Ch. 19 Part 3: Scarlet

A.N.:

Happy Holidays everyone! I have relatives visiting in a few hours so I wanted to finish this before they got here. Rest assured, I plan to have another chapter posted soon. I hope my story is worth the wait. Thank you for taking the time to read it, I really do appreciate it.

Review if you want. I appreciate the ones I have gotten.

Please forgive the mistakes. I read it and corrected the ones I saw but I have not gone through it thoroughly. As soon as my relatives leave later today, I will go through it and update a corrected version. I just want to make as much progress as possible over the break.

Upcoming chapter will have the "birth" of the third child so stay tuned.

Alpha 1 replied, "Got your back sir."

Holiday questioned, "Uh…so the thing that just tried to hit you with a light fixture after threatening you…that is what we are going after?"

I looked at him and answered, "Yes…there a problem?"

Holiday and Passalaqua looked at each other briefly before Holiday said, "I don't think that is the best course of action. Look, we finished our recon. Vector was wiped out by whatever that thing was. Let's retreat before we join them."

My anger rising, I replied, "I am going after her."

Holiday said, "Get your own self killed. I am waiting outside." He turned to leave but the wall around the doors collapsed and effectively sealed us inside.

We all heard a little girl giggle mischievously and then the black phone on the welcome desk, which was not even connected to a phone line, started ringing. After seeing that no one else was going to answer it, I walked over to the desk and picked up the phone with my left hand. Holding the device against the left side of my head, I spoke into it, "Uh…hello?"

The girl's voice said, "Tag, you're it. Bet you can't find me."

I replied, "You look exactly like my daughter. Who are you?"

The girl answered with a singsong voice, "Scarlet."

I said, "That's a pretty name. Scarlet, I am looking for some of my friends. They told me to meet them here. Have you seen them?"

Holiday barked, "She's the one that fucking killed them!" I waved for him to be quiet, which he responded to by walking away into a corner while uttering curse words.

Scarlet informed me, "The funny men…I made them go poof." She laughed in a chilling manner before she said, "Your turn…I want to play with you now."

Trying to keep her on the line, I said, "Scarl…" I stopped when the line went dead. Under my breath, I said, "Damn it." I placed the phone back onto the base and looked at the men around me. I informed them, "I am going after her. Either follow me or stay here…alone."

Alpha 1 and Foxtrot 813 immediately indicated that they had my back. Point Man and Passalaqua nodded at me to indicate that they would follow my lead. Not wanting to be the odd man out, Holiday finally gave in and indicated that he would follow me. Moving as one unit, we proceeded up the polished granite staircase.

I would be lying if I said that at the time I had any idea about the kind of Hell I was about to go through. We reached the spot that the girl had been looking back at me and scanned the area for any clues about where she had gone. Alma commented with a worried tone, "Not a complete teleport, I can still sense her presence lingering here. That is not good."

I asked, "Why?"

She explained, "You know how it feels to teleport Michael and that is when the person doing it has enough experience to do it right. She is hurting herself…badly…every time she teleports and uses her psionic abilities. At the rate she is going, she will destroy herself unless we can get to her first."

I asked, "What is she exactly?"

Alma thought for a moment as if she was trying to think through her response. Finally, she answered, "She is not an apparition if that is what you are asking. What we are seeing is not her body but rather a psychic projection of what she thinks her body looks like."

I said, "Oh, so like you."

My goddess shook her head before she replied, "No…well, not anymore. Thanks to the U.S. Military, I no longer have a true physical body. So, this is all that is left of me. I don't know what caused this poor girl to come into existence but I can sense a physical presence somewhere in this general area. Her body is around here somewhere. We must get to her body before she uses up her life force by using her psychic abilities. If we don't, she will die."

After thinking for a moment, I said, "Knowing Armacham, they left paperwork and shit. Let's have a look around and see if we can find any information, but stay together. I cannot emphasize that enough." Everyone nodded and we proceeded into the unfinished offices on the second floor. A cold, almost paralyzing sensation crept into my mind and body. It took me a minute to realize that I was afraid.

The dark foreboding long hallways lit only by our narrow beams of light only added to the fear burdening my nerves as I forced myself forward. Quick flashes of memories from months prior sporadically overwhelmed my mind as I realized that I was reliving the same nightmare that I was in during my mission in Fairport.

Once again, I was facing an enemy that I could not fight. It was not because of moral or personal reasons but because I literally could not fight my assailant. Nothing in my arsenal could damage the homicidal child. However, I was, and still am, a firm believer that normal or paranormal, everything can be defeated somehow.

We moved past empty rooms and construction equipment for a while before I noticed a light coming from one of the unfurnished office rooms. When we entered the small space, the bloody scene that awaited us rivaled even some the things that I had seen in Fairport. The whole room was covered with the blood and pieces of one of the members of Vector team.

It looked as though the clone soldier had blown apart from the inside. The light was from the abandoned assault rifle that laid on its side with its barrel-mounted flashlight illuminating its former master's left arm. I noticed a piece of intel firmly grasped in the limb's hand. Sensing that something was off, I cautiously approached the item. Alpha 1 warned me, "Careful sir." I bent down and wrenched the intel from the death grip of the severed limb.

However, as soon as I managed to get the intel, a severe headache assaulted my senses and I was forced to see one of the girl's memories. I could not see anything but I heard two men arguing. One of them was saying, "This can't go on. We must destroy the specimen. She is simply too powerful to contain. The statistical probability that we will even need her is too slim for the project to continue."

The other one retorted, "What if we do end up needing her Andre? If the Origin subject and the Paragon subject meet again, it would be a disaster for us. The last time they met, they nearly revealed Paragon to the public. That was when the Paragon subject was only a child. If it happens again, we are talking about a highly trained Special Forces Operative that has a tendency of doing whatever she tells him to do."

The other man, who I had to assume was Andre, countered, "The Paragon subject left Fairport. The Origin subject has been contained and the facility has been sealed. What danger is there? Even on the remote chance that the Paragon subject and the Origin subject meet again, it is more than likely that they will fight each other rather than help each other."

The other countered, "They are both too unstable for an accurate prediction of their behavior. Just to be safe, we must keep her alive to counter them if they decide to work together again. She is the strongest we have ever seen and could defeat both subjects in a battle of wills if we can find a way to control her in time."

Andre started to argue some more but then a third man's voice said, "Shit, we just received word from the division in Fairport. The Origin Facility has been destroyed and Alma has been released."

Both men replied, "What?!" For a moment, all three men were quiet.

Andre was the first to speak again when he asked, "And the Paragon subject?"

The third man informed him, "He was in the city during the incident. Apparently, he was on a mission to retrieve Aristide and instead was converted into a Harbinger specimen under Aristides's orders…something about using him as bait for Alma."

Andre said with disbelief in his voice, "My God…what was she thinking? That stupid bitch probably just killed us all. The specimen is not ready and we cannot control her. We are fucked!"

The memory ended and I vomited onto the floor. After reorienting myself, I looked around. Shock hit me when I saw that my surroundings had changed. I was no longer in the blood soaked office room. In fact, I was not even in the office building for that matter. I was sitting in the waiting room of some kind of nightmarish hospital. The walls were dirty and the yellowed egg white paint was peeling off. The overhead florescent lights were flickering sporadically. Around me, I saw three empty rows of seats with small tables at the end of each row that had dust covered magazines on top of them. The air was humid, stale and filled with dust.

My HUD flashed and the readouts were distorted for a moment before it cleared up. Immediately afterward, I felt a pressure around my forehead. I raised my left hand up to grasp at the offending area. When my hand reached the spot, a loud female bloodcurdling scream startled me and caused me to straighten up in my seat.

With my ears still ringing, I stood as I reached for my assault rifle. It took me a second to realize that my rifle was missing. I muttered, "Oh fuck me." However, I was relieved to see that I still had my stainless steel .44-magnum revolver in my holster. Leaving my sidearm in its holster for the time being, I spoke into my com link, "Anyone read me? Does anyone copy?"

All I got was static and I realized that I was alone. I was alone in whatever world I was in without a primary weapon or clue about how to escape. I quietly berated myself, "Nice job dumbass. You just had to fucking chase after her." There was no point in wasting time by blaming myself so I put it at the back of my mind in order to focus on the task at hand.

I walked over to the reception desk. After poking around the files and other assorted useless items, I noticed a locked drawer that had a faded label that read, "Supplies". Using my utility knife, I hollowed out the area around the lock. It was easy because the wood was low quality and riddled with rot. With the drawer's defense defeated, I opened the drawer.

Inside, I found a set of rusted keys on a key ring. I guessed that I would need them because it was a created world. After placing the keys in one of my vest's pockets, I turned and exited the room through the door used to admit patients into the interior of the hospital.

I found a similarly decayed and musty hallway waiting for me on the other side of the door. The hallway was lit by humming florescent lights that flickered constantly as if they were about to give out any second. About halfway down the corridor, I saw a gurney with a black body bag that had the shape of a human body inside of it.

Against my better judgment, I approached the gurney with my revolver at the ready. Upon reaching it, the overhead lights went out and I was left in complete darkness. I tried to activate the flashlight on my HUD glasses but it failed to power on and my HUD readout flickered as if I was in the presence of a powerful psychic entity. My rapid heartbeat pounded in my ears as I held my revolver dead steady and my trigger finger ready to react at a second's notice and to the slightest noise. The lights came back on and I let out a sigh of relief when I saw nothing other than the same dreary hallway and gurney before me.

I started laughing at my own nervousness but then I heard the girl's voice whisper in my ears, "Behind you." Wheeling around with my sidearm ready, I was unnerved when I saw that nothing was there. Annoyed, I turned back to face the gurney. When I turned around, I came face to face with a deformed humanoid clad in bloody doctor's scrubs.

It gave off a deafening screech before it threw its entire body against me. I was slammed hard onto the filthy tiled floor and my screaming, slobbering assailant pinned me down underneath it. Its open disgusting mouth lowered as if it was about to eat me. Using my brute strength, I managed to get my right boot underneath the creature. Using all the power I had in my right leg, I forced the cannibal off me as I yelled, "Get the fuck off me!"

It staggered as my counter forced it back a few feet. Before I could get to my feet, it recovered and attempted to finish me off. However, this time, as it lowered down onto me, I forced the barrel of my revolver into its mouth and down its throat. I discharged a round and the creature howled as the back of its neck exploded. Retrieving my weapon, I scrambled to my feet.

Due to my proximity to the powerful magnum when I fired it, my ears were ringing painfully briefly but then it subsided almost as quickly as it had overwhelmed my sense of hearing. As the humanoid flailed about on ground, I stomped down onto what remained of its neck with my right boot. Aiming my revolver, I executed the creature with a pointblank shot to the head.

As I stood there shaking while I tried to calm myself, I heard the girl giggle in amusement as if she had just played a prank on me. My fear disappeared as the black mass of negative energy surged in my mind.

I yelled out, "It takes more than that to kill me little girl."

I heard her whisper into my mind in response, "You are a great plaything. I get to come up with a creative way to kill you."

I smirked before I replied with a low gruff voice, "I'm Mr. Death sweetie. I can't die." Looking down at the dead creature, I spit on the carcass before stepping over it and continuing down the hallway.

I passed empty rooms and abandoned carts in my exploration of the strange world. Almost every other door I tried to open was locked and none of the keys I had would fit them. Other doors had broken locks or were barricaded on the other side. Eventually, I came upon a set of double doors that had a bloody "X" on them as if someone had done it as a warning about what was on the other side. At first, I decided to take heed of the warning and continued past them. However, after a brief exploration, I realized that I had finished my sweep of the floor and the only way out was the double doors with the bloody "X" on them.

As I approached the doors, I heard different sets of stumbling footsteps on the other side. Sighing, I steeled myself for the fight. Activating my reflexes, I kicked in the doors. It was a dimly lit surgery room. The operating table at the center of the room had a hacked up body of an undistinguishable man in soldier attire on top of it.

I saw two female humanoids with faces covered by the identifiable cloth mask used by medical professionals and clothed in fouled and bloody nurse scrubs on either side of the operating table. In their right hand, both had some form of sharp object. With the world moving in slow motion, I aimed my revolver at the pair and fired a round into the first one's head. As that nurse slumped to the ground, I snapped to the other one and fired another round. As they both slumped to the ground, I deactivated my reflexes.

Alarm bells went off in my mind and I just barely managed to twist around to dodge a scalpel thrust by a third nurse that had been hiding behind the doors. However, I was unable to stop myself from crashing into a cart with operating tools and tray on top of it. My momentum caused me to fall over the top of the cart. As I did so, the cart came with me and I nearly had a second scalpel fall blade first into my face. From my position of being pinned underneath the operating cart, I looked up at the nurse as it moved to finish me off. However, as it raised its right arm above its head, two gloved hands suddenly appeared behind the nurse. They grasped the humanoid's head and snapped its neck.

The creature slumped to the ground and I discovered the identity of my protector. I smiled brightly before I addressed the armored guardian, "Alpha 1! Damn am I glad to see you."

My best friend nodded before he commented, "Likewise sir." He rushed over to me. After moving the cart off me, he bent down and helped me to my feet. I said, "Thanks for saving my ass…again."

He shrugged before he replied, "It's like you said sir: the team has got your back."

I observed his person before I asked, "Don't suppose you have a weapon do you?"

He shook his head before he said, "Negative sir. Don't worry, I am just as proficient with my hand-to-hand techniques as I am with firearms. However, I did find this…" He displayed a simple grey lockbox that had the handwritten message of "The key" written on top of it with what looked like a black marker.

After holstering my revolver, I retrieved the key ring from my vest pocket. I tried several different keys before one finally fit the lock. I turned the key and unlocked the box. Inside, I found a single key that had a tag attached to it by a string. The tag had the label, "Dare you to come find me." After an examination of the key, I discerned that it was an elevator key.

Remembering that I had seen an elevator in my exploration of the floor, I remarked, "There is an elevator just down the hallway. This key must go to it." He nodded as he tossed the lockbox aside. I pocketed the elevator key. As we exited the room, I questioned him, "By the way, what are you doing here?"

He answered, "Miss Wade brought me along. Everyone else is still in the office building. You disappeared when you touched the piece of intel. So, Miss Wade and I have been looking for you."

Looking around, I called out, "Alma?" A small mass suddenly impacted my body and hugged me tightly around me waist.

I smiled at first when I looked at her but then worried when I saw her panicked expression. Concerned, I asked her, "What? What's wrong?"

She was on the verge of crying when she explained, "Michael, I can-can't…I can't…" She started sobbing and I bent down. I hugged her close and rocked her in my arms for a moment until she calmed down enough to finish. Still in my arms, she continued, "I can't find her. She isn't in the world I created for her and I can't communicate with her with my mind."

Scared, I replied, "What?!" Alma looked up into my eyes as she continued to tremble. With faked calmness, I assured my companion, "We will find her." I communicated with my daughter, "Sweetie, where are you? You have upset your mother. You can't just run off like that."

She replied, "I'm sorry Daddy. I am playing with my sister. I didn't mean to upset Mommy. We were having so much fun that I forgot to tell her where I was going."

I asked, "You are with your sister? Right now?"

She giggled quickly before she answered, "Of course silly. How else could we be playing?"

Not wanting to alarm her, I told her, "I hope you two have fun. Play nice. Daddy will be there soon to pick you both up okay?"

She replied happily, "We will. Okay Daddy, I love you."

I said, "I love you too." Looking at Alma, I informed her, "She is with Scarlet."

Alma's eyes widened in concern briefly before she said, "Scarlet…seems to genuinely care about our daughter. I don't think she is in danger but we need to find them both soon."

I nodded and presented the key to her as I said, "I think I know where they are." With time being of the essence, the three of us rushed towards the elevator.