Reflex
Chapter 4: Plans
I'm in such a writing mojo lately, but schoolwork is plummeting. This chapter focuses less on Chris and Piers and more on Jessica. Please enjoy! —Chris
12 days after
"You doing alright?" Chris asked me. I nodded, not really caring about the question.
I was at his home, where I'd be staying with him for the next six months. I was wearing contacts for the next two weeks to make up for the loss of my right eye for those couple days. It sucked, I hated them. And I mean I really, really hated them. They were hard to manage and irritating. They'd considered giving me colored ones, since my being able to see again didn't affect the pupil and iris color. But I didn't feel like it and neither had they.
"I'm fine." I said, rubbing my eye with my left hand.
"Want something to eat? You've barely eaten much this week." Chris said. The entire time I'd been at his house, Chris had been doing his absolute best to try and snap me into doing something fun, or energetic. Or anything, actually. He kept up an optimistic mood. I think it was because looking at me hurt him.
"Not hungry." I said automatically. That was a lie, but I never felt like eating whenever I looked at my right arm.
"Come on, you need food." Chris said, pulling on my arm and leading me to his living room. "Chris!" I complained, dragging my feet along the ground. "I don't want anything to eat, really." I said. "Well you are going to stuff your face if I have to hold you down and make you." Chris asserted.
I didn't want to be a problem in Chris's house, but I just never felt like eating. I never felt like talking, never felt like walking, never felt like doing anything. I just felt...tired. But I did as Chris said and sat down on the couch, preparing myself to force down food.
And the food came. A burger with tomatoes and melted cheese seeping from between the two hamburger steaks. It looked delicious, it smelled delicious. My stomach rumbled, but my throat tightened. I picked it up with my left hand, and it just kind of sat there in front of my face.
"You can do it." Chris encouraged, like I was lifting a hundred pound weight instead of a one-pound burger. I held it for a second, and then bit down. It was delicious. Swallowing was hard, but eventually it got easier.
"Good." Chris said. "See, told you you needed to eat."
"Yeah yeah..." I grunted. I leaned back, stomach sated. Chris sat down next to me and leaned back, too. "What's been the matter with you, lately, Piers?" he said. I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. "You know...aside from that." he said, nodding at the tentacle claw between us. I sighed. "I guess..."
"What?" he asked, concern on his face.
"I've never really been away from the B.S.A.A. for this long..." I said slowly.
"It hasn't even been two weeks yet, Piers." Chris said. "If you're wanting to be back in headquarters this soon, the next half year isn't going to be pleasant for you." he said bluntly. I didn't like being told that, because it was probably one hundred percent true.
"And besides." Chris said, staring at the ground. "You aren't entirely away from the B.S.A.A." he said.
"How do you figure?" I asked.
"There's me." he said, looking up to meet my eyes.
"Well...yeah, I guess." I said dully. I liked Chris, and he was probably the only thing keeping me out of clinical depression. But I couldn't just make myself happy.
"And Jill and the others will call sometimes. Who knows, if they have time, they might even visit." Chris said hopefully.
"..." I opened my mouth, but honestly, for them to visit was the last thing I wanted. I closed it again.
"Piers..." Chris started. "Do you...wanna be left alone for a little while?" he asked. I looked over to him. I thought he looked a little hurt, but he masked it well.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I do." I said quietly.
Chris got up from the couch, gave me a tentative pat on the back, and left. I sighed and lifted my right arm over my lap, turning my head sideways, and thinking I might just sleep. Again.
~Jessica Sherawat~
I sat at a desk, writing out notes and looking at biological blueprints of creatures I had never seen before. According to what Dav had said recently, divers should be able to retrieve a sample of Haos's remains soon enough. That was good, it meant reconstruction could begin soon enough. Right now, I was looking at his bioform data, taken from a scan just before he had hatched. According to what I was looking at, Haos was a massive creature.
It was approximately 200 feet in height at the moment it hatched from its Chrysalid, and was about 100 feet from left hand to right. The waist ended in a series of huge tentacles, which accounted for about 110 feet of its length, and there were two large fin-like tentacles that waved from over his back. He didn't have much of a spine, but he did have two thick spinal cords running through his upper back, encase in a thick tube running from the neck down to the waist where it ended, and the tentacles began. That's where things got really interesting.
Inside the lower back were four claws and a mouth-like orifice. Beneath that, just where the two spinal cords ended, was a secondary brain. It wasn't responsible for any coherent functions, but where the waist began, it looked sort of as if should the upper and lower bodies be blown apart, the secondary brain would take control of the lower half and begin to move on its own. This, this was useful information.
There were also sacs inside the palms that house dozens of long, coiled tentacles that had individual joints and could extend out of the body through large gaps in the skin inbetween the fingers.
It didn't stop there. There were seven important organs inside Haos's torso and stomach. There were three hearts and one main one in the center. Behind those, there were three more organs that were designed to dispense the C-Virus in a gaseous form, but on a much larger scale than the Lepotitsa creature. If those organs had fully developed before the Chrysalid had been awakened, then Haos would have been able to infect a three-mile wide radius with ease. It's a shame we had to wait so long for his rebirth; nations would be forced to surrender in days once Haos was resurrected.
I put Haos's folder away for now. I had the notes I wanted from him, and now it was time for projects I was building on my own. After putting away that folder, labeled "Project HAOS 2.0" I pulled two more off of a shelf.
One was labeled "KRV -Project T.2-E". The other, "Project Tempest". I opened the first tentatively.
"Tyrant-Armored Lethal Organic System..." I said aloud as I scanned the pages. No wonder this thing had failed. Had Umbrella seriously expected this brute to be successful? Sure, firepower was heavy, but damn, the ideas holding it up were all wrong. The legs were tiny and would have had a ridiculous time holding all that weight. Its missile cannon was half its body weight. Its back-up system was bound to the room it died in. How badly can you plan something out? Why not just stick a dozen missile launchers on a Tyrant and call it effective. Oh wait...
I immediately started sketching out a bio-blueprint for the new T-A.L.O.S. First, it needed thicker, reliable legs. Enough lower body muscle that it could cover plenty of distance walking, but could keep up with cars when running. Second, the explosive missile system could not be handheld again, that was asking for trouble. Instead, it'd be back-mounted and would be more ammunition-conservative...
The ideas just kept flowing. With today's technology, we should be able to give the new T-A.L.O.S. a decent set of armor and protection, incredible offensive abilities, and the movement capacity of the Ustanak, with none of the sensory limitations. The chip in the brain would likely still be a necessary factor, but if we could provide obedience also seen in Ustanak, it would only need to amount to a back-up.
This would be our elite, our throne.
"Piers? Piers?"
My vision was rippling, swimming back and forth. I could see a light through the haze...Oh. I was underwater.
"Piers? Piers, come on, wake up."
"Water..." I said, throat raspy.
"I got some right here, buddy. Open your eyes, all the way."
I rubbed at my eyes and opened them against the harsh light. I was in bed again. I groaned. "Chris, did you carry me in here again?" I asked grudgingly.
"Yes. Jill's on the phone, she wants to talk to you." Chris asked. "And you couldn't tell her I was asleep?" I asked irritably. Chris put his hand over the phone and whispered in my ear. "Piers, when you've worked with this woman for as long as I have, you learn to not tell her no."
"Fine." I said, sighing. I took the phone from him. I leaned back down again and put the phone to my ear. "Hey Jill." I said.
"Hey Piers. Everything going okay?" Jill's voice said. "Yeah, I guess." I said, stretching. "You guess?" Jill asked. "Something wrong?"
"No, no, really, nothing's wrong." I said immediately. To be honest, it was true, my body just wouldn't realize it. Scratch that, my body realizes it, the virus doesn't. "The virus...it hasn't spread, has it?" she asked, concerned. I looked down at my right arm with my right eye, for once. It was the same. Nothing had changed since the surgery. I flexed my fingers, and a few tendrils of electricity ran up and down my forearm. "No, it hasn't." I said.
"Good." she said. "Are you having a decent time at Chris's place?"
I flashed a glance at Chris, who promptly gave me a pair of puppy eyes. "Yeah. I'm doing great."
"I'm glad to hear it. Is there anything I can do for you in the next few days? I'm about to take lead on Delta Team's next scouting mission, I might not be back for a week or so." Jill informed me.
"Just some well wishes. Stay safe." I said.
"Done." she replied. "I'll see you in about 8 days, relax a little while you have the chance." she said.
"Sure thing, Jill." I said, handing the phone back to Chris. He repeated roughly the same thing, and then hung up. He sighed, then laid down beside me. It was innocent enough, and he didn't really do anything else. After about five minutes, my eyes started to slide down and close without my wanting them to.
I pretended not to notice the kisses Chris laid on my neck as I drifted off again.
~Jessica Sherawat~
I had drawn up pretty much all of my ideas and exhausted my supply of blue gridded paper, so I put back the files for the Tyrant Superbeing and pulled out the one labeled "Project Tempest". In it were biological prints of the Reaper and Licker Beta specimens, as well as their infection agents, the Uroboros and Progenitor viruses. The list of potential beneficiary effects was listed as well as drawbacks. Behind those, there were notes on the T-Virus, the T-Veronica Virus, the G-Virus, and the result of the latter two's combining, the C-Virus. What we wanted was a complete mutation, that is to say, a creature born of a Chrysalid, that combined the strong points of C-Virus infectees with the strong points of both Reapers and Licker Betas, and had none of the drawbacks. Needless to say, such a program could take hundreds of experiments, but we weren't guessing at it like, like Derek Simmons had done to create the C-Virus. This time we had a plan, and hopefully, with luck, the third superbeing for the Neo-Umbrella empire could be born and raised in time for an attack along with the other two. Especially since cell research and splicing had already begun.
The plan, so far, was to raise three superbeings based on the C-Virus, the T-Virus, and the CPU research being conducted. Once we had three powerful attack forces at out disposal, we would make two of the three known to world nations and the third would lead an attack on a critical area. It wouldn't be somewhere in the United States, no, that was too basic and far too risky.
I picked up the phone after having finished my research on the papers in front of me. The private line rang, and Dav picked up. "Yes Mistress?" I heard him say.
"Give the following orders and send them throughout the Neo-Umbrella lines."
"Say it and it's done, Miss Sherawat."
"Limit J'avo creation and infections by injection and strictly monitor it. Destroy any Lepotitsa creatures that hatch immediately. There are to be no more airborne C-Virus outbreaks until further notice. Kill any zombies you see, it'll make good cover in case we want to infiltrate the B.S.A.A., TerraSave, or other such organizations anytime soon. Have you got that?" I asked. I heard him scribbling on a piece of paper.
"Yes, got it."
"Almost done. Next, round up any Ogroman creatures that have been released. We're going to use them as a secondary shock forces. They have intelligence drawbacks and complete lack of control, and as a zombie mutation, that's to be expected. We can't afford to be sticking those devices in their backs anymore, we're drying out our budget here. Finally, kill any that exceed 30 feet tall."
I heard silence for a while. "These are drastic decisions, Mistress."
"I'm aware." I sighed. "But big decisions have to be made. If Neo-Umbrella is going to become more than a specter, we need to have order among the chaos we create. Understood?" I asked.
"Yes, Mistress. I'll have these order sent and carried out immediately."
"Good."
I hung up the phone and sighed, stretching. I'd been cooped up for too many days. Time to go practice with that sniper rifle.
I looked beside me. It was nighttime out of the window. On my other side, Chris was snoring softly onto my shoulder. I felt something wet there, but ignored it. It was going to be hard, getting back to sleep. There was always water in my dreams. And not just water, but anything blue.
Ada Wong...
The blue clouds that hung over Tatchi...
Those blue mutant creatures from the missile carrier ship...Those had freaked me out, to be honest.
I rolled over towards Chris. I felt bad about dragging him through his off-time. I'd put on a smile tomorrow. And I'd actually try to be happy. To be honest, I wondered how Chris did it sometimes. He's been through shit like this for a decade and a half. Oh, yeah, that PTSD. I pulled him out of that.
Well, time to go to sleep. Again. Again.
Big sigh from author. *Sigh* —Chris
