Chapter 7: Smokescreen / The Search for Answers
March 2nd, 2020
Aboveground, the BosWash arcological complex appeared to merely be the world's longest slab of steel and concrete. Unlike Tokyo-3's retracting buildings, the entirety of BosWash's civilian architecture was permanently underground. The only mobile sections were the Shadow support structures, which could rise up to serve as cover during engagements. This design led to the surface level being referred to as "The Arena" by Nerv personnel. Since the layout made airports impractical, they were built on either reclaimed or entirely artificial islands off the coast and connected by underwater tunnels.
Neo-Atlantis, the new form of Atlantic City, was a major resort area on the reclaimed Absecon Island. Combining the second-largest airport in the region with America's second-largest casino strip allowed it to flourish as one of the main tourism centers on the east coast despite being less than a hundred kilometers away from a designated war zone.
The Lady Luck, a custom Airbus A380, lifted off from the airport's main runway. The massive plane was owned by a casino conglomerate and used as a shuttle to transport their premium customers between the Vegas Complex and Neo-Atlantis. The luxurious interior consisted of multiple themed bars and lounges, a restaurant, a spa with a hot tub, and private rooms that could be occupied for the duration of a flight. An onboard casino was also present, but only card games were played since the potential for sudden turbulence made dice games and roulette unreliable.
Three hours into the flight, Liam Taggart sipped on a single-malt as he looked at the aquarium, the blue glow from it illuminating his creased features and salt-and-pepper hair. His dark eyes weren't focused on the tropical fish, watching the reflections of the patrons behind him instead. The ex-Air Marshal adjusted his white shirt and charcoal jacket, then turned around and walked through the curtain into the next bar over. Unlike the bright and peaceful aquarium bar, this one was a neon-lit dive with a slow, bluesy beat playing on the speakers.
He saw one of the priority VIPs - a high roller who was almost certainly involved in money laundering. Taggart had come to suspect that his employers transitioned from legitimate businessmen to mobsters somewhere up the food chain, but the shady business of gambling made it difficult to discern where the casino operating companies ended and the Neo-Commission began. The one thing he did know is that a well-dressed older man who somehow gains millions every week through a shell company, loses them in a casino and cashes out exactly ten percent is definitely involved in something.
The two suspects probably knew this too. He had seen them walking around, casing the plane - young adults, Caucasian, taller than airline regulations would allow, extremely muscular, and the only two male flight attendants on a luxury flight. The anomalies could be justified by the female high rollers wanting some eye candy too, but the dead giveaway was their lack of inside knowledge - they were the only flight attendants who didn't recognize him as undercover security and served him undiluted drinks. Also, with the exception of one having a shaved head, and the other having jaw-length brown hair and thick stubble, the two brown-eyed giants looked very similar and were almost definitely related.
The VIP moved to the observation lounge, shadowed by Taggart. One of the brothers walked through the section carrying a tray of drinks, then headed towards the galley at the back of the plane. Once they were isolated with the two chefs, the infiltrators disarmed them of their knives as a force of habit before choking them out and snapping their necks.
The brothers got to work, unpacking ballistic vests and gas masks from a cupboard. They stripped off their fancy uniform vests and dress shirts, revealing skin-tight black bodysuits similar to Nerv's plugsuit designs. After putting on the body armor, they secured the gas masks to the collars of their suits to achieve total protection from chemicals.
Taggart heard screams coming from the back sections, followed by a flight attendant stumbling into the lounge through the curtain, clutching her eyes and groaning in pain. A smoke grenade flew into the section, spewing an opaque white cloud that made the passengers panic and run around blindly.
"Take cover and hold on tight!" Taggart yelled to the VIP. The ex-Air Marshal drew his SIG Sauer P229 and fired at the windows, shattering them and venting the acidic smoke out of the plane. Oxygen masks dropped down and Taggart grabbed one, holding it to his face with one hand while aiming at the doorway with the other.
Another smoke grenade bounced into the room, its contents already streaming towards the broken windows. Taggart opened fire at the curtain, only to have one of the masked assailants spring out from the port-side doorway instead of the starboard one, bringing up a Glock 20 and putting two rounds into Taggart's chest. The plainclothes agent fell to the ground and the high roller tried to run, only to be shot in the leg by the masked man.
"Time to give the signal," one of the brothers said to the other. He scooped up his quarry while his comrade unfolded a pre-made loop of det cord and pressed it against the side of the cabin, taking cover behind a seat before blowing out the wall.
A white VTOL that had been cruising underneath the A380 the whole time noticed the signal and started swaying from side to side, releasing chaff to clog up all four of the engines. After its job was done, it flew further away on the side with the hole and fired flares to give an "all clear" signal. Between the total loss of propulsion and the hole interfering with its aerodynamics, the plane quickly began to shake and descend.
One of the masked men approached the hole and used a self-anchoring bolt to secure a length of cable to the floor. Meanwhile, the other one attached it to a descender on his belt. Holding the hostage tight, he jumped out of the plane.
The cable was pulled tight, the kidnapper serving as a counterweight. It was then caught by the VTOL and the quarry was collected. The second brother went to secure himself and escape as well when a gunshot rang out behind him.
Liam Taggart leaned on one of the seats, holding up his smoking pistol. The undercover vest hadn't stopped the bullets completely, but it saved his vital organs and left him with enough strength for one desperate shot.
His target was less fortunate, however, as the .357 SIG round had bored straight through the back of the gas mask. The hulking corpse swayed in the wind for a moment before dropping out of the hole.
March 4th, 2020
Regina crept through the dark building. The walls and doors were made from unpainted wood. Old, worn-out furniture was arranged in the room, some of which had bullet holes.
The brunette drew a Beretta Px4 Storm from a concealed carry holster in the waistband of her jeans and swept the doorway with the barrel. She then pulled her gun close to her body and fluidly stepped into the next room, clearing one corner and immediately turning around to check the other.
A silhouette came up from behind a couch and Regina opened fire, putting two rounds into its center mass and one in its head. The target fell back and the young woman continued. Another one sprung out of the doorway on the other side of the room and got the same three-shot pattern.
Sweeping the doorway, Regina saw the edge of a target and opened fire. She proceeded to charge forward, entering the room and putting another three shots into a target hiding in the corner before whipping around and narrowly avoiding pulling the trigger on empty space.
Before continuing, she replaced the magazine in her gun with a fresh one from her pocket. She approached the closed door and pressed her back against the wall next to it. Kicking backwards with her low-heel boot, she opened the door and entered the room, bringing her pistol up and firing on multiple targets while moving to a dresser for cover. She continued shooting at each target until the slide of her pistol locked back, signifying that it was empty.
"Clear!" she yelled as she withdrew the magazine and yanked on the slide several times. The lights turned on, revealing Alvarez, Valentine and Metzger standing on catwalks over the training rooms.
"Getting better," the captain commented stoically.
"I told you I could teach her to shoot," Alvarez boasted.
"Not a bad time for a blind run," Valentine pointed out.
"Damn right, she's a natural. Just needed some expert guidance to bring it out," Alvarez said with a smirk.
Nadya joined them on the catwalk, her new FN Five-seveN USG hanging in a drop-leg holster on her right thigh. "The newb is getting there. How long until we can start doing team drills?"
"Whenever you can schedule it," Metzger replied, motioning for everyone to follow him out.
The live-fire training range was next to the Shadow hangar, taking advantage of the underground nature of the base to make for easy proofing against both bullets and noise. As the pilots and their captain exited the shoot house, they saw a second Jeep parked next to the one they had used earlier. A petite woman in her early twenties exited the car and approached them. She wore a white lab coat that contrasted with her olive skin and brown eyes. Her hair was obviously dyed blonde, with the brown roots still visible.
"What's going on, Doctor?" the captain asked.
"Figured it was time to give everyone a tour of the lower floors, given what they'll be studying soon," the woman replied.
"Hey, Vicky! It's been a while!" Valentine exclaimed, smiling and waving.
"Val! I haven't seen you since you transferred to Groom Lake!" the scientist replied, giving him a hug.
"These two know each other?" Nadya asked, looking a bit flustered.
"Old flame, by the looks of things," Regina inferred. She'd seen the body language enough times to recognize the signs of intimacy.
"Guys, this is Doctor Victoria Mendoza. I grew up with her in Seattle-two," Valentine explained.
"She's our resident biomed and AT theory expert. Her late father was the one behind the American branch of the Manufactured project," Metzger added.
"Mendoza? I remember that name from some old KGB files. They were pissed when the yanks extracted him from Cuba in eighty-eight," Nadya recounted.
Dr. Mendoza smiled at Nadya. "He used to get homesick up until the Caribbean took the Second Impact tsunami. After that, he was just thankful." She looked over to Regina. "Miss Stanford! Nice to see that you've recovered. Sorry about the spray-on skin taking a while to blend in. I've had the problem myself before," the scientist said with a giggle.
"It's fine. Better than getting, like, a skin graft or something."
"Anyway, I'm running AT theory lectures at the university for Nerv's pilot and scientist candidates. I came here to get you all up to speed while showing you around our science division. Better to know what you're piloting after all, right?"
"There are other candidates? Why didn't you just put one of them into my Unit instead of me?" Regina asked the captain.
"They were confirmed around the same time you were, and they've only just started the course, so they weren't any more qualified than you," Metzger explained.
"What training are they gonna get? Muscle memory stuff? Sims? Tandem?" Alvarez asked.
"I'm not letting those newbs ride along with me," Nadya joked.
"They're sticking to theory and some range time until they get assigned to a Unit. No sense in picking up bad habits from a simulation body," Metzger clarified.
While low socioeconomic status was expected in mass-produced apartments, District C-38 in northern Las Vegas was among the poorest. This had resulted in several blocks being occupied by a militant gang. With virtually no police presence this far out, they could do as they pleased, ruling over the dregs of society with an iron fist.
Their reign had lasted over a year, and ended in a manner of minutes two days ago. Now, the lowest of the low feared a new paramilitary group - faceless, seemingly identical soldiers wearing urban camo-patterned special ops gear, respirators, and darkened goggles. The troops carried either FN SCAR-L Mk. 16 assault rifles or KRISS Vector submachine guns - weapons that matched their high-tech black ops style. Both models had reflex sights mounted on them, while the rooftop soldiers used ACOG scopes on their rifles.
The soldiers touched their headsets as a white panel van drove through the district, calling in the arrival. The van parked in front of block C-38-11 - the former base of the gang. The passenger door swung open and the long-haired brother emerged. He opened the sliding door and dragged a well-dressed man with a bag over his head and a bandage on his leg out of the cargo space. The driver-side door opened and a pair of high-heeled leather boots stepped out onto the pavement.
One of the high-ranking soldiers, denoted by his red goggles, greeted them at the door. "Sorry about Deimos. He won't be forgotten," he said, laying a hand on the surviving brother's shoulder.
"His sacrifice will not be in vain," the muscular operative responded before leading his captive inside.
"Ma'am," the soldier said with a nod as the final member of the trio walked by him.
With a bag on his head, the high roller couldn't see much more than the plain concrete floor as he was walked into the building and up the stairs. He caught a glimpse of a bloodstain on the steps, making him shudder to think about what was in store for him.
"Don't worry, give us what we want and you're not going to end up like the previous occupants," the feminine voice said, almost as if responding to his worries.
"I'm not sayin' anything!"
"You don't have to. Sit him down and leave us, Phobos."
"As you wish, Psyche." The muscular kidnapper pushed his captive onto a tattered couch and left, the thuds of heavy combat boots still audible as he went down the stairs. The high roller got a better view of the woman in charge. In addition to the knee-length boots, she wore tight, Kevlar-reinforced biker jeans and an unzipped leather jacket, leaving the front of her curve-hugging black plugsuit visible.
"Let's start with some simple word association."
"I told you I ain't sayin' a word!"
"You don't have to."
He felt gloved fingers pinning him against the back of the couch by his neck. She pulled the bag from his head, filling his vision with a pair of grey eyes staring intensely into his. Her straight, chin-length black hair was parted but dishevelled, with a few loose strands over her thin nose and high cheekbones.
"Myelin Institute."
"W-what?"
"Manufactured program, genetic research, synchronization, Territory sensitivity, cognitive overbleed perception."
The high roller squirmed. "What are you on about?"
"Seems as though you have decent enough compartmentalization. Do you even know your boss? No? How about a handler?"
The man remained tight-lipped and tried his best to keep staring forward. He had heard of the interrogation technique involving the captive being talked at while being watched for microexpressions.
"Hmm. And is there a main casino? Well-guarded, I'd imagine. Plenty of cameras, secure vault, staff-only office spaces. Requiring a keycard? That does make things difficult."
"Lady, you can't try to pull anything with these people! If you steal from that casino, you're going to piss off some serious underworld players!"
"The Neo-Commission might as well be a couple of two-bit crooks to me. They're only a stepping stone on the path to my real target. A real shame you didn't anything about the puppet masters in the shadows. It would've helped you live longer. Now, what will your last thought be?"
"Wait! What are-" The high roller's last words were cut short by a switchblade piercing his vocal chords.
"How banal," Psyche sighed, extracting the knife and wiping it on her victim's suit jacket.
Dr. Mendoza led the pilots onto a balcony overlooking a giant indoor pool of orange liquid. A remotely controlled maintenance submersible bobbed up and down at the far end of the pool.
"This is one of our LCL production tanks. Lyotropic Citrinitas Liquid has several unique properties, including its unique phase change when oxygenated and electrically charged. The other vital property is its conduction of the AT Field. Those of you who are new to Territory theory may not know this, but humans have one, just like Shadows and Archetypes. Of course, ours are several orders of magnitude weaker so we can't use them to achieve anything fancy, but they are as essential as breathing for us to live," the scientist explained.
"What happens to a human without one?" Nadya asked.
"Funnily enough, you turn into this stuff." Victoria pointed to the pool. "Without the AT Field to stabilize you, your Rubedo-patterned matter degrades to Citrinitas, the most common form of which is LCL. There are also other forms, including one which can be alloyed with metal and is used in some Shadow weapons."
Regina cocked her head to the side. "So, why don't dead people melt into OJ?"
"After normal brain death, the Territory decays over the next day or so, allowing the matter to transition back to Albedo - the pattern of non-living normal matter. We haven't had the chance to observe Citrinitas because the transitions from Albedo food to Rubedo body and Rubedo body to Albedo waste only involve the Citrinitas state for microseconds, and give no obvious indication of it. It was only once you guys..." She pointed to the Russian. "... discovered the Citrinoarchea in Lake Vostok, that we managed to isolate it. It's thought to be the missing link that can explain abiogenesis. These ancient organisms are the only ones to have a metabolic process that isolates it in a stable state, so we use them to produce LCL."
"In Antarctica? I knew it! Meteorites can't melt ice caps!" Nadya joked.
Mendoza walked on, leading the pilots to a meeting room with a projector. "I'm sure they can, Miss Kasparova. However, you are right in that Second Impact was not really much of an impact, per se. It was the result of an early Territory experiment. Unfortunately, the large amount of Citrinitas material under the ice managed to conduct and amplify the relatively weak artificial Territory, creating a chain reaction that briefly caused our four-dimensional spacetime to interact along a fifth dimension, bringing the first Archetype to our world." She pressed a button, projecting an imagine of a glowing, Shadow-shaped giant.
"So the Shadows were reverse-engineered from that? Fucking Schway," Nadya commented.
"You'd think that's why they're called Shadows, but it's actually because of the Shadow synchronization process, which is similar to interfacing with the part of your subconscious that stores unacceptable thoughts," Alvarez explained.
"It was given the designation 'Adam' and was a being of immense creative and destructive power. It scattered the Cores to develop more of its kind, but was then defeated by an experimental C-alloy munition that was fortunate enough to conduct the entirety of the amplified AT Field to charge itself. Project Eva was the attempt to derive a suitable combat platform from it, as Eve was created from Adam's rib in a certain storybook. It has yielded its first and currently only success in the form of the Shadow Unit." Dr. Mendoza switched the screen to show the various models of Shadows that were produced over the years, ranging from the prototypes all the way to the modern assault and maneuver types.
She's probably giving them that lecture on the different matter patterns right about now. Valentine thought as he snuck deeper into the facility. He passed by the biosafety level 4 lab and came to another specially sealed facility, simply marked with a seven-eyed mask logo.
He took out a modified security card covered in circuitry. While Regina understood the meaning behind his level of comfort around Victoria Mendoza, she had failed to notice the covert transfer of the card during the hug. Inserting the card into the door's reader made it hum for a second before lighting up green and opening the door. The "skeleton key" hack on it worked on every card reader running DREAM secure access software, and had the added bonus of not logging the door being opened as a stolen or cloned card would.
Valentine crouched low, drawing his pistol and chambering a round. He entered a room resembling a layer of the bridge tower, having a similar arrangement of consoles overlooking a large open space.
He heard voices and the whirr of an elevator platform. Thinking quickly, the infiltrator ducked under a console, hiding behind the swivel chair and keeping his pistol ready.
The platform reached the console level and Lt. Col. Bertram Fuller stepped off, followed by a suit with an unfamiliar voice.
"And you're sure that these modifications to the system will be ready in time for our implementation?" the suit asked as he walked, oblivious to any intrusion.
"Of course. Rest assured that the A-one plug will be fully controllable, and should be able to coordinate adequately with the mass-produced versions," the Nerv officer replied.
"And you'll remind Colonel Swan about the importance of keeping this place secure, right? After Groom Lake's destruction set our schedule back this far, we can't afford to delay Human Actualization any longer."
"We still need to wait until all the Archetypes are defeated. Their interference would be worse than any human meddling," Fuller pointed out.
"We're at the halfway point now. Only fifty-four left. Ensure that this task isn't the limiting factor when everything else is ready." The man stopped and turned to Fuller. "And thank you for having your plutocrat friend in the media running stories about minor scandals in California this week. I prefer to keep my visits to the States low-key, and the news drawing attention elsewhere helps," the suit said before exiting through the secure door, giving Valentine a glimpse of his grey hair and some sort of high-tech visor. Fuller walked out after him, leaving the infiltrator alone.
Not wanting to use the platform in case it gave him away, Valentine opted to climb down an emergency ladder instead.
Good thing these guys are still thinking about OHS here.
When he reached the bottom, he saw two rows of hemispherical devices, each the size of a small car. The display mounted on the front of each machine showed a 3D model of a human brain with highlighted function areas and a sync readout, with most at 60-70%. The labels on them all said the same thing: "Template: A. E. Suess" followed by a number from 1 to 13. The final tank in the room, mounted on a raised section at the far end, had "A-1" written on it.
Shit. Looks like the dummy plug project is still on. I'll have to report it and hope that there's some way to destroy these things without raising an alarm. This one has an alphanumeric designation, so it's probably a new prototype.
"...and therefore, the contaminant in the rain is actually metastable Rubedo matter. However, it's not quite alive. Think of it like a prion - similar enough to our own proteins, yet also incredibly harmful to us because of relatively subtle differences. Exposure to it can cause the body's stable Rubedo matter to convert to the imperfect form and then destabilize completely due to it being rejected by the AT Field, similar to an autoimmune response. It's believed that Girard Ryan was suffering from terminal coherency disruption during his second term, but any chance to determine that went up in flames when that tanker T-boned the presidential limo," Victoria Mendoza explained to the pilots.
"That explains why the crazy bastard actually approved my training program," Alvarez joked. "Right, bro? Val?"
The pilots looked around, only to find their friend sitting at the back of the meeting room, leaning back in his chair and sleeping soundly.
"Huh?" Valentine woke and composed himself. "Oh, I must've dozed off. Sorry, this is the fourth or fifth time I've been over this stuff."
"You're bored by my lectures? I'm hurt, Val," the scientist teased.
"Ooh, drama!" Regina whispered to Nadya.
Dr. Mendoza's phone vibrated. She took it out and read the message, her eyes widening. "Looks like we're jumping topic from AT theory to genetics. They found a John Doe in Colorado. Fell out of a plane that was about to crash, but with a bullet hole in his head."
"Sounds like a hijacking gone wrong, not genetics," Alvarez pointed out.
The scientist switched the display to a picture of chromosomes, with certain sections annotated to show specific genetic sequences. "The forensic team had no idea who he was, so they tested his DNA and it came up with markers similar to those found in Gehirn's Manufactured program. Terminator genes, repaired telomeres, mood stabilization, and the gene that enhances Shadow synchronization. There are also other synthetic genes, but I've never seen them before."
"Looks like they messed with the growth inhibitors, among other things. Must've been a big guy," Valentine noted.
Nadya giggled at her fellow pilot's comment. "Nerv must have some serious leaks if someone's making super soldiers based on your cloning program."
"It's more than just that." Mendoza displayed another picture, showing the battered black bodysuit that was cut from the corpse. "He was wearing a modified plugsuit. Standard integrated medical suite, along with a bullet-resistant lining and attachment points for holsters and a gas mask. A very well-equipped organization has been trying to improve on our work."
"Shouldn't Section-two be looking into this instead of us?" Regina asked.
"Captain Metzger wants to keep this contained. Can't have the double agents behind the leaks finding out," Mendoza explained.
Theodore Stanford sat in his office, burying his face in his hands as he watched the holographic cubes having a shouting match.
"Back me up on this, Theo... ME-four! He fucked up again! RD-five can't even secure his own asshole!" UW-8 shouted.
"Don't drag me into this, Lucky," Stanford replied.
"Come on, you were the one going on about how the Myelin Institute was a total crapshoot!"
"They hacked the system to make the labs give monthly reports that looked semi-plausible. Everything looked fine until the quarterly inspection," RD-5 explained.
"I told you to use my security setup," IT-1 grumbled.
"What do you think I used? It doesn't help when your escapee can just find out the passwords from the administrator."
"Son of a-" Stanford gritted his teeth and rubbed his temples harder. "You let her escape? Of all your insane projects, it had to be her? I've said this before, but you really are an idiot for not shoving her into a fucking walk-in autoclave the moment you found out what she could do! No, instead you did everything in your power to make her want to kill us in the most brutal ways known to man!"
"Well, at least one of the testosterone twins is a pancake now," UW-8 said with a chuckle. "How many clones to go?"
"A little under three-hundred. A few were killed during the escape, but the majority managed to get out. Specimen Psyche is by far the biggest concern, though," RD-5 warned.
"My guys weren't found in the wreckage, so I'm betting she'll 'interrogate' them and go after my operation in Vegas next," UW-8 predicted.
The media baron stood up and started to pace around the room. "Great. So in addition to endangering the lives of both Nerv personnel and our own operatives, you've put my little girl in harm's way."
"Relax, Theodore. Nerv pilots are essential to everyone's survival. Even the clones know about the threat of the Archetypes," P-0 interjected, playing the voice of reason.
"Forgive me if I'm not so certain about that. We are talking about psychopaths with nothing to lose here," Stanford pointed out.
That night, block C-38-11 became an even more macabre place. The soldiers had cleared out of it and the surrounding blocks, but still patrolled the edges of the district. Residents had initially approached to investigate the screams coming from the roof, but stopped when a near-perfect circle of bodies had formed with radius of eight meters from the exact center of the six-meter-tall micro-apartment building. A few more tried to loot or move the bodies, but suffered a similar fate.
Psyche was curled up in a sleeping bag between the solar panels on top of the building, clutching a Springfield XDM in her hands. The pistol's long stainless steel slide had locked back, indicating that it was now empty.
"Please, not another one. I already know how a murder works. Don't make me live any more of their memories. At least let me stay behind the mirror this time. The clear window lets them see me... lets them think of me. Please, no more second-hand training... Please..."
Her whimpers became incoherent sobs. She shivered in her sleep, holding her empty gun tightly against her chest.
Author's Note: This is another exposition-heavy chapter, but introduces some important characters and concepts. Also, meme references!
As always, I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Stay tuned for more action next time, and more fanservice!