As we walked into the lobby of the black building, I was greeted by the familiar face of General Christian Armando. His buzz cut was hidden by the dress hat he wore, and the wrinkles on his face had somehow grown deeper since the last time I met him a year ago. He looked me up and down before doing the same to Dantae who was hiding behind me and it caused his already scarred face to turn even more grim.
"Shit, Alpha rushed you here before you detoxed her again, didn't he? That shady son of a bitch, I'll deduce his pay later." General Armando then coughed into his fist and extended his other hand for a handshake. "Sorry about that, old speech patterns and whatnot. It's a pleasure to have you both back here again.” His smile was obviously forced, something I didn’t think too much about considering our past.
“The conference room is up ahead, I hope you don't mind joining us too much." I shook my head and grabbed his outstretched hand with my free one, as Dantae was still holding the other.
"Not at all, if I really didn't want to come you know I wouldn't have." We shook hands on the thinly veiled threat and then nodded back towards Dantae.
"Please forgive any lack of participation on her part. I'm sure you remember what an overdose of photons is like. Isn't that right, Head Researcher Christian Armando?" Wrenching his hand back from my grasp, Armando frowned before turning around and sighing.
"It's General Christian Armando now,." He said with a hint of displeasure in his voice. I looked at his back with a dismissive stare then made a frown of my own.
"Believe me, I will never forget, General Armando." With that utterance, I followed him into the conference room with Dantae in toe.
---
"Oh 1919, could you help me with this?" Christian Armando was wearing a long white lab coat that reached down to his ankles, and was buttoned from his pelvis up to his collar.
"Sure thing Christian, what do you need?" I void walked beside the man, and he gave a startled jump.
"Jesus Christ, stop doing that in the facility 1919." Even though he started stern, he looked at me in the end like a father looking at a curious son.
It was just as well, as my biological parents had passed away shortly after the experiment began from radiation poisoning.
Turns out the human body is a fragile thing, not that I would know. They had manipulated my genes in such a way that I was near indestructible, a feat they hadn't managed to replicate with any of my brothers.
Thanks to this missing parentage, I had taken to calling Christian "Dad", behind his back, and the same thing with "Mom" for his wife Sherry Armando, except she openly embraced the term.
They had taken to me equally as well, and treated me like what I was, a curious child. Christian had called me over to help him fix a TV, and I had just handed him the HDMI cable to plug in when Sherry approached us with a visitor.
"1919, meet Dantae Kumo. She's come from a sister lab to donate her genes because she carries a special ability. Show him, Dantae."
The beautiful girl gave me an appraising look and held out her hand, one which I took tentatively. She muttered something and disappeared from my sight.
I was flabbergasted until I looked at my hand and a long katana was placed perfectly in it.
Except... this katana was a little weird. She changed back and scoffed before leaving with another scientist, leaving me alone with Christian and Sherry.
"Man, she was smokin', wasn't she?"
"I'll second that."
"Hi guys!" My older brothers, 1918 and 1877 came up and clung to my sides. They looked exactly like me, save for the beanies they wore to hide their baldness, a side effect of Walker Gene failure.
Even with that, I still loved my brothers all the same. I looked back at Dantae's silhouette as she left, then turned back to Sherry.
"Mom," I spoke as gently as I could, "how come hers are so much bigger than yours?"
Sherry looked down at her own chest and sighed. "It's because we're different people honey."
"But my brothers and I are different people, and we all look the same." She face palmed and sent an accusatory glare at Christian.
"You're supposed to be his social skills teacher you oaf! Listen 1919," she said, turning to me, "you and your brothers are genetically related. Me and that girl are not. Okay?"
"Okay Mom." I smiled at her, and she responded with a grin of her own.
---
“Leo, what’s wrong?” Dantae took me off to one side and had a worried look while she caressed my face in her hands. “Were you okay meeting that man after so long?”
I gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead. “Yes… thank you.” She blushed and hugged me back. Damn it, why was she so submissive and kind whenever she had photon buildup? I wish she were like this all the time-
I winced in pain as she pinched my cheek. “You were thinking something rude just now, weren’t you?” She mustered all her self control and was smiling but the crease of her eyebrows told a different story. Instead of confronting her, I just shied away and looked at the room around us.
We were greeted by blank white walls which gave it a clean feeling, and the three black desks on the elevated floor were a nice touch to its aesthetic. I stood on the lower ground with Dantae's forehead leaning on my shoulder as General Armando took his place at the center of the middle desk. Several other key figures in the military were present, including the head of health and safety, Jessica Marquis; the head of soldier and state relations, Antonio Leonard; and chief strategist Justin Emeral, among others.
"I motion to start the meeting, any objections?" As no one spoke out, General Armando cleared his throat and spoke to those in attendance with a loud, clear voice. "Right. Before we begin, I would like to preface this meeting by introducing some new faces to you all.
Armando motioned to the door, and the three recruits who were having lunch only 15 minutes earlier walked into the room. Some discourse broke out at the three tables before Armando clapped to garner the attention of everyone else who was speaking.
"So… I must confess that I have an obligation to let you know about all of what will be discussed during this meeting. As you know, six months ago we began reconstruction on our old facilities after the unexpected aftermath of Project Doppelgänger. An unintended byproduct was the stabilization of the previously dangerous Walker Gene, which lets a Hunter or Tracker bypass the natural rift emitted by a Dimensional Eater. However, it is only compatible with very few genetic compositions, so thousands of recruits later the only people who passed all failsafe measures were these three, please step forward."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
All three of the recruits walked towards the center of the room, where those who sat at the tables could appraise them from a higher vantage point. "Recruits, please introduce yourselves." Facing towards the board was a girl in the middle, with another girl on her left and a short boy on her right. The girl in the middle moved forward and stood at attention while the two at her sides moved back to to allow her the floor.
"The name is Alison Walker, sirs and madams. And yes,” she stood up a bit straighter, “I am the granddaughter of James Walker, 19 years of age and I am six months into the Hunter program, and current top Huntress trainee."
The girl was just shy of six feet and had long, black hair that crept down to just below her shoulders. Her bangs covered her left eye, but her right showcased a stormy grey iris. She wore a loose bomber jacket which was zipped up until just under her impressive cleavage, where her low-cut tank top exposed her milky skin. Her tight-fitting jean shorts emphasized her athletic legs, which were accentuated by a pair of navy blue converse. She stepped back and glanced at me as I appraised her from the side. At least she had enough self-awareness to know when she was being looked at.
"More like the only Huntress trainee." The small boy muttered to himself, which earned him a smacking from the second woman.
The next girl stepped forward and saluted General Armando before introducing herself. "Maria Guerrera, 22 years old. I'm training to be a Tracker. I've been in the program for four months, let's do our best going forward."
Maria dropped her salute and stood back once more. Her short black hair had natural curls, which made her caramel skin look lighter by comparison. Warm brown eyes completed her heart shaped face. She wore a camo hoodie with her sleeves pulled up to her elbows and loose camo cargo pants. A black undershirt was visible from her unzipped hoodie, and matched with her black combat boots. Her figure was more slender than Alison's, and Maria also shot me a look for staring before stepping back and allowing the boy to take her place.
"Hi everyone, Robert Taylor here! At a tender 19 years of age, I enjoy long walks on the beach, pleasurable sex, and flirting with other men. It's a pleasure to be of service to you!"
The smiling boy left the room stunned as he rustled his curly dirty-blond hair, and flashed a seductive smile at the board. His battered black t-shirt paired well with his tan cargo pants, and his brown work boots completed the look quite well. The only ones seemingly unaffected by the boy's declaration were Dantae, as she just couldn't process anything at the moment, and I because I just didn't give a fuck. The first to recover was Maria, who landed another fist on his head with a resounding thud.
"Ow... oh yeah, I'm a Tracker. I figured I should- ow!" Robert was interrupted by Alison's fist this time, and she frowned before turning him to face her before shaking him by his shoulders.
"Not that you moron, apologize! Apologize for being rude to all of the very important people in this room!" She finally let go and Robert staggered backwards, but eventually found solid ground and regained his balance.
"Hmm... but does he count?" Robert pointed at me and Alison rolled her eyes.
"He doesn't count... yet?" She ended the sentence looking at Dantae in an appraising way before returning her gaze to meet my own. She suddenly turned back to face the board seated in front of her, and stepped forward in a way which almost knocked Robert off his feet. "Please explain General Armando, who are those people?"
Armando looked at her from his seat of power before acquiescing to her request. "Okay, I know I have some explaining to do, especially to those who are currently sitting in for someone else or those who have been recently elected to the board. First let me say welcome, to the place where the almighty reign; the place where those with power rule from the shadows; welcome, to the board that puppeteers the current president."
---
A raucous noise sounded from the table to Armando's left as several people fell out of their chairs in surprise.Armando looked at them with pity before beginning the debriefing.
"I see we've found the uninitiated here. Well, for your sakes, let's hope you handle Dimensional Eaters better. Dimensional Eaters appeared last Christmas as another byproduct of the aforementioned Project Doppelgänger." A few more noises were heard from the right table this time and Armando sighed.
"And there go those who didn't know the full story. Anyway, the American government had been working on a project to weaponize black holes. This started after Stephen Hawking revealed his thesis that black holes did not simply absorb anything they came into contact with, but are unable to break down photons, and in turn the photons gradually break down the black hole into nothingness. Our own physicist, James Walker, proposed that a black hole is in fact a gateway to another dimension, and that by injecting and successfully assimilating photons into the DNA of soldiers, we would be able to travel great distances using black holes as portals."
Armando coughed to clear his throat and looked around the stunned board. "Any questions on the story so far?" When no one spoke, he took a sip of water from a bottle he seemingly produced out of nowhere and continued his backstory... my backstory.
"The serum that leads to the photonizing of human DNA is what we have come to call the Walker Gene. In order to insure that no citizens were involved in the application of this unstable drug, we created a human child from the sperm and egg of two of our researchers, and then proceeded to clone the resulting fetus. In doing so, we were able to restructure its DNA structure slightly with each iteration. This led to our research officially being dubbed Project Doppelgänger."
"Those series of events lead us to the next chapter in the story. Flash forward some odd years and it is now 2016. We had a breakthrough in the beginning of December in clone 1919, who had begun to manifest and adopt the photons into his bloodstream. We tried to recreate the result in the genes of several other clones, but the boon clone 1919 received became their bane instead. They ultimately deteriorated mentally and that was our fatal mistake." Armando once again took a swig of water and opened his mouth to ask another question. "Any-"
"Oh come on General Armando, you can't just give us a cliffhanger then interrupt the flow of your narrative! That's bad storytelling so finish it already!" Robert shouted at the top of his lungs, and more than a few murmurs of agreement came from the surrounding tables. Armando sighed, clearly fatigued by all the information he had just spoken about, but trooped on and continued.
"Our research had proven that with enough photon exposure, a black hole will wither away into nothingness. The only problem was... we didn't foresee that if enough photons are concentrated in one place, a black hole will generate to make up for the imbalance in the substance. A black hole formed in our lab on that fateful Christmas Day where the failed experiments were being held, and it sparked a volatile reaction that forever changed our Earth. Each of the failed clones absorbed a fragment of the black hole, and their bodies atrophied and shrunk until they were nothing but mutated skulls and spinal cords about two feet long. They resemble snakes, as you can see here..." Armando took out a phone and pressed a button on it, revealing a flip-out monitor in the room behind the cadets.
All attention was drawn to the screen, which showed a grotesque combination of an elongated skull with beady red eyes and mutated, twisted teeth. The body of the serpent was formed from a spinal cord and the muscle and tissue that remained after its departure from its body. Some of the people present reeled back in shock and disgust, while others looked at it head on.
"We refer to those as Temptations. Just as Eve was seduced by the serpent in Eden, these creatures can serve as a tool to gain an absurd amount of power, but at the cost of your sanity and form. When it initiates its parasitic relationship with another living being, a Dimensional Eater spawns which creates a thick fog with the same properties as a black hole, and in turn the area covered by that fog will always be transferred to the world inside its body. Coincidentally, two days ago we confirmed the death of a D.Eater that absorbed the Eiffel Tower this past summer."
"Wait a minute." Jessica Marquis, the head of the health and safety department interrupted. There was only one successful experiment in 1919 clones? How many Temptations are out there and what happened to the successful experiment?" Armando smiled at her curiosity.
"I'm so glad you asked. Clone 1919 killed a majority of them in the lab, and add the Dimensional Eater from 2 days ago, so we can safely say that there are only twelve more Temptations left on Earth. That's where the Trackers come in. Our sister lab worked on a transmorphing composite for the human bloodstream, which allows a Tracker to shapeshift into one specific object. They also receive the Walker Gene but their DNA structure allows them to seek out any disturbances that may be caused by a black hole. When paired with a Hunter, our final goal is to send these heroes out to destroy the remaining Temptations. As for the sole surviving clone," he pointed to me in a rude and unappreciative manner, "Meet Leo Jones, also known as clone 1919."