G.E.S.S.: Genetically Engineered Super Soldier

by Frank Pisauro

  I had a debuff from not resting, thankfully, the meditation would handle that. A debuff for each of my low stats, anything under ten in a stat and you have a negative modifier. At a minus one for every two points below ten, I was minus one, thanks to my stats being eight, in all my attributes. This earned me yet another debuff for having all six in the negative and making me pretty much nothing but a breathing corpse.

  The stats themself were basically self-explanatory. Want to be three times stronger than an average human, never understood why humans were the base of most things when races varied so wildly, but whatever. Put points in strength, or (str). That’s about it. However, it didn’t really explain that stats gave bonuses at even numbers at a base of ten. So, a score of twelve in str would give you a plus one bonus. Though having a plus one bonus didn’t mean that a person was twice as strong. It did mean that the person was much stronger than the average human. This bonus was applied in all kinds of different ways for all the stats. Like being able to carry more weight around, because of a higher str attribute.

  Well, time to get back on track. I still have my abilities, but my skills have reset to zero again. Most of my power is gone, and along with it, a lot of my old tricks. I could have tried to wallow in self-pity, but with all the genetic tricks they spliced into my DNA that was easier said than done. No. Let me assign my attribute points, my racial bonuses will kick in once I add a point to each one. Then, I will worry about the rest of this nonsense. Hopefully, figuring a way out of this freaking mess I’ve found myself in.

  Attributes:

  Strength: 12

  Dexterity: 16

  Constitution: 16

  Intelligence: 16

  Wisdom: 15

  Charisma: 18

  After assigning my stats and seeing I could at least cast eight spells—even if it is a pittance of what I was last capable of—I felt a little better.

  This bit of relief allowed me to relax for a while in my favorite chair inside my mindscape. I still had my skill points to assign, but at least progress had been made. I thought back to how I got there, letting the memories of my old life take me away.

  Chapter Two

  My original body was that of a human from Earth. I had lived a good life, at least I thought so, and died at a ripe old age of ninety-four. I Was married to the love of my life for almost sixty years, had two wonderful children, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren when I died.

  In my early days, I was a typical wild boy. Climbing trees, fighting, and playing street sports with friends and brothers made up most of my childhood. I was intelligent, which often led to clashes with authority figures for things I considered stupid. That made school difficult. I had a natural wanderlust, which culminated in service to my country. This brought me my first experience of war. I was never the same after that, though I was able to glue myself together, but it took a few years.

  After some time in college, I got lucky and found Beatrix, the love of my life, got married and had kids. Life was good, some might even say boring. There were the usual life shenanigans thrown in, of course, but honestly, it was a good life.

  Technology was beyond incredible. You could visit VR worlds in your sleep and go on an outer space flight. Faster than light travel, or ftl had been invented but was still too expensive for the average Joe. The world was a relatively peaceful place, and so was my family’s life.

  It was the story of the average person living in the modern world, so I won’t go through ninety-four years of memories, I grumbled in my head. I remembered the looks on my grandkids’ faces for “Grandpa’s stories”, and how they faded as they got older.

  To be honest, after ninety-four years it was no shock when I died. One day I just fell over, and that was that. No idea what actually killed me that time, I thought. I hope my wife and kids didn’t mourn me for too long, and everyone got together for my funeral. I remember there was pain when dying, yet that wasn’t the memorable part. I recall my vision tunneling out, like an old television when you turned it off. Even with all I was destined to go through, nothing was as scary as the narrowing vision that led to nothing.

  I didn’t remember my time dead, either time. Though, I have a vague sense that energy was everything, time meant nothing, with a feeling that everything was one. It doesn’t make sense when I think about it, and I honestly get too confused to dwell on it. I do recollect the confusion the first time I awoke in this body. I regained consciousness while attached to electrodes inside a suspension tank. Breathing through a tube, my body was still undergoing changes from the genetic cocktail that was my DNA.

  From that point on, I was a Gess designated and named Rho. My old name lost forever. A genetically enhanced super soldier—a modified being with the implanted soul of a deceased sentient. The scientists/wizards didn’t care who you used to be. In fact, if you couldn’t adapt to the reality of being in a new body—of which there were several of us—broke any of their rules, or regulations—and oh boy, there were a lot—your soul was sent back to The beyond, and your Gess body reused. I wasn’t sure if I was the first to occupy this body, it was impossible to know. I witnessed many of my brothers and sisters being replaced during those terrifying first weeks in our vats.

  The scientists, in their infinite wisdom, put a backup code in every Gess’ DNA. This granted them the ability to remotely trigger an ultrasonic pulse specifically designed for each Gess. Once activated, the pulse would then be sent directly to the offending Gess through the mind link, killing them instantly.

  I didn’t have a single issue with being in this new body. It was magnificent! The things I could do compared to my old body were glorious and freeing. In a way, I never realized I had been restrained. That didn’t mean I was mentally okay, though. I missed my family but didn’t let it cripple me. I had had a good life, and wouldn’t let the sadness of losing it cause the geneticists to terminate my new existence. With that in mind, it was only a few months before I was able to get through the pain of losing my past life. That is not to say I forgot it.

  When my Gess body was released from the growing vat, my compatriots and I were informed that we were to be soldiers in their war for planetary control. The Enclave Alliance of Sentient Races, or the alliance as they were commonly called, was fighting for the survival of their world. On the other hand, the Dwellers of the Deeps, or the dwellers as we called them—it had some derogatory origin that I never bothered to learn—had come up from the depths of the Earth to destroy it. Looks like they both lost if my flashbacks are true, I thought, as I continued reminiscing.

  The war had been raging for ten years when we left our vats and showed no signs of stopping. While casualties were steadily rising on both sides that wasn’t the main concern. The destruction of the planet was getting worse by the day, making vast areas of land unable to support life.

  The alliance, desperate to find a way to win, had approved a hugely controversial project known as The Genetically Engineered Chimerical Sentient. The alliance took their best minds, and their worst, and went to work on creating the best soldier possible.

  Able to resist a host of the enemy’s favorite weapons, such as Death’s touch,—a poisonous acid that was impossible to treat, which the enemy had in ample supply—Gess were to be a trump card. It took the alliance just under three years to develop and grow Gess to the point of being removed from our vats. Gess could see in the dark, had multiple immunities, were resistant to magic, the list went on, and on. Still, after almost thirteen years, the war raged on. Now, however, the alliance had a chance.

  Unfortunately, the geneticists, and with them the alliance, found themselves in a bit of a bind. It turned out that it took thirteen years for Gess to become functioning soldiers. The issue was the system, heh, I chuckled thinking back on that disaster.

  The system was ancient, no one knew where it came from, and personally I didn’t care. It was a familiar thing to me, the games my former body used to play had a similar function in almost all of
them. Honestly, I found its presence comforting in this strange new world. Facility staff, the geneticists, everyone possible tried everything they could think of to get around the age requirement of the system. Studies into the history of the system, digging deep into its secrets, absolutely none of which mattered to me, all came up empty. The issue was that the system considered us newborns under the care of the facility staff. We wouldn’t be given control of our class, skills, or attribute points until we came of age. Which, according to the system, took place when an individual turned thirteen. While this stymied the progress of the project, causing the facility staff and the alliance in general huge amounts of suffering. That, of course, flowed down hill, again, I couldn’t help but chuckle. However, the project itself carried on.

  While this was a huge issue for those in control, it was a boon for the Gess who were glad that it did take so long because of all the training needed to get used to their new bodies. The time needed to not only to accept that magic was real and let it sink in, but to learn it as well. It was hell. I stopped my thoughts at that point. Just thinking about that brutal training put a frown on my face.

  We were able to train using our skills and spells, yet were unable to distribute any of our points. Points couldn’t be gained through training, and spells weren’t able to target others unless in a life-or-death emergency. The debuff for low ability scores didn’t affect us as we had a tag next to our age.

  (Juvenile)

  Juvenile: Unable to assign stat or skill points. Cannot use offensive spells unless under a threat of death. Stat debuffs negated.

  As the years went by, the geneticists were less likely to use their deactivation code. Instead, they had our combat instructors beat us within an inch of our lives, for even the smallest mistakes. Our combat instructors were all veterans of the war, hard men and women who had seen horrors that I couldn’t yet begin to understand. All of them thought of us as abominations, treating us more like the enemy than fellow soldiers. They were constantly cutting off body parts, dealing out mass beatings at the drop of a hat that killed a few of us Gess as a result. The death of one of us was one of the few times the facility personnel would intervene. Though, only to protect their “property”. Things didn’t actually get any better. It wasn’t all bad, with all that training, I was able to master the long sword and medium armor easily once I could gain points at thirteen. I had also earned the finesse ability thanks to the years of training. Pfft, I huffed, looking at the ability in that section of my character sheet.

  Finesse: Dex based damage instead of str based.

  Chapter Three

  From the look of things, it appears that all my skills have reset. No matter, I can see if I still have the muscle memory, I thought as I mentally put myself in full battle gear and did a series of drills. Good, looks like I still know what I’m doing. So, I should be able to get the skills I work on up in no time. Thinking of skills reminded me how off track I had become, so I returned to reflecting on how I ended up here.

  For five years, the Gess race fought the war. Unfortunately, by that time, the damage had been done. The population of the surface was down in the low millions. A far cry from the billions it had been at the start of the decades-long conflict. Most of the surface and underground cities had been wiped off the planet. Explosions, both magical and nuclear, ravaged the planet. Huge sinkholes the size of cities going miles deep dotted every landmass. Tsunami’s ruined every coast, destroying islands in their wake. The fallout from the two kinds of radiation alone made over seventy percent of the landmass on the planet uninhabitable.

  Still, for the first four and a half years, the Gess managed to turn the tide. Crushing all that stood in our way, achieving victory after victory. Hell, we thought we could win until that bitch of a queen showed up, I thought. The appearance of the drow queen changed that dealing us our first loss, leading to the alliances ultimate defeat in the war.

  Bringing two million reserve forces, the dweller’s special forces, and the queen’s guard from the bowels of a nearby mountain the Queen ambushed us while fighting what we thought were the remains of her army. The enemy hit our flank with devastating effect. In one strike alone, the queen killed hundreds of our forces, while her minions rushed forward to finish the rest. We unleashed everything we had trying to flee her clutches, inflicting hundreds of thousands of enemy casualties in our retreat. Even so, only a little over one hundred thousand out of a combined military force of one point two million individuals made it out.

  The fallout from that battle was immense. All the geneticists at the lab agreed that it was the end as the planet could no longer support complex life. This knowledge was an accepted fact in the alliance, but out of spite, and again in their infinite wisdom, they decided on an all-out final attack against the queen, hoping to destroy as many of their enemy as they could. With the lofty goal of living a few more years.

  The battle spanned miles of ruined land on the outskirts of some forgotten city that had been reduced to rubble. Nothing was forbidden in the attack. Hell, they even told us Gess to go crazy, and my dense star was so strong I was told never to use it at full power or I would tear the planet apart. In the first few moments of the attack, millions died on both sides as a result of the magical and other ordnance being deployed by both the alliance and the dwellers. The only reason my squad made it was because we were in a maintenance tunnel behind enemy lines in a flanking maneuver. I can still hear the screaming and the ringing in my ears form explosions.

  I was covered in viscera, not even slowing as I cut my foes down with blade and plasma. My breath attack had let me bore through a wall, enabling my squad to enter the massive cavern that held the enemy queen’s headquarters.

  Acid Breath weapon: Six-inch diameter stream out of mouth for a maximum of ten yards. Lasts ten seconds. Does durability damage.

  I closed out my breath attack description, returning to that last fateful battle. My surviving squad and I were fighting tooth and nail for every inch we could take. The numbers they had was more of an issue than their ability. The troops facing us were no match for our skill, or our combat experience.

  I had no idea what was going on in the battle outside the cavern, but the mind link was a constant reminder of it. The screams for help and manic laughter of battle fury could be heard through it. However, it was of no concern to my squad. So, we just continued to mow the enemy down. There were thousands who stood against us. We were sorely pressed, unable to unleash some of our heavier hitting abilities because we would die too.

  That was when the mind link connection to the facility went silent. My remaining squad members Pi, Delta, and me instantly knew that the alliance laboratory we had called home was no more. We fought to one side of the cavern, clearing out a small side room for ourselves. Pi sealed it with steel he manipulated off our enemy’s corpses. None of us even bothered to check our wounds. We were just trying to catch our breath when a voice spoke through the mind link.

  I don’t know who spoke, but me and the boys agreed, it was better to die killing the queen than laying down to die. Besides, it’s not as if we could have deserted. After being pressured by the alliance to keep us on a tight leash, the geneticists who had also come to fear the Gess’ combat prowess agreed to add another layer of security. They had solved that little concern by putting one more fail safe in place in the form of a satellite. This satellite contained the kill switch to all the Gess. If a signal wasn’t sent to it from the laboratory once every day, thank goodness it was only once a day, the kill code would be broadcast globally, instantly killing my whole race.

  So, we attacked. Spells and abilities we had held back in case they killed us were put on full display. I used my hand to direct deadly plasma, firing it in such a thick stream that it melted the floor in front of me. burning me to varying degrees from the waist down. The stream killed hundreds if not thousands as I channeled the spell going left to right through the cavern. Dealing out their own heavy spells, my squad mates
killed just as many. The cavern walls were melting in places and parts of the ceiling were caving in. Blood, guts, and giant slabs of rock were falling everywhere, drowning out the sounds of the dying from the ringing thuds of tons of rock hitting the ground and deafening me. The plasma stream suddenly met resistance when the queen stepped in front of it. And here we are, I thought, as I remembered my final moments as a Gess alliance soldier.

  Chapter Four

  Still drilling my combat forms, a combination of sword forms, and arcane combat techniques, I took stock of my situation. I was trapped, with no idea if I could escape. I was alive with my memories, again, with no idea of how or why. Jokes on them if they think bringing me back will make me be at their beck and call.

  The geneticists had beat that out of me. It didn’t matter what whoever awoke me wanted, I wasn’t inclined to give a shit, at least not until I knew what was going on. Not bringing up my full character sheet, I pulled up my spells and skills, with the intention of distributing my skill points, and to check what the limit of my power was now.

  Class Skills:

  Manipulate gravity: 0 + 3

  Dense star: 0 + 3

  Haste/Slow: 0 + 3

  Ion control: 0 + 3

  Telepathy: 0 + 3

  Shapeshifting: 0 + 3

  Perception: 0 + 3

  Precision strike: 0 + 3

  Concentration: 5*

  Bastard swords: 0 + 3

  *: These points do not count toward an individual’s skill point cap total.