Chapter 5: Rose Tinted Nightmares

"It feels like I've had this seat worked into my ass for miles."

Lawrence adjusted uncomfortably in his sub-par seating, letting out a pained cry as the ramshackle buggy catapulted over a dune onto the cracked, disrepaired asphalt.

The pair had driven since the sun was high above, with it now cresting the horizon ahead, setting the sky ablaze with hues of red, green, yellow and pink. As they had shifted further westward, the sands had lost their gradually golden-esque hue, shifting into a more foreboding crimson red that surrounded them like a sea of blood.

Pulling up onto the side of the road and up the dune hill, the older operative pulled to a stop, killing the engine as he punched the roof vent/door open. "We'll make camp here. Driving at night through this place is dangerous, I don't wanna accidentally blow up because of a wandering sleepwalker." He pulled himself up through the opening as the young agent adjusted once more, having felt the rough ride in every bolt of the makeshift seat.

Achingly pulling himself up after the Operative, he scanned the evening shrouded surroundings. Not far beyond the dune hill was a wrecked chain link fence, several deep cratered scorch marks, and an ancient looking foundation of a charred building not too far beyond. A faint sparking of electricity caught his ear, making him turn towards the source.

Behind the buggy was DJ, grasping a soot marked cinder block, faint trails of black sparks rolling off his arms across the block and leaving clear marks along its surface.

"Before you ask-" He hefted the block into the middle of the hill, which had a small crater in the center dip, settling the block neatly into place. "No, it won't kill you."

"I wasn't…" He looked back to the ruins as he clambered from the vehicle to the sands below. "What happened here? Nothing looks like nuclear damage"

The older looked up and over to the scared scene before them. A harsh sigh came from him as he stood from the tinderbox he was holding.

"That, for lack of better wording, is where I came from."

"I'm sorry what?"

Seating himself on the sand and pulling some dead brush from the sands, he stuck his hand in the oil soaked rag and snapped his fingers, bursting the flammable fabric and tinder to life.

"That fence is, or was, the Agency's official marker for where the 'Red Zone' boundary ended. The hub of every vile, nasty, downright reason shattering experiment, project and most of the sub factions origins, all hidden behind some pretty looking government grade chainlink."

Lawrence leaned against the ticking over vehicle as his brain cried foul. What he was hearing broke everything he had ever learned about the people he worked for. The goals, aspirations, even rules of the Agency.

No. it had to be false.

"If what you are saying is true, then why haven't we seen or heard of any other experiments out there. How can I just believe what you are saying?"

DJ snorted softly, pushing over the dry shrubbery from its roots and shifting it onto the flames. "Once upon a time, saying something like that would have thrown me off the deep end. Lucky for you I've been civilized since then."

His free hand dipped into his bag, making the younger finally put his hands up in caution, fearing a repercussion from the older Operative. A soft thud hit the sand in front of him, making him look down out of instinct.

To his relief, it wasn't a grenade. A beat to shit 'Bootleg M5.1' tablet with a cracked screen.

"That is the register of one Doctor Derek Jameson. Otherwise known as 'The Reaper' of the Improbable Quintet, or 'The Alphabet Project' director." The older stated plainly as he cast a fistful of powder into the fire, the color of the flames shifting from light orange to a silvery grey, dousing the sand in a whole new hue.

Shifting to sit against the wheel of the buggy, Lawrence picked up the tablet and swiped up, the old Agency title and logo shifted onto screen like a slideshow.

'Agency Against Human Warfare'.

"That's not… I thought-"

"That the Agency was formed because of Hank 'The Walking Blender' J. Wimbolton? No, originally the Agency was set up under the pretense of 'Solving human conflict through world domination' or so I figured. I had a solid period of time where when looking at it, I genuinely thought that the Auditor actually wasn't as batshit as we first figured."

"How do you figure that? I thought the Antithesis were, y'know, dedicated to destroying the Agency."

DJ gave a gravelly chuckle, "If I were a shadow demon deity looking at the world under the job of literally auditing reality, I'd want to start an organization to literally make it so my job wasn't a massive cunt to do too."

Lawrence shook his head, swiping into the menu and opening the file labeled 'Projects'.

'Doctor Jameson Project list. Compilation list of projects that are/were part of the Experiment division in alphabetical order.'

"And you expect me to believe any of what is in here?" He looked up to the older Operative, who's gaze seemed to be back towards the facility.

"Hello?" He leaned to the side, but there was still no response. DJ held a hard stare at the desolate ruins.

"Too many unmarked graves on both sides for hero stuff. I'm not oblivious to the fact Agency recruiting is very conscript like. Too many innocents are getting drafted and mown down next to the diehard loyalists. I don't think I'd like being called a hero either. The responsibility is too great. I'm just good at killing people."

Memory broken by a sudden touch on the shoulder, the older Operative spooked into flipping the interrupting individual onto the sand and raising a clenched fist sparking with energy, ready to strike them out of existence. A second of hesitation led him to realize it was none other than a struggling to breath Lawrence, gripping the hand that was around his neck to try relieve the pressure on his throat.

Letting go of the winded Agent, DJ leaned back sighing heavily in relief. Though Lawrence didn't exactly see it as a moment of relief.

"What the fuck- anhgg… what was that for?!"

"You snuck up behind me while I was distracted. You're lucky I hesitated for a moment to confirm who I was about to kill."

Lawrence rolled over, coughing hoarsely. "What even was that? The fuck kind of- anime bullshit were you doing."

"I already told you. Most vile, nasty experiments. I'm a product of that." DJ leaned over to his opposite side, lightly coughing away from the younger Agent.

"So what, this… mad scientist created you? For what, to serve the agency?"

He got no response, just more coughing from the older. He shuffled back over to his spot against the buggy, away from DJ, as he picked up the tablet again, cycling through the first few notes atop the list. An aging male's voice came through an automated recording.

"Project A. Status: Failure. Count: 419. Project A looked into the various effects of 'Improbable Infusement' to improve the health and strength of subjects. Results showed the energy too unstable to properly connect to the host bodies with techniques of this time, resulting in cancerous growths and tumors, along with several Entropite eruptions. Subject 419 was not confirmed dead before being captured by the Antithesis, though it is highly likely the subject could not have survived."

"That number. Is that-"

"How many died before yeah-" A splutter escaped DJ as he spat out more black gunk, wiping away the rest with another rag from his pocket. "Some of the numbers get really high."

Lawrence scrolled down a few more pages noting how many seemed to be locked, before hesitantly tapping on another entry.

"Project U. Status: Success. Count: 629. Project U observed the energy's impact on the dead and how direct infusing would affect the bodies. Results found subject U-629 to not only reanimate but begin to have the power to reanimate other bodies, very quickly raising a standing albeit dead force in a very large area. Moved to the inner max-sec site to prevent undead outbreaks."

"Yeah I still don't buy it. This sounds like poorly written fanfiction."

DJ snorted softly. "I've seen shit that seemed like the laws of reality were determined by a madman. Hell, I exist right now after all these years of doing what I've done. That's a bigger stretch of fiction."

"Example?"

Seating across the campfire, DJ tapped the top of an unmarked pack on his plate carrier before slipping out a cigarette. "I worked either solo or with a small team while doing Special Recon and Elimination, or SRE. Preferred solo work, but it took me to somewhere we called 'The Other Place' on four separate occasions when the drives were all active. I had to kill multiple people I had already put in the ground as well as contend with these Retainers, massive motherfuckers that control the whole ass realm."

Lawrence placed the tablet aside, if anything to force his brain to try and listen to what sounded like insane ramblings. "Alright… you had me up till this dimension hopping shit."

Sparking the tip of the cigarette from an ember next to him, DJ looked up at the night sky.

"It gets weirder. I fenced a Retainer with a rock spire it summoned to throw at me while it tried to restrain down a target that I needed to, I suppose 'Unretain' from the place. Death isn't the end I guess I could put it and my boss needed to know for a fact that the guy would absolutely not ever come back. Killed him once, then hunted him down and killed him again."

"That's-"

"Bullshit right? Like people don't come back the same even if they luck out and don't come back a Zed. That's what I told Hanne but, that fucker hated my existence so whatever I had to say, y'know, in one ear and out the other." DJ softly laughed, sighing before taking a drag off the ill omen. Lawrence shook his head and retrieved the tablet to keep scrolling. "Yeah, bullshit."

Swiping through, Lawrence paused at the last unlocked entry on the pad, tapping it open.

"Project Y, Success: Non-Applicable. Count: 1. An attempt to copy the Auditor's unique summoning ability with weapons. One subject was used and succeeded, but the project was scrapped after it was discovered that most Project subjects had the potential ability to use this already. Currently unknown if possible for subjects to use the ability fully beyond summoning their own weapons they have de-summoned before. Project put on hold and shelved, Y-1 sent to weapons storage facility 5 to test abilities further."

"What in the fuck?" Lawrence looked up at DJ who had looked down to meet his gaze. Shrugging and waving his free hand, a shower of black sparks escaped his palm before an MP5 more or less materialized into his hand out of the sparks. "It's doable yeah."

Lawrence spluttered out a few sounds at the feat performed before him as the older Operative set the gun aside and cracked his knuckles. "I can't de-summon anymore, but energy is unstable nowadays so I can't do it regularly without seriously coughing up my organs."

"WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST DO THAT TO PROVE THE INSANE SHIT?"

The Agent was flat out flabbergasted, so much so he frisbeed the tablet into the sand beside DJ, who again shrugged.

"Cause I don't owe you shit. And I didn't think to. Anyway-" he picked the tablet up and slipped it inside his bag along with the newly summoned gun. "Get some shut eye. I'll do the first watch."

DJ stood and brushed the sand from his jacket before stepping over the dune out of sight. Lawrence huffed and settled back into a comfortable position against the wheel, taking off the shades and setting them aside in his pocket as he watched the flames.

Shuffling through the sandy rubble, the old Operative pulled over a rock and brushed off a battered plate.

'Facility 09'

"'For the future' huh dad? Don't really know if your envisioned future is any worse than now." Kicking over a rebar rubble block to free the plate he picked up the scourged and dented brass. Faint blue static rolled off the plate connecting with his own black electrical static on his hands. Evidently, the metal still held a charge from the core detonation that day.

A heavy sigh rolled off his tongue as he shoved it in his jacket, turning his eyes to the horizon.

"I'm tired dad. I don't know how much time I have left and I will never see my family I helped make again… not even my old squad. Is this how you felt after mom died? The crushing weight of the world around you?"

Silence. Only the unmarked graves could give an answer, and it was deafening silence.

"Maybe Hank had the right idea with those goggles. Seeing the world just in a red tint." DJ mused, turning back to head up the hill.