by Francis Tint
“Where are Blake and Corey? Are they back yet?” Tylor inquired.
Blake opened her eyes under the protection of a whirlwind sphere that’s blocking the flames from causing her any damage. She felt peacefully safe amid the surrounding inferno. The wind bubble gently lifted her out the window and brought her right to Corey’s arms.
“Good job on the flickering,” said Blake.
“That’s nothing compared to what you did. You risked your life for the mission,” said Corey, with his hair still glowing ivory. He helped her to her feet.
She rested her arms on his chest for balance. “Definitely one of my craziest nights.”
“It’s hard to top this.”
Their eyes locked, exchanging intense emotions soundlessly. Her hand was tightly on him even though she had already regained her composure. Blood was racing through their systems, punctuated by their hastening heartbeats. On his body, Blake could feel Corey’s every breath, every heartbeat.
An untimely brand ringtone disturbed the peace. Blake stepped back and said, “I think we should head back now. They might be worried.”
“There’s tons of data here, secret trials, dodgy scientific conclusions,” Zach commented.
“Hey, you guys are finally back,” Julia noted.
“Yeah, it took some time to get her out of that inferno,” Corey said.
“Mm hmm,” Julia responded.
“What did we miss?” asked Blake. “Any crazy discoveries from the files?”
“Too much to go through for now,” Zach said. “And… this folder’s giving me some trouble.”
“Yeah?” Rachael offered. “Let me take a look.” She took over control. “You’re right, it’s encrypted.”
“They must be hiding something important,” Tylor explained. “What’s the name of the folder?”
“The Synchronizer,” Zach answered.
“It’s definitely them, boss,” a man hiding in a heavily tinted car spoke on the phone. He described each one of them in detail. “What should we do now?”
“Follow them, and set up a trap. Let’s use the tall one as bait.” The boss hung up the phone. It had taken him two years to find them. It’s time for payback.
CHAPTER FIVE
Damsel in Distress
The aged grandmother rocked her grandson to bed. After days of anxiety, she had been beyond pleased when the young folks had showed up at her doorstep returning her grandson safe and sound. How could she have lived with herself if she had failed her late daughter? The toddler had gone through so much. He had recently lost his parents. Then he had immediately been kidnapped by some unknown criminals. The young folks hadn’t said too much on how they had discovered her grandson, but had repeatedly urged her to keep him safe. No doubt she would obey. It’s the least she could do to remember her daughter by.
She checked the windows and doors to make sure all were armed and secure. No one would be able to get in or out of the house without triggering the security system. She headed to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of water. Maybe she could catch the late-night news before turning it in.
Stomp. Stomp. She heard some noise coming from her grandson’s room. Heck! Not her dear Sam!
She ran to the room and hurried to his bed. Gone, again! She checked the surrounding windows: no sign of forced entry. Where did he go?
Woosh! An eerie rustle caught her attention. She turned around to check behind her, and caught sight of a young man who seemingly had materialized out of thin air.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
Those were the last words she heard before receiving the fatal blow.
The young man dragged her body to the basement, and secured it to a locked room. With a blink of the eyes, he vanished from the place as if he had never entered the house.
The disappearance of the toddler and the murder of the grandmother would not be discovered until a long time had passed.
“Watch out!” Julia warned as Blake ducked to her left. Thump! A large boulder tumbled down, destroying her path ahead. “You got to jump!”
Blake followed the instruction and leaped across toward Julia. “Let’s keep going. We don’t have much time. We got to save Tylor before time runs out,” Blake said assertively.
They reached the end of their path, blocked by fast-flowing rapids ahead of them. “Aw… c’mon, it just can’t be easy,” Julia grumbled. “The water is going too quickly. We can’t swim in it. How can we get to the other side and into that building?”
Blake cocked the gun Zach had designed for her. “Well, let’s check out his invention.” Instead of regular bullets, Blake’s gun shot out pellets containing her signature cryogenic protein, giving a more controlled aim than throwing vials. Expectedly, an ice bridge materialized above the river, blocking the rapid waterflow.
“Glad I ditched my heels,” Julia said, and followed Blake on the slippery platform.
“Be careful,” Blake advised. “The ice looks fragile. The force from the river crushing on the bridge is making it more unstable.”
“I think you just jinxed it.” Cracks started to form on the ice behind them.
“Time to run!”
The duo hurried across the collapsing bridge. Water started splashing on the ice platform, making it slippery and more difficult to get across. Blake leaped decisively and jumped to safety. She turned around and saw the ice bridge disintegrating into the rapids, with no Julia in sight. She cried out her name.
A hand appeared on the floor before Blake. “Hang tight.” She grabbed firmly on the hand and pulled Julia out of the water.
“That was way too close,” said Julia, catching her breath.
They arrived at a heavy door, barring their entrance to the destination. Blake pulled hard on the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Step aside,” said Julia. “It’s show time.” She blasted her torch gun, also courtesy to Zach, incinerating the barricade, giving them full access to the building.
“Why is this not powering up?” Rachael asked confusedly.
Corey started shooting sparks at the metal gate, hoping to trigger some sort of reaction.
“Stop whatever you’re doing,” Rachael reprimanded. “You might destroy it. Let’s sort this through.” She traced down the circuitry connected to the gate, and noted some of the broken connections. “We need some conductor material to complete the track. Find me something metallic.”
Corey scavenged the abandoned furniture workshop, and found some loose nails lying around. “Will these help?”
“These should work fine.” Rachael proceeded to close the connections by forcing the nails in. “Hmm… they’re not sticking.”
“Let’s try Tylor’s micromagnets.”
“Good idea.” Rachael dusted the nails with some of Tylor’s reduced-strength nanochemical to finish the circuit. “Ok, now you can power it up.”
With his eyes closed and his hair glowing ivory, he summoned electricity to power up the circuit. The gate responded favorably. They entered the building and were met with another conundrum, a wide gap between where they stood and the door they needed to pass through.
“How are we going to get across?” asked Rachael.
“I need to use my other trick.” He called for wind to lift him across.
“That looks really scary,” Rachael protested.
“Just relax. It’ll be all right.” He used the same power to gently bring Rachael across an interminable fall. The roof started rumbling. Just before she reached the other side, a mixture of gravel and rocks fell on her. Corey lost control of her. She started frightfully descending into a calamitous void. She screamed desperately for help.
Corey grabbed a nearby rope and tossed it down. He let the rope hang loose in his hands, hoping for a response from below. All he could hear was more rumbling.
He heard a loud scream of relief. “Pull me up!” Corey obeyed and rescued her at last.
“‘It’ll be all right,’ he says,” mocked Rachael.
T
he four reunited in a dimly-lit torture dungeon. The room was cold and soundless. In the middle of the enclosed space, Tylor was suspended in air, restrained and unable to escape. He had lost consciousness and his face was as white as a ghost.
“How can we get him down?” asked Blake.
“I can use my powers, but I might hurt him in the process,” Corey suggested.
As the group debated options, Rachael interrupted, “Do you hear that?” A mechanical ticking sound was haunting the room.
“Where is that coming from?” asked Julia. Eerily, the ticking accelerated, like a timed bomb counting down. “Something bad’s about to happen.”
Abruptly, absolute silence followed. The group was put on high alert. They looked around guardedly for anything suspicious. Swoosh! Arrows darted across the room from one of the brick walls toward Tylor. Reflexively, Julia raised her fire gun and sprayed flame on the wall, burning any arrows that had been discharged.
Splash! Water started gushing in from a corner of the room. The high volumetric flow was quickly accumulating. Icy cold water started to flood the space.
“We got to block the water!” yelled Rachael. Blake quickly launched her ice gun and shot cryogenic pellets at the corner to freeze up the leak.
Click. Clack. Click. Clack. A pulley began to turn. An axe was dropped from above Tylor. “Quick, pull on that cord!” instructed Corey. Rachael hung tight on the cord. Thump! A boulder fell from the roof, striking toward their unconscious friend. Corey summoned wind to hold the slab in place.
As Julia was burning the arrows, Blake blocking the leak, Rachael pulling on the cord, and Corey holding off the boulder, a spike ball was launched toward Tylor. All four of them quickly diverted their attention in an attempt to save their friend.
But their reaction was too late. The spike ball struck right at Tylor’s torso. Fresh blood gushed out from his mouth.
He dropped on the floor, lifeless. His four friends surrounded the body.
His eyes opened. “Can I not play the victim role in the next simulation?”
“But you look so good as the damsel in distress!” Julia teased.
Corey took off his virtual-reality headset. “We should try again this evening. We’ve made good progress as a team. We’re in a better position if we come in contact with those from Capacify.”
“Sounds good,” Zach replied. “That’ll give me some time to perfect the simulation. Who should be tied up next time?”
All of them again pointed to their poor friend Tylor.
Blake knocked on the meeting room with Rachael behind her. “Sorry for being late. We just received the meeting notification.”
“No worries,” replied Ashlea. “Come, take a seat. Victor was just talking through his results.”
His results? They had worked on the parameters, run the simulation together. How dared he take all the credits!
“Yes, we want to pilot the state-of-the-art continuous-stream processing technology to scale up the production of the Dop5 protein,” Blake added, sharing ownership of their work. “It allows for a more agile…”
“Actually, I think since this is a high-stake project,” Victor interrupted, “we should go with a more conservative batch processing approach.”
“We discussed this already. When did we change direction?”
“I was running more simulations the other night,” Victor gloated, showing off his late-night work dedication. “You didn’t pick up your phone so I assumed you were with your blond-haired friend. I learned that there are more inherent risks with continuous-stream. I want to make sure that this program is a success.”
“I want this program to be a success too. But we can gain so much more efficiencies with continuous-stream.”
“I think you might be a little too distracted to make the right decision at this time.”
“I’m not distracted. I can perfectly balance my work from my life outside work.”
“Ok,” Ashlea interjected calmly. “Let’s take a deep breath. You both have done a great job here. I appreciate your hard work, Blake, and I am not doubting your ability to balance work and your social life. But I have to agree with Victor. He is an expert in scale-up, and I want to mitigate any potential risks. For this portion of the project, he should lead until completion.”
That evening, after another round of simulations, the group gathered in Zach’s dining room. “Since when did you start drinking almond milk?” Zach asked Corey.
“Oh, I got this for Blake. She likes it with her double-shot latte,” he replied, as he prepared her coffee of choice with Zach’s espresso machine.
“Hey Zach,” said Tylor. “I must’ve stepped on some seriously sharp rock out there. Do you have some plaster? I don’t want to bleed all over your hardwood floor.”
“Yeah, right away,” Zach responded.
Seated by the dining table, the others were comforting Blake. “It doesn’t sound that bad…” said Julia, consoling Blake.
“Victor went behind her back, took all the credits for their work, and embarrassed her in front of the boss. And now he’s the lead,” explained Rachael.
“Yeah, it did sound pretty bad,” muttered Julia.
“I’m sure that bastard Victor will seriously screw up soon, and Ashlea will beg you to champion the whole thing again,” Tylor said.
Corey and Zach joined the table with the coffee. Blake thanked Corey and said, “What’s done is done. Jule’s warned me before to be careful of him, and she was right. Lesson learned. There’s always a next time.”
“Amen to that,” Julia concluded. “Anyhow, Zach, did you get far with Hermes’s files?”
“I’ve made some headway,” Zach responded. “It confirmed what we already knew about the Capacify program. They recruit candidates and give them a harsh dose of chemical to change their isotopic makeup. The success rate is super low. The ones who survive always exhibit some sort of superpower, like invisibility, shapeshifting.”
“So they’re building a super army?” Julia speculated.
“Looks that way,” replied Zach. “Changing the isotopic makeup of a person seems to be giving them superhuman abilities.”
“I wonder who’s behind them,” Rachael said.
“It doesn’t matter. We got to stop them,” declared Corey.
“Well, looks like they’ve stopped it already,” Zach responded. “I mean, the death toll was really piling up.”
“Are you saying that someone else was behind the more recent incidents, like with Rachael levitating?” asked Blake.
“Let me clarify. They stopped the clinical trial with the harsh chemical dose, but they continued the program with a second phase,” explained Zach. “It involves candidates who are more genetically susceptible with a long-term influence.”
“What does that mean?” asked Tylor.
“Didn’t say. Someone else is running this program, probably because they’re trying to cast a wider net, so likely someone with a larger client base. Not much detail from Hermes,” said Zach.
“Well, Rachael, are you on some sort of clinical-trial program?” inquired Tylor.
She shook her head.
“Do you think there’s a way to find out why you’re more genetically susceptible?” Zach asked.
“After the incident,” Rachael said, “I did some bloodwork on myself. Everything looks normal.”
“Yeah,” Julia concurred, “the nanorobots neutralized your isotopic makeup, and they’re flushed out from your system within a few hours.”
“So, we’re all doomed.” Tylor whined. “Someone’s building a super army. We don’t know who or why, and we don’t know how to stop them!”
“We still got time on our side,” Corey pointed out. “They’re still unsuccessful because they’re killing their subjects. They haven’t quite found out how to stabilize the different isotopic makeup.”
“Right,” Zach added. “It looks like Phase Two hasn’t worked out as well as they want it to be. The effect is too weak
from just the long-term influence. The activation is an add-on to the program, and Hermes sends its army to do the dirty work. But then, as Corey said, that’s still killing the subjects.”
“Ok,” said Julia. “So people are dying, but at least they’re not yet successful in building a super army to take over the world.”
“Well, that’s one glass-half-full way of looking at it,” commented Zach.
“What about the Synchronizer folder?” asked Rachael. “Were you able to decrypt it?”
He shook his head. “There’s one more thing. They are now working with the hypothesis that maybe earlier exposure to genetically modified kids may provide the answer.”
“Like Sam,” Blake exclaimed. “That’s probably why they kidnapped Sam. And there was something strange with Sam’s genetics.”
“I remember,” Rachael said, “the OCA2 gene. You pointed out Sam should have blue eyes, but his eyes are hazel.”
“Well, should we make another visit to test out our theory?” suggested Tylor.
“We don’t need to,” said Blake. “That’s why I asked to borrow his blankie.”
Next morning, Julia made herself a cup of coffee at the company canteen, and sat beside Blake. “Morning sunshine,” she greeted. “Where’s our handsome companion?”
“Ty? I haven’t seen him around.”
“He’s usually the first to show up to work. Says it takes time to warm up his fancy forensic devices.”
“Maybe he’s under the weather?”
“Still a little unlike him not to have texted either of us. Let me try his number.” Julia tapped on her phone and called Tylor. No response.
Rachael joined in with her freshly brewed caffè mocha. “Good morning, friends. Where’s Ty? You three are always inseparable in the canteen.”
“We thought you might know,” Blake responded.
“He’s not picking up. I guess he must be feeling very unwell,” concluded Julia.
“Should we check up on him?” asked Rachael.
A notification ringtone interrupted her question. Julia picked up her phone and read the text she received. “Oh, looks like he needed to leave the city for some emergency.”
