by Project Kyle
Third to enter was Smiley, who had reequipped himself with a new flamethrower. He activated it and set the remaining three members on fire, laughing as he did so.
They vaporized within the flames, leaving Dr. Crimson to defend himself.
Being a psychopath, Dr. Crimson was unable to comprehend fear the way a normal human would; he was the predator, not the prey, and he needed to take control before that changed. He drew his Bowie knife and was about to charge at Smiley, who had just defeated three of his men, but he was knocked off his feet by a kick to the rib cage.
Dr. Crimson fell hard on the ground and noticed Jake had revived the Menace leader, Drake Robinson. Drake was furious when his men explained that Crimson had attempted to betray them. He walked over to Dr. Crimson, who was lying on the ground, and lifted his foot over Crimson’s head.
“No!” Crimson shouted as Drake drove his armored boot into Crimson’s skull.
Crimson began to lose consciousness after taking such a strong blow to the head, but he could still make out what Drake was saying to his men.
“Well, mates!” Drake said. “It looks like we got ourselves a new prisoner to use for target practice. We’re gonna have fun with this one!”
These were the last words that Crimson heard before the light faded away and everything went black.
Chapter 10 The first experiment
Earth date: February 10th, 2010
Location: Cosmic 5
Time: 600
The Little Warrior made his way through the ventilation shafts, his heart pounding the closer he got. It was true that his master had saved him from a formerly miserable existence, even putting his own life on the line to do so. For this he was very grateful. Still, woe to the fool who chose to cross him, for those who did usually ended up with a fate worse than death. This earned him both a deep sense of respect and a morbid feeling of terror from his henchmen.
He knew if there was anyone that could get the Cosmic experiments leader to listen to reason, it was the Little Warrior himself, but even this was no guarantee and that was enough to put even him in a state of fear.
He had now reached his master’s room. He opened the ventilation cover and made his way inside. There his master lay, at the far end of the room. He was bedridden, for his depression had gotten worse since they finished exploring the western wing of the station.
There was still no sign of the Invader Project, which his master had been trying to find for well over a year. It was his only hope of getting to the heavily guarded core of the station, let alone freeing the rest of the experiments who were being tortured in the laboratories of Cosmic 5. The news was very grim to them all, but it hit his master a lot deeper than it did the rest, as there was something in the core his heart longed for on a level that surpassed the Little Worriers understanding.
The room was dark, so dark his master’s face looked more like a shadow. His mask was on the table next to his bed. But even so, his identity was unrecognizable due to the lighting.
The Little Warrior took a deep breath and spoke to his master, hoping it would snap him out of the daze he was in.
“I have an update on David Bell,” he said. His distorted voice crackled through the small room. “I have written out all the details on my communicator. I can send them to you if you wish.”
“Send it to me,” his master replied in a calm, soft voice. “Then leave. I do not want to be bothered right now.”
The Little Warrior began to walk over to his master’s bed, but he stopped dead in his tracks when his master sat up. His eyes began to glow with green energy, which radiated from his retinas whenever he was angry. It was blinding, given how dark the rest of the room was, and this reminded the Little Warrior of how powerless the rest of the Cosmic experiments were compared to him.
“Did you not hear me!?” His master snarled in a much harsher voice.
The Little Warrior bit down on his fear. He was scared for his life, but he cared too much about his master to let him self-destruct. He needed to know that he was endangering himself, and this motivated the Little Warrior to continue speaking.
“You’ve been stuck here for too long!” the Little Warrior ventured. “We need you back. The other experiments have lost their will to fight.”
The light dimmed in his master’s eyes, revealing that his anger had subsided. He lay back down and returned to his state of sadness. “So have I…”
“You can’t! If you do, you will never get back what you lost.”
“Without the Invader Project, it’s hopeless. Dr. Crimson is a monster…but I have to give credit where credit is due; he has worked hard to keep us from taking control of the station and has trained his staff to put up a good fight. We won’t last long unless we know precisely where to look, and the only way to get that information is to bleed it out of the one who hid it from us, the one known as David Bell. David currently has nothing to lose, and he cares too much about the weak to ever betray them into my hands. I don’t see any reason to fight anymore; we are only delaying the inevitable. Any attempt to change what we have been given is nothing more than a waste of time.”
“Master! Please, at least look at the information I’ve sent to your tablet. You may feel a little differently when you see what your rival has done. Please trust me. Have I ever given you a reason to doubt my judgment?”
His master let out a deep sigh.
“No…no, you have not.”
His master sat up yet again and picked up his tablet, which was next to his mask. He viewed the information that the Little Warrior had sent him, which explained the events that had taken place with David over the last week.
A long stretch of silence followed. He could not believe what he was reading. Once it sunk in, a demented smile began to form across his shadowy face, and a renewed sense of determination seemed to fill the very depths of his soul. He was ready to hunt his rival down, only this time, he knew how to bleed the information he needed out of him.
“A human friend…” he said. “David has become attached to a little human friend. Oh, David…I know how to break you now!”
The man stood up and got out of bed. He grabbed his pale mask and put it over his face, covering the identity lurking behind it.
“You’re in charge until I get back,” he said to the Little Warrior. “I will deal with this matter myself.”
He vanished from the room. The Little Warrior smiled, for he knew the tide of their struggles had greatly turned in their favor.
Chapter 11 Mission briefing
Earth date: February 21st, 2010
Time: 720
Location: The Iron Heart
David woke up to the sound of rap music blaring upstairs and groaned as an overpowering feeling of grogginess built up within him. He was unsure of how late he had stayed up, but he was paying for his obsessiveness towards re-creating the healing device Jake had used for his friends. There had to be a way—he saw it work. It was only a matter of researching how.
David had also been working on re-creating Sophia’s shadow arrows, which again, had no results. Though the technology was hundreds of years old, it was still far more advanced than anything found in the known galaxy.
After giving himself a little time for his senses to return, David made his way upstairs to the main level. Sophia and Henry were both eating lunch, which notified David that it was already past 720, which would be noon in Earth time.
Henry gave David a slanted, arrogant smirk upon seeing him. “Look who finally decided to wake up!” Henry stated.
“I was up late working on a project,” David responded in a grumpy voice.
“Someone didn’t get their coffee today! Come join us, I made us some wraps. Sophia was getting a bit tired of hotdogs every lunchtime.”
David chuckled a bit on being reminded of his inability to cook more than a handful of meals. It had only been a little over a week since the three of them had escaped the freighter Wrath, and all ready his companions seemed to have
no problem picking apart his flaws, but as long as they did so with smiles on their faces, he didn’t really care. As long as they didn’t trigger any of his insecurities, he was content.
After asking Henry to turn his music down, he made himself some coffee and joined his companions for lunch. Socializing was something David had been without for nearly a full year, with the exception of the central commander and the Observer walking him through the ropes when he began his training as a Deep Cosmos agent. It was taking some time to get used to, especially considering he had never been the lead horse before, but oddly enough, David was starting to like it. He enjoyed seeing the goodness in others and helping them to reach their full potential. Even Henry seemed to have respect for him, though it took him a few days after David had revealed to him that he had not committed the crimes he was accused of. David chuckled at the memory and continued sipping his coffee…loudly, to his companions’ discontent.
“So!” Sophia said in an attempt to drown out the sound of David’s slurping. “Where to now? Our trip to space station 1529 was amazing! It was the size of a city…they had everything there.”
“Ya, sista!” Henry enthused. “The bars and night clubs were pretty epic! Pity the two of you refused to join me.”
“Really?” Nerd responded. “Could you ever see me at a nightclub? I would get beat up the moment I walked in! Besides, you got in a fight after your second visit. I asked you to lie low…that wasn’t lying low!”
“You also asked me not to shoplift or rob anyone. Two out of three, baby! I would have to say that’s pretty good!”
“Touché…I have to give you credit for that. You also returned an old lady’s wallet, so that was cool, as you could have gotten easy money without pickpocketing. So yes, although your score wasn’t perfect, you still passed. Although you blew your entire month’s paycheck on weapons and alcohol…which seriously should not be put in the same sentence! So, it will be interesting to see if you can keep to that for the next month”
“Hey, hey, I’m Henry Smith. I make no promises!”
“You should’ve come with us to the indoor theme park!” Sophia added. “I actually got David to go on most of the rides!”
“More like brutally forced me against my will to go on them.” David muttered. “And if I didn’t, you made me hold your pocketbook for you while you went on the ride by yourself. If you only knew some of the looks I got. It was most…traumatizing.”
“You were the one who chose to put the strap over your shoulder like it was your own! But thank you for being a gent. It was fun watching you scream your head off on the rides! Though I did think you were going to throw up when we went on that one that spun around. That would’ve been so awesome!”
“Yeah. I—”
The group’s conversation was rudely cut off by the blaring alarm system and red flashing lights; just loud enough to be heard over the cacophonous noise of the alarm system, the computer warned on a loop, ‘Message from the supreme commander. Priority one. Please report to the virtual reality deck immediately.’ Henry and Sophia turned as one to look at David, whose eyes had widened in stunned surprise. It was clear that he was not expecting this at all, and he seemed nervous. Sophia gave him a worried look and asked him what was happening.
“It’s a priority one alert from the supreme commander,” David responded. “That means that there is a threat to the galaxy that they want me to neutralize… I’ve only been an agent for one year! Why are they asking me to take this!?”
“Calm down, bro!” Henry urged. “We got your back on this.”
“I appreciate that…but sadly you’re not going to be with me for the most difficult part of the mission.”
“And that is?”
“Speaking to the supreme commander. That I have to do alone.” David got off his chair and made his way downstairs.
Henry gave Sophia a puzzled look. “How is talking to the supreme commander the hardest part of a mission that threatens the entire galaxy?”
Sophia smiled at Henry’s question. “That’s David,” she said to him. “He’ll easily fight a psychopath without breaking a sweat, but will tremble in fear if he ever has to talk to one.
“That’s wild, sista!”
“David is David,” Sophia said as a smile formed from ear to ear.
#
David entered the virtual reality deck. He locked the door and ordered his computer to relay the message to him.
The ship’s computer used the virtual reality deck to form a table in front of him. David sat down on a chair that his computer had also conveniently simulated. David then reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out his large glasses. He donned them, and Nerd seemed to come alive as soon as the glasses were on. He was now ready to receive his mission.
A hologram appeared in the middle of the table. A dark, shadowy creature was visible within it. Nerd felt shivers run down his spine on a level he was not used to. It was true he felt nervous whenever talking to someone, even Henry and Sophia, whom he now saw every day. But there was something about the supreme commander that was very unsettling.
Nerd regained his composure and swallowed his fear as the supreme commander spoke to him.
“Nerd, a priority one situation has come up, and Deep Cosmos needs your assistance in a delicate matter. A rare disease known as I-417-248-79b has been released into our galaxy. The humans know it better as galactic plague. The disease can somehow survive and spread through space, it seems to only target a few select people within each location when it strikes. Zentar lost ten citizens, Zecarah lost six, and the space station Nebula recently lost one. Other locations have been infected. I will include the details in your mission briefing should you choose to accept. What I can tell you at this moment is that the targeted locations are random and have no pattern to them. It’s impossible to detect and it is unknown how the virus spreads. The only reason we know of its existence is because of what happens after the virus infects its victims. I will warn you, it is extremely gruesome, and that is not a statement I often make. Your mission will be to discover the cause of the virus and incapacitate it before it devours our entire galaxy. Also, please keep in mind that if you or any of your crew members are infected with the disease, there is no known cure. If you succeed, however, your payment will be triple your yearly salary. Do you accept?”
A mission for a doctor. Now Nerd knew why he had been asked to take on this mission. He didn’t give it a second thought.
“I accept, Commander!” he said confidently.
“Good! I am sending you your first priority one Deep Cosmos mission file! Do not show it to any of your crew, as the information in this file is classified. You may, however, bring your companions on the mission if you so choose. You may also inform them of the basic facts of this mission, such as the disease name and the mission location. Now get going! The fate of the galaxy rests in your hands.”
The hologram of the supreme commander faded away. A long-range wormhole beam transported the file the supreme commander was talking about. It was the first time Nerd had ever received one and he grinned from excitement before remembering this was a serious case which required his most intense concentration.
Although it was shaped like a regular file, it was made of a strange material that was unknown to humanity; a material that was practically indestructible. The file had two locks on the top of it and a chain that was tied around the two locks. Deep Cosmos was scrawled across the top of the file in deep red, and each of the letters looked as if they had been gouged so deeply into the material that it bled the letters out, rather than having them painted or printed on. David felt a shiver go down his spine as he looked at the file, followed by a wave of goosebumps over his entire body; this was not going to be an easy mission.
Nerd pulled out his universal key and unlocked the two locks located on the top of the file. He pulled out the contents inside, and for the first time in his life, he saw a picture of one of the galactic plague victims. Nerd again f
elt shivers run down his spine, and a feeling of nausea filled his stomach at the horrid sight that lay in front of him.
Chapter 12 Galactic plague
Sophia and Henry were bored out of their minds. They didn’t want to engage in anything until they heard from their commander, but he had been gone for almost two hours and there was no sign of his returning any time soon.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Henry asked.
“He better be at this point,” Sophia responded with her arms crossed and a matching look of irritation on her face.
Henry laughed at Sophia’s moody state. “What’s with the ’tude, girl? That’s my job and the sarcasm is David’s job.”
“I’m just having one of those moments, I guess.”
“Yeah, I get that… Do you think he will bring us on this mission?”
“I hope so.”
“The last mission was pretty epic if I do say so myself. You were introduced to the most amazing human being in the galaxy—me!”
Sophia gave Henry a glare as she shook her head. Henry’s self-obsession was definitely known to her and David at this point, but she had grown to appreciate him over the last week and a half. He was positive, funny, and very charismatic. She was also touched he didn’t even consider selling her out when Drake made both him and David the offer to be part of his crew. Henry always claimed that money and fame were the only two things that kept him going, and other than those two motivations, he seemed like a basic guy, but even at his most basic, Henry had more layers than he was willing to admit. She felt much more relaxed with him on the crew, even if he was immature and rough around the edges, but she was certain his ego would be the death of him, or worse, it was going to be the death of her and David.
Ten minutes went by before they heard their commander making his way upstairs. He was wearing his glasses, meaning that they had to call him by his code name as he had requested.
“Nerd…” Sophia started sarcastically.
