Police Captain Andreas de Vygon fastened and unfastened his cuffs over and over again; a nervous habit he’d never been able to shake. Despite his long and illustrious career, full of accomplishments and accolades, public speaking was still just as daunting as it had been in high school. Today, he was going to reveal the project he’d been working on for the past 12 years to the rest of the Tombguard police. It had been a long, difficult road, full of trials and setbacks, but he had finally made it to the final phase of the plan. The hard part was over; now, he just had to keep his creation on track, and everything would turn out as it should.
7 years spent developing the technology; the likes of which the world had never seen. 4 years of suffering through the trial and error of the process after finding a Source, losing subject after subject to mistake and miscalculation. Finally, one year spent training the successful subject to fighting form. G-7 had passed her final combat exam just a few short hours ago. It was finally time to reveal her to the world.
An assistant walked up to him. “They’re ready for you, sir.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Andreas took a deep breath and slicked his hair back, stepping out onto the stage. Before him was an assorted crowd of Tombguard’s higher ranking police from each precinct across the city. Fellow captains, sergeants, lieutenants, and a few detectives chatted among themselves, some looking up at him expectantly. Even the deputy chief and the commissioner were here. He cleared his throat, taking his place at the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for taking the time to be here today. Now, I’m sure you’ve all heard whispers through the grapevine by now; the murmurings of a secret project known only as Project Genesis. Well, today, the veil will be lifted as to what it is that we’ve been working on. As some of you may be aware, over the past few years, the 23rd precinct has been looking into methods to capitalise on the use of powers in police work. Up until recently, this has been difficult thanks to certain legislation, and the presence of the Union drawing away potential candidates from our program. However, thanks to the new revisions in the Powers in Policing Act of 20XX, new breakthroughs have been made in regards to our project.
“Recently, we were approached by a young woman with powers, interested in joining our department not as an officer, but as a superhero who works in tandem with the police, following our commands and regulations, but also able to unleash her powers as an extended arm of the law. For the past year, she’s been training hard in one of our facilities, and today she passed the final exam, and is now eligible for deployment by the standards set in the new Powers in Policing Act. Starting tomorrow she will begin patrolling our streets under my command, joining in on police operations and hopefully improving our rate of success tenfold. That is what Project Genesis is; a revitalisation of the police, quite literally the genesis of a new world of crime-stopping.
“I’m sure you’re all curious as to who this woman is. Unfortunately, for her safety in the face of recent anti-police movements, she is choosing to remain anonymous. Publicly, she will be going by ‘Seven,’ and I can share no more details about her identity other than that. What I can share is a demonstration of her prowess as proof of concept towards the efficacy of her ability. Please, observe.”
The projector at the top of the room came to life and displayed an image on the blank wall behind him. It was a recording of one of G-7’s recent runs at the advanced obstacle course, where she made an absolute joke of her previous personal best. As her handler, Andreas had to admit; he was quite proud of it. Once that was done, the image switched to one of her better performances during combat training. The actual exam was too violent to be shared, and certainly toed the line a bit too hard in regards to the ethical treatment of prisoners for public viewing. That would just have to remain confidential, lest human rights organisations get all up-in-arms over the treatment of their poor serial murderers and rapists.
Andreas watched as the faces of the crowd grew more and more impressed by the second. Satisfaction and pride filled his chest as they ate it all up. His hard work was finally paying off.
He stepped back up to the podium as the video ended. “Now, I want you all to think about how many police lives have been lost to criminal activity in the past few years. With Seven’s assistance, we could reduce that number to almost nothing! After all, why should our noble boys in blue have to put their lives on the line, when we have a literal superhuman to lead our charge? Of course, she is just one woman, but hopefully, in time, her presence in Tombguard will inspire more young, brave, powered people to join our program and bolster our city’s police force! Instead of joining the Union and sitting around all day, soaking up our tax dollars until a monster attacks, they would be out there, fighting for the safety and liberty of our citizens. Think about that!”
He breathed out, letting that statement stew on the audience for a second. “I believe that is everything. Thank you all for coming. If you happen to see a superhero in black armour patrolling our streets in the coming days, please, come say hi. She’s on our side.”
With one last ‘thank you’ to the audience, he stepped down, walking off-stage into the wings as the cameras started flashing and the crowd broke into rapid conversation. A smile reached his face.
Everything was going according to plan.
—
The buzz of pride only grew through the next day as Andreas took G-7 around the city and showed her off to the public for the first time. The presence of the Union heroes was unexpected, but ultimately it didn’t amount to anything, and gave him a good opportunity to warn his weapon to stay away from them. It was clear from the way she obviously stared that something inside of her was drawn to the Widow. Now that he’d planted the order in her head, though, she would be unable to disobey. Madeline Garcia-Holmes’ presence would not be an issue.
They returned to the facility underneath precinct 23 late in the afternoon, and Andreas sent G-7 back to her quarters after letting her stop by the mess hall for food. He had a meeting with the commissioner planned, so he didn’t stick around, heading out after a quick shower and freshening up in his quarters.
They ended up meeting over dinner. It turned out that the commissioner had caught wind of what he was really doing down in the facility, and of G-7’s true nature. That wasn’t very surprising, though. After all, it was his money that was funding a large portion of the project. Their discussion was long and quite fruitful. The commissioner ended up approving of his admittedly underhanded tactics for the furtherance of Project Genesis’ heroes in policing initiative. The use of manufactured human weapons to fill out the police force, while expensive in development, would ultimately save money for them in the long run. You didn’t need to pay wages to your own property, after all. Of course, he didn’t know what Andreas’ actual plan for Project Genesis was, but it was better that he remained ignorant. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
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And so he returned once again to the facility later that night, bottle of champagne in hand, heading down to R&D to celebrate G-7’s successful deployment. The boys down there hadn’t had much to do lately, on account of G-7’s relative lack of developmental problems, so it felt prudent to give them a pat on the back, and push them in a new direction now that the main work was done.
The initial room was dim when he entered, illuminated mostly by the surveillance screens covering one wall. George Sadler sat at the chair in front of them, looking at his phone and not paying them any mind. Andreas could hardly fault him for his distraction; he could tell with one glance at the bedroom camera that G-7 was asleep, and none of the other cameras were observing anything important right now. Other than him, the room was empty.
Sadler noticed his arrival and shot up to his feet, saluting. “S-sir! Didn’t know you were coming down here!”
“At ease, Sadler,” he said. The man visibly relaxed. “Where is everybody else?”
“They’ve all gone home already, sir. I pulled the short straw and got assigned nightwatch duty.”
Oh. That was a shame. Andreas shrugged, holding up the bottle. “I suppose they won’t get to enjoy this champagne with us, then.”
Sadler’s eyes lit up. He rushed to get some glasses from the adjacent break room. They weren’t proper champagne flutes, but there was no need for extravagance here. It would taste the same regardless. Andreas popped the cork with his multitool as he waited for his employee to return.
“What’s the occasion, sir?” Sadler asked as he set the glasses down.
“Celebrating G-7’s successful deployment, of course. Everything went off without a hitch.” He filled both glasses with a generous helping of champagne before setting the bottle down in a safe spot, taking a seat.
“Yeah? How’d she do?”
“Good. Today was mostly getting her used to the outside world, but she did manage to catch a shoplifter, too.”
Sadler nodded, taking a drink. “That’s good. None of the other subjects have made it outside before - well, aside from Five and Six, but they don’t really count, since we can’t monitor them. Did she take it alright? Not too overwhelmed? Seven’s always been a bit of a soft one, despite her successes. …Y’know, it’s fascinating how differently their personalities have developed, considering their nature. I was expecting them to all be identical. Maybe the formation of their different powers has an effect on their psyche? Something to look into, I suppose.”
Andreas frowned at the reminder of the two subjects who escaped before G-7’s Birth, ignoring the rest of Sadler’s tangent. That had been a particularly dark day for the project. Thankfully, nothing had come of it yet, and he’d already planted an idea in G-7’s mind that should nip it in the bud if it ever became a problem.
“She was certainly fascinated, but overwhelmed? No, not at all.”
Sadler nodded, but his mind still seemed elsewhere. He sighed. “I have to admit, I still feel bad about what happened to Four. What did we name her again? Gwen? She was doing really well, and-”
Andreas cut him off. “It was a training accident, Sadler. No one’s to blame. Besides, don’t waste your breath mourning for a being who had no right to exist in the first place. We’re spitting in the eye of God here; we can’t be surprised when Divine Intervention strikes down one of our subjects. Their very existence is heretical.”
Sadler shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose. It was just more disappointing than anything. Her death set the project back over two years. Felt like a waste. She was our first promising subject, then it all went down the drain.”
“She provided valuable data that helped the project along, even if her demise slowed us down. This was never going to be easy; you knew that when you signed on.”
He chuckled, taking another drink. “Yeah, but for that pay and those benefits? How could I say no?”
Andreas had to concede that one. He raised his glass towards the door in the far wall. “What’s the status of the rest of the backup subjects?”
“Oh, come see!”
They left their drinks behind and walked into the next room. A row of metal cylinders lined the walls on either side, each with their own display showcasing the vitals of the subject within. Sadler walked up and pressed a button on three of the displays, lifting the metal curtains and revealing the vats of green liquid underneath. Inside each vat was a woman, floating lifelessly, totally bald and completely nude.
“Subjects G-8 through G-10 are completely matured and ready for Birth,” Sadler explained, moving further along and opening up more vats. The women in these ones grew progressively younger down the line until G-16, who was still just a foetus. “G-11 through G-16 still need some more time in the oven, and formation hasn’t begun yet on G-17 or any past that. G-11 should be ready for Birth within the next month or so, though.”
Andreas observed G-9, who had opened her eyes slightly and was staring through him listlessly. A vestige of consciousness in a world of non-existence. “Begin mental and physical habilitation for the matured subjects. I want them to be ready quickly after Birth if we need them.”
Sadler blinked, surprised. “S-sir? Are you sure? That’s never been done before pre-Birth, I don’t know if it would work.”
“With G-7’s successful deployment, we’ve given ourselves some wiggle room to experiment.” He glanced over to the younger subjects. “Speaking of which, why don’t you get creative with the ones still in development? Start tweaking things here and there, see what happens. I’ve been wanting a subject with titanium bones ever since G-7 broke her shin in the obstacle course, and there’s no reason to stop researching just because we’ve reached a milestone.”
“Sir, with all due respect, tweaking things is what caused Five and Six to come out so wrong. I understand where you’re coming from, but it could be risky if we mess with the wrong thing and the programming doesn’t set in right. While the subjects’ personalities are distinct, the Source’s natural curiosity and self-righteousness has definitely lingered between them. We need the programming to steer it in the right direction, or we’ll just have another repeat of that incident.”
He waved a hand. “If you’re so concerned, just insert them all with kill-switches. If anything goes wrong, you can just pull the plug. Besides, who knows if any of them will actually reach Birth? G-7 is doing well, and we have no reason to think she’ll falter. This is just a precaution.”
Sadler made a sceptical face, but he conceded, closing the vats one by one. “If you say so.”
They returned to the surveillance room. Andreas reached for his glass, but movement from G-7’s bedroom camera caught his eye. “Hm.”
“What is it?” Sadler asked.
“Has she ever done that before?”
He looked at the screen. “Oh! N-no, not that I’m aware of, at least. I… I mean, she was going to figure it out sooner or later, right? She’s an adult. Well, technically, anyway. What’s the problem?”
Andreas frowned. “It could just be a coincidence. It could just be the highs of her first day out, I suppose. But, she did have a brief encounter with the Widow today. I don’t want to rule anything out.”
“Oh… Oh!” Sadler’s eyes brightened, as they always did when he got a new idea about the science of what they were doing. “Do you think meeting her could have triggered some sort of imprinted residual memory from the Source?”
“She did seem quite enamoured with her upon first glance. It’s very possible.”
“How fascinating… Maybe it goes with those imprinted personality traits I mentioned earlier; something so crucial and formative to the core of her being that it transcends between physical bodies.”
“Or…” Andreas said, adopting a deadpan tone. “Jordyn has just inherited the Source’s rampant lesbianism, and was overcome with desire upon seeing the first woman of her life that was within her age range.”
Sadler snorted. “Yeah… So, uh… what should we do about this?”
Andreas thought on it for a moment. He shrugged. “Turn the camera off for thirty minutes. We don’t need to see this, and I can hardly see how this would undermine our plans at all.”
“You got it, boss,” Sadler replied. The screen went black, affording G-7 a rare little slice of privacy.
Andreas sat back down, taking a sip of his champagne. He smiled.
“Now, how about a game of cards?”