“Damn general, I want to drink my wine right now. Instead I’ll end up talking about government’s expectations for next year. Harper! Have you brought those boxes from storage?”
“Of course doctor. May I ask you something?”
Caroline was putting her lab coat on. “Ask away!”
“How much have you drank doctor?”
“Not enough Harper, not enough.”
She pushed him away from door and made her way to general’s office, leaving Harper standing there confused. Caroline had to admit, she drank more than she should. It wasn’t even evening.
Caroline stormed through general’s door.
“You wanted to see me?”
General lifted his sight from computer screen.
“We’ve got a… doctor are you drunk?
“I consumed large amount of alcohol but I don’t consider myself drunk.”
“I’m serious doctor. I appears that few our squads went rogue and attacked test subjects.”
Caroline’s mind examined that sentence very carefully.
“You mean YOUR men are killing MY work?!”
General sighed.
“We have two K.I.A. and one M.I.A.”
“In English general, please.” Caroline demanded.
“Two subjects are dead and one may be alive.”
Caroline was now sure he is serious.
“Which subjects?” She asked fearing the worst.
“Alpha and Delta are dead, John may be alive. They were hit with Javelin missile.”
Caroline fell to nearby chair. Even if John was alive he would be crippled.
“They called for evac, they will arrive in thirty minutes. I suggest your team should prepare.”
Caroline took her phone. She selected Sanders in contact list, her hands were shaking when she tapped call button.
“Sanders. You know what happened?”
“Yes I know. We have prepared our equipment but we have no idea about damage done by flames and blast. Come see me near medical wing.”
She unwillingly released the phone and let it fall.
“Who is responsible?”
She was just about to leave, but she decided to make general feel bad.
“You know what? I don’t want to know it! But I hope you know who did it. Otherwise you can be damn sure if John survives, he is going to kill you all. So you’ll better find out who is behind it.”
Then she closed door and walked away.
Sanders was already waiting for her. Doctor David Sanders was tall, muscular surgeon in his early thirties. He just talked to cyber engineer and implant manufacturer. He looked worried and others looked interested. Caroline waited for engineer and manufacturer to leave before she talked to Sanders.
“I hope you know more than I do.”
“Yes, we have received some information about damage done to John. His skin was burned over 80% of his body, his eyes are practically destroyed. Blast torn off his right arm and both legs bellow knee. We’ll be lucky if he survives. And if he does, we’ve never encountered this kind of damage.”
Caroline was trying to stay professional, however that was harder every second. However she had an idea how to solve Sanders’s problem.
“Do you remember Spectre?”
“Yeah, strange stuff. You don’t want to? Sanders shivered.
“Yes. That’s precisely what I want to do. Do we have schematics for it? Caroline put her hand on his shoulder
“They are stored in our database. But, it would transform him into… something else. Implants of that size it could kill him. Caroline! Are you listening to me?”
“No, David! There will be no discussion to this matter! I’m chief scientist of this project! That means I make the call.”
And I said that John gets Spectre implants.” Caroline shouted.
After few seconds she continued in normal tone.
“If someone is responsible for what happened to him it’s us. Now we need to focus on getting him in one piece. ”
Sanders nodded and started walking away.
“You’re right. I’ll send our order to manufacturing labs. By the way, Gillian… Gillian… she is going to need help. I think you should take care of her when they arrive.” Then he made his way to his office.
Last five minutes before helicopters brought in survivors were the hardest moments of Caroline’s life. When they arrived Sanders refused to let Caroline see John. Then she saw Gillian, curled into a ball in darkest corner of hangar. Her bulletproof vest was laid nearby, she obviously threw it away.
Caroline approached her slowly and tried to help Gillian stand up. Before she could do so Gillian raised her hand to stop her. Gillian waited for everyone else except Caroline to leave hangar. Then she let Caroline to hold her hand and lead her through empty hallways of base.
Gillian looked more like corpse than a person. Mud and sand covered her face, she had scratches all over her body. John threw her far enough from explosion but it was a long fall.
Caroline led Gillian to her apartment. Apartments were most remote underground part of base, Gillian was first subject who saw this part of base. It could be sealed off from rest of facility in case of fire or uprising. Caroline wanted Gillian to stay in with her tonight. She washed Gillian’s face with wet towel and waited for Gillian to fall asleep. Then she left her alone and went to check on progress in medical wing…
ACT II – THE LIBERATOR
Chapter 4 – The Spectre Protocol
John was in Sub-reality again, he had no idea for how long. You can keep up time conscious but not for long, time in Sub-reality can be slower or faster and nobody knows why. John was bored of walking around endless world of Sub-reality, he played his memories again most of them were inaccessible, he even tried to reprogram some of his implant functions but he couldn’t. That meant someone was hooked into his cybercore functions and was doing something. John could tell one thing, whoever was doing it or whatever was the person doing it was big, all core activity was of the charts. It looked like the person was rewriting all core functions. It meant that he’s still alive and that he has a chance of recovery. Suddenly process window popped up right in front of him:
>New core firmware installed
>Rebooting…
Everything went dark for a moment. Then new Sub-reality started to appear around John. Something he never saw before. Lines of blue pulsing light on the floor. Giant, blue, glowing sphere in background. First time John saw objects that weren’t contained in his memories. Multiple process windows rose from the floor.
>New core detected… running diagnostics
>Core clock rate 100 petahertz
>A.I. Compatible…
>Advanced Combat&Control installed
>HiSense chip connected
>Spectre series implants installed
>Memory: Recovered and loaded
>External hardware detected… initializing
>!Error! Code 5x427
>Manual activation required
>Lockdown authorization: Sanders, David
>Subject: Ready
>Stasis mode: Releasing
John woke up in real world. At first he couldn’t see or hear anything, soon he was staring at the ceiling.
“Ok, John you woke up. You can’t move because your body has been severely damaged. We’ve repaired the damage but external implants aren’t active. I’ll activate them one by one. Eyes first, they had to be replaced. What you see now it’s just basic sight. Activating now.”
It was Doctor Sanders talking. Suddenly John could see far better, new HUD loaded and his hearing also improved.