Sorry for the wait, I've been a bit busy lately... and a little reluctant to use Word. Well, I cant say this one is my best, but I manage.

This one goes out for all the hits this thing has gotten.


June 21st, 2006

Yuma, Arizona

With two freshly made breakfast sandwiches in hand, I made my way back to our room. I made the quick trek upstairs to the second floor of the motel, then pulled the key out of my pants and opened the door to our room.

"Get out!" yelled Aya.

"Good morning," I said, shutting the door behind me. I then turned around and faced the door, so that Aya wouldn't be too angry with me.

I knew why she told me to get out, rather then a hearty good morning. She was practically naked, well from the waist up anyway. I didn't really get a good view of the goodies, because she turned around and squatted to the ground, hiding the jublies. She probably noticed me jiggling the handle to the door when she was about to put her bra on.

"Damn it John, don't you know how to knock!"

"I thought you were still asleep."

The rustling of clothing came from behind me, though I chose to look forward. The sounds past, yet I wasn't too sure if she had finished changing or not, so I just continued to stare at the steel door.

"You done changing?" I asked. Aya didn't respond, but I could hear her quiet footsteps trailing into the bathroom. "I brought breakfast."

Aya was silent, and I was fairly certain she was angry with me. Her anger would probably pass, but if it didn't, it would certainly make things hard later. Turning around, Aya was no where in sight, so I sat down onto the bed and placed the sandwiches down. It was a good thing the sandwiches were wrapped in tin foil, or I might have left some crumbs everywhere.

Aya stepped back into the room, anger in her eyes. We only made eye contact for a moment, but she soon tended to her feet, as she was still barefoot. Perhaps I should have apologized, but I chose to take the hard headed attempt at cooling her spirit.

"You want you sandwich, or can I eat it?"

While I said this, I grabbed the sandwich on top and held it out to her. I knew this sandwich was hers, seeing as it was the light of the two. I remembered fondly how she ate less then I did back when I was cooking, so I was positive this one was hers.

Aya quickly snatched the sandwich out of my hand, and then went to work un-wrapping the sandwich. The adrenaline must have been pumpin', as she took a big bite out of the sandwich one it was visible. Her chewing was fueled by her fury, though the size of her bite was fairly large.

"So, do you like that sandwich?" I said, all while un-wrapping my sandwich and quickly taking a bite out of it.

"I'm not answering you," Aya responded, once she finished her giant chunk.

"You like it, don't you."

Aya was on the side of the bed, apparently as far away as the bed could make possible. Her back was towards me, yet I had a certain gut feeling that she was getting over the anger.

"How did you know I liked it with turkey?"

"How long did we work together Aya?"

"Oh, right…"

Making use of the silence that followed the sentence, I took another fairly large bite out of my sandwich. With the flavors floating around in my mouth, I decided to take a glance over at Aya again. She was sporting a black shirt today, and a different pair of jeans, yet the jacket was the same one from yesterday. She had already put on her black boots on, and her cumulative look reminded me of a photo of her younger days, back when she was still working in the NYPD.

We finished our sandwiches in silence, Aya throwing away her tin foil first, and then heading into the bathroom to brush her teeth. I threw my foil ball into the small garbage bin by her night stand as Aya had done, then headed over to the chair by the desk and took the jacket off and put it on over my black shirt.

"I'll be in the car," I said. Afterwards, I opened the door again, and then made my way outside. I shut the door behind me, then went to the rail and hopped over it. I landed on ground floor, then walked over to my car and unlocked it. I stepped carefully into the driver seat, and then waited for Aya to come out.

I turned the Suburban on, then after setting the music to a light rock tune, I began to check myself for the essentials.

'Let's see, badge… check. Holster, check. Pistol belt, check. Wallet… check… Awesome tactical pants, ultra check.'

Just after the smart mental comment, I noticed Aya stepping out of the motel room. She soon made her way downstairs, then got into the car.

"All set?" I asked.

"Yep," she replied.

"Good. I already talked to Ms. Venuto, so we don't need to worry about the room."

"Then all we need to do is check the research site."

"Which is where we're heading."

I pulled out of the parking lot, and then followed the road southward. Recalling the map that Jen had given me before I left, I simply had to follow a particular road until I could see the site first hand. The road, interestingly enough, was called "Camino Del Diablo," or road of the devil I think.

Aya seemed very intent on studying the side of the nearby mountains, which kept her silent for most of the ride. However, we soon came to the site, which was dug into the side of a mountain that jutted out more then its brethren rock heaps.

"John, look," Aya said, just as it came into the eyesight.

"I see it," I said, turning carefully onto the dirt. Once completely off-road, I pressed the accelerator carefully, easing the Suburban to the site.

We came to a large parking lot, clearly meant for large truck to bring supplies for the site. The lot was large enough to house several helicopters, yet the only thing that I could see was a single fuel tank, large enough to supply several Mac trucks.

"Wonder how we're getting in?" said Aya.

I looked toward the main portion of the site, and found what looked to be a giant garage door. My brain though for a moment, then came up with a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

"Aya, you drive. I'll go get the door open."

Ignoring any plea from Aya, I stepped out of the suburban, then made my way the garage door. I found a person sized entry door, and with little effort, blasted it down with my right leg. With the door bent practically in half, I carefully stepped over the remains of the door, and then went inside.

'Hmm… how do I open the big door/" I thought to myself.

The internals of the large research site was dark, so I began to look for a light switch, as if I were in someone's room. Amazingly, I flicked a switch on the nearby wall, turning on a single light on the ceiling, which illuminated several cabinets, a desk, and an old computer from the later nineties.

"Wow, that thing's old."

Sitting in a steel chair just before the desk, I turned on the old computer, and the quiet buzz of electronics came to my ear, along with the old ticking of the internal motherboard. I pressed the on button for the monitor, then went to work dusting the old keyboard and mouse.

"Strange," I said, noticing the lack of dust on the two items. "Someone must have used this recently."

Windows 95 came onto the screen, and the ancient textures of the computer brought back fond memories of a young child messing with the solitaire game. After a few fond moments, I began to look around the desktop for anything that might help me. All that seemed to be here was junk, which thoroughly annoyed, me, and forced me to take a deeper look into the hard drive.

I double-clicked the "My Computer" icon, and then looked into the programs folder. There were a lot of folders, several of which had names I hadn't even heard of. One name, Doom, did catch my eye, bring several joyful moments of fragging zombies to mind. Shaking the desire to play the game again, I backed out of the programs folder, and then looked into the "My Documents" folder.

A quick scan of the hundreds of files got me lost, so I decided to look into the first folder I could find. It took a moment to find the folder, but when I found it, I knew someone had left it for me. The folder was labeled "JohnB."

I opened the folder, and found a single file, yet again labeled "JohnB." Double clicking the file opened up the program called notepad, and several words gave me and answer to what I was looking for. I read


John, Aya, I'm sure you two are reading this right now. If you plan on opening the vehicle gate, there's a program on the desktop call OD that'll help you. It's a very simple program, and I'm sure you can figure it out.

Don't be surprised if you find anyone who's expecting you. Be careful, there are a lot of civilians in here, as well as some security guards who are armed with tranq darts. Dr. Pereira said he was expecting you, which is because he knows your working with the FBI out here. He's also been preparing a number of NMC's much larger then the one you had to bull fight yesterday.

If you need weapons, there's an armory on the second floor, stocked the body armor and plenty of guns. Also, there is a medical station on the second floor as well, but all of the experiments run on the third and fourth floor.

One last thing, Dr. Pereira had been working on something in secret. HE keeps heading to the fifth floor of the site, but there aren't any documents o the place. It's probably why there is a retinal scanner in the elevator.

You two better be careful, or Dr. Pereira might try to make experiments out of you guys.

Sam F.


'Great… he's expecting me.'

After a quick thought, I closed the document, and began to look for this OD program on the desktop. I found it pretty quickly, and after double clicking it, the computer began to roar heavily. This program must use a lot of processing power, as most PC's only sound like that if they're doing something big, like running the latest video game or something.

A small window popped up onto the desktop, showing a wooden door, and two light. These make believe lights were position at the top and bottom of the door, and the light at the bottom shown a bright green. A nearby button read the word "open?" I clicked, and sure enough, the door began to open lighting up the garage and a road that dug its way into the mountain.

With the door climbing upwards, Aya pulled inside, looking for me. I stepped out of the small office, and then jogged lightly to the Suburban. I opened the passenger side door, and then spoke to Aya.

"Ok, we're good. Just wait here a second while I open the trunk."

"Alright."

I closed the door, and then went to the rear of the Suburban, where I lifted the trunk door and looked for some weapons. I armed myself with the G36E, placing the strap around my body in case I had to drop it. I then stuffed a few magazines into the pouches on my pistol belt, then shut the trunk and made my way to the passenger seat.

"Ok Aya, drive ahead."

"You went in the back just to get a rifle?"

"Yep."

Aya sighed, disappointed by my stall. She drove, and I kept my eyes open, searching the wall for any signs of life. The drive was quiet, with the only sound or movement coming from the car.

"End of the line," Aya said, coming to a large wall with a circular indentation.

"Just turn the car off," I said calmly, still looking around. I could see a walkway farther down the wall, which led to a single steel door.

Aya put the car in park, and then shut turned the engine off. We both stepped out of the Suburban, and then went to the trunk again. After lifting the door, I double checked my pouches, making sure I had the right ammo with me. Afterwards, I looked for Aya, who was still by the driver side door, apparently looking at the wall.

"Aya?"

"Y-yes?" said Aya, startled by her name.

"You want something from here?"

Aya was unsure of the choices and came to the rear. She looked inside and began to inspect the weapons I had. After about thirty seconds, she picked up one of my shotguns and placed it gently against the Suburban.

"You still have ammo in here, right?"

"Plenty," I said, pulling out the last case of shotgun shells from the pile. I opened the lid, and soon Aya was stuffing the ammo into her jacket pockets.

Just then, the door down the hall slammed open, and a person came out, running. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, and he had his pistol in hand. I drew my came quickly and aimed in his direction, though not at him. I saw a glimpse of something, like a four legged beast. I was sure it was an NMC.

The man drew closer, and with a clear shot I shot at the NMC, or at least its shadow. There was a thud, and the man continued to run.

"FREEZE, FBI!" I said.

The man continued to run, even though the NMC chasing him was already dead. He was making his was down the long road that led outside, so I gave chase. It was pretty easy to catch up to him, seeing as he was getting tired already.

"Hold up!" I said, once I was close enough to grab his arm.

"Let go of me! There's more of them inside!"

"Chill out!"

Yet the man continued to struggle, too terrified to calm down. Feeling to need to keep him here, I let him go, letting him run farther down the road. I jogged back to Aya, who waited for me with the shotgun in her right hand.

"What's up with him?" she asked.

"Sounds like there are some NMC's loose inside."

"Really?"

"From what I could tell. The guy was too spooked to really tell me anything."

With the trunk closed, I pulled my keys out and locked the Suburban. Afterwards, raised the 636E to chest height and walked to the door the man had come out of. Aya followed closed by, keeping the rear in check.

As we came up to the door, I noticed that it was still open. One of the hinges had broken, and I could only imagine that the NMC, which had dissolved nearby, had done the damage.

"Christ, it went into the garage," said a nearby voice.

I froze where I was, and then raised the rifle to my shoulder, aiming through the sights. Aya caught on and readied her shotgun, waiting for whoever it was to step out. And Sure enough they did. A man in body armor came out, wielding a tranquilizer pistol.

"FB-Ah!"

When the man noticed me with the rifle, his fighting instinct told him to fire. My warning was cut short, and a tranq dart went right into my right thigh. I lost a little balance due to the pain, yet I managed to stay on my feet.

"Oh my god!"

"Hold you fire!" said Aya, trying to take control of the situation.

"Shit, FBI! I'm so sorry!" said the main.

Another guard came out of from the door. Of a far darker complexion then him friend, there was no mistaken that he was black.

"What the hell?" said the second guard.

"We're FBI," said Aya, lowering her shotgun. I lowered my rifle as well, and started to feel a little dizzy. Choosing not to fall, I leaned against the wall and sat down.

"Whoa, you alright?" said the first guard, immediately rushing to help me down.

"That's a strong tranq dart." I managed to say. I couldn't say much else, seeing how fast the tranquilizer was working. Darkness soon came to me, but there was one last thing that caught my ear.

"John, you're going to be okay."