Start of Part 13__________________________________________________________________________________________
Farrah Rogers AKA VOID
Lights flickered with seemingly at random throughout the science ward. Farrah’s brows furrowed as the camera feed cut out for the brief few seconds before returning.
“Can’t you do something about the containment fields Lamont?” She asked Sgt Lamont Lance Justice a once retired enhanced human military officer.
“Unless you want me to put a bullet in P01408’s skull this is the best we can do with the equipment on hand.” Sgt Lamont responded grimly.
“As much as these power outages annoy me I can’t give that order.” Farrah frowned.
The camera feed flaired back to life to reveal a young girl no older than seven contained within an energy field that warped and bend at random intervals like it’s trying to contain something. The little girl was huddled up and sitting on the remains of what was once a bed with varying amounts of debris flattened against the concrete floor.
“Has the congress responded on this matter?” Farrah asked once another power fluctuation cut the camera feed again.
“They’ve decided to label her a class 13 entity.” Sgt Lamont replied after reading over the report.
“Good. We’ll ship her off to a comfy psionic inhibitor cell in the pandora’s box.” Farrah replied roughly.
“It’s the best she could hope for Farrah.” Christine Mayers tried to reason.
Farrah shook her head slowly, “Pulling her down would be the best she could hope for, Christine.”
A life of confinement, unable to even touch another person without killing them. That wasn’t the life a seven year old should have to grow up in. Even if she somehow remains sane her situation won’t change without collaborating with Luudesi Psionics specialists and that just wasn’t going to happen. Psionic inhibitor technology was bulky and far too large and expensive to be moved around conveniently. Farrah thought to herself.
“Let’s hope she forgets there was ever anything outside her glass bubble.” Farrah grimaced.
The three in the observation room remained silent for the next few minutes as they watched the crying girl until a man with reflective golden eyes peered through the door. Farrah turned to the man as he entered the room, seemingly happy for something to distract her from the heavy reality of a young girl dealt a poor hand in the genetic lottery.
“Doctor Golding, I trust you have news of the three we collected yesterday?”
“Yes General I have the reports ready for you in your office. However I wanted to ask about the young girl found with the three. The woman continues to claim that she wishes to see her daughter.” Doctor Golding adjusted his collar nervously as Farrah returned the inquiry with a glare.
“We’ve already run the blood tests, they aren’t related and the girl herself didn’t seem very worried about their absence.” Farrah sneered.
“However tests have shown that the mutations brought on by exposure to P38-9N2 and P301C fundamentally change the DNA of affected individuals. We have no way to the prove or disprove her claims. I believe we should let the girl meet with T0492 and T0103 under observation, so we may hopefully lay these claims to rest.” Doctor Golding reasoned.
“Fine, do it. I want an EO standing guard in the room during the encounter.” Farrah said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Of course. I’ll have it arranged.” Doctor Golding nodded his head and left the room.
Farrah left Christine and the other scientists to work out how to work out how to get the lights to stop flickering. She didn’t care how they did it so long as they did, even if they had to break procedure and drain power from the facilities other generators. Farrah was sick and tired of the quick flashing between hot and cold that the flickering of the lights put her through. It felt like she was sick and she was always either too cold or too hot since her mutations cause her to feel all light as an uncomfortable warmth. Sort of like standing under the scorching sun at midday on 40℃ day. So the light on it’s own was bad enough, switching between hot and cold so rapidly was torture. It’s because of this that Farrah took the first chance she could to get out of the science block and push all of the duties she could onto someone else.
“Farrah! What was the issue you were called off for about!?” The booming voice of Samuel met Farrah’s ears as soon as she reached the reception area.
Farrah groaned inwardly as her ears already began to ring from the woman's far too loud voice.
“Sam… we have the problem under control now. Thank you for bringing her in. I don’t think anyone else could survive telekinetic pulses of that magnitude.” Farrah said forcing a smile to hide the frown that wanted to force its way onto her face.
Samuel smile wryly with a show of teeth, “Well you know me Void; only that much can’t keep down this girl.”
“I doubt very little can keep down a class 4 durability, regenerator like yourself, Battlecry.” Farrah said dryly.
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“I heard the new kid can supposedly make thing disappear?” Samuel’s voice filled the void of silence that had descended upon the two momentarily.
“After reviewing the footage it seems she can release a strange golden mist that eats away matter. We can’t be sure what it does with it however.”
Samuel’s eyes widened, “That has to be a tier 6 power at the least... Depends on the density of material she can make vanish.”
Farrah reached for her back pocket and withdrew her phone. Flicking it unlocked she brought up the document to make sure she got the numbers right, “The scientists are guess at 8 kg a minute at the least. They can’t tell for sure at the moment so their estimates are probably vastly exaggerated or the opposite may be true. It’ll require voluntary testing on the girls part.”
Samuel shook her head, “Very few new enhanced ever agree to getting official testing on the limits of their powers. I doubt she’d agree.”
“I know.” Farrah frowned.
“We’ll sit her down with Julien and see if he can convince her.” Farrah continued after a deep sigh.
“You mean glowing red eyes, pointy white teeth, probably a vampire, Julien?” Samuel asked with a raised brow.
Farrah chuckled and bobbed her head in a nod, “Yes, that Julien.”
Samuel’s mouth gaped which she clacked shut before scowling, “Are you trying to terrify the child or have her take a few noninvasive tests to get a baseline of her abilities capabilities? Fucking hell, Farrah!”
Farrah hands flew up to cover her ears as Samuel spoke louder and louder until Farrah could feel a drain on her power as it protected her from a series of shock waves that would have otherwise burst her eardrums. The windows rattled in their fixing but didn’t break because they were more plastic and impact resistant gel than actual glass. People in the hall however flopped onto the ground as their eardrums burst and they fainted. Farrah noted not for the first time that making samuel mad was not a smart idea, not a smart idea at all.
Farrah sighed and called the medical facilities number for medical staff to take care of the unfortunate staff who were taken out by Samuel’s outburst. Samuel took some time to calm herself and was visibly shaken by the casualties, the memories of all the people that had died during her awakening evidently resurfacing to haunt the woman.
“I need to calm down. We’ll talk about this latter Farrah!” Samuel boomed but was obvious struggling to keep down the volume at that time.
Farrah sighed and watch as the medical staff arrive and carried away the day's victims with a frown. It was a weekly occurrence and people had started betting on who would get knocked flat on their arse each week. A tech support agent that worked in sub-level nine had won this week as he had for the last nine weeks and he’d always bet nine dollars. People were beginning to believe the man had limited foresight and Farrah was inclined to agree with them.
“Beep beep, I’m a sheep! Beep Bee-” Farrah answered her phone on it’s second ring.
The catchy and somewhat condescending tune from her childhood made Farrah smile. However the name “Valeria Scriven” displayed on the screen made her scowl.
“Agent.” Farrah conveyed all her distaste for the woman on the other end of the phone with that single word.
“Scouts have sighted a fire in Padstow. The flames are supernatural in nature, most likely the result of another transformation. Requesting dispatch of the squad 9.” Agent Scriven more demanded than requested the dispatch.
Farrah shivered at the mention of the number nine again and swore she’d get Frank sent in for an examination to get him checked for any enhanced gene markers and abilities. He was starting to scare people despite how small and seemingly harmless his “luck” was. There were far too many coincidences around him and he was even beginning to freak himself out.
Farrah’s head throbbed in irritation as she heard the tone that indicated the AI’s approval of the request. A bossy AI being another one of the many things that was making Farrah’s life difficult for her.
“Accepted.” Farrah answered and cut off the call.
Farrah tapped the app which connected her to the dispatch line and organized team nines deployment. When she was finished she sighed and wished that she had someone else on staff that would do this stuff for her. Actually she used to but they were needed in another position and were reassigned. If the situation wasn’t so dired Farrah would have demanded that she be allowed to retire again.
Things had changed a lot in the military since she’d retired and Farrah still wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Most of her work was now handled by an AI that was millions of times more competent than her. Giving Farrah far more free time than she was comfortable with professionally. For the most case Farrah felt she was unnecessary and more of a watchdog to make sure the AI that was in charge of everything didn’t decide to try and take over the world. Every order, command, plan and otherwise that Artemis-6 proposed had to be reviewed and approved by Farrah and it was making Farrah feel redundant. Perhaps more accurately it was that Farrah was more a fossil that had been dug up from the First encounter times and put on display for the masses than anything else. In all four hundred years of her life so far Farrah has never felt so useless than she has “leading” the army from the front on this new “frontier”.Farrah honestly felt like someone was playing a sick joke on her.
The situations in Sydney was bad, worse than anyone outside of the containment was willing to admit. People were going through massive mutations when exposed to the mysterious gas billowing through that hole in the sky even when exposed for mere seconds, mutations eventually began to surface. Everyone who had been in Sydney when that hole opened has been reported developing powers or experiencing minor mutations like scales, hair and eye colour changes and the life. Even Farrah, an Enhanced, was not exempt from the exotic gases mutating properties. The mutations had strengthened Farrah’s power significantly, but it had also altered her appearance drastically. Now no light escaped her skin, making her skin darker than even a night during the new moon; there was no colour there now, only darkness and the medical team had told her she was still mutating, that this was only the beginning and she should expect more drastic changes. No one was aloud out of the city, no one. Not even the very soldiers they’d sent in to contain the situation.
Perhaps because of this there had been a great deal of reluctance to send in much needed soldiers to help contain the situation. Farrah had less than a hundred soldiers under her command and more than half of them had been reserves with only half a decade in off world outposts post that saw little to no actual combat.
The gangs in the area were a very real threat and they’d been trying to get through the blockade since day one. With their personnel shortages, Farrah had little to no doubt that the gangs had found their way through the net. The war outside the solar system was just too important to take soldier away from and what little remained in the system was barely enough to keep the auto-defence systems online. If what that hole in the sky meant was another invasion then the situation was only going to get worse and with the local heroes reluctant to risk irreversible mutations, the situation simply couldn’t be contained.
Farrah’s expression became grim and as her phone began ringing again she rubbed the tension out of her face and answered the call, as she always would and always has.
End of Part 13__________________________________________________________________________________________