“Your appointment to FEMA should be finalized within the week. I've already discussed the matter with the Senator.” Bob Page explained to the man standing opposite him underneath the great hand of Majestic 12: enclosing, entrapping the world.
Walton Simons seemed as stoic and unimpressed as he always did. “I take it he was agreeable?”
Page chuckled at some semi-private joke. “He didn't really have a choice.”
“Has he been infected?” Simons queried.
Page openly laughed now. “Oh, yes, most certainly,” he stated to his fellow conspirator, “When I mentioned that we could put him on the priority list for the Ambrosia vaccine, he was so willing it was almost pathetic.” He sneered at the ease with which another Senator had been corrupted.
Simons sounded moderately worried as he spoke next, “This plague - the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.”
Page looked at him. “Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches; let the bodies pile up in the streets!” He calmed from his near shout. “In the end, they'll beg us to save them.”
“I've received reports of armed attacks on shipments.” Simons said concerned, “There's not enough vaccine to go around, and the under-classes are starting to get desperate.”
“Of course they're desperate.” Page laughed, “They can smell their death, and the sound they'll make rattling their cage will serve as a warning to the rest!”
“Hmm…” Simons sounded thoughtful. “I hope you're not underestimating the problem. The others may not go as quietly as you think - intelligence indicates they're behind the problems in Paris.”
“A bunch of pretentious old men playing at running the world!” Page snarled, “But the world left them behind long ago. We are the future.”
“We have other problems.”
“UNATCO?”
“Formed by executive order after the terrorist strike on the Statue.” Simons explained “I have someone in place, though. I'm more concerned about Savage - he's relocated to Vandenberg.
“Our Biochem corpus is far in advance of theirs, as is our electronic sentience. And their... ethical inflexibility has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider.”
“The Augmentation project?”
“Amongst other things - but I must admit that I've been somewhat disappointed in the performance of the primary unit.” Page’s voice betrayed his thoughts.
“The secondary unit should be online soon. It's currently undergoing preparation and will be operational within six months. My people will continue to report on its progress. If necessary, the primary will be terminated.” Simons spoke simply, there were no half-truths or evasions between the two now. Not with this project so close to being finished.
“We've had to endure much, you and I,” Page said quietly, “but soon there will be order again, a new age. Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill. Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its Kings.”
“Or better than Kings:” Page continued,
“Gods!” He breathed.
The tank was dark. Standing nine feet tall, the clear glass tube was filled with a conducting liquid, and all the metal and salt ions required by what was happening inside it. Tubes ran from the top, from the sides, from the bottom.
Also inside the tank was a person, limp and totally unconscious, the body floated in the liquid, unaware of its surroundings, and unable to recall how it had got there.
At a jolt of power from the transformer in the room, the person awoke, and began to kick for the surface. When the figures head burst from the liquid, he peeled off the breathing mask that he had been forced to wear, and his face was revealed for the first time, dark hair plastered to his head from the gelatinous fluid.
Two figures stood behind the one-way glass window that looked into the labs from near the vaulted ceiling, nearly forty feet up. They were conversing quietly.
“He is ready, then?” said the first, a tall man with a savage scar down one side of his face, which was tinted a funny blue grey colour. His eyes showed little actual interest in the proceedings. A long dark coat covered his frame, hiding his physique and giving no clue as to what he was capable of. His voice was soft, dispassionate.
“Absolutely. The initial acclimatization and indoctrination programs must go through, but after about a week of training and classes at the academy, he should be ready.” The second spoke with certainty, fully assured of the success after the total failure of the previous two prototypes. This man, in contrast to the first, was slightly shorter, and had red hair closely cropped to his head. He dressed like a scientist, and was a scientist, but was also one of the richest men in the world, influencing governments and military forces without difficulty.
“And you are sure the indoctrination will hold? Remember, we used this process with the prototypes.” The first shook his head, unsure. “While you may be able to afford throwing good money after bad, the I cannot divert another hundred billion dollars without causing at least some eyebrows to raise.”
“We have the threat of the Grey Death to hold over them, do we not? It will not be difficult to infect those who can’t keep their noses out with the new strain. And even more painful death.”
“Yes, still however…”
“Of course. We know where we went wrong, don’t we? We gave them histories, families! They were bred, created from the DNA of some of the best soldiers in our ranks. The nanobotics merely aided them. That was a mistake, we should have used people who were dead, and who could be influenced. This time, we have. And we have more of them…”
“How many more?”
“Enough.” A slight sigh issued forth from the man’s lips. “Four women, and one more man. We did have a fifth woman, but the DNA degraded in storage. We don’t know why. The others were fine. The first man’s, in particular, was superb. Already… something more than human. But all were stunning.”
“Why women? And why so few men?”
The scientist shook his head. “Women naturally draw less suspicion than men, do not ask me why, but it is true…” A rueful smile. “As to why more women than men, they were apparently a group that fought, and fought well. Details of exactly what they fought have been lost, but that is irrelevant. A splinter branch of Majestic gathered the DNA, decades ago. It called itself the ‘Initiative’. When its cover was blown, the only thing that kept the organiser and administrator alive was the promise of exceptional DNA for experiments. Our predecessors were not so lenient as us. Well, that DNA has finally become useful.” He gestured at the window, where below the first of the ‘X’ series was climbing out of the nano-implantation chamber. The two watched for a second as the figure climbed down, and peeled off his breathing mask, carelessly throwing it back toward the nano-vat. “He will be conditioned now.”
Rapping his knuckle on the window, the first figure snarled, “What if this one also is corrupted?”
“We must ask ourselves, then, do we treat them as people, as you want, or as effectively mindless killing machines? For that is all they will ever be.”
Turning back to the window, the second man made a derisory snort. The first merely scowled and stalked out, pulling out a nano-key ring as he went.
The scientist looked back down at the vat room to see the new agent standing on the floor dripping, and looking up with interest at the window. One that he could not see through, but still managed to make eye contact with the scientist. Shaking off a sinking feeling, he too turned away and headed for a meeting.
In that lab, the agent stood, watching with interest as two men had an argument over him. He knew he should not see them, so couldn’t help but let one of them know that he could. Walking away to the robbing room, the agent did something that he should not have been able to do…
He smiled…