We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.
Lyndon B. Johnson, December 13, 1963



The Ballad of 0014
by DigistatDBZ

Prolouge: Nightmares


"Worthless!"

The three accompanying men cringed as they heard her snarl in frustration. They had been through row after row of capsules, and none of them seemed to suit her needs. Every last one of them seemed to be doomed to failure.

"Why should I have any use for such worthless rejects?" She added, clenching her fist. She looked around at the countless rows of suspension capsules, and none of the things inside seemed to be of use to her. "Why did they even bother to store them if they never worked in the first place?"

"Madam, if I might--"

"When I ask for your opinion, I shall ask for it directly to you!" She snapped at the now-cowering robed man, who was so frightened that he wished that he could crawl inside his turban. "Yes... I realize many of these subjects are over 40 years old. What I'm looking for is the reject that Black Ghost actually had interest in."

"But madam," Another robed man spoke up, keeping his distance incase the woman decided to take out her frustration on him. "How.. how will we know which one is the reject? All of these look the same!"

The woman rolled her eyes at his statement, and pulled a piece of heavily-wrinkled paper out of a sachel. The tell-tale uniform of a 00-number soldier wasn unmistakeable, with its bright red and yellow colors and, to put it mildly, 'unique' design. There was always a method to Black Ghost's madness- though to those who knew about the organization often found it hard to differentiate reasonable method from the frightening madness.

"Whether or not she was wearing this uniform upon being put in suspended animation 4 years ago, she is here. And I want the 00-number to be found."

Yes, all of the capsules in the giant storage house were supposed to be 00-number cyborgs: Black Ghost's ultimate weapon of war. Humans robotically modified to withstand otherwise intolerable conditions, and perform feats that would be otherwise impossible to mortal humans. Hundreds of candidates were hand-picked from all over the world, spanning from the project's birth in the mid-1960's, to the very dawn of the 21st century, when the project was restarted upon the long-awaited arrival of the technology needed to properly convert a human to half-machine and have him -or her- survive the process.

Yet many of these people didn't wish this fate upon themselves: only nine became the final prototypes out of the hundreds of subjects chosen for testing. Like the nine, many of them had this done to them against their free will- kidnapped and doomed to be missing and presumed dead for years, decades; maybe even centuries.

No one knows if these sleeping quasi-humans still dream, or think. Perhaps they dream of when they'll be able to see their families and friends again. Or perhaps their transformation to cyborg was so horrific that they would dream of the peace that death would finally bring.

But one- and only one- was to be brought out that night. The uniform that was being worn by the cyborg in the picture was reserved for successful prototypes only- ones that were destined to be part of the 00-number prototypes that would make up the army of super-humans Black Ghost envisioned. There was something about that cyborg that the woman wanted.

She only had to gaze up after one last pass over a previously-looked over row of suspension capsules when a flash of red caught her eye. Her heart skipped a beat as she turned around to come face-to-face with the red that she had seen, and looked back and forth between the picture and the figure inside the capsule to make sure that her suspicion was correct.

"Madam, did you find it?" The two robed men dashed from the opposite side of the room to see what had gotten the lady's attention.

"It's here," the woman said in bearly-contained glee. "The 00-number is here."

Snapping her fingers, she summoned a hulking behemoth of a man from behind the two men, who jumped out of the way in fright. He lumbered foreward, setting himself upon one knee before her.

"Get this pod out. And I insist you do not damage it for fear of severe consequences."

He nodded before getting up, and with strength that couldn't possibly be of his own, he grabbed the pod with the uniformed cyborg inside, and tore it away from the wall, managing to miss the three others by only inches. The two men cowered and ducked for cover, yet the woman remained still, unflinching as if she had known that her hulking behemoth wouldn't be so stupid that he would do something to harm his mistress.

"We leave immediately for Tibet," she said, turning to leave. "Then, we begin."

The two men nodded and went after her, with the large man carrying the pod behind her. Everything was going flawlessly now- what was there to stop them?

But little did any of them know that the security cameras watching them, recording their every word and movement, was not being watched by anyone from Black Ghost.


A thunderstorm rocked a small, village-esque suburb of Berlin- a city once divided in the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union. Those differences seemed long since forgotten and tensions so loose in this town, you wouldn't have believed that the world was on the brink of self-destruction even up until 20 years ago.

Still, those sort of past descrections aren't easily forgotten as most would like. Take for example the many whos lives were destroyed during that chaotic period, who tried to act upon their dreams of leaving the "utopia" of Soviet communism and failed bitterly. Some did survive and escape out of that world. But for them, sometimes a heavy, even unbearable price came with it.

And sometimes, dreams are a rather unplesant way of reminding them what that cost was.

He wasn't sure what was broken in the explosion, or how he could possibly be alive afterwards. All he knew was that they were finally out.

Free.

Debris from the truck rained down and was scattered around him like so much fire from hell, and even the worst of it wasn't clawing through the flaming, burning debris to reach her...

"Hilda....!!!"

His legs felt like they were gone, even if they were somehow still connected to his broken, bloodied body.

"Hilda..!!!!! Hilda!!!!"

Yet, his worst horrors were still realized... the only thing he wished would still be in one piece and praying for his survival was laying in a crumpled, lifeless heap amidst the burning rubble.

"HILDA!!!"

He reached out for her, taking her form into his arms. He prayed, no, demanded that God wouldn't take her away from him.

"Hilda, hold on, please!!" He begged, trying to ruse the body that was limply hanging from his arms.

Finally, it was as if his prayer was answered as she barely managed to open her eyes and look at him.

"Did... we make it?" she whispered weakly, as if she was putting every ounce of her strength into just answering him.

"Yes..!" He replied, thankful that maybe.. just maybe his worst fear wasn't realized after all. "We're out of that place for good! We're in a free country now, where we can do whatever we want!!"

She smiled through the tears that began to trickle out of her eyes. "I'm so glad... we're finally free... forever..."

She nearly gasped on the last word as her hand fell limp to his side, the glint of the gold engagement ring shone though the fire that continued to burn behind them. Albert felt the blood rush out of his head and into the very pit of his stomach.

"..Hilda...!!" He choked, trying to make her wake up again. "You can't die!! We were supposed to be together!!"

He shook, holding her close as something began to sneak up from below the very ground they were laying on. Yet, even as these appendages rose from the ground, enveloping them, he continued to talk as if they weren't even there.. as he remembered it.

"We never should've done this..." he whispered bitterly as the two bodies were lifted up, snaking steel trying to tear the two apart. But he was still alive, she was dead- there was nothing he could do to change it, and that's what hurt him the most.

"Don't die, you can't leave me!!!" He tried to plead one last time, trying to hold onto the body of the woman he loved- his pleas still falling upon dead ears.

He only had a moment- and just enough strength- to call out for her, to shout for her name as the machine guns took aim at him, to silence him as well.

"HILDA!!!!!!!!!!!"

Albert Henrich sprung stiff as a board up on his bed as another thunderclap exploded with intense sound in the background, lighting the dark room for only a moment with its lightning. Cold sweat broke out and streamed from everywhere on his body that he could possibly name- natural and artificial.

His breathing was loud and heavy as he tried desperately to grasp the reality that he had been placed right back into. There was no burning truck, no broken limbs, no cables, no guns...

..No Hilda...

He held his face in his hands, the fact that only one of his hands was still human-looking and the other was glaringly artifical- all five fingers each a powerful semi-automatic machine gun's muzzle- still not helping to ease the pain that throbbed in his head... or his heart.

"Why...." he whispered, still breathing hard. "....Why am I having that dream over and over again....?"

Everything in the nightmare was just as he remembered it, line for line, moment for moment. Yet the cables, the gunfire.. all of that was different. He didn't know how, or why, but this time, the memory was different.

Just like the nightmares he had been having for.. two, three weeks? He stopped keeping track after the night he tried to stay awake all night to avoid the nightmares. It didn't fare well for work the following morning, but on the other hand, the nightmares had been depriving him of sleep to the point where no one would be able to tell the difference between him staying up all night or having nightmares that kept him awake in the first place.

But why Hilda? Why that memory when he felt like he was just starting to get over it?

'Maybe to keep me from forgetting her..' he thought, rubbing his temples. 'Why am I not supposed to forget her? Why can't I move on?!'

He twitched in surprise when he heard his phone ringing. He stopped breathing hard long enough to murmur to himself, "...Who could be calling this late at night?"

He exhaled as he collected himself enough to reach for the phone at the side of his bed. "Yes, who is this?"

"004?"

Albert's conciousness suddenly shot to attention when he recognized the voice uttering his old 00-code number. "Dr. Gilmore...? What's going on here?"

"I'm sorry... but something's come up, we need everyone..."

He felt his stomach cramp at the thought. It had been two years since was called by any of the others- especially Dr. Gilmore, who had kept to himself after Black Ghost had finally been destroyed. He had then rested into a mindset that since the heads of the organization were finally dead, and the organization itself thrown into shambles, he and his fellow cyborgs could finally experience the one thing they all wanted more than anything:

Peace.

Having to go back.. back to fight whatever had gotten the professor to call him just when he was finally beginning to think that he could be able to rest a little easier at night.

'But then again,' he thought. 'I haven't been resting easier at night for weeks...'

"004? Is something wrong?"

Albert chuckled softly to mask his current feelings. "Don't worry, professor- I'm fine. What about the others?"

"They're on their way as we speak, but since I know about your personal feelings, I wanted to make sure that you were absolutely sure you wanted to come back to us." Dr. Gilmore paused as he thought about how to put his next revelation. "This could be about Black Ghost."

"Black Ghost?!" Albert was dumbstruck. After the past events, he hoped that he would never hear that horrible name again. "But we defeated the organization two years ago... how could they--"

"I know it's hard to believe, but this sounds like a plot that could determine if they're finally coming out of hiding."

"Hiding?"

"Yes... I know we all believe with great hope that it was destroyed that day.. but as horrible as it is, something as large as Black Ghost can't just disappear. I could tell you more, but time is of the essence, I'll explain the rest once everyone is together. Hurry to the lab, 004- I'm counting on you and the others!"

"...I understand." The drone of the disconnection tone continued to sound though the reciever as Albert took a heavy sigh.

Battling... that was something he hated. Every time he did that, he felt he had become someone that he detested with every fiber of his being- a killing machine that would live and die to destroy. He hated battle so much because it scared him. It wasn't a secret to anyone he knew that his chaotic and tragic life had made him a hardened nihilist... but anyone else wouldn't know it at first. He always tried hard to mask his anger and sadness with a mild-mannered, friendly disposition.

No doubt none of the other 00-number Cyborgs liked their still quite newfound lot in life, either. Still, he had been told by so many people thoughout his life, "There will always be have-tos".

He had to continue to remind himself why he had to keep fighting. For the past two years of "peacetime", he returned to Germany again to continue to recollect the lost 40 years of his past. Looking for more old friends who had literally become old, finding any more family that might've survived...

In his cluttered mess of thoughts, all he could do was turn his sideways glance into a hard stare at the framed photo on his bedstand- a momento from one of his "Grand-nieces" in Austria.



Memories of happier times...



to be continued

Quote taken from "The Quotation Page" at