The group reached the lab, the body of the cultist still laying there out front. Rock led them to the staircase and both Jack and Caleb felt a sudden twist of disgust in the pit of their stomachs. These, what used to be, women were being force fed via tubes and the smaller wires were surely keeping other bodily systems alive.
Meanwhile their minds must have surely shut down long ago, who could tell how long they had been down here? How long ago they had been mutated and trapped in this hellish existence..
The larger vats confirmed Jack’s fear, those “women” were being used to create the mutants attacking the harbor.
But why? All this were clearly old world, no one today would ever be able to build all this. But why attack now? The nuclear war ended hundreds of years ago, most of the radiation were gone, the cities were all in ruins. So why did this facility wait with unleashing them for so long?
They cautiously walked from corridor to corridor, keeping the vats at a arms length distance and seeing till they found much larger ones with the finished product. They looked like floating, unfinished uterus's they were slowly coming to life, swimming in the green chemical.
The large vats where only three at the time but connected to the outside via lids. Caleb suspected they had to be automatic cause the lack of proper workers. Or maybe there were someone operating it...
The cultist did call this a sacred place, they were the ones, besides the townsfolk, who were near enough to come and open it up.
But if that was the case then why was the inside of the lab empty?
And they were precious few humans left who could operate advanced machinery like this.
Besides the mutants there wasn’t a single life form in sight.
After bumbling around they finally found the control center. A gathering of screens covering the walls and panels right by them.
‘Ok Caleb do your thing. We’ll guard you.’
Much to his relief the computers were unlocked, no need to hack anything. The large flat screens showed moving roves of endless data. Liters of chemicals and different numbered tubes.
He typed in on one of the panels, searching the vast library of data till he found the file he was looking for. Something that was closer to a summery of what was happening.
‘Project waterhunt...this could be interesting.’
The file was written by someone high ranking in the old world clearly. Most likely the head scientist of this facility. What was written in it was anything but comforting, in fact this only further confirmed the belief of what pretty much everyone believed these days, the old world was evil. Just as sick and twisted as they were advanced.
‘What do you find?’ Jack asked.
‘They were experimenting on humans to create some kind of bio weapon....ya here it is. These “gulpers” were meant to hunt submarines and disable sea mines.’
‘Anything to get the upper hand on the enemy huh? I guess the nukes came first.’
‘That they did.’ he looked in a bit further and found another disturbing thing.
‘These women are called birthers. They apparently possess a unique gene that could be exploited...the..A-gene?’
‘A-gene? Wow...they got really creative with their names didn’t they?’
‘It doesn’t say anywhere what the A-gene is, only that this certain brand can impregnate its hosts without the need of a male, and that the DNA can be altered to create non human creatures.’
‘This is really, really fucking sick and gross. Can you shut it down?’
‘Ya that should be simple enough.’ he pressed some more buttons, switching in between the menus until he came across the shut down program. ‘Oh no..’
‘What?’ the screen showed the text “authorization key required”
‘Ok where would a key like that be?’
‘With the officer...who died hundreds of years ago..’
‘Shit...ok lets keep searching the base, maybe there’s something else.’
*
After a while of searching the woods carefully Juan finally heard some noises up ahead. Sneaking in between some bushes he caught sight of a large wooden carving. It wasn’t well made, the ones who carved it obviously did a poor job but he at least recognized the shape as tentacles. A brazier burned in front of it and a group of people wearing ragged robes stood about in the clearing. Juan managed to overhear one of the conversations.
‘I don’t understand why we don’t just march in there and kill them all? The intruders are breaching the awakened’s holy sanctuary, surely we can’t just let that slip?’
‘Our orders are to stay put for now, that beast with them is trouble. No need to worry tough, god will soon punish those heretics good.’
They knew...but at least they weren’t trapping his crew mates inside, that made things a little easier, they just had the unknown threats inside to deal with...
Juan remained a while, listening to their conversations. From what he gathered these people were crazy, really believing the giant mutant to be a god and worshiping it would bring back their glory days.
As if mutants ever cared about worship...
Juan got close enough to what seemed the leader, this Roberto talking with some other cultists.
‘I understand your frustrations brother but have patience. The town is dying while we survive, soon not even Matilda and her goons will be able to fend off the attacks.’
‘But its taking to long! Its gonna need at least two more attacks before their ammo finally runs out and even then they still have their knives, saws and hammers!’
‘Then maybe we should speed up the process? I’ll talk to the creator and see what can be done.’
Roberto walked off to behind the statue into some dark, tight gathering of trees and bushes, vanishing out of sight. Juan snuck away, having quite a lot from them. He considered following Roberto but saw no way in getting there without being discovered, better head to the ship with the info.
Perhaps there was more to this “god” than he expected?
*
They searched the lab from top to bottom, constantly discovering new rooms. The power generator lied at the very bottom, shaped like a large pillar going connecting the roof and floor. They were lines pointing up and down that glowed brightly blue, indicating the high levels of power inside. Caleb recognized the design, it was a plasma power generator, old world design. And its power output clearly dwarfed the one the one he fixed in Capital slums. There was a emergency shut down level on the wall inside that room, the only problem was that it was broken. The actual handle hand been torn off and left was only a few wires sticking out.
‘No handle on the floor, and by the state of the wires this was done not to long ago. Maybe just a few years or so. Someone broke the level, torn it clean off.’
‘Then its clear someone out there wants this mutants rampaging the town. And I’m betting its that cult...’ Jack figured, who else would want anything remotely like this if they didn’t believe in some crazy deity?
‘Is there any other way to shut it down?’
‘Besides the control panel? Doubtful. I could try to cut this part open so I could mess with the electronics inside but I’d risk permanently breaking something, and then we’d be in trouble.’
Jack looked at the humming generator, her cybernetic eye scanning it top to bottom. ‘Why not explode power thing?’ Rock asked.
‘Its a plasma generator, the explosion will be immense, spreading miles apart. The town will be completely vaporized and several large forest fires will spread. Even if we set the bombs for several hours I doubt we’d get far away enough if the wind decided to blow in our direction.’
‘And since we’re along the ocean line its always windy here.....’ Jack turned back to her companions.
‘Any way to shut it off from the inside, like pulling a wire or something?’
‘Maybe, but without the blueprints I’d never know which one and I’d risk overloading the generator, causing the explosion anyway.
‘Then we use a more desperate plan. We kill the birthers.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Those are no longer people, their minds most likely shutdown centuries ago. And without them there’s nothing to spawn the mutants, making our time here easier.’
‘I could work but there’s probably a defence system put in place to prevent any sabotage. We fire one bullet at the tanks and we could be sprayed with a thousand each.’
‘Yes maybe..then we figure out whichever system is in place and deal with it first. In the meantime.’ she picked up a radio from her pocket and hailed the Lady.
‘Doc com in.’
‘Doc here, what do you need captain?’
‘I want a couple of C-4’s prepared when we get back.’
‘Roger that, Doctor out.’
‘Right so now we ju..’ she stopped mid sentence as she saw something enter trough the door. Slowly, wiggling side to side as it walked, entered a gray colored robot. Its frame was pretty wide and its legs short, the head was egg shaped glass to dark to see trough except for the small red light.
Its arms was small claws that retracted into its body.
‘Humans identified. Processing. Please stand by.’
*
Kel slumped back on the couch completely bored. It took ages for the captain to make it back from whatever fuck she was investigating.
She lit up a cigarette and relaxed a little as she blew out a gust of smoke. This whole place had her on edge, there was just something wrong with this town she knew it. Not to mention that thing underwater... She had stared death in the face before but that that...that was something else. It was something that shouldn’t exist. And the idea of her dying underwater and remains just left there in the cold dark forever just scared her, not like being surrounded by bullets or running from a bomb but more like being filled with dread kind of way.
Just what was that thing? What could even create something that massive? Some old world shit gone wrong? That was her best guess, they always made the biggest worst stuff those hundreds of years ago.
She froze up when in the corner of her eye she saw someone behind the corner of the hall leading to the ramp. Someone obviously sucked at sneaking....
She gently took out her gun and pretended to let out a yawn, fooling the said intruder into thinking she hadn’t spotted them.
Then she got up and walked around the other corner leading to her bedroom and waited right there. She listened as the footsteps made their way into the living room and once far in enough she jumped out, gun raised and pointed straight at them.
The intruder was a young woman, barely an adult, dressed in a ragged brown robe, her blond hair tied to a ponytail.
She froze in shock, holding her trembling hands in the air, eyes begging Kel for mercy.
‘Alright bitch who are you? And why are you on our ship?’
‘I...I am M, Melissa...t..th. the master sent me..’
‘Why?’
‘Spy...he doesn’t l...well...like you being here..’
‘Hand behind you head.’ the girl obeyed and Kel slowly approached her, never removing the gun. With her free hand she searched the girl up and down, feeling along the robes for anything that could pose a threat. She didn’t find anything tough, in fact it was so light it seemed like Melissa wore nothing underneath.
‘Is this potato sack all you’re wearing?’
‘Yes..’
‘Why?’
‘The master says so..’
‘The master is a fucking perv.’
‘Everyone is dressed like this. Both male and female.’
‘Doesn’t change anything.’ Kel thought about what to do about her a while until she heard footsteps behind her. She grabbed Melissa around the neck with her arm and spun both of them around, pointing the gun towards the entrance. She swiftly relaxed once she saw Juan approach.
‘Woah! Did I miss a party or what?’
‘The cult doesn’t like us being here, they sent a rat to do a foxes work.’
‘Is that so?’ he gently stroked his patch of beard as he inspected the girl in front of him.
‘Alright I think we can play this our favor. Kel would you be a dear and fetch us some tea?’
‘Why??’
‘Cause I have some questions for this lovely young lady and she’s more prone to talk if she’s not threatened.’
‘You just wanna bang her don’t you?’
‘No nothing so crude I assure you...my tastes are a bit...different.’
That man and his damn penis... Kel reluctantly removed the gun and turned to the kitchen corner and Juan invited Melissa to the couch.
‘Now...lets talk.’
*
‘What is that junk heap doing?’ Jack was on edge, hand clutching her gun as Rock stood ready as well shred the thing with his minigun.
‘Scanning. Scanning. Please stand by.’
‘It doesn’t seem hostile, or else it would have attacked by now.’ Caleb spoke.
‘Identity not found. Error. Please submit your employee ID card.’
‘Robot! What are you?’
‘My designated service number is 65917. mark 4 service and assistance bot. Trademarked by FTI and the US government.’
‘What? What the hell are those things? Whats FTI or US besides just a bunch of letters?’
‘FTI stands future technology industry. The original designers of this model later purchased by the US government for the purpose of assisting in research.’
‘What kind of research?’
‘Access denied. Identity not confirmed. Please submit your employee ID card.’
‘Well this thing is annoying.’
‘Me destroy robot thing?’
‘No wait!’ Caleb jumped between them. ‘Don’t you two realize what this is? This is a intact, still functioning robot from the old world! Before the world went to shit! Imagine the all the data is still has stored, imagine the things we could learn!’
‘But its useless without an ID card remember?’
‘Error. Identity not confirmed. Please submit your employee ID card.’
‘See?’
‘I should be able to bypass it. Just give me some time with this thing.’
‘Fine, do your thing.’ Jack said dismissively, like she didn’t believe the robot could do anything useful.
Caleb immediately took out a metal rod that hummed when powered up. He pressed it against the machine and it powered down. Caleb then proceeded to gently cut the glass head off with a miniature laser cutter. The underneath it was the small red lamp sticking out of a pile of wires.
‘Ok...this could take a while.’ he said as he began his inspection of it to track down its motherboard.
*
‘Interesting, and the mutants really leave you alone?’
‘Yes. They always go after the town. We never had a single attack on our sanctuary.’
Juan poured the girl another glass of the wine he got from charming a Empire nobleman’s wife. The girl had quickly lowered her defenses, not feeling intimated by him at all while Kel had promised to give them some space. She of course hated this, letting some stranger from a cult, of all the fucking things, just wander around on their ship.
‘Tell me a little more of your beliefs. What sort of god do you follow?’
‘Its the creator, the mother of all life. She’s the one who made the world what it is today for the humans of the past denied her. Its her punishment, just as the leviathan is the towns punishment. Its her message to the world.’
‘Where does this mother come from?’
‘She’s always been here. Long before humanity and will be long after for she is eternal.’ Melissa took another sip as she casually talked about her god like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
‘Interesting...does she have a name?’
‘If she does we aren’t privileged to it. We just refer to her as our lord, the creator or the mother.’
This gave him nothing, all vague religious mumbo jumbo. And he had enough of that when he infiltrated the Capital, people really worshiped the Empress there! The same one that commits constant genocides and suppresses people. Juan knew he was a pretty guy but even he hated the Empire for all their dark shit.
Now that he thought about it, their beliefs seemed somewhat similar...maybe..
‘Does the creator have any connection to the Empress?’
‘You mean the supposed leader of the Empire? No, not at all why?’
‘Nevermind, just asking.’
She put her glass down and got up. ‘I have been gone long enough, they’ll start to wonder. I gotta get back.’
‘Right, have a pleasant evening.’
After she was gone he closed the ramp and thought about her words, she did come off as the common brainwashed cultist. But his gut told him they were connected to all this somehow.
‘So she left with all her clothes on! I’m fucking surprised.’
‘Kel, the mutants don’t attack their camp.’
‘Ya so?’
‘So if they’re so hostile then why is the cult left alone? Their camp is right by the border of the town. Its not facing the same way as where they attack still.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘My point is that I think the mutants acts rather strange, either the cult has some control over them or..’
‘Or...’
‘Or the mutants aren’t after the humans directly....but the town is just a hindrance.’
‘Hindrance to what??’
‘Lets look at the direction their going. From a lab deep in the forest, straight towards here. Besides the town itself what other thing here is there that stands out?’
‘The ocean...with that huge thing in it!’ it suddenly dawned on Kel.
‘I also spoke to Sera earlier today and she mentioned right before her dad was killed by the leviathan he discovered something out in the ocean. I think these are all connected somehow, its a link between them.’
‘How do you plan on solving this fucking mystery then?’
‘I might have an idea...’
*
‘Ok...this should do the trick.’ Caleb reattached the final parts and reactivated the robot using the remote control, signal attached to the chip he implanted inside its machinery to bypass the protocols.
‘Warning. New software detected. Scanning.....scanning complete. New authorization granted.’
‘Can you shut down the facility?’
‘Negative. Total system shutdown is only authorized via the the master control center.’
‘Can you get us in?’
‘Negative. Only lead scientist Robert Greenwall is authorized to access the panel.’
‘Can you locate him?’
‘What are you doing? The guy is dead!’
‘But his remains might have the keycard.’
‘Warning. Unable to contact Dr Greenwall.’
‘Guess that failed.’
‘Can’t you just cut open the computer and hack it like that as well.’
‘This is military, old world grade stuff. If I hack it then they are sure to have security measures in place.’
‘Warning. In the even of unlawful entering the system rigged to lock the facility and delete all files.’
‘What else will happen?’
‘Security mark III attackbots will activate and proceed to eliminate any individual not carrying a valid employee ID.’
‘See? Even trying that is a bad idea.’
‘Fine, but someone did activate this facility so someone out there has the ID card. You, bot! What is this facility used for?’
‘Designated lab 597 is one of the testing labs for project A. The birther project is one of the many smaller wings of project A, responsible for the invention and maintenance of birthers.’
‘What are birthers and what are they used for?’
‘The birthers are formerly designated humans possessing the A-gene subjected to gene editing in order to activate the A-gene and use it to create a sub species of humans. Designated A-divers purpose is underwater scouting, sabotage, locating and eliminating enemy submarines, divers, drones and mines.’
‘Fucking hell...’
‘What is the A-gene?’
‘The A-gene is a gene detected in roughly 00.1% of humanity. The gene carries special properties, varying from person to person.’
‘And the ones here have the birther strand of the Gene....’
‘This is fucked up even for me.’ Jack felt sick to her stomach. Formerly humans?? What the actual fuck.... the humans of the old world might have been even worse than today!
‘Ok....where are the other labs then?’
‘Negative. This unit is not programmed with that knowledge.’
‘Its probably on their files somewhere. Until then, what is the US government?’
‘The government of the united states of America is currently being led by president Nathaniel Jackson. Long may he lead.’
‘Ok...what is the “united states of America?”’
‘The USA is a country occupying the southern sphere of North America and is the largest economy and military in the world. We surpass all other countries in military technology advancement and posses the highest number of nuclear weapons.’
‘This is a lot to take in, but I guess we finally got the official name for the old world government.’
‘And the name of their last leader.’
‘I suppose there’s not much more we can do here. We either find that card or find a way to destroy this facility. Lets head back for now, see if Juan learned anything.’
They took the robot with them as they left the lab behind with only a few answers and a lot more questions.
*
They returned to the ship with the robot intact, no sign of any mutant.
The crew regrouped in the living room, exchanging everything they learned.
‘So lets just drop some bombs on it from the air!’
‘We already used up our air torpedoes on that raider fortress remember? We got nothing left!’ Jack argued against Kel’s plan.
‘I’m willing to bet that cult has the key card. Like you said captain, they’re the only ones who benefit from this, as stupid of a reason as it is.’
‘Then we go in and shoot all those fuckers!’
‘Not a good idea Kel. We don’t know how many there is and with all those trees and bushes they can still ambush us.’
‘Jack there’s still another matter. I suspect there’s a second lab out in the ocean.’
‘How so?’
‘Sera’s dad apparently came across something out there. But the leviathan got him before he checked it out. We could go there and look for more clues.’
Jack and Caleb turned to the robot. ‘65, is there another lab out there?’
‘The sister lab designated 7756 is being led by Dr Gonzales. Error. Project is under class A secrecy. Violating this will give the US government and FTI legal right to use lethal force.’
‘So there is another one out there, this is bigger then we thought.’
‘We aren’t going back out there are we? With that fucking this still out there??’
‘We’ll be fine so long as we remain in the air, I am however worried about entering without that key card. We might just run into the same problem.’
‘I have an idea, sooner or later the cult has to fall asleep. I could sneak in past the night guard and see if their leader has it.’
‘Alright then, do it. Avoid killing anyone if you can, I’d rather not waste so many bullets on them charging our ship.’
The meeting ended and everyone went back to their personal business, waiting for nightfall.
