Chapter 1 – Lurking Shadows
It was near midnight, in a darkened laboratory, somewhere in the territory that was once known as Europe. None of the scientists that usually occupied this workroom had stayed late to work on any of the existing projects currently in progress, and no security guards patrolled the dark and interconnecting corridors outside it.
Towards the middle of the laboratory was a large open space that was dominated by a giant mechanical centrifuge. There were other various machines whirring and beeping into the dimly lit emptiness of the room, but the large machine that was its centerpiece lay dormant, waiting quietly to be given new test samples to spin around when the scientists returned in a few hours .
The barometer in the corner of the room, located on the glass of one of the exterior windows began to register some sudden changes as visible currents of vapour seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The new air streams shimmered like the sun's rays reflecting off of a piece of glass. Once the waves of air disappeared almost as quickly as they had appeared, a small group of people were left standing among the expensive lab equipment. Each of them were dressed in what seemed to be some kind of military issued uniform that consisted entirely of black neoprene bodysuits. Across their bodies, they wore several grey belts that had various pockets and pouches, every single one of them containing an item that they might need to almost any obstacle that they might encounter on their missions. As they broke from their tight circle that they had appeared in the laboratory in, the way they moved showed that they had some sort of military training to back up their appearances. To an outside observer, they would think that whatever their plan had been once they gained entry into this secured facility had been thought out very carefully and been practiced many times until they could move as a single collective unit.
Each member of the team scanned their designated section of the lab, making sure that there were no interruptions from any unexpected guests or late night workers burning the 'midnight oil' to keep their research progressing., before they did anything else. As each section was cleared, the member of the team responsible would raise their left arm and keep it up so that the other members could see the confirmation that it was safe to proceed.
One member of the team stood out from the rest of the individuals because they had a little golden arm band around the sleeve of their suit's upper arm. This marked them as the designated leader. From their physical build and body posture, they were of the male gender. In the dimly lit room provided by the soft glow of light from the machines still on and the night vision googles that each of the team members wore, the leader looked around at his squad, checking for raised arms in each section to make sure that they could continue their mission. Seeing the last arm go up, he raised his own hand into the air. This was the signal to move forward to the next phase of the plan. Each member of the group began to move forward in teams of two
Each pair drew closer to the giant centrifuge, maintaining the same amount of distance between themselves and the machine as every pairing, and keeping the teams to their left and right in clear view. Once each duo was in position, they reached into a small pouch attached to the belt that ran diagonally across their chests. One by one, they pulled out what looked like a fist-sized mechanical spider. They were metallic and had several long thin wires that protruded out from the spherical main body of the device, gaining it the appearance of an arachnid. The large body of the 'spiders' had different coloured buttons and lights. A few seconds later, each person pressed the red button located in the device's center to make the one set of wires extend, then the yellow button made another set of wires contract, and finally an orange button that caused a little blinking red light to wink into a rhythmic sequence.
Each person passed the message down the line with a simple arm signal to inform the others that their device was on and successfully activated. The overall collection of message found its way back to the leader. When the final member let him know that his gadget was armed, he raised his arm and aimed the gauntlet of his right hand towards the centrifuge. He reached out with his left hand and pushed a green button on it that seemed to become instantly in sync with the blinking red lights of the little 'spiders', because the green light quickly changed to glow red as well.
Wave lengths of light began to become refracted again, and the shimmering currents of air vapour re-appeared but near the ceiling of the laboratory this time. The leader of the group smiled underneath his black mask as he watched his troops and the centrifuge start to fade from sight. A few seconds later, he too disappeared and everything was back to just as it had been only a few minutes earlier, with the noticeable exception of the largest of the lab machines being gone. Everything that had just occurred had been done in the deadliest of silences and had gone off without a hitch The scientists who were set to return at dawn to resume their work and research would get a very rude awakening when they showed up to work in a matter of hours.
A few hours went later, darkness and silence still shrouded the laboratory facility. Just like before, seemingly out of nowhere, the shimmering currents of air returned, but this time in a completely different research workroom than the one visited earlier in the night. There was a large biohazard sticker on the sliding glass door of the room, and a warning label advising anyone who entered to put on a radiation suit located in the outer area before accessing the inner chamber of the laboratory. Out of the air currents and shimmering haze emerged a figure. Her physical stature immediately identified her as a woman. She had been a member of the earlier strike team but she wasn't wearing her military uniform, and she wasn't under the direction of the group's leader. She was dressed in civilian clothing which consisted of a pair of dress slacks, black shoes with a small wedge and a dark green buttoned blouse. She moved quickly to one of the nearby dresses and picked up the white lab jacket that was draped over the back of the chair. She quickly put it on and found that it fit her nicely. It was getting close to the time when the chance of employees of the facility may start arriving. By appearing to be one of their own and not drawing unnecessary attention to herself, she could move freely until she completed her objective and leave this building with her prize intact.
She turned her head and read the warning label about the use of a radiation suit before entering into the inner area of the laboratory and scoffed in distain. She wasn't like the idiot scientists that worked here and was going to open the canisters of potentially hazardous chemicals that were stacked in the cold storage room. She reached into the pocket of the white jacket and was relieved to find an access card inside it. She took it out and scanned it across the identification reader that secured the entry into the inner chamber where her target was held. With a satisfying electronic chirp, the tiny red light on the card reader flashed green as it was quickly followed by the sounds of the door's tumblers rolling around as it unlocked itself. She reached out and pull the handle of the door, sliding it open and walking inside. The door closed behind her, sealing her within.
She let her eyes adjust to the new lighting within the room before taking a step. She may not have any respect for the people that work here but she was smart enough to regard the power of the materials that currently surrounded her. When her eyes had finished adjusting, she took her time and strolled along the rows of shelves, reading each label carefully before moving on to the next one. She chuckled under her breath because in a way, what she was doing was just like shopping.
She came to a stop in front of one thick metal canister whose warning label made her smile with delight. She carefully reached out and lifted it off the shelf before putting it down on a small table that the facility employees used to retrieve specimen samples without having to remove the entire cache from the safety of the inner chamber. She reached in the breast pocket of her blouse and put another one of the little 'spiders' devices on the side of the canister. This device was a smaller version of the ones used earlier to steal the centrifuge. Once the little gizmo was blinking happily away, she rolled up her sleeve on her right hand to reveal a high-tech gauntlet that was similar to the one the leader of the earlier team had wielded. She pushed a button on it and the unnatural air currents shimmered into existence once again, transporting both the woman and her prize out of the laboratory.
Not more than five minutes later, the woman and her prize were safely back in her apartment. She smiled as she picked it up gingerly and carefully walked into her bedroom with it. She knew that no one would be here with her because she lived alone and did not have friends that had the tendency to stop by unannounced, especially at this time of day. However for some reason, she was getting the feeling that someone was watching her right now. She put the canister down on the desk next to her bed and turned around in a slow circle, singing a few notes in a language that had long since been forgotten. Sparks of bright purple light began to chase each other in the shape of a rectangle against the back wall of her walk-in closet. Once the light beams had grown bright enough, there was a small explosion with a loud pop and the rectangle that the light sparks had created, pulled out from the back wall of her closet. The protruding section revealed itself to be a metal safe a second later. She approached the safe that opened up as she drew nearer to it and put the canister inside. She carefully closed the door and locked it away before pushing the chunk of wall back into where it had come from. She sang out a few more notes and watched as the miniature purple sunbeams re-appeared to mold the wall back into one seamless piece of white plaster. She rearranged some of her clothes in front of it to further camouflage it before heading downstairs into the kitchen.
A smile lit up her face as she made herself some tea. This was her personal back-up plan. She had been pushed aside by the leader of today's excursion in favour of someone who was less qualified and skilled than her. They had shared several months of heat and intimate passion, but she had only been using him to further her own agenda. Although he was the leader for a reason, she was confident that this newest harebrained idea of his was destined to fail. She wasn't going to go down with him when it did. She was sure that he must have been thinking the same thing, and so he had decided to demote her, predicting that he would have his pick of women once his scheme worked out for him and she would crash and burn into disgrace. She wasn't exactly upset about it, she just didn't like being set aside in favour of inferior lackeys. It was a pride issue, simple as that.
She was a creature more powerful than the rest of his little lackeys and she was determined to prove it to the world. She grinned as she thought about their measly little skills. It was true that they had military precision and access to some very advanced technology but she was something else entirely. She was a necromancer of a very rare sort. Not only could she raise the dead, but she could also lay dead spirits to eternal rest as well. So far, the only training that she'd had had was from a stack of detailed journals that had been secretly passed down from generation to generation in her family. It was a small stack of about six books that were handwritten journals from the few members in her family that had been born with the talents that she now possessed, and unfortunately they spanned a few centuries with long periods of emptiness in-between gaps of time.
It was difficult for her to do a lot of studying because she had to keep it a secret. The books were written in several different languages, and some of the handwriting was simply atrocious, but she was slowly making her way through them. The magic she now possessed went beyond the workings of the dead. She was becoming a master in magical areas that exceeded beyond those of her ancestors. That was how she had managed to get the safe in her closet to materialize and disappear in her closet. When she worked at honing her skills with the dead magic, she had a learned to use a panpipe that could create seven different vocal tones that told the spirits under her command, what to do. When she did any other sort of magic, she simply whistled or sang a few notes that bent the elements that she wanted to her will.
She knew that she would have to be at the presentation ceremony with the rest of her team soon to present the centrifuge as a part of her ex's plan to their master. She glanced at the clock next to her and silently swore, she had to hurry or she would be late. Sometimes it really annoyed her that she had to keep up appearances when she had her own plans to work on. The canister that she had secretly stolen was going to help her concoct the best plan that her boss had ever seen. When it succeeded, she would be given a higher position in the master's army or perhaps an even grander title. She would love to have a faction of her own soldiers to order around so that she would have more free time to work on honing her magical skills and maybe even take over the entire operation by dethroning the master someday.
She was a jealous creature, and she gave credence to that old expression about scorned women. The fact that her ex had beaten her to the boss with his idea for the centrifuge robbery really burned her to no end. She had to get a grip on herself and find one of her fancier dresses to wear to this pointless ceremony. She stalked back upstairs to her bedroom and flipped through her clothes so quickly that some of them wound up on the floor from the kinetic force that she used to slide them from one end of the rack to the other. She finally chose one piece of clothing and changed into a slinky midnight blue dress that had a slit in one side that ran all the way up to her waist. She sang a few more notes and watched in the full length mirror attached to the adjacent wall as her long waves of mahogany hair flew around her head and wove over each other until she had an elaborate hairstyle that did her natural curves of her head justice. She walked over to her vanity desk and quickly touched up her makeup. The last thing she did before slipping on her shoes was attach the thigh holster for her panpipes on her right thigh. She never could tell when she would need it and honestly, she felt naked without it on her person at all times.
When she arrived at the location, she stopped in the entrance as her eyes panned around the interior. The antechamber where the celebration was to take place was decorated in her ex's favorite colors of black and silver. It almost made her gag and it took everything within her to resist the gesture. Everything he owned was one of those two colors or some sort of mix of both. His incessant attention to detail had and continued to drive her crazy. When it came to stupid little things like silverware for example, he actually had them in size order in his drawer. When it came to a major undertaking however, like his recent plan to help the boss achieve his goals by stealing the centrifuge, he was completely the opposite and more often than not, his plans ended up having more holes than a sieve. She wasn't really interested in his flamboyance that either distracted people from realizing that major flaw in his tactician skills or hid it completely. The only reason this ceremony was happening at all was so he could show the boss that part of his overall plan had actually been completed. In reality, they hadn't even made it to the end of stage one yet, as they were still gathering the items that they needed, but he was one of those people that had to celebrate every tiny little victory.
She put on a fake smile so she wouldn't look like she had a secret agenda, and walked into the room to begin making her rounds and start mingling with the other people in attendance. She had made sure that she was put on this team at any cost when it was first conceived because if she had a front row vantage point to their missions, then she would also have an opportunity to sabotage it if it would benefit her.
The more she thought about it the reasons for this celebration, the more it made her blood boil. She had to give herself a mental shake before she could hitch her fake smile back into place because she was a woman who wore her emotions on her sleeve. It simply would not do if she gave her true feelings away this early when she still had some much more left to accomplish. Off to her left, she saw a group of men from the earlier mission hanging out together in the corner, and she made her way through the crowd over towards them. She was the only girl on their team, so she preened under the appreciative glances that they were giving her as she approached them, and strutted over with a wide smile on her face. It would be so easy to play this game and men were simple to manipulative with the right tools and as a woman, she had everything she needed already. She couldn't help but think that she might even be able to rope one or two of these guys into her future plans and make them do her dirty work. It was always nice to have a patsy on hand in case things went south. Feminine wiles were not to be taken lightly but if used correctly, they would prove very useful.