F.E.A.R: Origins
By Genoscythe
Chapter 7: Back to the Origin
"Well, that was…better," the F.E.A.R. commissioner's son conceded. "I'm still having trouble believing any of this – "
"Don't worry, I've got records up the ass to back all this up," Betters reassured him.
"Switching to audio," the cameraman droned, but he was thoroughly ignored.
"Are we done yet?" The team coordinator sighed. "I thought I just heard someone flatline." He pushed off from his desk, gliding on the wheeled chair toward a computer console in the back corner of the office.
"Wait!" The reporter beckoned, leaning over Betters's desk. "I still have questions about your new point man."
"Like what?" Betters kicked off the wall and returned to his previous position.
"Like what makes him so special. Like how he's apparently the sole reason Paxton Fettel was eliminated at all – nevermind the damage he still managed to cause."
"Alright, fine," Betters conceded. "But this is the last one."
Two-thirds of F.E.A.R.'s current staff occupied the briefing room, sipping mugs of delicious coffee and commenting on how terrible the coffee was.
"So…does this thing get channels?" Jankowski asked Jin, pointing his mug at the huge briefing room monitor.
"I never tried it," she replied. Less than two days after the events in Oregon, Betters had hired a psychologist to come and analyze his unexplainable hatred for earwax. Instead of finding a cure for Betters, the doctor wound up prescribing Jin some medication at Jankowski's behest. Ever since she had begun taking the pills, she had been able to talk in the first person. It hardly took her any time at all to make decisions regarding what color to wear (since there was only one) and she no longer screamed when she saw someone wielding a pair of scissors.
"Those meds are really keeping the other Jins under control," Jankowski remarked, trudging across the room toward the monitor.
"What are you talking about?" Jin asked earnestly, glaring at him. "There's only Jin 1."
Jankowski halted and looked behind his shoulder. "Huh?"
"I mean…there's only one Jin," she corrected herself. Jankowski shrugged and began turning a dial. Nothing happened until, seemingly at random, an air horn honked loudly and the sprinkler system gushed torrents of water on them. Jankowski turned the dial again and it abruptly halted.
"Fucking hi-tech bullshit…" he mumbled, looking for something else to fiddle with.
"I heard Shogo retired the Highlander," Jin chose to pursue casual conversation, wringing out her ponytail in the process. "Nobody bought one."
"What, not even Scotland?"
"Especially not Scotland."
"Well, did anybody finish those other prototypes lying around?"
"The Turbo Lover still has a lot of bugs, and the Angry Kitty MK-IV shorts out every time it tries to lick itself. On the bright side, Armacham's on their final revision of the Type-7."
"Great, the boring one…" Jankowski continued to mumble, flipping a switch and hearing the distant sound of toast popping out of a toaster. "What happened to that really cool thing, the one with all the spinning blades? I think you called it the Painkiller."
"You know, I'm actually not sure who gave it to us," Jin responded, and reflected on the question over a sip of coffee.
"Good news, everyone!" Betters exclaimed, marching into the briefing room with a handful of folders.
"No, it's not," Jankowski immediately shot back. "I swear, it fucking won't be."
"Well, maybe not," Betters gave in. "But it's good for me. We just got us a new point man."
"Are you kidding?"
"I don't kid."
"We don't need another point man! I'm the fucking point man!" Jankowski stopped messing with the screen and stormed over to the Commissioner. "I thought we were replacing the damn pilot."
"It's a long story. I was gonna get a new pilot, but there was this guy in Delta who showed some promise. A demolitions expert. I thought 'hey, shit, we don't have one of those yet, do we?' so I tried to hire him. Paperwork was almost finished when we got our funding cut for new recruits."
"That's…strange," Jin remarked, sharing a look with Jankowski. They had just witnessed the most excessive waste of funding in history, in the form of a dial that popped all toasters in a two-mile radius.
"So instead I got this new guy. He came right out of training, with results like you wouldn't believe –"
"Whoah. You said They cut the funding," Jankowski interrupted, 'They' being the single or multiple government officials responsible for F.E.A.R.'s existence and upkeep.
"Yeah, that's right. But, see, They gave him to me for free." Even as Betters said this, he seemed to be thinking it over in his mind. "You're right, that sounds wrong. They specifically gave me this guy. I mean, his reflexes are off the fucking charts, but…They gotta know by now that this is all a joke, don't They? Giving him to us is like giving a Ferrari to a retarded baby – no offense, guys."
"None taken," Jin responded dutifully.
"Fuck you," Jankowski answered, but Jin anticipated this and spoke loudly to drown him out.
"So…any ideas?" Betters asked them.
"On why this incredible new recruit is being sent to where he's needed least? No. On why we're getting him for free or why They wouldn't let us have the demolitions expert? No. They've never exactly kept us in the loop, have They?" she put in.
"No, but I'm thinkin' They should start."
"When does he arrive?"
"Any minute now, but he's not much of a talker. I doubt he'll give us a good reason."
"Why don't you just call Them up?" Jankowski interjected thoughtlessly. Betters and Jin silenced him with a deadly look.
"You don't call Them, They call you," Betters told him. "I can send a request, but it'll take 'till the fucking new moon before we get an answer."
They weren't sure if he was really fast, really quiet, or both. They were sure that now the room was occupied by four, and the newcomer had been leaning casually in the doorway for at least half a minute before anybody noticed.
"Oh…well, here he is!" Betters exclaimed, trying to cover up his surprise. "The new guy!"
"He's really bad with names," Jin murmured apologetically. The new point man strode into the center of the briefing room, turning to each F.E.A.R. member until he had looked over them all. Jankowski felt what little hair he owned stand on end as the point man stared at him. Not quite at him. More like through him. Something in those eyes didn't add up. They scanned everybody in the room like little cameras, never lingering any more or less on a particular subject.
When he had finished acquainting himself with his comrades, just when the silence was getting unbearable, the new point man left as swiftly and quietly as he had come.
"What the fuck is this guy's problem?" Jankowski growled, playing the part of the territorial male.
"He didn't say any innuendos…" Jin breathed, playing the part of the swooning female.
"Well, I'm bored. If you need me, I'll be kicking the vending machines," Betters announced, effectively defecating on the script and writing his own role. He soon disappeared as well. Jin and Jankowski looked at each other once more.
"Did you get that same weird feeling I did?" he asked.
"I got the feeling that he's not a sexual predator like the rest of you point men."
"I'm not a fucking…nevermind. Think what you want. There's something going on here. That guy didn't even say 'hi'? Didn't ask what all the paranormal shit's about?"
"That's usually the first thing to ask…" Jin agreed.
"Didn't even make a sound."
"Maybe he was going to say something until he got a look at your face," she jabbed.
Jankowski snorted derisively, then remembered that he still had a cup of coffee to demean. He took a quick sip, then his face turned sour despite how it had remained steamy and rich throughout the last few minutes. "Fucking military rations. Would it kill them to use some real coffee beans?"
Jin took the cue, and drank again. "And it's so watery."
"I think that was actually from the sprinkler system, but good try anyway."
She set down her coffee mug and marched purposefully toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Jankowski asked.
"I need to test him," she answered. "To make sure he's not a pervert."
"I see you're pretty good with your weapon," Jin purred, leaning on the counter at the firing range. The new point man squeezed off two more shots at the metal dummy. So far, he had fired over ten rounds, and only made one hole. "Really good," she added, more astonished than seductive.
The Point Man said nothing. He did, however, shoot again. The bullet made a strange humming noise as it skimmed through the dummy's head wound. Jin noted that it wasn't a perfect headshot, as she had expected from his unreal accuracy. The single spot that the Point Man had managed to hit at least twelve times was directly on the dummy's right eye.
"You know, you can fire at a different kind of target, if you like," Jin suggested suggestively. For effect, she unzipped her uniform to the collarbone. The Point Man said nothing, but for a fraction of a second he turned and, when he was back to shooting at his original dummy, a hole was burning through the left eye of another dummy.
His reflexes are off the…freaking charts, Betters had said. Did he really just fire at the other dummy without me seeing it?
"Alright, do you want me to have sex with you, or not?" She finally blurted. The Point Man said nothing. He didn't fire at the dummy either. Jin took a step back and fidgeted with her zipper, nervous that she might have pushed him to the limit.
The tension broke when the Point Man ejected an empty magazine from his pistol and reached for another one. Jin breathed a tiny sigh of relief.
"Well…good luck with target practice!" She told him, and walked away whistling contentedly. Jankowski was already waiting for her in the outside hallway.
"Maybe you need to test me?" he asked hopefully.
"Okay, I will. You just failed." Jin tried to continue to her room, but Jankowski stopped her. "Hey, what – "
"Just listen to me for a second, this is serious," the veteran point man spoke quickly. "Did you notice how he kept aiming for the eyes?"
"And hit it dead-on every time. Why the eyes?"
"I don't know."
"That's fascinating, Jankowski. I'm glad you stopped me to say that." Jin's tone was so dry, it was practically arid.
"Let me finish. It's a harder target to hit. And he hits it every time. Like making a headshot is too easy for him."
"So…what do you mean?" Jin asked exasperatedly.
Jankowski sighed, and looked back through the doorway at the new point man. If she couldn't see it yet, if she didn't understand that there was something fundamentally wrong with this guy, then there was no point trying to explain. He didn't want to spoil it for her yet, because she had obviously taken a liking to him against all odds. "Nothing. Forget it."
"Can I leave now?"
"Sure."
Jin spun on her heels, and this time Jankowski stayed rooted to the ground. He glanced once more at the point man, scoring perfect hits over and over again. He didn't like it, and he was pretty sure it wasn't just because he was being a territorial male.
"This is Genevieve."
"It's me. He's in."
"Ah…yes, Senator. There's a problem with the plan."
"What is it?"
"Before we started keeping Fettel sedated, a synchronicity event occurred between him and Alma. If we take him off his medication…"
"You said Origin wasn't an issue anymore. The mess was cleaned up."
"It is, Senator. I just worry that trying to get Fettel to telepathically contact his brother might cause another synchronicity event."
"That's impossible. You told me so. Alma is dead."
"…"
"Miss Aristide?"
"…Of course. There's no danger. I will continue with the plan."
"Good. Call me if there's a development on your end."
"Yes, Senator."
"I'll tell you if anything happens with the First Prototype."
Genevieve Aristide hung up the phone in her office, illuminated by the blinking red light of a missed call. It was a late night at ATC headquarters, and even the late shift janitors were gone. As she hit the message playback button, she thought, I should have told him that I already sent a team to reopen the Vault… But the reports must be right. She died after we cut off life support. A synchronicity event couldn't possibly –
You have (1) new messages. First message from…Harlan Wade. BEEP.
Genevieve quickly shut off the answering machine. She didn't want another lecture from him. Not now. Besides, it was probably about resurrecting Origin, and she had already heard everything she needed to know on that subject.
End