Men of Steel

by Ryan Loveless

  “And don’t get on my case about days off,” Robert said, remembering Stephanie’s earlier comment. “I notice you’re in today as well.”

  Stephanie looked up from her pad and shrugged. “What can I say?” she replied with a grin. “I just can’t stay away from this place.”

  Robert and Stephanie had been research partners for almost five years and friends for much longer. They’d shared a tiny flat when they were both grad students, and although their work at the time hadn’t overlapped—Stephanie had specialized in chemical engineering, while Robert had always been more interested in computing and nanotechnology—they’d become firm friends.

  When they’d both been offered jobs in the Research and Development division of the Augment Initiative, they had hoped they would be able to work together. At first it had seemed impossible, as they were recruited into different teams—Stephanie had been sent to work for Christopher Tallant on one of the jet engine projects while Robert had been assigned to Elizabeth Rendell’s team, working on developing defensive weapons for the augments. However, a few years after they’d started, one of the projects Stephanie was working on had hit a major snag. Although they no longer lived together, she had talked about the problem to Robert one evening over dinner. That night, unable to sleep and with his mind working overtime, Robert had managed to come up with the solution—writing out overnight a new algorithm that would control the fluid flow in the jet’s engines and so overcome the problem of overheating entirely. When he’d gleefully presented his findings to Stephanie, she’d taken them and Robert straight to Christopher. Within the month, the new augment jet was at the prototype stage, and Robert was being offered the chance to run his own research team.

  Although Robert’s work to date had been on large-scale engineering projects, he’d become convinced during his time with the Initiative that more could be done to harness the power of an augment’s own particular augmentations. To this end, Robert had chosen a team to work on small-scale tech, making sure to talk to Christopher about getting a transfer for Stephanie as well as recruiting a nanoscientist and a chemical biologist to complete his team. Now the four of them—Robert and Stephanie, along with Becca Sanderson and Eli Bridges—had a number of successful projects to their names and were currently working on a project that Robert hoped would revolutionize augment tech as a whole.

  “So, who’s doing the testing today?” Stephanie asked, her voice pulling Robert from his thoughts.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Although I suspect it’s going to be someone like Zach or Rafe—handling that kind of hardware at prototype stage is going to take some serious muscle,” he finished, naming two of the strongest augments currently working at the Initiative, his heart doing its usual little jump in his chest as he said Zach’s name.

  “Hey, good guess,” Stephanie said, her eyes fixed on the lab below. “Looks like Zach and Allison are doing the honors today.”

  Glancing down, Robert spotted the augment team that was due to test the prototype. With relatively few augments currently active in the field, Robert knew every one of them to a greater or lesser extent. When he’d been working on weapons development, he’d come to know a few of them quite well, as certain weapons had to be specifically designed for the talents of certain augments. Zach and Allison were two with whom he’d worked closely since they specialized in missions where there was a high risk of enemy engagement, usually in war-torn nations suffering from flooding and famine.

  Although it was against international law for augments to engage regular humans in combat—and vice versa—that didn’t stop people from trying. In many quarters, there were great kudos to be gained from wounding an augment, and would be even more so if an augment were to be actually killed. Fortunately, however, augment casualties were extremely rare, with only two since the start of the Initiative. Nevertheless, the threat was always out there, especially when augment teams were responding to disasters occurring in combat zones where there was a very real possibility of being caught in the crossfire, in addition to being targeted by terrorists and mercenaries who were working to their own agendas.

  “I thought they were due back out on assignment,” Robert said, frowning down at the pair in concern.

  “Well, I heard that it had been canceled,” Stephanie said, who had always been more attuned to Augment HQ’s rumor mill than Robert, but Robert noticed that she too was watching the augment pair with a worried look on her face. “It looks like they’re still recovering from the ambush they faced when helping to evacuate that village in East Africa after the earthquake.”

  Robert nodded in agreement with this assessment, his gaze running over each augment in turn. Allison looked tired, he thought, the slight slump of her shoulders clearly visible even up on the viewing area. She had her long, dark hair pulled up in a tight bun and, as she walked from the doorway to the table on which the prototype lay, seemed to be favoring her right leg. As her partner came to join her at the table, Robert could see that Zach too was looking a little worse for wear. On his right arm was a bandage wrapped tight around one huge bicep and, as Zach glanced up to the viewing area, his gaze seeming to land on Robert for a moment, Robert thought he could see dark circles under his eyes. Augments had a healing time a fraction of that of a regular human, so to see them both still slightly injured two days after their last mission indicated that the ambush had been a very bad one indeed.

  Yet the pair looked keen to test the prototype weapon. Zach was now picking it up, and Robert couldn’t help but appreciate the way the muscles of his back and arms bunched and bulged as he hefted its no doubt massive weight. Both augments were wearing their standard field uniform, a pair of close-fitting, charcoal gray trousers and T-shirt. The material was made from a specially designed artificial fiber which was engineered to have an extremely high tensile strength and to be impervious to extremes of temperature as well as being water and fire resistant.

  Although Robert could appreciate the construction of the material from an intellectual standpoint, it was its aesthetic advantages that he was enjoying at the moment. Although he knew most of the male scientists in the room would be appreciating the way the tight material highlighted Allison’s slender curves, it was to Zach that his eyes were drawn. Zach had the traditional tall, dark, and handsome description down to a tee. He was, in fact, a stark contrast to Robert’s own entirely average height and weight, his non-descript dirty-blond hair and dark-brown eyes.

  Standing at 6’6’’, Zach was one of the tallest augments, with a massive pair of shoulders to match. Like all male augments, his genetic code had been altered to allow him to put on lean muscle with ease, so his frame was solid and visibly bursting with strength. His black hair was standing up in its usual sexy disarray and, even at a distance, Robert thought he could see the flash of his gray eyes as he glanced up toward the assembled group of scientists. The taut pull of the material across his chest as he hefted the weapon up onto one huge shoulder highlighted the size of his pecs, and Robert felt his mouth go dry at the thought of running his hands across them and then down over Zach’s six-pack abs to the waist line of his pants.

  “Better close your mouth, sweetie. You’re in danger of drooling,” Stephanie said with a smile, her words pulling Robert’s attention away from Zach.

  Robert huffed out a laugh at that as he noticed that her eyes too were fixed firmly on Zach. “I could say the same to you,” he replied.

  Stephanie had the grace to blush but didn’t look away. “Hey, it’s as close as I’ll ever get,” she said. “You’ve got to enjoy a view like that while you can.”

  Robert sighed. “Yeah,” he agreed in a somewhat melancholy tone, letting his gaze wander back down to where Zach was now pointing the barrel of the weapon toward one of the dummy targets at the far end of the lab.

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Stephanie said and Robert turned back to find her regarding him speculatively. “He seems to hang around the lab an awful lot when you’
re around.”

  “Rubbish,” Robert huffed, feeling himself flush slightly nevertheless. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Well, ridiculous it may be,” Stephanie replied with a teasing grin. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

  Robert grunted, but decided to ignore the comment, focusing his attention once more on the lab below. He could still feel the heat of a faint blush on his cheeks though, and couldn’t help the little jolt of hope he’d felt in his chest at Stephanie’s suggestion. He liked Zach a lot, probably more than he should. Not only was Zach built like someone out of Robert’s personal fantasies, but he was also a genuinely good guy. Like most of the augments, he appreciated the advantages his augmentations had given him and worked hard to make the most of them. As a result, he was a real-life hero—one who had saved countless lives and who genuinely made the world a better place.

  Stifling an internal groan at the clichéd direction his thoughts were headed, Robert firmly turned his attention to the lab below, eagerly anticipating seeing both the prototype and Zach in action. From his vantage point, Robert could see that Chow was instructing Zach and Allison on how to use the weapon, her hands waving as she gestured to the various parts. Zach and Allison both seemed to be taking the detailed instruction with good-natured bemusement—Robert knew for a fact that both augments could operate any weapon with ease, such was their training and experience. Finally, with a firm nod and a smile, Zach managed to interrupt Chow’s flow, stepping away from her and bringing the barrel of the gun up to point at one of the targets again. Chow moved back quickly, gesturing to the rest of her team to finish setting up for the test. Allison hovered at Zach’s shoulder, seemingly keen for her turn as Zach started to power up the weapon.

  The excitement was growing in the observation area as Chow and her team headed out of the lab at a fast pace, one of the scientists making a hurried final few keystrokes to one of the monitoring computers as his colleagues passed by him. At last, he too followed them out of the lab, and the heavy doors slid closed, locking both of the augments in for the duration of the test. The crowd of scientists up on the viewing floor parted as Chow and her team entered the room, pushing their way to the front where the huge bank of computers that would handle the test procedure were located.

  “We’re ready here, Zach,” Chow said through the microphone that was linked through to speakers in the lab. “You can begin the test when you’re ready.”

  The go-ahead was, apparently, all the encouragement Zach needed because he immediately dropped his head to look through the weapon’s sights, his stance moving effortlessly into a position where he could hold the weapon securely and absorb its recoil with his shoulder. The sight of him—his tall, muscled body shown to its best advantage by his close-fitting uniform, the muscles of his arms and back bulging from the weight of the gun—made Robert’s mouth go dry and his dick give a hopeful twitch in his pants.

  The room was absolutely silent as Zach prepared to pull the trigger, and Robert couldn’t resist a quick glance at Chow to see her biting her lip nervously. This was the moment she and her team had been working toward—their creation in the hands of an augment, ready for use. Robert could just about make out the display on one of the monitoring screens and could tell from the sudden energy spike that the pulse was being generated within the weapon’s chemical chamber. A few seconds later a bright white beam emerged, shooting through the air and blasting a huge hole through the central target at the far end of the lab. Zach was forced to take a few steps backward as the pulse was fired, the power of the recoil obviously far too great for any regular human to withstand.

  The room erupted in applause as the target was hit, the energy pulse not only having burnt clean through it, but also having left a huge scorch mark on the wall behind. Zach looked pleased too, recovering his balance immediately and nodding in satisfaction as he took in the damage his shot had caused. He then looked up to the viewing window with a shit-eating grin on his face, his eyes scanning the crowd of still-applauding onlookers. For a moment Robert found himself caught up in the celebration. Despite the distance between them and the size of the crowd, Zach’s gaze somehow found his. As recognition sparked in Zach’s eyes, Robert thought his expression softened slightly, his smile becoming a little more genuine. Robert felt his own smile grow in response, his cheeks flushing slightly as he felt his body start to react to the intensity of Zach’s gaze.

  Just then one of the scientists beside Robert stumbled slightly, knocking Robert off balance. He looked down as he steadied himself, and the moment was broken. When he looked back down to Zach, Robert found that Zach was now saying something to Allison, who seemed to be regarding him with what Robert could only describe as a fond smile.

  Telling himself firmly that he needed to get his libido in check, Robert glanced back to the display screen. As he once again took in the apparent size of the energy spike, Robert found himself frowning and pushing his way through the crowd as he tried to get a better view of the scale of the readings. The energy level definitely looked rather high and, given that this first shot was surely at the weapon’s lowest energy yield, he couldn’t help but be a bit concerned that perhaps Chow and her team hadn’t gotten such a firm handle on the chemical reaction as they’d hoped.

  But Chow didn’t seem worried. By contrast, she looked pleased and eager, nodding her head in agreement to something one of her team was saying before leaning forward to speak into the microphone again. “Great shot, Zach,” she said. “Let’s bring things up a notch now and try for a higher setting.”

  Zach nodded in response and adjusted the settings on the weapon, Allison coming closer as he did so and asking him something that his microphone didn’t pick up. Zach replied to her, and she grinned and stepped back again as he raised the weapon. This time he aimed at the target to the right of the one he’d blown a hole through earlier. The second shot was similar to the first, the only difference being the slightly longer time it took for the weapon to produce the energy pulse and the fact that it completely destroyed the second target rather than simply blowing a hole through the middle of it. Chow and her team all looked thrilled at the way the test was going and the assembled crowd were now cheering.

  Robert, however, was still frowning at the energy peak. His own research experience with energy-pulse weapons, albeit several years old, had taught him that controlling and channeling the energy was the key. Without this tight control, the weapon was bound to overheat and backfire at some point, something that would kill a regular human outright and temporarily incapacitate an augment. Although Chow may have thought her team had finally had success where all other research teams had failed, Robert was far from convinced.

  He finally made it through the crowd to one side of the bank of monitoring computers. As he’d suspected, the energy peaks were extraordinarily high, even when taking into consideration an augment’s abilities.

  “So, are the readings looking good so far?” he asked Andy, one of Chow’s scientists who sat closest to him.

  “Oh, hi Robert,” Andy said, glancing over at him with a grin. “Yup, so far, so good.”

  “Have you double-checked the energy readings?” Robert pressed, reaching out a hand to tap a finger against each of the energy spikes in turn.

  “Of course,” Andy replied. “I know they’re high, but the weapon’s casing and adjusted recoil settings should take care of that. Don’t worry, Robert, we know what we’re doing.”

  Not entirely convinced, but not willing to question any further, Robert nodded once and then stood back, letting Andy get on with his work.

  “Right,” Chow said, once again speaking into the microphone. “Everything looks good up here, Zach, so let’s move up to the highest setting.”

  Zach grinned at that, but instead of changing the settings and firing again, he replied to Chow through the radio transmitter built into his uniform. “I’m gonna have to let Allison have this one, doc,” he said, handing over the heavy weapon. �
�She’s threatening to kick my ass if I don’t let her have a turn.”

  A ripple of laughter went through the crowd as Allison mimed throwing a punch at Zach and then took the weapon from him. Although female augments weren’t as heavily muscled as their male counterparts—a fact based in the simple biological differences between the sexes—they were far stronger than any regular woman could be. Like Zach had done, Allison held the massive weapon with ease, quickly increasing its power settings and then moving into position to fire at the last remaining target.

  “Of course,” Chow replied with a smile. “We wouldn’t want her to do that to you.” Robert then saw her eyes flick down to the energy chart he’d been scrutinizing. “Just watch out for the recoil on this one; the power level’s going to be significantly higher this time.”

  “Exponentially higher,” Robert corrected under his breath as he tried to reassure himself that Chow knew what she was doing. There were always medics standing by during these tests, but he really hoped their services wouldn’t be needed.

  “No problem,” Allison replied, bracing herself firmly as she raised the weapon and prepared to fire.

  The buildup to the pulse was longer this time, and Robert found himself counting the seconds, eyes flicking between Allison and the monitoring screen in front of Andy as his concern grew. But he could only watch in horror as the energy readings spiked sharply, far higher than before, as down in the lab the weapon’s chamber overheated and the energy buildup exploded outward in a massive fireball that knocked both augments flying and caused the emergency shutters on the viewing windows to slam down immediately.

  It was a testament to the preparedness of everyone who worked at the Augment Initiative that no one panicked. Instead, their emergency scenario training took over and, after an initial few seconds of shocked silence, the group of assembled scientists started to quickly make their way out of the lab via the two emergency exit doors. However, despite his training, Robert found himself torn. He knew that he could do nothing to help the two augments in the lab below, but he couldn’t stop himself from taking a step toward the panel which controlled the emergency shutters, his fingers itching to override the protocols and lift the shutters up so he could see for himself how Zach and Allison were faring. It was only the knowledge that a team of medics were no doubt already making their way through the lab’s blast doors to help them that stopped him from giving in to the impulse completely. Instead, with his heart hammering in his chest, Robert forced himself to turn away from the obscured windows toward the orderly queue heading for the nearest exit.