the premise for the idea. It was about creating the ultimate weapon to take down the Alphas, she was creating the Omega and wanted to give her every advantage she could make possible. "Reformation of forearms complete, ready for final phase" she said after the claws were completely formed, she turned to her husband "get ready for the final phase."
He nodded and kissed her lightly than turned walking back into the lab where the girl was still suspended in the air, he grabbed the electrode from a nearby table and placed it into her foot guided by x-ray to locate the nano-plating. He looked over to his wife and nodded, stepping back from the girl in time to see her lowered into the water. Taking one last look at the girl he went to go join his wife, standing next to her he watched her typing in commands "activating electrode to magnetize nano-plating" and with a few more key strokes and a moment later a syringe was lowered into the water piercing her thigh "adrenalin injection complete, beginning adamantium coating" he looked over to her with a raised eyebrow.
Elizabeth didn't even need to look "when a large amount of adrenalin is introduced into the body like when someone gets is in a dangerous situation and your body produces its own, the nanites are programmed to block the pain receptors in the brain. It's ninety nine percent effective allowing her to still be able to register when she's been hurt but not distract from the current problem, I call it the battle mode."
They both looked back in time to see every injection tube hit its mark all at the same time with the superheated metal following almost immediately "heart rate increasing" he observed. They both watched as the girl twitched in her bonds, all of a sudden the girls eyes shot open. The struggling increased immensely after that but the titanium bands holding her down kept her in place, the metal groaned when she fought against them trying to free herself.
"Heart rate reaching red line!" He looked over to Liz "she can't take much more of this."
She shook her head "I designed the nanites to almost quadruple the healing factor compared to the Mark I and she has almost double the amount inside her, she can take it." Elizabeth was sweating though, she was afraid that the superheated metal would be too much for her creation, the girl whose name she didn't even know since all her identification was thrown to the ground by that thug who jumped them.
"Adamantium coating at sixty three percent complete" she said going back and forth between the screens and the struggling girl. It looked like the nanites were doing what they were designed to do cutting off the pain receptors. "We got a problem!" she heard her husband yell. Turning away from her console she saw him staring at the bank of video feeds, running over she saw a four person team heavily armed trying to bypass the inner security door to the warehouse they were in. "Oh god, they found us" she whispered.
"Oh shit!" Steve said realizing that they may have found them because of him. When his wife called and sounded like she did he forgot about taking precautions, dropping everything he was doing and rushed right over even running a red light on the way here which in LA there are tons of traffic cameras. Turning to Liz his eyes were wide with fear "get all the backups, grab everything you can! Destroy everything else! We'll take the emergency exit down into the sewer."
Liz nodded half scared to death, they weren't fighters they were scientist. She just for a second forgot what she was doing before she regained her senses, running back over to her console she saw the girl's vitals spiking and the coating at ninety four percent complete. She quickly wrote a simple unlock program into the titanium restraints so as soon as the adamantium was depleted and the process was one hundred percent complete they would automatically unlock. After finishing the program she rushed around just like Steve was currently doing, grabbing all the backups and setting all the hard drives on their research that weren't currently needed in the final phase to finish the Mark II to erase permanently.
She looked over to the video feed and saw that they were through the inner door and only had one more to go which looked like they were setting explosives on. She was about to call out for Steve to hurry up when there was a long sounding alarm going off, her heart dropped into her stomach knowing what it was. She rushed back over seeing the heart monitor flat lined, she looked into the lab seeing the girl still submerged no longer struggling, a second later she saw the restraints unlocking.
Flipping off the monitors she didn't have any time do anything about it or figure out what went wrong and why she failed. Hitting a few buttons she erased all the work she did, she grabbed up her bag in one hand and a hidden hand gun in the other just as Steve came running into the room brandishing pretty much the same thing "let's go they're just about to blow the door!" He ushered her ahead of him and they ran making their way through the lab only sparing a passing glance at their failure, Liz said a silent prayer for forgiveness for not being able to save the young girl who had come to protect her with no regard for her own safety.
Reaching the far door at the end of the lab Steve was about to seal the door when there was an explosion, knowing it would only be a few moments before they were seen he shut and sealed the heavy metal door using thermite to weld the door shut knowing it would take quite a bit more explosives to open it up.
Had they had an extra few moments they would have seen the heart monitor register a slow heart beat only getting stronger after every beat. When the explosion rocked the lab chocolate brown eyes shot open seeing the water surrounding her, breathing deeply she could feel her heart rate increase and everything became sharper. She could hear muffled foot falls coming towards her making her take action, ripping off her breather mask just as she broke the surface of the water and hopped out to crouch behind the medieval looking water box.
The explosion knocked out the lights so the only light was from emergency lighting, hiding in the shadows she could hear their careful footsteps hearing the shoot to kill order but capture the female scientist coming from their ear piece. Peaking over the box she spotted two coming into the room carrying MP4's and another two sweeping another room. She wondered for a moment how she knew what the guns were or which route each one was going to walk in order to properly sweep the room but just dismissed it for later, right now she needed to figure out how to take care of them and not end up dead in the process.
She had about twelve seconds before the one on her left would find her first so she had to do something about him first. She also felt weird, taking a moment to figure it out she flexed both her arms making a fist and in a split second three separate blades emerged from between her knuckles extending about ten inches. She marveled for a moment looking at every inch of the blades, deciding that these would be perfect she flexed her forearms again watching as they retracted earning only a slight sting and the slits in her skin to heal up instantly.
Waiting till the one on her left came into striking distance she tensed ready, shooting her right hand out grabbing the top of the gun and pulling the same time she shoots up and behind him extending her blades in her left hand punching them through upward between the third and fourth rib straight into the lung keeping him from ever making a sound. Grabbing his tactical knife with her right she flipped it to hold the blade and cocked back letting it fly straight into his forehead as he was turning towards the noise.
Watching as the other one hit the ground the brunette also dropped the one she was holding and looked at both of the dead bodies lying at her feet because of her. She cocked her head with the conflicting feelings running through her, she had taken these two out by instinct so that was what she was going to listen to for the moment since she didn't have any better ideas and still had two more to take care of. The other feelings she would just have to deal with later.
Walking to a doorway she could see what looked like a control room for the room she had woken up in since it had an observation window. Moving silently down the hallway she found both split up across the hall from each other searching the rooms for something other than a person. Slipping in to one room she walked silently on bare feet never making a sound, he had his MP4 slung to his back and was rifling through a desk before giving up and standing up letting her quickly put her right hand around the front of him gripping his chin and the same time using her left hand on the right side of the back of his head and twisting breaking his neck instantly. She guided him to the floor quietly, turning around she glided to the door way and looked out then slipped into the other room watching as the last one was accessing a laptop. She looked around the room seeing it completely tore apart, it looked like he found it in one of the draws lying on the floor. She would figure it out later, walking up to him she used her left hand quickly covering his mouth while her right hand with blades extended entered his back in to his lung just like the first one she took care of.
Dropping the body she pulled out his radio connected to his belt and put in the ear piece, she needed to see if anyone was trying to contact these guys. While listening to nothing so far she went about gathering up all the weapons the men had brought in she also took a chance to look around, also finding some clothes which one of the rooms had an extra pair of women's clothes that were a little big but nothing she couldn't handle. Going through all their pockets she found one set of keys and cash, so she just had to figure out where they would park their vehicle. She did find two pictures of a man and woman labeled Dr. Elizabeth Ross and Dr. Steve Ross, putting two and two together she figured these were the two who were responsible for her being here.
Walking down the hall with an MP4 at the ready she walked through the door that was blasted open to the next door, quickly opening it and peeking out she saw nobody waiting for her so stepping out while sweeping the automatic rifle back and forth. Walking up to the one car in what looked to be a huge warehouse she looked in spotting blood all over the back seat and a blonde wig in the front, grabbing up the wig figuring it could come in handy later she headed back into where she had everything stored.
The brunette looked at everything she had gathered up over the past hour, no one had come to find their friends or bomb the place so she was good for the moment and there was no chatter on the radio. So she organized her supplies between the weapons, clothes and four large bullet proof vests, she also had some food stuffs she found in one of the rooms which would last her a couple days.
Finally after an hour she was ready to venture outside, find their vehicle and get the hell out of dodge. One main thing that plagued her mind was she had no idea who she was or how she got here, even though it was a scary thought she pushed it to the back of her mind. She was a person who could take care of herself and she seemed to have certain skills that were quite deadly. The one big question was what in the hell did they do to her, looking down at her hands she flexed and brought out her incredibly sharp blades. She had to admit they were the perfect weapon and was unsettling at first but they were starting to grow on her, not to mention when she sheathed them her skin healed up instantly.
She shrugged those thoughts off, she would have time to think about all of this at another time. For right now she needed to look for some kind of evidence of her being here or what was being done here. Going back to the laptop she sat down and continued looking through it, thankfully the other guy had hacked the passwords cause she was pretty sure she couldn't have done it.
After a while looking through the laptop she found a personal diary of Elizabeth, after reading the first couple entries she began to learn about Alphas and Betas and what they were. After they started calling themselves Alphas and started creating Betas they apparently needed a way to mark each other so all of them have the Alpha symbol tattooed on their hand. It looked like three points swirling out from the center to connect in the middle and the Beta is the same thing except with the Alpha that made them initials in Greek on the three points. She wondered if she was one of these until she read an entry detailing what the Mark II could do, which she was pretty sure she had since the metal claws were a dead giveaway. She closed the lid and packed it away with the rest of her stuff she liberated, she could read the rest later but right now she felt the need to get going and head out of town so she could think of what to do next.
After looking at their hands and finding no tattoos she figured they were just and kill and capture team hired most likely by an Alpha but that was something she would have to look into another time cause right now she was stuffing two huge duffle bags full of everything she found. Thankfully finding the capture teams vehicle wasn't too hard, a huge black suburban with tinted windows parked around the corner with absolutely nothing else around except for other warehouses was pretty obvious. After driving it over to the entrance she loaded up the bags she had, searching the glove box she found a map and just decided to head north and maybe slip into Canada. Figuring she would figure it out on the way she slipped a pair of shades on that she found and headed to the nearest interstate, not needing gas for a while she ended up driving until she absolutely needed to stop and never once looked back.