Project: Wake Page 6

  "It is believed that the leader of 'The Veil' is Chris Tundra, the brother of Alexander Tundra who, with the help of his brother, stole and got away with the Russian Ship. At least, that's as far as we know."

  Withers nodded. He didn't know much about the Tundra case, other than five years back Alexander Tundra had somehow contacted a terrorist cell and gotten out while taking a russian ship that belonged to Facility C.

  "Orders:" Withers started, staring hard at the alert screen, which showed a glowing location of the Terrorist Cell. "Take three squads of Security Soldiers to attack the base and hopefully bring back Christopher Tundra alive, along with Alexander Tundra, if he still lives." He turned his head towards Kirby, who was typing on her workpad the orders he was giving.

  She stopped typing and nodded, pushing a final button to send out the orders to the Facility C Soldiers, where they would be given a short briefing on the mission and then be sent off. Withers looked at the screen. "I hope this turns out for the better."

  -Chapter 13-

  -Interception-

  Three squads of able soldiers throughout Facility C heard a beeping noise on their wrists, signing the summons for them to jog to the soldier barracks, where they were briefed on the mission, and handed the proper equipment. Apparently the CIA wanted them to handle this situation.

  The three squads of soldiers wore camo gear with pistols and rifles, along with the utility backpacks and belts, complete with grenades. They grimly boarded the military shuttle in Facility C.

  There had been a lack of action around Facility C for a long time, no missions, no gunfire, just patrolling around Facility C and searching for The Veil. But now, now they could do what they signed up to do.

  The pilot checked to see if everyone was wearing the belt around the chest, and the ship disconnected from Facility C, curving downward towards the mission, and towards the terrorist cell.

  The men went over their equipment, painstakingly making sure they were ready for the mission.

  -----

  Tundra sat proudly, pointing at his creations. He had been given seven years to do what he had done in five. Three clones, removed from their time in the “birthing tank,” as he called it, were now fully clothed and placed in cryo-pods, asleep peacefully, never having woken up. He would only wake them up when the obedience chips were installed.

  It remained to be seen whether or not they would actually express abilities when they were woken up, but he already had that down. After a few tests with them asleep, he would install the "obedience chips" into their brains, which would make them mindless subjects, obeying their every command.

  He stood over one of them, watching the males short breaths fog the inside of the Cryo-pod. There were two males and one girl. The males looked exactly alike, and the girl looked like them, but with rounder features. They looked about 12 or 13, but were really just around four years old.

  Caleb sat behind Tundra going through some paperwork. Over the years, he had been set to awkward cowering and shaking when Tundra looked at him. When had he grown so timid?

  Tundra hadn't done too well himself. The day when his brother had taken him in and infiltrated the camp, that day....

  The screams of the dying and dead travelled with him. The screaming was always in his mind, worse at night when he was dreaming. He couldn't remember one night of good sleep for the past five years. It was like the souls of those dead people were thrashing at him, clawing him, trying to bring him wherever they were going…

  He shook from his thoughts and twitched. The screaming only got worse if he wasn't doing anything. And exerting himself, or getting angry at something made it better. He had added to the scars on his body by cutting his arms. Several nights the screaming and nightmares had been so bad that Tundra was driven to inflict harm on himself to reduce the screams. Now he always kept a knife in his pocket in case he needed it.

  He eyed Caleb, feeling irritable. What had that man done but cower and shake for the five years he'd been with him? He looked even worse than he had when he'd gotten here, more skinny and sickly, even though he'd been fed enough.

  He scowled, turning from the clones and walking to a table piled with files. He chose three of them, each with specific knowledge of each of the clones. He brought out a marker, thought a moment, then wrote one word on the front of each file.

  "Kadir."

  "Quentin."

  "Katy."

  He nodded, smiling as he placed each file onto each of the three cryo-pods, sliding the information into little pockets on the sides. Caleb looked up from a sheet he was examining.

  "What was that?"

  "Their names," he said, looking back at their faces. "My children." The screams volume increased, but Tundra ignored them with a groan.

  "What are they?"

  Tundra opened his mouth to answer, but he heard noises. He raised his head to listen, then, eyes wide, he scrambled around, grabbing paperwork. Caleb still sat, cocking his head. "Come on!" Tundra yelled, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him out of the chair.

  Gunfire and yells escaped from the room, slowly growing louder. A man ran up to Tundra, gun in hand. Thankfully, it was just a mercenary.

  "You," Tundra pointed to the man. "Help me carry this! Go get a forklift!" Tundra followed the man as he ran along, gun in hand.

  "Where are you going?" Tundra screamed, frantically grabbing at his shirt. "The forklifts are that way!"

  The man ran up to the shuttles, where a group of other terrorists were pulling supplies into it, gunfire sounding right behind him. "Cowards!" Tundra yelled at the shuttle. The men ignored him. "I'm going back!" Tundra turned to go, but the man he'd been following grabbed him, pulling him back frantically into the shuttle.

  "NO!" Tundra screamed, hands towards the building. They pulled him into the ship anyhow, kicking and screaming as the bay door closed, leaving him in darkness, and leaving the clones behind. Apparently the mercenaries didn’t care if Tundras only reason for life was left behind.

  The S.S. Soldiers walked, guns raised, through the doorway. The squad leader pointed to the left and right, and men went both sides, running to clear the building. The squad leader went straight.

  Before long they came into a large room, filled with desks and files. Equipment layered all around them, paperwork dashed on the floor. A single man sat under a table, cowering and shaking.

  "Stand up, hands behind your back!" the Squad Leader said, pointing the gun at him. He shook even more, but looking up, he relaxed. Tears started flowing down his face as he stood, hands behind his back. “Oh God, you’re here. Thank you, Oh God, thank you..." he broke down in tears.

  The S.S. Officer pulled out a walkie-talkie from his vest and turned it on. "Facility C, we've got a kidnapped situation." He turned, examining the broken man. "Brown hair, short build, hostage symptoms."

  He spun slowly, looking at the equipment as Facility C talked to him through the phone on his ear. Turning, he was surprised to find a cryo-pod directly in front of him. He frowned, and walked up to it. Condensation layered on top of it, hiding its contents.

  He wiped it away with a gloved hand, then his eyes widened.

  "Sir," he said, interrupting the man talking over the phone. "We've got another situation here."

  -Chapter 14-

  -Tough Decision-

  Withers was in the Overseer’s chair in the Control Deck, staring at the screen in front of him. It showed a live camera feed of the squad leaders helmet, showing them loading up all the equipment, including three cryo-pods, which had been found carrying three children.

  Were these children hostages? If they were, why were they in cryo-tubes? They've got to be twins, two of them look exactly alike.

  He had seen the children himself via camera. They actually had names, and very strange names at that, that were inside the pods. Quentin, Kadir, and Katy. They had no visible last names, and their vitals were good, as seen on the front of the cryo-pod which displayed all of their data.


  “Kadir,” as he had been called, had black hair that was very long for some reason, it never seemed to have been cut. He looked about 12, as did his double, “Quentin.” Quentin, for whatever reason had grey-ish hair, and looked exactly like Kadir.

  “Katy,” the only girl, had extremely long brown hair that went down to her waist.

  One of the children, “Quentin,” had been a little more than disturbing. Instead of having arms and legs, they had been replaced with metal arms and legs. The prosthetics were extremely high-grade, and the kidnapped man, Caleb Galloway, had already professed to have helped make the prosthetics.

  Withers had decided that the only way to answer all of these questions was to bring them to Facility C to test their D.N.A, maybe find out if they had parents, and hear the children's story. At the moment, Caleb Galloway was in therapy, and probably would be for a very long time.

  Some of the soldiers down there had sworn that the tables layered with paperwork, as well as some of the equipment, looked like they were cloning something. That left Withers mind to wander, and perhaps that wandering could bring him to the wrong conclusions.

  The situation made Withers feel as though the children were cloned, experimented on and given prosthetics by Caleb Galloway, and possibly even Tundra.

  Withers hated questions like these. If he brought them here and they turned out to be clones, what would happen? If they weren't, then they would go back to Earth to their parents, relaying the horrible experiences they had endured for the sake of a madman.

  As well as that, they would go home telling how there was a government satellite in space. Children wouldn't likely keep such an idea to themselves, they would eventually tell.

  Would people even believe them?

  This might be a case where he would have to keep the children secret, covering to the parents that their children were dead when really they were alive. Withers also hated these kinds of jobs. The parents would think their children were dead when really they were being held secret by the government.

  And if they were clones, how would the government react? Would they immediately put the clones in cages, testing on them for the rest of their miserable lives for the sake of figuring out how they were made?

  The kidnapped man did sort of make things easier, but going back to his life would be drastic. He had already been declared dead in New York five years ago. Withers had researched him after being told his name, Caleb Galloway. Imagine meeting a person who had been declared as dead, but suddenly appeared back into their normal lives again.

  They technically could tell everyone that he had just been missing and had been found. But for five years?

  These kind of jobs were always messy, one had to cover up everything and it amounted to all sorts of trouble, no matter how well anything went.

  For now however, it was clear that the children were to be brought to Facility C for some liable testing. This would be kept confidential however, to the soldiers and few engineers that had witnessed this mission, and they would be sworn to secrecy.

  Withers was still in the same chair, two hours later. The shuttle arrived, bearing the equipment and cryo-pods. He looked towards Kirby who was typing on her work-pad. She saw him locking eyes with her and she nodded. Withers nodded back. "Wake them."

  -----

  Kadirs’ eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, he felt absolutely calm, absolutely safe.

  He felt cold and clammy to the bone, though. His eyes were like heavy weights to open, but after a few blinks he could see without blurry vision.

  Then it started. Pure, black fear overcame Kadir like a wave, and he screamed in his cryo-pod, yanking the cords and needles out of his arms that had been necessary for the cryo-pod process.

  He was not safe here.

  He kept on screaming, flailing his arms at the cryo-pods glass opening.

  It opened with his panicked prompts, and Kadirs’ eyes hurt from the sudden exposure to light. His arms were bleeding slightly from yanking out the cords, but the fear of those needles still gripped him. He found himself looking out into a white room, a few men in lab coats staring at him, eyes wide.

  He leaped out, screaming, tears streaming from his eyes and lashed out at one of the men. Surprised at Kadirs’ punch, the nearest scientists crumpled with a short and startling yelp. A crackle sound reverberated from Kadirs’ hit.

  Kadirs’ legs wobbled, not used to standing. He walked forward however, as one of the scientists came at him, trying to grab him from behind.

  Kadir screamed again, and another short crackle sounded in the room. The man pulled his hand back and also fell to the ground, strange lightning scars on his face.

  The other men in the room looked horrified as one final man, holding a needle behind his back, slowly came up to Kadir, hands raised. Kadir noticed one of the people in the corner pressing a button on his watch.

  The man suddenly lunged, bringing out the needle and trying to stab Kadir with it. Fear clenched Kadirs’ stomach as he saw the thing, and he yelled, jumping to the side and pushing the man off balance.

  He turned, eyes frantically scanning for some kind of way out. THERE. A door in the middle of the wall. He scrambled to it and opened it with a grunt.

  Then he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. He looked up horrified to see a man staring straight at him. The gun fired with a puff, and Kadir felt a searing pain in his shoulder.

  He looked at his shoulder, expecting to see a gaping hole but instead saw a dart protruding from his skin. Kadir yelped mutedly, tore it out lethargically, then fell to the side, falling unconscious before he hit the floor.

  -Chapter 15-

  -Introductions-

  Withers was surprised when he got the news that one of the children had attacked several scientists directly after being woken up. He had expected the children to be groggy and confused, yes, but able to take down three grown men after just waking up?

  The process had taken eight hours, gradually raising the temperature in the cryo-pod, and then applying some drugs to wake him up.

  Technically the scientists in the sick bay that were doing the process didn't know anything, they had just been handed the cryo-pods and told them to wake them up. If they had asked what they were, they would have been told it was above their rank to know what they were dealing with.

  Withers shook his head. Can't start developing a conscience for once, he thought. It's a bit too late for that.

  He had ordered the two other children to not be woken up yet, and Kadir was placed under sedatives in Sick Bay where they could safely run some blood tests.

  Here came the strange part. The men Kadir had attacked had ended up with strange scars patterning up their bodies. Sick bay had labeled this as Lichtenberg Figures, which were common in Lightning strike or electric shock victims.

  How had they gotten scars that people only got when in contact with extreme electricity? The scientists in the room with Kadir confessed hearing 'zapping' noises when attacked by Kadir. Whatever it was, he would be more careful in the future with the children. He would wake them up again in a detainment cell so that they didn't harm anyone.

  He pushed a button on his desk, summoning Kirby to open her camera on her work tablet. When a new tab opened, connected to Kirbys’ camera, he gave her the orders. She nodded.

  -----

  Kadir woke a second time, groaning as he opened his eyes to light. He startled awake, moving his hands over his arms, checking to see if there were any cables or needles stuck in him. He sighed, grateful to find that there were none.

  Kadir looked around himself warily. He was in a grey bunk in a small room, two more bunks sat across the room from him, a figure lying asleep in it. Kadir shakily turned, twisting his body so he was sitting in the bed.

  To his right was a empty doorway with a sink in view. To his right, a large glass wall took the space of the entire left wall. Kadir shakily leaned out of the bed, but he knew his legs wouldn't hold him.

&nbs
p; The bed in front of him moved slightly, and a head appeared from above the blankets. It was a girl, with bright eyes and long brown hair. She looked very pale. Kadir tensed. His first instinct was to attack this person, but he really had no reason to. The incredible fear he had felt before was gone, leaving a hollow hole inside him. He wouldn’t attack this person, only if he had to.

  “Hello,” Kadir said, leaning up. "I’m..."

  Kadir paused, thinking. Images flashed in his mind, data trying to sort itself out. His name...name. An image came into his mind, black words spelling out, ‘Kadir.’

  "I am..uh...Kadir?"

  The girl raised an eyebrow. "Was that a question?"

  Kadir felt confused, “What?”

  "I'm Katy," she said, pulling the blanket off her body slowly.

  "I'm Quentin."

  Kadir looked up to see another boy sitting in the bunk above Katy. "Quentin?" Kadir asked.

  "Yeah,” Quentin replied.

  Kadir didn't really know what to say, but how did he even know what to say? Images kept coming into his mind as he thought things, just words connected to images, describing what it was.

  "You two look a lot alike," Katy said. "Are you two..” she paused, thinking. “Twins?"

  "I think we all might be triplets," Kadir replied. "Or, something like that."

  Kadir examined the other boy on the bunk. He had really long hair, as well as grey arms. Were those prosthetics?

  Katy slowly got out of the grey bed and gradually stood on the grey floor, her knees wobbling slightly. Kadir looked at Katy's hand which was gripping the bed frame, her knuckles white. Staring at her legs, she slowly let go of the metal bed.