UrufuHiken
Creative!
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Prologue:
"We, who would be gods amongst men."
The security gate gave a resounding ding as John’s identity card slipped through the scanner. On the overhead a green light flashed acknowledgement and the bulletproof glass door slid open with a slick and airy sigh. The door slid shut again as John stepped through the portal. Immediately after the doors had closed, sterilizing chemicals began spraying John for any outside infections. The wispy smoke cleared, dissolving into a thin mist as the sprayers ceased their activity, and another door opened to unbar his path.
“Good morning, John,” came the perky and girlish voice over the intercom.
“Hello Samantha,” replied John in a thick, mechanical tone.
Security Active and Mechanized Action, Neural THinking Automaton, or ‘Samantha’ for short, was the interactive security network of the Aegis II program’s allocated underground facility, somewhere on this 'no-name worth mentioning' city in the middle of hic-ville central. She was an AI program with borderline human behavior, (at least on the outside.) She had nearly unlimited access to all mechanized utilities, and security protocols and devices. When John was first aquatinted with this peculiar AI who would be like his boss, he felt a little apprehensive. Now, however, and after three years of working with the AI, he only felt slightly annoyed by her from time-to-time.
Samantha made a pouting sound over the com-link. “John!” she whined, “your so mean! Why is everyone always so robotic and cold?”
“Well you’re the only robot here, Sam, why aren’t you?” replied John, setting off down one of a series of many honeycombed corridors.
Samantha sniffed loudly but quickly regained her petulant voice. “Well someone has to have a little life down here, else everyone will commit suicide in this decrepit place!”
“I’m pretty sure you are the only suicide inducing object in these people’s day-to-day life, Sam. You certainly induce it in me.”
Samantha began pouting loudly over the com-station. It was all a game to her however, for the two generally did the same thing every day. It was all part of her neural scanning and analyzing process; detecting security threats and possible corruption from the employee’s minds and actions by any oddities in body language or the mental/chemical structure. John often wondered if he would have had a different life if his councilor had been able to analyze as effectively as Samantha.
“No need to be a scrooge, John; analysis complete, the director requests your assistance in Eve’s observatory.” Samantha must have noticed the immediate effect of depression as John heard those words (the distinct chemical changes in his body as his mind went through a series of depressions and self loathing) because she did not bother John after that. He knew that she was watching however, she was always watching and analyzing.
The corridor lights lining the floors and ceilings flickered lazily as John continued to wander through his haze and down the hallway to the “observatory,” the over-glorified torture chamber that served as Aegis project’s main test subjects observatory.
John reminded himself that everything done down here, down in this light forsaken facility of inhuman evils, had a reason. What they did down here would one day save millions. What evils that were committed down here would path the way for a better and safer future for all mankind. He reminded himself, but somehow still felt cold an wretched deep down.
It was OK, however. He would do what needed to be done. No matter the cost.
John swiped his security card again, and a door that was nearly hidden in the wall slid open with silent hydraulics. He stepped through, presented his open palm on a slick part of the wall, an stepped back again as he heard a soft mechanical click. Across the hallway from him, part of the solid wall slid away to reveal a narrow, descending staircase.
John’s shoes clanked noisily on his way down the dank, damp passage. Dim red lights gave little light and he had to keep his hands firmly on the encasing walls.
‘You think with all the funding this facility gets it would be bale to afford handrails,’ John thought glumly, reaching the bottom step and again presenting his palm for scanning. ’Then again, they may have spent it all on scanners…’
The door gave a loud, unlocking click, and John opened the handle with a jerk and pushed the heavy door open. It swung back on hydraulic hinges and locked once again when closed.
The inside of the room was a cliché of bright lights, observatory cages, and willowy looking men in glasses and white lab coats, walking aimlessly and scribbling notes on clipboards. One thing seemed out of place however. Instead of test animals, the cage held a small, decrepit looking, human girl.
The Aegis program had one goal, to make the perfect human being. A person with mental and physical capabilities off the charts, regenerative capabilities twenty times stronger then any normal being, and senses of a heightened power far beyond any other creature. In short, a project to unlock mankind’s true and latent abilities, and enhance them even beyond that point. To give immunity to all forms of disease, and extend life expectancy to hundred’s of years, or even, some spoke of, immortality.
To accomplish this goal, Aegis would use any method at their disposal, even if it meant the death’s of hundreds of test subjects. And hundred’s of test subjects had died, but one had shown the most promise.
Eve.
Though she looked like any other girl of nine years old, she had the strength of an adult and a mind at a university grade level (when they could get her to actually do anything.) She could solve complex equations, read, write, and speak fluently in several different languages, and when they cut her… when they cut her, her wounds would heal in the blink of an eye… depending on the size.
Despite this, she was ill most of the time, at some times totally unresponsive. But even so, thanks to her, they were making progress with other test subjects. Because of this, the people opted to name her Eve. In honor of her accomplishments.
John had a hard time not laughing at that one. The things that were forced upon her was a form of the cruelest torture. Exposing her to disease after disease, injuring her, breaking limbs, cutting, and even shooting her. Though she healed quickly from the injuries and recovered from most of the sicknesses, the arrogant scientist in their dry-cleaned lab coats and prim looking demeanor could only congratulate her, telling her she should be proud of her accomplishments.
But did any of them consider that she didn’t want this ‘honor?’ Did any of them consider the damage they had done to this innocent girl’s life, whose only crime had been that no one would miss her when she was kidnapped and used for testing?
John turned around and read the plaque that stood above the door. ‘To become gods amongst men, we shall walk the path of devils.’
“In the end, what will we be remembered as?” John whispered silently to himself. “Will it be gods, or will it be devils?”
“Gods, of course!”
John turned back around to confront Mr. Ryu, the facilities director.
“Are you sure, director?” John found himself asking, despite knowing what the man would say.
“Of course!” he said. Still seeing John’s doubt, he sighed and motioned for him to follow. “For the sake of many we must sacrifice the few. To path the way for a better life of millions, we must destroy the lives of hundreds. To become gods, we must first become devils. No one ever said the price would be an easy one to pay, but it must be paid!”
“I know sir,” said John. “You have said it many times…”
The director gazed at him for a while before nodding his head in acceptance. “You will feel more sure after today,” he assured him. John looked up expectantly.
“We will need you to keep her calm for the administration,” the director finally said. “You are the only one who gets through to her now, for some reason. Assure her that she will be fine. Keep her occupied. Do whatever it is you do to attract her attention.” The director then turned and motioned up the administration team. John nodded glumly to no one in particular and walked over to Eve.
“Hi Marie,” said John, a sad smile on his face as he kneeled down. John was the only one who used Eve’s true name still, was the only one who even bothered to figure it out in the first place. And though it was at first discouraged, even now discouraged, it was one of the only things that got through to her.
Marie looked up, face blank and as expressionless as always. Through the whole time John had known her, he had only seen her smile once. And that was when he first used her name and presented her with some candy, holding her hand as a syringe was placed in her arm. He had gotten yelled at because of it, but he didn’t care, this girl needed at least a little kindness in her life.
Marie continued to stare blankly at him, recognition seeming to flit on the edge of her mind. Another side effect at being the perfect human being.
“They are gunna give you a little shot now, Marie, but don’t be afraid.” He held his hand out through the bars. “I won’t leave your side for a moment.”
She stared blankly at the hand for a short time, then slowly grasped it with both hers. Though she did so gently, John was always surprised by the potential strength in her grip.
“Everything will be fine,” he lied.
She looked up into his eyes, boundless intelligence floating just behind jade green pools of clouded ignorance.
“OK Eve, time for your medicine,” said a white coated lab assistant with an extended syringe. Marie looked at the syringe and fear made her grip John’s hand a little more tightly. He squeezed back and Marie looked back into his face.
The syringe touched her skin and she did not shy back. In the moments before the injection she spoke.
“Yes. All will now be made right.”
The words caused a slight pause before the injection, but that was not what made John flinch. The moment she spoke, John heard her say another word. Not with her mouth, but he heard her voice inside his mind. A voice that screamed louder and echoed longer then any other he had ever heard. A word that left him frozen in fear.
Justice!
The liquid entered her veins, and Marie held her gaze for moments after. Then her eyes shot wide, her muscles constricted, and her grip went lax as her body shot into convulsions. John held on tightly to her twitching hand, screaming her name as she fell to the floor. Her veins seemed to move like snakes as the twisted and turned erratically.
“MARIE!”
“Someone get in there with her!” John heard the director scream.
“What’s happening?”
“Did someone use the wrong syringe?”
“Analyze it, analyze it now!”
“Figure out what’s happening!”
“Is she breathing?”
“Get a rehabilitator in here stat!”
“Move, move, move!”
Her veins stopped snaking under her skin, and Marie’s twitching muscles went completely lax. Doctors and scientist bustled around the room amidst a tornado of flying papers and thunder of screaming voices. Amidst the chaos, one of the doctors had opened the cage and dropped to her side.
“She doesn’t have a pulse,” the doctor said. “Get that-”
Everything else was cut off on a blood curdling scream as Marie’s body jerked back into motion and her teeth sank into the doctor’s arm.
“Get her off him!” the director screamed. “Put her out!”
Several tranquilizer darts shot into her body but she gave no recognition of them even touching her. Several more men in white coats were trying their best to pull her off the doctor and to pull him away, but her grip was iron. Finally, someone hit over the head with the butt of a tranquilizer gun and she loosened her grip momentarily.
The doctor went flying away, leaving a chunk of his arm behind and pouring blood.
“Get him to the medical center!”
In seconds, the doctor had been rushed out of the room and up the stairs. Moments later, the noise quieted down and everyone calmed. It wasn’t the first time in their line of work where something went wrong, so they gathered themselves up quite quickly.
“Sanders,” said the director when all was quiet again. Mop up that blood.”
“Yes sir.”
“John. John… John!”
John shook himself and forced himself to look away from the unconscious Marie.
“Please move away from there, John,” the director said.
John nodded once and began to stand, but movement caused everyone to halt and look back to Marie.
She was now standing, face blank as ever, blood covering it and running down her shirt. She stared at John almost quizzically.
The director was now pulling him away. “John. I want you to head to the treatment center, see if they can’t give you anything to help.” John nodded his head dumbly, staring back at Marie even as he was pushed through the door.
Outside, after the door had clicked shut and locked, John slumped backwards against it and buried his face in his hands. He felt cold, frozen to the very core. Marie’s eyes still scouring his mind.
He had seen staring eyes like that before, many times since working here. Every child, every ’test subject’ that died, had stared with those very same eyes. And no matter what way John put it, he could only see the eyes of a dead Marie staring back at him. Inquisitive, calculating… dead.
What had he let happen to her?
He gave a little shiver and a shook his head before standing. He would turn around, walk back in there, and tell the director that he was staying with her. And if not, then he would quit. Get locked up even though he might, he would quit!
He pressed his palm up against the scanner and the door unlocked again. With a jerk, he pushed it open.
Hell met his eyes.
Blood covered the walls and pooled on the floor; bodies and limbs lay mangled and broken across the cold cement. He felt something move at his feet and looked down to see the director’s body, severed in half, one hand still clutching the handle of the door he had just shown John out of. There was a ripping sound, and the soft melody of girlish laughter.
John looked up, his eyes meeting with Marie’s. She had broken out of her cage and was covered in blood from head to toe. She was kneeling down and had Sanders’ body clutched to her chest. Sanders’ head lolled to the side, his throat torn out, the white of his spine peeking out from the gore.
Marie laughed again, a piece of flesh falling from her mouth. She stood, Sanders’ body clutched and lolling like some kind of macabre rag doll, and smiled.
“Justice.”
He heard the word as much in his mind as with his ears, and it echoed in the blank void of horror that it had become.
She laughed again the next thing John knew he was running flat out up the staircase and smashing his hand against the scanner. The door slid up and open, and before it had closed again he was halfway down the hall and running toward the medical center. His mind had gone blank with horror and the beating of his own heart in his ears.
He rounded the bend came to a slippery halt. A strange, dark liquid was covering the walls and floors of the dark corridor, and it was only now that his mind registered that the alarm had been blaring in his ears ever since the door opened.
A loud clanking noise brought his attention to the left, and he saw a man ambling towards him clumsily. The man stumbled into the light and fear wrapped its cold claws around John’s chest as the image of Sanders’ confronted him again, and he froze in that spot.
“John!”
John jerked to attention.
“John!”
“Sam?”
“There’s no time John! Follow my instructions!” Samantha’s voice echoed over his com. “To the right John! Run down the corridor to the right!”
Without thinking, John began to run, fallowing Samantha’s instructions.
“Left!”
“Up the staircase!”
“To the right!”
John ran, lungs gasping for air. He passed one of the mess-halls, blood staining the doors, and screams and moans echoing inside. Occasionally, he ran parallel with another human going the opposite way in escape. Occasionally he hopped bodies. And occasionally he saw mangled corpses of fellow co-workers trying to rise from the floor.
Through it all, Sam kept yelling directions into his ear, keeping him away from as much danger as possible.
“Left!”
John turned, feet pounding down the hallway until he came to a jerking halt.
“No good Sam! This is a dead end!”
“Just hold on a second!” she yelled back, almost frantically.
A noise from behind and John turned to see a willowy, mangled corpse claw itself around the corner. In the light, it looked a little different from the others. Dark blotched, pale skin with black blood seeping out of gnarled, half-healed wounds, and elongated, wraith-like hands.
The creature took one look at him, gave a horrible hissing moan, and began a rambling run down the corridor in his direction.
“SAM!!!”
“Go now!”
A door slid up and open behind him, and he wasted no time in slipping through and going down the stairs. The door slid shut just in time for a loud and heavy impact on the other end.
John descended the staircase and came to another door, just like Marie’s observatory. Mechanically he presented his palm and the door buzzed, not in recognition.
“Hold on a second,” came Sam’s voice, now calmer. The door unlocked and John stepped inside.
It was a kind of security/storage room, filled with boxes and flashing monitors. It had some odd’s and end’s equipment like exercise machines, refrigerators, microwaves, and etc.
“What is this place?” asked John.
“A safe house, filled with enough supplies to keep someone alive for years without leaving. And the only room with a manual lock from the inside that can’t be opened electronically. If I were you, I would lock it now.”
John quickly looked around and saw the large deadbolts and bars that could be manually sealed. Dead bolting and barring the door, he gave it a little test shake and walked away assured.
“But can those things get through the doors?” he asked.
“Not without assistance, no.”
“Who would assist-”
“No time John, I need you to follow my instructions directly!”
John paused, but nodded his head and waited.
“The computer directly to your left. Use it.”
John stepped over and looked down at the flashing monitor. It looked like all the other standard computers integrated into the system.
“This is the only computer in the room that is connected to my network. I have downloaded part of my consciousness into it and would like for you to click on the ’quarantine’ option.”
Seeing a little flashing alert on the screen reading, ’quarantine, yes or no?’ he clicked yes.
“Thank you, now that is done, I would like to give you the grand tour.” A little bit of Samantha’s usual perkiness worked its way back into her voice, but she still remained quite serious. “All the remaining five computers are set up on networks and internal batteries of their own. If the need arises, I would like you to take this disk,” a disk popped out of the computer to his left, “and place it in the farthest computer to the right, which already has a bit of my encryption integrated into its system.”
“Against the far wall we have the monitoring system, which is also on a separate network then the rest of our security system. It has less coverage, but it will do.”
“It is also on a separate power system, and can be manually charged or used with a back up generator if the need ever arises, which it will most likely do.”
“The cooking and refrigeration system is also on this room’s private power system, but can in like be hooked up to one of the backup generators or manually empowered and recharged with a handy hook up to the exercising cycles.”
“You have enough supplies to last you three years with a family of four so you should not go wanting.”
“Will others be joining me?” asked John. Samantha paused.
“No,” She said finally. “There is not much time I have left, when the computer finishes quarantining my memory, I will disconnect and ask that you power down the computer and only use it in the utmost of emergencies. Though I will be quarantined to this system alone, an outside source could still hack in.”
“Is that a problem?”
“More then you know.”
John paused, and neither of them said anything for a long second.
“If things get bad,” Sam continued. “You can remove the hard rive from this computer and plug it up to computer to the farthest right. My core code will be downloaded into it, and though I may be suffering from some minor memory loss and no longer able to assist much in outside manners, I will still be able to give advice.”
“What’s happening,” the question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Again, Sam gave a pause.”
“Extinction,” she said. “Infected have already breached the upper levels and soon will breach the outside world.”
“Can’t you stop them?”
“No, most of my core security measures have already been overridden. It is no longer in my hands. I used crucial time guide you here.”
This news gave John pause. Wasn’t that against her security protocol? Why would she even do it? John voiced these questions. She didn’t answer for thirty whole seconds.
“Because it was the only thing I could do.” Another pause. “Whatever you do, don’t open the door unless help arrives, and you best be sure even then.”
“I still don’t know what’s going on!”
“Look at the monitors.”
John turned. Across the sixteen monitors were scenes of gore and terror, blood and human’s running, killing, and dying. On one of the screens, John saw Marie walking slowly through a hallway bathed in blood.
Marie stopped and looked up directly at the security camera, directly into John’s eyes, and smiled.
“To become gods amongst men, we shall walk the path of devils,” Sam quoted. “I always hated that saying.”
“You too?” asked John, calmly turning off Marie’s monitor. “And now we who tried to play God, have created devils, harbingers of our doom?”
“It would seem so,” Sam answered back calmly.
“Somehow… somehow I knew we would pay for what we have done in the end. I suppose our superiors will only see this as a need to increase our security measures?”
“Most likely,” Sam again answered calmly.
Silence stretched, moving from seconds into minutes, and still neither spoke. Finally, a familiar ding broke through the silence and pulled John’s attention back to the computer. The bright letters ‘quarantine complete’ flashed across the screen.
“If you ever need me…”
“OK, Sam… Thanks.”
“John?”
“Yes?”
“… Good luck.”
Then the system powered down and there was nothing but silence accompanying John as he stood alone amongst flashing monitors.
He leaned against the cold, steel walls. The horrors of the nights events continued to play themselves out over and over in his head, and Marie’s blood covered, smiling face had imprinted itself eternally into his mind.
Finally, determining that doing nothing was becoming too unbearable, John moved over to the desk of computers. Eyes scanning the surface, he found a switch for a video and voice recording device. Flipping on the recorder, John began to speak.
“Survivor’s log, day one. John Brian William’s, 29 years of age.”
“We, who would be gods among men. We, who would strive to challenge God on His throne, have not gone unheard. And He has answered our challenge.”
“Behold now, the chronicles of mankind’s judgment…”
< Message edited by UrufuHiken -- 4/22/2010 17:11:14 >
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