09:45 The National Institute for Technological Advancement –Level 13 Dr. Norman’s Board Room
Alarms meekly rang out as John stepped through the formerly hidden entrance to Dr. Norman’s not-so-secret lab. Instinctively he activated the plasma blast gun in his fist, better to be ready to kill the enemy than let them get the drop. But despite the alarms, no one came running.
“Eve, where is he?”
“There are three individuals in the lab that is down the corridor to your left.”
John turned and methodically advanced forward. He couldn’t see in the lab; the opaque glass shrouded his view of its occupants. It didn’t take long for John to reach the door at his pace. Despite his insistence on pushing the button, the door wouldn’t open.
“Eve, please open this door.”
“It is controlled from the inside.”
John deactivated the fist’s gun. He then threw a strong punch at the door, but then pulled the punch at the last moment. He gently pressed his left hand on the glass. John shook his head as he read the metallurgy scan Eve just ran. It was a good thing he had pulled the punch. This was not a glass or semi-transparent aluminum-like metal. Dr. Norman had managed to create an opaque tritanium alloy that was stronger than his fist.
John would collect a sample for the eggheads back home. The alloy would’ve easily withstood as many punches as John could throw at it. It was unlikely that he’d be able to do any damage to it at all. Heat, on the other hand, would cause issues with the alloy.
“Plasma it is. How many locking bolts does the door have?” John said in an annoyed tone, “Fucking hell that could’ve been bad.”
He activated the gun once again and aimed it at where he assumed the lock of the door. The first blast didn’t accomplish much besides char the exterior surface. The second blast left visible damage to the door. Some of the alloy had melted and quickly cooled as it dribbled down below the blast location.
The fourth and fifth shots were made in quick succession. There was noticeable damage. A quick kick didn’t result in the door opening but it was evident the door was failing. One or two more blasts would do. John paced back and forth as the reactors in his suit built up a healthy amount of charged plasma for use in the gun.
One final shot was all it took to weaken the doors locking mechanisms to their point of failure. After the blast, the door just slowly opened inward of its own accord. John looked inside; three terrified individuals were hiding behind lab tables. John shook his head as he stepped forward.
“We’re not even supposed to be here,” one of them said as he attempted to hide behind the table.
“Where is he?” John said gruffly.
“Up a level. There are more labs and his special room,” the other one said.
“Before you ask,” the third man said as he stepped in front of John, “It’s where he keeps his dearest test subject,” the man took a deep breath and stared up and into the eye lenses, “Do it, I’m ready.”
John nodded and punched the man. The fist was larger than the man’s torso. The damage he did was catastrophic to the unarmored man. Just about every bone in his torso and certainly every organ was lacerated. The sheer amount of trauma caused too much shock for his broken body to handle. The man was dead before he slid back and hit one of the gurneys. The man crumpled backward and then landed on the ground with a thud.
He quickly aimed at the hiding man and shot twice. Both rounds struck the hiding man. Whether the first killed him or the second did matter little to John. One more enemy was ended.
The woman stood up with her hands raised up, “Why are you killing us?”
“Do you have any idea what this place does?”
“Research. Important research. How are supposed to advance…”
John’s left arm snapped over; the pistol aimed at the woman. This was done so quickly that she hadn’t reacted to seeing a gun barrel aimed directly at her. One single round was fired. It struck her head, effectively exploding it above the jaw. She fell backward, her arm hit a tray causing the contents to spill loudly out onto the floor.
His duty in that room concluded, and John moved deeper into the lab. Images and trophies lined the corridor. The successes got darker as he moved deeper. At the start of the corridor, there were images of new weapons and small I-beams, presumably of new alloys he designed. But where he was now there were images of the human genome, even fetuses that were preserved.
John didn’t need any more motivation to kill the man. But the last image he saw before the lab was a picture of twenty artificial wombs. Dr. Norman was in the picture looking at a tablet while observing one of the babies. He lashed out and punched the wall, and the picture. It was possible that his grandmother was inside one of the twenty.
The door opened as if he was beckoned to enter to his right and a familiar voice cried out, “Are you happy? Are you happy that you’ve defiled my great work?”
John strode into the room. Dr. Norman was sitting on a chair and looking at a woman in a tank. He holstered his gun and answered Dr. Norman.
“Great? Hardly the right adjective I’d use. I’ll be happy when you lay dead at my feet before I get out of this hell hole, glass it from orbit. Then and only then will I consider and allow myself to drink in the accomplishment.”
“You… You were my masterpiece. My magnum opus. How is it that you do not see my work?”
“I am no one’s masterpiece, you had no idea who my grandmother would marry and have children with, or who her children found as partners. Were you not uncovered I’d not exist today. You would’ve eliminated all of those children and continued your sick game. You had no direct hand in my creation. Chance is why I am what I am.”
“No… no… You’re wrong. It was because of me,” Dr. Norman stood and gestured back at himself, “Because of me all this happened. Without me, she wouldn’t have been created.”
“I agree. And because of your actions, we came here to undo everything. Because of you, we are eradicating your organization. All of that hard work, unethical research, all those you murdered and poisoned,” John paused as he stared at Dr. Norman, “All of that caused your downfall.”
“Don’t you understand, humanity needs to evolve to be like you. Without that we are doomed.”
John scanned the room quickly. A small server rack could be seen in the rear of the room. That was the only other interesting item in this sparse room.
“Humanity needs to be better than me. I’ve already accepted my place in that fiery destination when I die. I am not a good person doctor, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool murderer. Trained by the best to be the best. I was a Picasso or Rembrandt in the ways of death, humanity desperately needs to be better than me.”
“You are so wrong about your destiny young man. You are proof of what we, no I was trying to create. The perfect man.”
“That is where you are wrong, I’m as imperfect as everyone else is. And those dead kids of yours are key examples of why humanity is better off limiting their gifts.”
Dr. Norman shook his head as he looked at John in disgust, “No, that raw power is needed for what comes in the future. When they come…”
“Who is they?”
“The ancient enemy. The enemy of all civilizations.”
“Right,” John’s tone dripped with sarcasm, “Didn’t you think what you were doing would cause a galactic civil war amongst humanity? What then? The strong kill the weak, then what? We become diminished; I doubt we can breed out the ability to evolve. What happens when other distinct species of humans show up in the future.”
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“But we must. It never works this way,” Dr. Norman was shaking.
“And yet there are three distinct species co-existing now as we speak. We aren’t at war amongst ourselves, at least not at a species level.”
“If only I had another lifetime of work, perhaps I’d be able to achieve…”
John walked by Dr. Norman, barely regarding him as an insect. He went straight for the server. When he got to it, he opened the front panel and had Eve connect to it. John silenced his external speaker.
“What is it?”
“Temporary server, hastily set up in the last few hours. Likely tried to store some of the research,” Eve paused, “What you’d call a last-ditch effort.”
John raised his fist and activated the gun. Several blasts of plasma turned the makeshift server into slag. A punch and a kick were added for pettiness to shatter the remnants. Dr. Norman ran, as quickly as his old, hobbled legs could take him, to John. He started weeping as John turned and walked towards the preserved woman.
“So, what did your test subject do to get stuck in that?” John asked in a mocking tone.
“Watch your tone. Evelynne was my greatest accomplishment,” Dr. Norman stopped weeping and turned to look at John with rage-filled eyes.
“How quaint that you named her Eve,” John rolled his eyes, “Seems like your greatest disappointment too. She’s not exactly alive.”
“Someone polluted her mind. She was too important to lose so methods were taken to enable her continued service.”
John continued to circle the tank. Dr. Norman didn’t notice that he switched the way he was walking so his large fist was next to the tank. John was delaying somewhat as he didn’t want to fire a ball of charged plasma at a substance that could ignite and vaporize him. That was not the kind of surprise he wanted to experience here; in fact, he was quite done with surprises in general.
He figured the worst-case scenario would result in a big fire. His suit and underlayment were both rated to be incredibly durable at extreme temperatures. John shrugged and rose his fist. A moment later he fired the plasma gun.
“Nooooooooo!!!!” Dr. Norman looked too horrified to scream as if his spirit had left his body/
Dr. Norman was blasted back several feet and fell to his knees as he witnessed the fireball. True to John’s assumption the liquid ignited, but it burned off almost instantly. Thankfully the blast wave was relatively mild. The woman in the cylinder was immolated and reduced to ashes. John turned to the doctor.
“How could you do that to her?”
“What better way to repay the pain you inflicted on others than to inflict some pain back on you in your last moments,” John said calmly, “It won’t be like for like, but at least you’ll suffer before you meet your maker.”
Ashes began to blow lightly around the base of the cylinder. Dr. Norman whispered something under his breath. It was clear to John that this action was painful to his nemesis. The man was blubbering to himself, the realization that the end had come.
“Your empire is over. Was it worth it?” John took a step closer to the doctor, “Seriously, was all this worth it? All the individuals you had butchered to satiate your curiosity.”
“You have no idea what I was trying to do here. How close we were to achieving our goals. My goals.”
John took another step forward, “The eugenics ban was signed to specifically prevent someone like you from doing exactly what you were doing. Nature will accomplish what you want to do, and it will do it better.”
“It’s too slow,” Dr. Norman looked enraged as he turned and spat back to John, “It’s far too slow. You of all people should know.”
“And yet I willingly cast aside my gifts to accomplish a mission. It’s a decision I’d make every damn day.”
Dr. Norman fell limply into a chair that was to his right. He tried to make his disheveled hair more presentable as he stared at the floor. He mumbled something John couldn’t make out. He then stood up, straightened his lab coat, and walked over to a picture hanging on the wall.
He pushed up on the picture and tossed it over his shoulder. Behind the picture was safe. He punched in a code to open it. Inside John could make out some paper but five tablets too. Dr. Norman carefully pulled out the tablets. He sighed before turning and walking over to John.
“While I do not agree with your, or any other nation’s condemnation of my research, these tablets will result in my name spread from one end of the human domains to the other as the one that saw the future.”
Dr. Norman walked over to the behemoth that was John and held out the tablets.
“More of your insane research?” John’s curiosity was piqued which is why he didn’t instantly destroy the tablets when they were handed over.
John took them and placed them in an armored pouch. He commanded Eve to scan one of the tablets and place its contents in a separate partition. She mentioned that the tablets are not encrypted. John scrolled through the images.
“Curious little boy, aren’t you?” Dr. Norman noticed John had turned into a statue.
“You found evidence of a previous civilization. Why not share this information?”
“The ruins no longer exist. Our presence in them caused them to self-destruct. There’s no evidence remaining to prove anything. Not even the explosion, if you were to go and visit the location it is as if it never existed.”
“And?” John asked.
“You don’t believe me. You of all people I had pegged as a believer.”
“Of intelligent civilizations? Of course, I believe them to have existed. But we’ve seen nothing to believe there are any other active ones out there,” John shook his head, “You are using this as justification for a lifetime of bad acts. These aliens you found are long dead, they are no threat to us.”
“The ghosts of the past will rise once again.”
“Interesting as these may be, they aren’t why you abandoned your humanity seven decades ago. You are using this to justify your life’s work. You won’t find redemption in this.”
“It’s never been about redemption…” Dr. Norman stood up from the chair.
“Doctor, let me be as clear as I can. Your name is going to be vilified as much as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Anderson, or Sylvester’s names are. Not now, but soon you’ll be added to that pantheon.”
“You are wrong. One day my efforts will be lauded as revolutionary. Misguided for sure, but ultimately necessary,” Dr. Norman continued to fidget with his outfit.
“You have no legacy. We’re erasing you from the history books. Nothing beneficial that you ever did will leak out. Your data has been eliminated. Nothing remains. This entire campus is set to be glassed. Nothing and no one will remain.”
“When you finish going through those tablets you will think otherwise,” Dr. Norman said confidently, “Before your end, I am certain that you will sing praises to me about my foresight.”
John shook his head, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but nothing you’ve given to me is going to be accredited to you. That is the way of the victor is it not? I’m writing the history book now; I get to decide how this story ends.”
Dr. Norman cocked his head slightly, “You wouldn’t dare take credit for work that isn’t yours.”
John grinned in his suit, “I’m no researcher, I have no moral or ethical imperatives that dictate whether I should or shouldn’t steal from you. Nor will you or anyone you know be around to contradict my work.”
“No… no no no… You can’t do this, I deserve this,” Dr. Norman stepped toward John.
“No doctor, you don’t deserve credit for anything. The infamy, hate, and derision from the families you wounded, you deserve that and so much more,” John said as he stood motionless, “And you deserve this as well.”
John punched the elderly Dr. Norman lightly. Well, lightly was a relative term. Being punched while unarmored, even lightly, was a death sentence to an elderly fellow. But John pulled the punch at the last moment, Dr. Norman needed to receive one last indignity before he died a painful death.
Dr. Norman was thrown to the ground, battered, bruised, and broken. One lung was collapsed and pierced by a rib. His liver was lacerated. All of the ribs on his right side were broken. He spat out blood onto the floor but was able to roll onto his back.
The heavy thud of stomping boots walked over to him. The giant armor did its best to look down at him. Dr. Norman could feel the last moments were to come in mere moments. He looked up and felt hatred radiating from the suit.
“Finish me…” Dr. Norman said meekly.
“No,” the simple response came quickly.
“Why?”
“You deserve so much more pain than you are receiving now. If only I could transfer all the pain and suffering that I’ve witnessed into your mind. That is what I regret Abel. That your victims don’t get proper justice,” John loomed over the dying scientist, “At least you are suffering in a similar way in these last moments as they did.”
Dr. Norman laughed weekly, “I stopped being Abel so long ago. But I know what you’re going to do. You are going to lose your temper and put me out of my misery.”
“What makes you think I’d do that?”
“I know you. We’re two sides of the same coin. You say I’m a monster, you are no different than I,” more laughter came out of Dr. Norman’s mouth, “You are every bit the rabid dog you claim my son was.”
John stood there motionless, “You are right that I am a monster. But we are not the same kind. Not in the slightest. And you are so very wrong about me, there is nothing you can say or do to make me end you sooner. I’m in control now, and I’m going to sit here and watch as you give up the ghost. How long do you think you’ll make it?”
“Long enough to make you lose your cool,” Dr. Norman flashed a bloody smile at John, “You aren’t in control of anything. Do you know…”
“The kill switch has been deactivated. It was one of the first things we saw in the systems. That hidden bomb isn’t exploding when your life signs cease,” John said calmly.
Dr. Norman’s breathing became more labored. He was agitated and distressed. His agitation at John, and the scenario he found himself in, was only speeding up his doom. John loomed menacingly over him but was still as a statue.
“FINISH ME!” Dr. Norman shouted, expending most of his remaining energy.
“No.”
Dr. Norman balled his right hand into a fist and punched his shin. John didn’t even move. There was no recognition of anything. His attack stood there still, not willing to end his life.
He took in a deep breath, but his eyes were alerted with worry. Dr. Norman quickly took another breath, but he felt nothing. It was like he wasn’t getting any more oxygen. He began to gasp.
“Won’t be long now,” John said as he observed the worry in Dr. Norman.
“Help… me…” Dr. Norman said quietly only hastening his demise.
“No,” John said stoically as he played the part of a statue looking down on the doctor.
Dr. Norman then felt a twitch in his neck next. His heart began to beat erratically then stopped beating. He attempted one last breath, but nothing happened. His muscles began to spasm uncontrollably. He was seconds away from drifting off to unconsciousness for the last time. The last words he heard were.
“Do not rest well you rotten bastard. If there is a God out there, I truly hope that he makes you suffer for eternity.”