The Seventh Element
Terms to know
GRI- Genetically Rendered Image, it produces a picture of someone passed in their DNA.
GRT- Genetic Reliability Test, determines how safe it would be to genetically reconstruct someone.
GRC- Genetic Reconstruction Chamber.
Sirius strands: I made them up. Don't think for a minute I knew what I was talking about.
Chapter 4
Perfect
"What kind o survivor do you call that?" Joey grumbled. A table was being wheeled down the Genetic Reconstruction Plant in Domino. Genetic Reconstruction was considered one of the greatest technological breakthroughs in history, right up there with electricity and the Internet. Genetically rebuilding DOAs and suicide victims had been the subject of dispute for years, but a vote had passed the bill to legalize the procedure with a vote of 54 percent, barely passing the fifty-fifty mark. But it was enough at the time. That had been a decade ago.
"Don't worry, there's a few cells alive, it's all I need." Dr. Duke Devlin said. On the table were a few finger bones and a few hand bones grasping a handle. A handle from what, Joey had no clue.
"Did you run a GRI on it?" Joey asked. "Hair color, ethnicity, age, what are we dealing with?"
"We tried, but our equipment blew a fuse. All we know is that it's human…sort of." Duke bit out the few words. Joey raised an eyebrow.
"Sort of? What do you mean?" Duke punched up a code to the GR chamber outer door, and it slid open with a hiss.
"Well….okay, human DNA has 40 Sirius strands, they govern memory and learning capabilities. 40 is more than any human needs to remember and learn all the knowledge they'll ever need in life. This guy has 20'000 Sirius strands. His learning skills and memory are off the charts." Duke punched up the code for the inner door. Joey looked down at the bones and grimaced.
"Sounds like a freaky mutant or something." He muttered. Duke smirked.
"Yeah. This ought to be fun huh?" The GR doors opened, and Duke wheeling in the table to the team of scientists. One carefully took the bones and placed it in a chamber in the center of the room. The chamber was a steel tube that rose off the ground. Various wires and electrical equipment were hooked up to the monitoring booth on one side of the room. Bones inside, the chamber hissed as a cover of glass slid over it.
"Let me show something here Wheeler." Duke said, sitting down at the station. He typed and an image of a DNA chain floated across the screen. "This is the human DNA chain, everybody's chain looks like this, right? Watch this." Duke typed again, and a second, more complex chain appeared next to the first. "His DNA has the same elements and composition as our, its simply condensed with infinite genetic knowledge. It's almost like this guy was…engineered." Joey frowned.
"You sure this is going to work? I've heard these things can be unreliable." He muttered.
"Don't worry, we ran a GRT. The cells are, for lack of a better word…perfect." Duke said, smiling. Joey glanced at the GRC and sighed.
"Alright, start 'er up. But if this guy gets hostile, I'm turning him into chopped liver." Joey slid his ID into the security system and rested his hand on a control level. One pull of the lever would suck out all oxygen from the GRC, killing anything inside. Duke glared at his hand.
"Let's do it." He muttered, punching up the command. A field of blue energy filled the chamber, the skeletal hand rising into the air. Mechanical arms tipped with syringes came from the ends of the GRC. The syringes pumped out a thick, yellow liquid into the GRC, which floated inside the blue field. The arms worked with precision, shaping the liquid into the rest of the bones in the hand and moving them into place. Then the work hastened, and the arms worked their way up the arm, to the shoulder in a few seconds. Another, larger arms came out and started work on the skull as the first two worked their way down the second arm. The skull done, the rip cage took shape as the smaller arms built the legs. The entire process took barely a minute.
"Skeletal reconstruction complete, processing tissue." Duke said. The arms retracted and a large oval came out, a yellow field on energy along the inside. The oval ran over the skeleton, red tissue and muscles wrapping around it as the energy field crackled. This stage only took 20 seconds. A large steel coat ran over the glass, obscuring the body.
"This is the last phase of the process." Duke whispered to Joey. "The body is bombarded by rays of light of increasing intensity. The body has to react and protect it self, that means growing skin. The more sensitive areas grow hair as well, like the head and pubic areas." Joey nodded and swallowed.
"Sounds lovely." He wheezed. The sliver of light inside the GRC dimmed and vanished. Duke took a breath.
"Reconstruction complete." He said. He looked up at Joey, who nodded, his hand tight on the security level. Duke bit his lip and withdrew the shield. Inside the GRC lay a young man in his early 20's. His chest was tones and muscular, leading down to a toned stomach. His skin was evenly tanned, and his head had a mess of red, blonde and black bangs matted to his skull. Joey and Duke raised an eyebrow. Duke hit a button and a series of black cloth strips came from within the chamber, wrapping around the man and covering him. Joey coughed and glanced at Duke.
"So, this is Mr. Perfect." He muttered. He took his hand off the security lever and called up imaging. "Take a picture, the President will want the archives updated." Joey hit the command, and a flash of light filled the chamber. The man inside gasped and opened his eyes, revealing a brilliant violet. He recoiled suddenly and tried to stand, hitting his head on the chamber roof. He back up into the walls of the chamber and ran hand over them in confusion. He spun around and backed up to the glass. His eyes darted around until he saw Joey and Duke.
"Neemo sea hara dama chu nu sivat!" He called. Joey raised an eyebrow.
"What the hell did he just say?"
"Not sure, I'll call up the translator." Duke muttered.
"Monocheawan flort than ti harl maet!" the man cried. Joey groaned. This was not going well.
"Nothing, it's not any language in our databanks." Duke said. Joey nodded and narrowed his eyes.
"Is, uh…is that glass solid?" he asked.
"Unbreakable. Why?" Duke said.
"No reason." Joey replied, hanging his ID around his neck. He sighed and walked up to the GRC.
"No flor tha…" the man inside murmured. Joey smirked and knocked on the glass.
"Hey in there!" He called. "You wanna get out? We're going to have to work on this language barrier." Joey held up his ID and ran his finger along his name. "This is English, see? Joseph Wheeler, try that." He coaxed. The man glared at Joey before glancing down at Joey's ID. Glancing down further at the control panel outside the glass, a slow smile slid across his face. Joey chuckled nervously. "Uh…why is he smiling like that?" He asked. The man pulled back a fist and punched through the glass, grabbing Joey's ID. He pulled and snapped it off, pulling Joey into the glass. Joey groaned and slumped to the floor.
"Alert, alert, alert, alert." The alarms sounds as the man clumsily swiped Joey's ID through the card reader and rapidly pressed buttons. The glass chamber slid away with a hiss, and the man dropped the ID and slid down behind the GRC. Six armed security guards entered the room behind Duke and took aim at him.
"You're trapped here pal, there's no where to run!" One of them shouted. The man darted his eyes back and forth between them and stood up. He spun around and ran at the wall, jumping and diving through the sheetrock. Duke jumped from behind his control panel and helped Joey to his feet. Joey moaned and gently touched a forming bruise on his forehead.
"How the hell did he know how to use my ID?" He asked.
"I told you, his learning and memory skills."
"Are off the charts, yeah yeah." Joey watched security dash out of the room. "I thought you said that glass was unbreakable."
"It is, or at least it was." Duke muttered. Joey rolled his eyes.
"Perfect."
- - - - - - - - - -
The heating vent slammed open, and the violet-eyed man crawled out into the duct. He quickly crawled down them and headed down a shaft with warm air coming down it. He punched open another vent and continued his escape.
- - - - - - - - - -
"You two, patrol the entrance. You three, keep watch on the docks, he may know how to drive too." Joey ordered security. Then a loud clanging came from above, and Joey craned his head up. "The ducts…he's in the ducts! Someone get up there!"
"Wheeler, phone call for you." Duke said, holding out his phone. Joey growled and snatched it.
"Yeah?" He muttered.
"Is that any way to greet your superior Wheeler?" Kaiba asked dryly.
"Mr. President sir, I didn't know."
"Save it, how is it going down there?" Kaiba snapped. Joey winced.
"Not good. The GR was successful, but he escaped. My men are tracking him now." He assured him.
"Listen Wheeler, you find him and bring him back here now. You have one hour Sergeant." Kaiba growled.
"Sir, it's General."
"Not if you screw this up." Kaiba replied, hanging up. Joey cursed and glared at the ducts.
"One of you, get up there now!"
- - - - - - - - - -
The man pushed open a final duct and crawled out onto the ledge running around the GR plant. He gasped and pinned his back to the building as the 'streets' of Japan loomed before him. He gasped and looked down carefully.
"Attention sir!" He spun around and glared at the security guard who had his head in the vent. "There is no where left to run. Now, crawl back inside the vent, slowly and calmly, and we will take you into custody. Do you understand?" The guard asked. The man growled and stood up, walking along the ledge. The guard groaned. "He doesn't. Call the squad, we need a flyer here."