Project Symbiote, Part 2

More Project Symbiote for your reading pleasure. Comments are Welcome!

I woke up, my head awash with a combination of throbbing pain and a good deal of light sensitivity. The room was just as dark as I left it when I passed out. Of course, I quickly realized that there really isn’t much sun underground. I groped the back of my neck, and indeed the metal protrusion had receded. The light in the room quickly went on, and I reached for the other Mountain Dew in my bag. My hand was slapped away, and I looked up to see Liz’s shock of red hair directly in my face.

“Caffeine isn’t going to help anything. It’s 5 in the afternoon.”

“I was asleep for 14 hours?”

“Well, yeah…you were processing huge sym uptake. It doesn’t happen instantly. Anyways, we’re going out tonight.”

“Huh? Where?” Liz was upfront, but this was odd.

“That’s not what I meant, dude. Us two need to go find another symbiote subject.” Oh. That made more sense.

“Oh. Well, why do we need to do that?”

“Because they’re telling us to.”

“Great reasoning there.” I finally got out of bed, and stumbled around, trying to get a shirt out of my bed. The zombie theatrics went on for about 3 minutes, until I realized that out of the corner of my eye, Liz was staring at my bare chest. I glared at her, she smiled sheepishly, and I finally managed to get a shirt on. On the table next to the bed, I noticed a pistol. It was larger than my Glock, but more importantly, it had a cord extending out of the butt from behind the magazine feed. The end of the cord plugged nicely into the third plug in my wrist, the one that was neither a USB port or a headphone jack. Headphone jack…I reached into the bag and plugged in the mp3 player. As the bass throbbed beautifully clearly through my mastoid, I realized with some chagrin that I could still perfectly hear things going on around me if the volume was low enough. Which would actually be a benefit, I suppose, but being shut out is nice too. Well, Liz had more to say, and despite what Mr. Leeb’s synthesizers were doing in my jaw, I could still hear her well.

“Max, they’ll tell us what’s going on when we brief. In the meantime, I got you some dinner.” Indeed, there was a tray of nondescript food on the desk at the other corner of the room. And Liz herself was still holding another tray of nondescript food. We got our nondescript food and sat down around the desk. Much quiet chewing ensued, until my curiosity finally defeated my fear of awkwardness.

“Liz, exactly who were the other guys in the car last night?”

“They were just other guys from the program. Just mercs.”

“So there aren’t any other Symbiotes at the University, right?”

“Yeah. There aren’t many others around the area, except for this girl we have to pick up, and she’s in high school.”

“I thought the scientist dude said they were all college students.”

“Well, yeah, most of them are. The very last subjects in the line tests would be high school seniors, though.”

“Oh, okay.” More quiet chewing ensued. The food was really nondescript in every way possible, including texture and taste, which, instead of being bland, made it kind of horrifying. But hey, I was hungry and tired, so it really didn’t make a huge difference. We both finished the remainder of the hospital food dinner in silence, and then picked up the trays. Liz headed toward where I assumed the kitchen or nearest equivalent was, so I followed. She did indeed lead us to some odd galley, and I put the tray in a pile of dirty trays there. We then left, and went back down the concrete hallway. About 300 feet down, she stopped, turned around, and startled me with a bear hug.

“I’m glad you’re here, Max. I really didn’t like being here with no one I knew.”

“Well, they distracted you with these missions, right?”

“Actually, no…they just brought me in here 3 times last year to run tests…it felt like being put in an institution. They treat you like an experiment…but Dr. Davidson seems to like you. You showed him that you were at least an experiment with a wit.” I chuckled.

“I guess I like him too. At least he has good taste in soda.” Liz rolled her eyes, and we walked back to the room in lifted spirits. Considering the situation, that was definitely saying a lot.

We were called to the briefing that Liz had mentioned about an hour later, after I figured out how to use the touchpad on my laptop without actually touching it. It was an amusing experiment, which Liz forwarded by changing all of my bookmarks to porn and taping the laptop to my hands. It only took me 47 minutes to change them back, impressive considering I didn’t actually have use of my hands. Typing would be a whole other thing, though. The briefing room was just like all of the other rooms, small, concrete, and filled with electronic gizmos that even I couldn’t identify. Dr. Davidson and one other small man I hadn’t seen before were at the front of the room. The small man adjusted his graying comb over, and began to speak.

“All right. Now, you too have more in common than your school and your neighborhood. Both of you were part of test line #55, one of the more influential lines, and also the second to last line to be used. What we need you to do, Subjects 563 and 578, is to retrieve subject 599, the last #55 subject, and probably the most influential subject that survived the experiment.”

“Uh, I’m hearing 563, 578, 599…how the hell did you number these things?” The small man glared at me, but Dr. Davidson calmed him down.

“Max, the numbering was odd, but we’re scientists, so that shouldn’t be surprising. The 12 lines were numbered up from #00 to #60. #05 was a control test, so there are only 12 lines, despite what math may tell you. All of the lines ran simultaneously, and we tested 50 subjects in every line. With the exception of #00 and #05, the number of genetic, nanomechanical and cybernetic modifications were increased. So, you three, including this woman you must retrieve, are the most genetically modified human beings on earth.” I fell out of my chair at that moment. Liz would have stared at me, but she had just crushed the plastic cup she was holding in between her fingers.

“What about #60? And what about the other #55s?”

“All dead. The reason #55 was successful was not only because it actually had survivors, but because you rejected the fewest modifications. Max, you and June…oh yes, the woman you will be rescuing is named June, are the only two human beings who didn’t reject direct cybernetic modification. Unfortunately, when we perfected our method of installation, all we could do was tactile support and the mastoidal implants. So, despite the nice reflexive targeting thingy you can do with the gun, your implant is essentially a glorified mouse and mp3 player.”

“Thingy, Dr. Davidson?”

“We had this chat, Max. Come on. Anyway. June’s modification was more subtle, but much more powerful. Her neural-stem processor was programmed to interface with a very complicated set of algorithms that tap into her hippocampal symbiotes. Essentially, she can do reflexive learning by downloading movie files off of a computer.”

“In other words, don’t let her see Enter The Dragon.”

“Well, that’s what we want to see. We don’t know if it worked, but there’s a chance that she can start reflex subroutines just from watching them, whereas you and Liz would need it either hardwired, or need some starting training to get it to take off.”

“And what does this reflexive learning do, exactly?” I was not following this. Dr. Davidson was still a master of the jargon.

“Max, did you ever wonder how learned how to fire a gun?”

“Yeah…I don’t really remember ever being taught, just going to ranges since I was about 8.”

“You were taught a reflexive subroutine in a programming test when you were 2. You’ve been a crack shot ever since.”

“Dude, that’s fucked up.”

“That’s kind of why we’re worried about June. You see, you two, until we juiced you, could never have done anything superhuman with your abilities. Maybe appear gifted, or shoot a gun really well, but those aren’t exactly extraordinary in and of themselves. We actually were never sure what all of the modifications June had did…since she was the last #55, we thought we’d test the full range in the #60 series. Unfortunately, no one in #60 series survived long enough for us to figure out what the long term implications were.”

“In English?” This time it was Liz who was a little ticked.

“We have no idea what has happened to June since we released her to her parents 15 years ago.” Liz and I looked at each other.

“But you know she’s alive?”

“Yes.”

“What have her parents said?”

“We, uh…haven’t actually been in contact with them since Liz was 13. She attempted suicide at that time, and her parents cut us out of the loop, blaming the experiments. They may not be completely wrong, either.” Liz piped up again.

“Did you ever consider there were ethical implications to this?” The small man butted in.

“Remember, we basically ended up killing 300 babies. One angsty teenager was probably the best we could have hoped for given the situation. Thank God the syms can be stepped down…none of the other survivors have had this issue, and they are all older than June at present. Anyway, before we can get further off track, we need you to understand that June’s parents want nothing to do with the experiment. I know that both of you were taken by surprise, but June’s parents do not want her involved. We do not know what they will do if you associate yourself with the NSA or Project Symbiote. So don’t. Use whatever methods necessary to succeed. And trust me, 60 billion dollars in funding says that you know what that is better than I do. Now, the car will take you into Oakdale in about 15 minutes. Good luck.” Liz looked at me, and I looked back. We were getting into some deep shit. That, at the very least, was immediately apparent.

Before we knew it, we were walking down Sunnyside Avenue in pristine Oakdale. Oakdale was a tract housing suburb, and despite the relative wealth of the region, it scared the living crap out of me. Actually, the relative wealth probably was what scared the crap out of me. We got to the address, and stood outside, pretending to admire the moon. There was some yelling from the house. It was mostly indistinguishable, but we both made out the words “makeup”, “slut”, and “Friday”.

“Uh-oh.” This looked like it would be interesting.

“So, how do we extract her if she’s grounded?” Liz was posing a very valid question, though one I did not particularly feel like actually considering. After about 5 minutes, the lights in the house went out, except for one light on the second floor. I surmised this was June’s room, though from what logic I was not immediately sure. The idea that popped into my head that very moment was brilliant.

“I have a plan.”

“Oh God. Fine, but only you are climbing into the window.” Damn. Liz knew me very, very well.

June was in her room, sitting at her laptop. As she wrote another mournful entry into her weblog, her eyes turned quickly to the pile of discarded razor blades on the other side of the desk. Fighting tears, she turned away from the desk, and lay down on the bed, her blue-streaked brown hair matted against her face.

“All I need is a guy and a way out of here,” she sniffled. She wrapped her big sweatshirt closer around her, and lay silent for a moment. Suddenly, there was a pop. June looked over, and noticed that the window lock had popped off its hinge again.

“Fucking house is falling apart…” What happened next was not expected, though. Namely, I happened next. The climb up the vertical wall was actually very easy, but squeezing through the window was interesting. So, I ended up on the floor, holding the knee that I had hit on the way up, and cursing as profanely and as quietly as possible. June was standing there, staring at me, eyes wide open. I got up, made sure everything was still attached, adjusted my coat, and looked at her.

“June, I know this seems very strange, but we don’t have much time. We need to get out of here. I’m sure that I can explain-“ The ensuing bearhug was very familiar, despite June being somewhat smaller in height than Liz.

“It’s like my dreams are coming true…”

“Don’t get too enthusiastic.” About then, the weight of June holding on to my midsection started to really affect my balance. In fact, it affected my balance all the way back out the window.

Now, if you’ve never fallen down stairs, or fallen on your back from height, I can explain what it does very succinctly. It knocks the wind out of you. So, as Liz copied my speech to June, I was rolling around on the ground, gasping for air, and swearing, as quietly but as profanely as possible. The car rounded the cul-de-sac, and the three of us started walking towards the car, though I was walking slightly more slowly, and a lot more dramatically. We piled into the backseat, and the car drove off. The driver once again looked through the rearview mirror.

“Damn, Max, you look like someone punched you in the gut. Whose plan was that?”

“M-M-Mine…”

“Oh. Figures. Well, I suppose it worked. Kind of.”

“Look. The fall was…*gasp*…not part of the plan. Not at all.” I was just about breathing normally again, which was a relief. A cell phone rang, and the man in the front passenger seat picked his up. After a brief word, he handed it to me. It was the same man who gave the briefing.

“I have secured you and Liz’s release from the university. We will provide for the remainder of your education, so don’t worry about that. We do have an issue, though, and this issue will be your next assignment. June’s 18^th birthday is in two weeks, and we cannot emancipate her from her parents until she is 18. Therefore, we will have to monitor the progress of her upgrades while she is in her parents’ custody. She is to meet you during the school day for the next two weeks, and you will perform a small diagnostic, which is easy and discreet. So, unfortunately, you are not yet rid of Oakdale. But, I promise, you will have plenty to do. More on that when you return.” He hung up the phone, which I handed back to the man in front. That small man sure didn’t make answers very well, but he was damn good at making new questions.