This is the next chapter I hope you'll like it, and don't worry the next chapter will have a lot more to do with Pokémon in it and really that's when the story really starts. Ok have fun read up and Review if you'd please bye.
Interview room- somewhere outside Tri-Cities Washington- Present Day
"You expect me to believe that?" The agent who had been interviewing me asked.
"Well, no… but if I can get my brief case back from your security I could prove it to you" I told the agent.
The unnamed man in the black suit looked at me skeptically, but he eventually stood up and said "I'll see what I can do" as he left the Interview room.
After he left I looked around the room a little, it was hard to see anything because the light above the table made it hard to see anything beyond its beam. I could make out some things in the room, like the cinderblock walls and air vents, but other than some minor details the room seemed fairly desolate. Just then the door to the interview room opened again, and the agent returned to his seat.
"Your brief case is undergoing a security sweep at the moment Mr. Morison, so we will not have it for about 15 minutes, is that ok?" He asked giving the false implication of free choice.
"Yes that's fine, I guess we should press on with the story while we wait then hmm?" I asked him
"Yes let's proceed" he said nodding
"Right then let me think… Oh I know I should tell you about the briefing I got on the flight to the base"
3 Years ago- C-17 Cargo Plane at 35,000 feet above sea level
I remember this briefing the best out of all the briefings I had over the 3 years I worked on Project Genesis, because of the shock value it had. The flight started out normal, well as normal as you can get when flying in an Air Force cargo plane, but the take off was as normal as in a passenger plane, we were just seated differently. This normalcy was shattered once we reached cruising altitude.
Once the plane had gotten to about 35,000 feet or so, one of the flight crew came and told me to follow him to the briefing room. I guessed this was not normally on C-17s because the room looked like it was some kind of movable unit that was wheeled onto the airplane. When we walked up to it, it looked to me like it was a box that took up half the cargo space with a door on it. Next to the door there was a set of stairs that led to the top of the box so the flight crew could access the cockpit.
The flight crew member unlocked the door for me and allowed me to step inside the giant wheeled box saying as I passed him "I can't go any further; you're under Elwood's security now".
With that I entered the box, and the door was shut behind me. What I saw next made me panic a little bit just from the shock of what I saw, because I was inside a small airlock like room with four fully armed soldiers. What made them truly intimidating was the fact that they had face covers and goggles on so I couldn't see any of their faces.
They told me not to panic, because they where Elwood's security force and they were only running a routine security sweep before I entered the briefing room. I relaxed because I knew they were his security now and the initial shock factor was now gone, and so I let them run the security sweep on me.
They swept me over with metal detectors, bomb sniffers, radio signal detectors, they patted me down, and finally they checked my pockets. After I passed the security with flying colors they let me pass through the other door in the airlock, and into the briefing room.
What I saw inside the briefing room surprised me a little simply because of how much space the room had. In the middle of the room there was a big conference table with chairs situated around its perimeter. What really surprised me was how accurate movies were with these types of rooms because this room looked like it came off of a movie set. That's when I noticed Colonial Weaver sitting at one end of the table. He was still dressed in the army uniform that he had on yesterday, but he didn't seem to notice my presence till they closed the door behind me.
After Colonial Weaver heard the door close he looked up at me and then he said "Ah, there you are. Looks like you've met Reaper Company".
"Is that who they are?" Asked pointing at the door I just entered from.
"Yes, they are General Elwood's security for both the base and him" the Colonial said nodding. "Oh… please sit down" he said motioning to a chair next to him.
Soon after I sat down a door to the room opened, but this was a different door then the one I had come through. The first people through this door were soldiers who were identical to the ones that had run the security check on me. Colonial Weaver stood at attention and snapped a salute yelling "Commanding Officer on deck" General Elwood followed the soldiers into the room, walked over to where we were sitting, and took a seat on the other side of Colonial Weaver.
"At ease Colonial" Elwood said quickly returning the salute. "And don't be so stiff it's not like I'm the president for god's sake" Elwood chuckled.
The members of Reaper Company took positions along the walls and held their M-4s in a nonthreatening yet aggressive manner, and Colonial Weaver returned to his seat in between Elwood and I. The thing I noticed about General Elwood was the three stars he had stitched into his camo army uniform.
General Elwood obviously had a file on me or something like that because he greeted me by saying "So, you must be Rick" sticking his hand out to me.
"Yes I'm Rick Morison, General Elwood I presume" I asked while returned his handshake.
"Yes I'm General Elwood; I am the head administrator for the site of Project Genesis" he told me. "Colonial Weaver has told me a lot of good things about you, but I assume you have many questions for me." he finished.
"Yes I would like some answers, like what Project Genesis is for starters" I said wondering what exactly I had gotten myself into.
"Well, I guess that's a good place to start anyways" Elwood said. "Project Genesis is the code name of the project that you are now part of. In fact it's the whole reason you have been employed in the first place" he explained to me.
"Ok that leads me to my next question; what exactly will I be doing on this project" I continued to ask
After listening to my question General Elwood smiled and answered me by saying "That's the fun part".
"The fun part?" I asked a in a questioning tone.
"Yes, you have been selected for this project because you will be making something for us using the technology you helped created." He said looking as if he was waiting for me to ask the follow up question.
Which I did by asking him "What will I be making what exactly?"
"Well, I assume you are failure with a game called Pokémon correct?" he asked
"Yes I am, but what does that have to do with anything?" asked completely lost on where he was going with this.
"The goal of Project Genesis is to create a living Pokémon for military applications." After he told me that he watched me to see what his reaction was. Colonial Weaver did the same while wearing a sly smile.
I can tell you right now, I didn't know how to react so I just sat there and looked dumbstruck as I wondered if I should be laughing or think that he was crazy. I looked around to see if there were any cameras I could see, or if any of the guards were cracking any smiles. That's when I remembered that even if they were smiling I couldn't see it because their faces were covered.
"So, are you up to it?" General Elwood asked me in a serious tone.
"Uhh… Can I just ask you where the hidden cameras are?" I managed to say.
This made the General laugh and then he said "You don't have to worry, this is not some prank show, this is the real deal"
"So, let me ask you two things. Number one, why are you trying to make fictional creatures real when you could just make augmentations to a soldier or… something? And number two, why do you need our technology to do this?" I asked him.
"Fair enough" he said nodding "To answer your first question, we chose Pokémon because they gave us a good reference point to work with. Also, They are better then let's say… a human augment for three reasons, first they will be less likely to suffer from an overinflated ego and try to take over, second trials are much easier than they would be with a human, and third finding test subjects will be easier and less expensive. Plus, if the program reaches all of its goals it will be much more convenient for military use, compared to a human augment. Now to answer your second question, we need your technology because it's the best technique for the results we want. You see, we tried genetically altering embryos, but it didn't work fast enough and the GE eggs, that weren't cheap by the way, don't always take hold. So, it's much more efficient to use a modified version of your RGRA substance." He said looking pleased with himself after completing his explanation.
I was a little taken aback by the long winded response, but I now had a new question "Why did you only hire me if I was only part of the team that developed it?" I asked him.
"How did I know you were going to ask that?" he said with a smile. "We have hired all but one of your UCLA team" Elwood said.
"Wait, who was the one you didn't hire?" I asked
"Ah… what was his name?" General Elwood said scratching his chin.
Suddenly Colonial Weaver chimed in saying "Damian Sir"
"Ah that's right Damian, he seemed to think we had some plot against him or something like that" The General said while shaking his head.
As soon as I heard Damian's name it made sense to me. You see Damian was one of those people who blamed every problem in the world on some government conspiracy. If only I had known that Damian had been right for once by not taking the job. His reasoning was still flawed of course, but it saved him from having to do this interview.
Eventually I remembered what they were asking me to work on and without thinking I said to no one in particular "I can't believe you want me to help you make fictional characters real" tensing a little when I finally realized what I had said.
"Well, can you tell me what our most powerful weapon we currently have in our arsenal?" General Elwood asked me.
"Well… it would have to be nuclear weapons, but I don't…" I said getting interrupted before I could finish.
"Where was the first nuclear weapon built?" General Elwood asked me again.
"The Manhattan Project of course" I said now looking rather confused
"Now tell me, it you had the ability to go back in time to… let's say… 1910, and you told them about the Manhattan project and its goals, how would they react?" The General said now with a grin on his face.
"Well… I guess they would either laugh at me or call me crazy" I said finally realizing where he was going with this.
"Right, and the atomic bomb was described in H.G. Wells book The World Set Free 19 years before it was found that Uranium could have its atoms split. It may have seemed crazy for a bomb that size to exist before the Manhattan Project, but soon after the Manhattan Project we dropped two and made thousands more. My point is even though it may seem crazy now, does not mean it can't be done"
After that we talked for a while longer about some minor details until a masked soldier entered the briefing room and informed us that we needed to get ready for the imminent landing. Which led to Colonia Weaver and I following General Elwood through the door the General had come through earlier. What I saw inside looked similar to the panic rooms I had seen, except this one had airliner style seats. All three of us sat down and buckled up while the four Reaper company members entered the room and closed the door behind them. After that we all sat and waited for the C-17 to land so I could see my new workplace.
Once the cargo plane landed we all walked off the plane and on to the tarmac of the air force base we had landed at. Looking around I saw a variety of aircraft that were parked around us as we walked to the convoy of Humvees waiting to take us to the base for the project. Once we all got in the Humvee we departed. We drove out of the base, onto a highway, and then turned left at a guard outpost.
When we pulled up to the guard booth I saw that there was a logo on the side and around it the name was written which read "Hanford Nuclear Site". I asked myself a little shocked at the location.
"Um… General Elwood, why are we going to a nuclear power plant?" I asked him with a hint of anxiety in my voice.
"Oh… yah I forgot to tell you, Project Genesis is based on the Hanford compound, because of the many advantages the site process." the general explained.
"What type of advantages?" I asked him wondering what a site like this can offer.
"For starters it has a nuclear power source of its own, so it's off of the grid and we can get as much electricity as we need. This is also added onto the fact that there is already a high security bunker installed there, as well as one of the best covers for a program like this." He said with a very official voice.
"What do you mean by a cover, and why is there already a bunker here?" I asked him when he had finished.
"The cover I was referring to was a way to keep Project Genesis out of the public eye; we do this by using underground radio jammers to jam any of those ground radar scanners that could find the base. We explain this interference by saying it comes from the nuclear waste that is supposedly buried around the compound, this has the added effect of keeping curious onlookers off of the compound." He said with a sly grin on his face.
What he had told me shocked me a little and so I asked him in a surprised voice "Wait! You mean this place is safe, there's no radiation coming from the ground?"
"Yes it is safe to walk around the compound there is no dangerous radiation outside of the reactor. Now to answer your second question I have to ask if you know the history of this site." General Elwood asked me.
"Yea, it was founded to produce Plutonium for the Manhattan Project" I said thinking back to my history class.
After hearing my answer the general nodded and said "Correct, this led to the creation of the underground bunkers that we are using for Project Genesis. However, we have added on many new tunnels and made many upgrades to the existing ones as you will see shortly"
As soon as he finished speaking a silence fell over the interior of the Humvee, all that could be heard was the sound of the engine as we drove towards a building that looked like a strangely shaped ocean liner. This silence didn't last long, because we reached the building that most people think is a reactor.
Once we got out of the truck Elwood's security got out of the other Humvees and came over to escort him, Colonial Weaver, and I inside the building and then closing the doors behind us. After we passed through another security check point we proceeded into a lobby like area.
"Sorry for all of the security, you can't be too careful you know" General Elwood apologized.
All three of us walked over to a door to an elevator where Colonial Weaver slid a card through a slot next to the door. As we waited for the elevator Elwood pointed things out to me, such as the architecture's resistance to damage, and a lot of information on the capabilities of the base. He was telling me about the amount of electricity the nuclear plant could make for the base when the elevator arrived with an electronic sounding ding.
We all entered the elevator and waited for the doors to close. Once they were closed both the Colonial and the General slid their cards through the card reader and had their retinas scanned; however, General Elwood did something extra. He punched in some code on the touch screen and then said "Guest Clearance" which was followed by computer voice saying "Voice key recognized". That's when the elevator started to move downwards to an unknown location.
It was then I noticed how advanced this elevator was, in fact it looked like it had been taken off a Star Trek set. The panel where you entered the direction was a glass covered touch screen, the elevator appeared to be constructed of some sort of stainless steel except for the doors which appeared to be made of Plexiglas and had a white logo printed in the center. The logo read "Area-37 Pushing Future Boundaries of Science".
"Area-37?" I said softly to myself.
"Yes" responded General Elwood who had heard me "We are Area-37, as you can see we are not as well known as our sister site Area-51, which in your case is a good thing".
The elevator continued to fall for about a minute or so until we reached our destination, once we had stopped falling, the doors opened with a ding while an electronic voice said "Area-37, top floor, Security". After the computer's announcement we all exited the futuristic elevator to find, you guessed it, another security checkpoint.
I had to get a pass made for me since I was new to the job, and I was told I was required to wear it whenever I was walking around the facility or as General Elwood put it I would look like Swiss Cheese. After I got all my paper work out of the way General Elwood gave me a tour of the base, but Colonial Weaver left us to go check on something.
As we walked I noticed how nice this place was and also the fact that this base look far ahead of anyplace I had seen before, and a lot more expensive as well. I was impressed by the labs, they looked so nice and new; Elwood also said they had made scientific advances I would not see anywhere else in the world, which looking at this place I could believe. As soon as the tour was done he left me and I went to the cafeteria to get some dinner. It surprised me that free food could taste so good. While the burger and fries may not be considered a gourmet meal, I've had a lot worse in the past.
Once I finished eating I found my quarters and opened the door to find a full apartment, complete with a kitchen. . I set my alarm for 8:00 the next day and went to bed. The traveling must have taken it out of me because I have never fallen asleep so quickly.
When my….
Interview Room- Present Day
The door next to the one way mirror burst open interrupting me mid sentence.
"Here's the brief case you requested sir, sorry about the delay" the person who had entered the room said handing my brief case to the Unnamed man who was listening to my story.
"It's about time, now please leave I have an interview to conduct" my interviewer said in an impatient voice.
"Yes sir, sorry Lieutenant Dugan" the subordinate said hurrying out of the room.
"Shall we see your so called proof?" He said turning to me while holding up the brief case.
