Earth-717 Special #1: Project Origin
Chapter 4: Dead Echo
"You have one new message."
"Hello? Doctor Green? It's Genevieve. I need to speak to you about something important and it can't afford to wait. I know you said you performed the proper background checks, and I want you to know that I'm not doubting your judgement. I hope you know that. However, I have some concerns about the specialist you brought in last week, Doctor Essex. His references are exemplary and his technical expertise certainly cannot be questioned, but I believe that he may pose a security risk. I've received reports from multiple employees, who shall remain nameless, that he's been spotted in areas he does not have clearance for. Now, I know how much hard work you've put into this project, Doctor. No one else could have done those interviews, and the work that you've done so far has been invaluable to Origin. I shouldn't have to explain how terrible it would be for us to get shut down from above because of some guest with too much curiosity. I'm afraid I'll be taking him off the project, effective immediately. Whether he actually poses a threat or not, I can't leave any loose ends when we're this close to our deadline. I hope you understand. If you have any questions, give me a call back. I'll see you on Monday."
"Ring-a-round the rosie . . . ."
The bleeding man was pacing in a circle, his hands held behind his back.
"A pocket full of posies . . . ."
He stopped pacing, his back facing her.
"Ashes, ashes . . . ."
The bleeding man turned around, with a devious smile.
"We all fall down."
12:12 AM
All Natalia could hear was her own breath being taken away. There she was, staring up into the moonlit sky, her hands outstretched as if reaching for the stars. Her body was being carried by the night wind, completely out of her control. Thousands of miniscule shards of glass danced around her, framing her elegant descent as if it were a beautiful, season-opening performance. She knew not how long it would take for her to meet with the ground, and in truth, it did not matter. This one moment seemed to last for the rest of her life.
The heat from the fire had died down significantly, the last few sputtering embers providing miniscule amounts of light amongst the charred, ashen remains of the woodpile. The fire was no longer required now that Natalia and Alexi were sharing body heat with each other. The entire tent rustled with their movements, as she pinned him to the ground with the movements of her pelvis.
They had a blanket over-top the mattress they were on, but it barely covered their legs, having been almost completely displaced by their sensual intimacy. She was so used to control when it came to her body, with each muscle movement being completely and strategically calculated. But here, the moment was theirs, and theirs alone, and so she, for once, allowed herself to let go.
Gripping his palms with her hands, she forced herself down, putting plenty of pressure on his frame. The rigorous and exhaustive performance that followed even managed to knock over one of the nearby supply crates. Her fingernails gripped themselves into the skin of his hands, and she did not let go until they both finally achieved their release.
The following morning, the two found themselves standing outside the tent, in their pyjamas. His right arm was placed around her shoulders, and she was leaning into him. With his left hand, he held a military issue combat knife, and started carving out part of a nearby tree. She smiled and just let herself feel his warmth as she watched him continue to carve. As he finished and placed the knife back onto his belt, he looked down at her.
"What do you think?"
"I love it."
The moment finally ended.
Instinctively reaching for her belt with her left hand, she arched her neck as far back as she could. She saw a helicopter flying slightly over her, shining its light beam across her gracefully falling form. The helicopter had a yellow ArmaCham Security Force logo emblazoned on the side of it. Gripping and then aiming her grappling hook launcher at the helicopter's landing gear, Natalia closed one eye before squeezing the trigger.
The grapple line burst out from the launcher, propelled forward by the pressure of the trigger. The line latched onto the right piece of landing gear, and the hook swung around a couple of times before locking in. Lurching with the sudden weight, the helicopter quickly righted itself as Natalia swung under it. Grabbing the launcher with both hands, she then braced herself and pulled her legs in as she stared at one of the lower windows.
Swinging forward again, she then kicked her legs out and let go of the grapple launcher at the same time, flying forward like a missile. She crashed through the glass of the lower window and performed a series of forward facing cartwheels until she landed on her feet. The helicopter lowered itself so that she was in plain range of its beam. She took in a heavy breath before turning her head to look at the helicopter.
Then it started firing.
Natalia reacted without even thinking. Before the first bullets from the helicopter's chain gun had even landed, she had already torn into a full on sprint, rushing through the office complex in a direction perpendicular to the way the helicopter was facing. It moved laterally along with her, firing a sea of high velocity rounds that shattered all of the walls and furniture that it touched. Shards of wood, glass, paper, metal and plastic turned into a torrential storm that followed Natalia's flight, nicking at her heels the entire time.
Yelena tapped her ear piece as she ran up a set of stairs, with Kaminsky right behind her.
"Natalia!" she shouted. "What's happening?!"
"No time to talk!" yelled Natalia, with the overwhelming sound of gunfire in the background.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"Running!"
Kaminsky rushed over to the closest window and looked up, seeing the helicopter several floors above, unleashing the full measure of its chain gun. Wielding his sniper rifle with both hands, he assumed a crouching position and took aim. Yelena glared at him.
"Kaminsky! What are you . . . .?"
Not responding to Yelena, Kaminsky zoomed in on the helicopter's tail rotor, and fired a shot at the central bolt. The high-calibre round ripped through both the glass of the window and the steel of the rotor bolt, shredding most of the tail end of the helicopter. Instantly destabilized, the helicopter's aerial integrity faltered as it stopped shooting.
"Kaminsky!" shouted Yelena, approaching him. "What the hell was that?"
Kaminsky scowled at her.
"Saving a teammate."
Yelena and Kaminsky both looked up to see the helicopter spinning, clearly no longer under control of its pilot. Kaminsky then gasped as he watched the helicopter smash into the side of the building, becoming engulfed in an enormous fireball.
"Sample collection complete. Placing in storage for lab analysis."
Jin let go of the button on her personal recorder as she placed her sample vials inside of a containment pack in her forensics kit. Crouching on one knee next to the corpse, she exhaled and shook her head as she looked back and forth along the length of the skeleton.
She pushed and held down the button on her recorder again.
"Can't figure it out," she said. "Nothing about this makes any sense. The bones are seared, almost looks as if they're burned, but other parts of the skeletal frame are completely clean. Bare white. I can't imagine anything natural causing such damage, and even then, zero trace of flesh or clothing fragments? That stuff doesn't just up and disappear."
Jin gulped before continuing. A nervous chill settled in the lower part of her gut.
"Conventional science tells me that this is impossible. Unless it's some prototype chemical weapon, or something, I can't think of anything that could do this to a person. Melts flesh? Superheated blood? Heard about something like that in one of the files on Nazi bio-weapon prototypes, but this is even stranger. There'd be some trace of the stuff, something I could pin point. But now I'm thinking . . . . what if conventional science can't answer this one? Rodney said we're dealing with a complete unknown with this mutant. I mean, a telepath? Shit, I thought that stuff only happened in science-fiction, but . . . . what if that's part of it? What if psychic energy can do this? I mean, this could change everything."
Jin took a moment to close her eyes and wipe her forehead.
"I just wish I had some clue. Something to give me a hypothesis. Something concrete. I just wish I could see something, anything that could tell me what we're dealing with."
As Jin let go of the button on her recorder, two ghostly hands phased through the wooden wall behind her, reaching for her throat.
Vanek led Genevieve into the main laboratory chamber. Several ArmaCham Security Force officers were behind them, their weapons at the ready. Her heels made a soft but distinctive clanking noise each time she took a step on the metal grating on the floor. She kept her eye on the desert eagle magnum in Vanek's holster.
Vanek stopped in front of the central orb. Genevieve turned to look at the massive, blue sphere, which was was mostly full of a gyrating, glowing liquid. Over a dozen metallic tubes were connected to the top of the orb, all funnelling towards the hovering silhouette in the middle of the liquid chamber.
The silhouette was in the shape of a young girl. Genevieve took a step towards the orb.
"Hello again, Alma."
The silhouette did not move or respond in any way, but Genevieve knew she had Alma's attention.
"It's time for you to wake up."
Holding her stomach, Natalia winced as she trudged away from the smouldering wreckage of the helicopter, which had barged through windows on multiple floors. Flames and shards of twisted and fused metal littered the perimeter of the helicopter's remains, with the decapitated corpse of the pilot laying as a motionless guardian at the core of the vehicle.
As she walked further away from the wreck, she could hear multiple voices pouring into her com link.
"Natalia!" yelled Kaminsky. "Natalia!"
"I'm here."
"The fuck just happened?!" asked Rodney.
"Enemy presence confirmed," answered Natalia. "Several teams of commandos, likely mercenary given their garb. Looks like they stole a helicopter too, because it had a logo for ArmaCham Security. The people guarding this place never stood a chance."
"But then where are they?" asked Yelena. "We haven't met anyone else here, not even bodies. Did they hide them? Move them somewhere else? Why would they?"
"One question at a time, Belova," stated Rodney. "Natalia, are you hurt? Sounds like you took a nasty hit."
"I did, but I'm still moving. Don't know how much of the mercenary force was just killed. Given the level of mobilization they had, I suspect there's still more in the building."
"Anybody got any word on the mutant?"
"None so far."
"Shit. Jin? What about you?"
No response was heard.
"Jin?" asked Rodney. "Sun-Kwon! Do you read me?"
No response.
"Where is she?" asked Kaminsky. "We were just with her not too long ago."
"Her life signs are still active but her com link is dead," explained Rodney. "That's weird. Life signs are on but fuzzy. Almost like the system is having trouble reading them."
"Well shit, we gotta go back and find her!"
"We don't have time for that, Kaminsky," said Yelena. "We still haven't covered much of the building."
"Screw the building, Jin might be in trouble!"
"Belova's right, Kaminsky," said Rodney. "Jin can handle herself. I'm not having you two waste time going back for her just to find out she has a bit of wonky equipment. We gotta stay focused. We still have no location or identity on the mutant, and much of the building is unaccounted for. Your orders are to resume securing the site, is that clear?"
Kaminsky didn't respond.
"Is that clear?"
"Yeah, Big Five. We're clear."
"Good."
"Keep moving, Natalia," ordered Yelena. "We'll meet up with you soon."
"Understood."
Natalia heard her com link finally turn off, and she took a few moments to walk over to an open doorway that led out to a hall. Placing her back against the wall, she slid herself down until she was sitting on the floor, her knees bent out in front of her. She knew that she needed to continue moving, but the storms of pain tearing their way through all of her muscles kept her still.
She then heard her com link turn back on.
"Hey!"
"Marshall?" asked Natalia.
"Yeah, hey, hi, it's me. Yeah. You okay out there? Heard a lot of noise, but uh, well, didn't wanna interrupt when you were talkin' to your people."
"Yes, I'm fine. I encountered those commandos you were speaking of."
"Yeah, gunfire, explosions, heard all of that. Hoped you'd make it out, because I've got something juicy for you."
"You found something in Genevieve's files?"
"Told ya I would. Was a bit of a trek to get one of the computers on. I mean, what's the use of a an auxiliary generator if the damn thing can't power the elevators, electronics or even most of the damn lights when it needs to? Anyway, I poked through her data logs. Would've done it earlier but I was afraid for my job, but, you know, times have changed, right?"
"What did you find?"
"Turns out this whole damn building is just a front for something larger. I knew the data we were workin' on was for something else, but I never believed it was this big. It's called Project Origin. Okay, listen to this part: apparently it's an off-shoot of some weapons program from the sixties. Real hush, right? They were trying to use the DNA of a mutant to engineer bio-organic weapons. Something about using psychic energy in a weaponized form. Sounds like some rough shit."
"The mutant . . . . who is it?"
"That's the worst fuckin' part. It's just a damn kid. Seven year old girl, name's Alma. But Genevieve here says they had no choice. Says she's the only telepath to ever be born, so it had to be her. Took her away as a damn baby soon as they knew what she could do. Holy hell, right?"
Images started to flash in Natalia's mind.
A screaming baby being held by a doctor.
"No! No, don't do it again. Please!"
A man smacking his head against a metal wall until it exploded.
"Stay away from her!"
A woman in a black uniform picking a scalpel off a medical table.
"What's the first thing you remember?"
All of the glass windows of an empty interview room simultaneously shattering.
"STAY AWAY FROM HER!"
Three identical music boxes sitting on a shelf.
"I didn't have a choice . . . ."
A bloodied hand reaching forward from the darkness until it covered her face.
"We all tried to forget . . . ."
". . . . you there? Natalia? Hey! You here me? Oh come on, will you please say something to lemme know you're alive?"
"I . . . . I'm here," said Natalia. "I'm here."
"Good," replied Marshall. "Thought I lost ya there. Anyway, figured you'd wanna know that. I'm sure whoever sent these guys wants something to do with the kid. I'll keep looking."
"Okay. Thanks."
"No problem. Talk to ya soon."
The com link turned off again, and Natalia focused on her breathing as she cycled through the facts in her mind. She couldn't shake off the feeling that something was not quite adding up.
"Over here . . . ."
Natalia jerked her head to the left upon hearing the whisper. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the form of an adult female walking down the hall. Natalia jumped up to her feet and looked down the hall, but no one was there.
"I never wanted this . . . ."
Furrowing her brow, Natalia marched forward, no longer fazed by the thoughts in her mind that were not her own. Somehow, hearing the information from Marshall had given her new resolve. Turning the corner, her eyes then widened to see a ghostly apparition of Jin standing in front of the elevators, staring at Natalia with gouged eyes.
"I just wanted to help . . . ."
Jin's ghost exploded into dust, just like the man from the hallway with the double doors. Natalia frowned upon seeing the flecks of dust settle on the floor. The elevator she was in front of then opened, the inside being lit. There were four other elevators in the row, but none of them were powered. Taking in another deep breath, Natalia moved forward, walking into the elevator.
Standing inside and turning around to face the doors, Natalia noticed that there were buttons for each floor, but one in particular stood out.
Floor –1.
A circle was drawn around the button in blood. Natalia reached forward and pushed it, and the elevator doors closed.
The bleeding man just stood there, staring at her. The cuts on his forehead continued to leak red fluid, dripping down his face and onto his clothes.