Shortcake: The Shortcake Trilogy, #1

By Christopher Gorham Calvin

A genetically engineered child with no memory of her past. A killer with dreams of destruction. And the fate of a city hanging in the balance…

 

Enter a captivating world where science fiction and thrilling suspense converge. After plummeting from the roof of Helix Unbound, Amanda awakens to a life devoid of memories. Desperately longing to fit in, yet sensing she harbors an extraordinary secret beneath her seemingly ordinary facade, Amanda explores the unfamiliar world in an effort to find herself. And when a companion from her forgotten past becomes entangled in a serial killer's deadly game, Amanda is thrust into a race against time to prevent a catastrophe of massive proportions.

 

Can she unlock the innate abilities buried within her before disaster strikes? Will she rise up to protect the city she now calls home? And can she redeem the only soul who understands and embraces her for what she is?

 

Join Amanda as she battles not only for her own destiny, but for the fate of an entire city. Dive into this gripping techno-thriller that explores the emotional turmoil of life, resilience in the face of tragedy, the ever-present specter of death, and the eternal struggle to find the inherent goodness within us all.

 

"Wonderfully imaginative..." -Amazon Review

 

"A definite page turner..." -Amazon Review

 

"I can't wait to read more!!!" -Goodreads Review

 

"Shortcake does not disappoint..." -Amazon Review

 

"An engaging and captivating read" - Amazon Review

 

"I was hooked from the very first page" -Goodreads Review

 

"Keeps readers on the edge of their seats" - Amazon Review

 

"Prepare yourself for an epic ride" -Amazon Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Gorham Calvin
• Release date: Jan 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9798223854661

Book preview

cover-image, Shortcake

Shortcake

by

Christopher Gorham Calvin

Copyright © 2012, 2019, 2022 Christopher Gorham Calvin

All rights reserved.

To my wife, my parents, and

the family and friends who

have supported me through my

creative endeavors. Thank you.

Chapter One The Beloved Child Of Science

Chapter Two Destruction’s Birth In Darkness

Chapter Three Shortcake

Chapter Four The Ties That Bind

Chapter Five Unforgotten Past

Chapter Six The Young Killer

Chapter Seven Questions For A Child

Chapter Eight Monsters In Many Forms

Chapter Nine The Game Of Death

Chapter Ten Things Do Change

Chapter Eleven Evan

Chapter Twelve Welcome Intrusion

Chapter Thirteen Confrontations

Chapter Fourteen A Flood Of Forgotten Memories

Chapter Fifteen Crushed Under The Wings Of Fate

Chapter Sixteen Science Plays A Part

Chapter Seventeen Homecoming

Chapter Eighteen Lost Lovers Unite

Chapter Nineteen When Light Fades

Chapter Twenty Imminent Disaster

Chapter Twenty-One Aftermath

Chapter Twenty-Two A Proposal Of Life

Chapter Twenty-Three The Monster Within

Chapter Twenty-Four A Light Among The Dark

Epilogue Impulse Reborn

Author’s Note

Chapter One

The Beloved Child Of Science

The night was pleasant, the weather crisp. Scented spring air floated in a light breeze through the quiet city of Eden. By day a bustling metropolis, the city lay dormant when shrouded in darkness, its streets empty of interference from humans and vehicles alike, allowing the playful cool air unbarred passage from building to building, corner to corner, tree to tree. It swerved tightly around concrete right angles, dispersed through clusters of leaves and reunited on the other side, swooped low across paved roads, and curled its way up the dark, decorative sides of the gothic, sixty-story cylindrical tower that was City Hall, a building which stood tallest among its peers at the city’s geographical focal point. From there, the crisp air spread like a sheet beneath the stars, fell slowly, and began its dance once again.

Along each edge of downtown Eden stood the neighborhoods, populated by modern city folk yet still reminiscent of days gone by. White picket fences were numerous, untended lawns unheard of, and the sidewalks lay free of litter and debris. Here, the downtown breeze thinned as it wound in and around open windows, middle-class cars, children’s play sets, classy street lamps, and colorful flowerbeds surrounded by dense blades of vivid green grass. Scents of recently prepared dinners and laundry exhausts mixed with those of nature as the branches of air swam and swirled amongst one another, a slow and delicate process of maturation, resulting in a concoction even the grumpiest of men would find warming to the heart.

At the north end of the most northern neighborhood, the wind picked up speed, breaking free of the array of quaint homes and quiet roads as if it were an animal released from its leash. It darted forward, the particles of its absorbed aroma struggling to catch up, into a wide stretch of ancient pine trees and moss-covered stones. It sailed over fallen needles and patches of wet mud, across stream beds and off of ledges, growing stronger, growing thicker, the many strands of city air recombining into one, sponging even more scent from its natural surroundings, plowing forward from the confines of the forest and into a large man-made clearing begging for a breeze-

-and that’s where it quickly met its demise.

It could be said that the scented air, so cultured, so beautiful in its creation, had been killed- if such a thing were possible- by its confrontation with unnaturalness that stood in the center of the clearing. It was the Helix Unbound Research Facility: a dull, boxy building with no unique identifying features and little aesthetic appeal. Each of the facility’s twenty floors hummed with electrical energy, the building itself a living antithesis of Mother Nature. Helix Unbound had no windows, little exterior lighting, and only one door serving as both entrance and exit. It was heavily guarded, though that could be hard to tell from the one patrolman stationed in a booth near the door, and security cameras left barely a foot of the surrounding land unmonitored. Otherwise peaceful in its still oasis of emptiness on this lone spring night, inside the facility an intense debate raged.

We hear you’re having trouble with the professor? a firm, female voice asked behind closed doors.

A mildly feminine, much less confident, voice responded. I wouldn’t say th-

Yes or no?

There have been incidents, the second woman admitted, but nothing-

He’s become a problem, a male voice cut in.

I didn’t say that.

You didn’t need to say it, the first woman replied.

Maybe so, the second woman agreed hesitantly, but we need him.

On the defensive side of this ongoing debate was Doctor Mary Vasquez, a geneticist from California who was highly respected by peers in her field. It had been nineteen years since Mary left her position with Wexnor Labs, then the worldwide leader in stem cell research, to work for Helix Unbound, a government operated research facility whose existence few knew. It wasn’t that the government paid more that caused the geneticist to switch jobs- it didn’t. Nor was it that the benefits, and especially not the living conditions, were any better than she already had. In fact, Mary rarely saw the outside world anymore. She had no close circle of friends with which to socialize and was allowed only limited communication with her family. It was as if she were a prisoner to her employer. Mary had spent a third of her life in its service and, in retrospect, this made her realize there truly were no benefits to her acceptance of the Helix Unbound job offer save for one: Project Impulse.

Project Impulse was Mary’s personal brainchild, now the primary focus of all experiments at Helix Unbound. It began as one of many, a study in genetic research for applications beneficial to modern combat. Ideas such as iris enhancements for better visual aiming, robotic foot implants for improved ground movement, and molecular skin modifications for stronger physical resistance had all been concepts in Project Impulse’s early undertakings. Most had made it to at least a prototype stage before either being scrapped or outsourced to another lab. More high-concept ideas came and went over time, but eventually all were abandoned in favor of a much more technologically advanced, and also substantially more difficult, goal: the breeding of the world’s first genetically enhanced human being. The idea was simple: Why waste time trying to modify that which already exists? Why try to fix that which is naturally imperfect when achieving perfection prior to creation would have a greater impact on the future?

And so, Project Impulse, in its current form, was born. It took eight years, but Mary, leading a team of thirty gene specialists, broke down DNA sequences from top performing athletes, world-renowned scientists, artists, authors, the ten oldest people then living, elite soldiers, and even herself, isolating their most ideal characteristics and recombining them into the perfect genetically enhanced genome, codenamed Omega. Mary never asked how the DNA samples were obtained, though she knew it most likely wasn’t through legal means, for she also knew it was their resulting genome which would serve as the primary building block for all of Project Impulse’s future endeavors.

Though the Omega Genome was considered a breakthrough success at the time, two years and hundreds of aborted embryos later, it was no further along in development than when first created. To make matters worse, Mary and her team were perplexed as to why, none able to explain the troubles Project Impulse endured. It was pure perfection! Why did fertilization not hold? The thought churned in Mary’s head time and time again, never yielding even the most minute hint at an answer. Soon it became apparent that for Project Impulse to succeed, Mary would need a new perspective, perhaps some fresh assistance, and so the eyes of its backers fell to another scientist: Joseph Theodore Madison.

He had been a tenured professor at Greengrove University in southern Florida when first approached about taking a job at Helix Unbound. Prior to that, Joseph had served as both lead scientist and professional advisor to several cutting-edge research teams. He was known throughout the scientific community for entering situations in crisis, working out the kinks, and guiding experiments to their intended conclusions. His high level of intelligence and attention to detail enabled him to look past the bigger picture during circumstances in which others could not, to see everything at a fundamental level of strengths versus weaknesses, to statistically calculate the costs and benefits of each decision made, and thus to appropriately follow a path that, mathematically speaking, should always end in success. Such as in any real-world situation, that path was never straightforward, but another of Joseph’s unique skills was the ability to adapt when situations changed, and so no matter how far off the path of success any experiment veered, he could always bring it back in line and onward to victory.

The professor’s contribution to Project Impulse was no different. He immediately felt a connection to the project, discovering that his was one of many gene sequences broken down to include in the Omega Genome. The professor had little family, and no children of his own. To him, science was his child, and if the goal of Project Impulse were to be achieved, this would reign true both figuratively and literally. The mere thought was as exhilarating as it was intriguing.

Joseph praised, with genuine admiration, Mary and her team for their accomplishments thus far, but made it clear that he would take charge until Project Impulse’s roadblocks had been cleared. He focused his attention on doing what he did best, and within months, identified several fundamental flaws within the Omega Genome itself. They were subtle, easily overlooked, but critical to embryonic development. Working side-by-side, Joseph and Mary corrected these flaws, underwent further failed trials, identified and corrected more flaws, tweaked the Omega Genome’s original genetic template, and, within the professor’s first year at Helix Unbound, fertilized a donor egg which displayed a higher level of developmental stability than any which had come before it.

But there was one problem.

Though every precaution had been taken to carefully monitor and control even the tiniest of steps during the fertilization process, a second, smaller egg lay hidden from sight, partially fused to the one undergoing experimentation. This egg, like its larger companion, became fertilized by the Omega Genome, and it wasn’t long before Joseph and Mary took notice, each concerned about the various complications this new discovery might introduce. They agreed it was best to attempt a separation of the eggs and that, if either egg needed to be sacrificed for the survival of the other, then the smaller it would be. Thankfully, though it took several hours of meticulous machine assisted microsurgery, that situation never occurred. And so, two healthy, stable Omega embryos, codenamed Alpha and Epsilon, came into being.

They began as test-tube babies, growing in artificial wombs of glass, wires, and nutrient enriched fluids. A computerized distribution system fed them daily doses of accelerated growth hormones, substances- the kind that would never see FDA approval- that resulted from one of Helix Unbound’s earlier projects. This enabled the Alpha and Epsilon embryos to evolve at four times the speed of normal human beings, and in no time at all the common traits of life showed themselves: eyes, noses, ears, mouths, arms, legs… there was little doubt that Project Impulse had finally undergone a successful trial. But to those behind the artificial creation, that was all the newly developed Omega embryos represented: a trial, just one more step in the overall project. They were the result of scientific experimentation, nothing more, and Alpha and Epsilon continued to be spoken of and treated as mere objects rather than conscious living beings. They weren’t considered human, nor were they believed to possess the feelings and emotions of naturally birthed children, at least not until they came to term.

The Epsilon embryo, the larger of the two, matured quicker than its counterpart. A boy was born, and immediately tests were conducted to measure early brain capacity, future learning potential, reactivity to external stimuli, internal muscle and bone development, and an assortment of other characteristics which should have been enhanced by the Omega Genome. The results were far better than ever imagined. The boy, even as a newborn, displayed signs of stimuli absorption that were literally off the charts. The electrical activity in his brain reflected this absorption and, to the surprise of Joseph and Mary, spread throughout his body through the spinal cord and nerve network, essentially forming a unified entity of body and mind. It was unlike anything previously seen in the scientific community.

The Alpha embryo came to term shortly after, birthing a female whose test results were equally astounding in most respects, and even more so in others. The research team at Helix Unbound held a celebration to reflect upon their victory and to hype excitement for the scientific exploration still to come. All was right in the world for those involved with Project Impulse. And it would have stayed that way too, if not for one seemingly immaterial incident-

It was one night, almost three months following the birth of the first child. Joseph was running the last of his daily tests on both subjects, finishing with the girl, when he noticed a familiar twinkle in her eye. The twinkle teased at Joseph’s brain, attempting to stir up some thought or memory that he couldn’t quite grasp. He brushed it aside as unimportant until later that night, when he returned to his room and prepared for bed. The professor washed his face, then dried it, and upon looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, saw that twinkle once more, only this time it was staring back at him from a much older figure.

She has my eyes…

It was so simple, yet changed so much.

Professor Madison’s upset, Mary explained to her inquisitors, as he has every right to be.

The male’s voice tensed. Why does he have the right?

Because we lied to him, Mary replied. After all he did for this project, we lied to him about what we were doing and about what our endgame would be.

Come now, Doctor, we all know the truth, the firm-voiced woman said with a hint of incredulity. There was never any question as to the endgame, never any misgiving about the goals we were trying to achieve. Professor Madison is upset for one reason and one reason alone: we lied about the girl.

The morning after Joseph’s genetic revelation, during his routine breakfast with Mary, the professor subtly raised the notion of giving their subjects proper names. Mary, knowing the dangers of becoming too personal with one’s work, was immediately opposed to the idea. Joseph dropped it after some persuasion, but would return to the notion that night at dinner, and again in the lab the following day. He never revealed his reason for wanting to name the children, and Mary thought it best not to ask, but it was clear that he wouldn’t drop his crusade anytime soon. Mary respected her colleague and silently conceded that Alpha and Epsilon wouldn't even exist if not for Joseph’s hand in her work, so a couple of weeks later she caved, and that became the day that Amanda and Evan received their names.

By that time, the children, though only three and a half and two months old, were growing into the bodies of one year olds, their development continuing to be advanced by Helix Unbound’s unpatented growth hormones. The boy spoke first, then the girl, demonstrating that their brains were even further along in age than their bodies. By the time they were two in terms of accelerated growth years, they were walking upright and as stable as full-grown adults, their skeletal structures almost machine-like in quality. By the time they were five, both Joseph and Mary had fallen in love with them.

Maybe it was the youthful innocence each child displayed. Maybe it was their high level of intellect or physical perfection. Maybe it was the fact that, aside from being test-tube babies, Amanda and Evan were the most human children with whom Joseph and Mary had ever interacted. For the professor, maybe it was the knowledge that Amanda contained an ever so small quality of his own. Whatever the reason, it made Amanda and Evan irresistible to their creators, and resulted in an emotional, and risky, parent-child type of bonding between them.

Amanda was the professor’s favorite. She grew to be a curious young girl with a sweet face. She had pitch-black hair and emerald green eyes. Her body contained solid bones and a flawless frame, yet she carried herself with the grace of an angel, and acted as though she had a heart of gold. One day, early in their relationship, Joseph noticed Amanda eying a novel he had been reading in his spare time. He knew Amanda liked to read, but so far she had only been exposed to comic strips and children’s books. So that night he brought the novel to her room, turned back to page one, and read to her as she laid her head down to go to sleep. Two hours later, the professor began to doze, book in hand, and it wasn’t long before his words trailed off into silence. He awoke the next morning to find himself slumped at the foot of Amanda’s bed. Amanda was sitting with her back against her pillows, the professor’s novel in her tiny hands, only thirty pages left to go until the end. From then on, it became a nightly tradition for Joseph to bring a book to Amanda, except instead of reading, he would listen as Amanda told the story to him. The two would limit themselves to an hour per night, and Amanda would refrain from going on without her surrogate father, instead keeping her own stash of novels beneath the bed for after the professor left. And so began a series of shared traditions.

On Mondays, Joseph would challenge Amanda to a game. Sometimes it was a board game, sometimes a video game, other times a game of skill. Joseph maintained variety in his selections as not to bore his opponent, who, intellectually speaking, was quite formidable. Tuesdays were movie nights, and this tradition included Mary and Evan when they were interested. Wednesdays were the days when Amanda and the professor took over the cafeteria after-hours, mostly trying recipes from a few favorite cookbooks while occasionally attempting to throw together their own concoctions. If deemed worthy, they would share their meals with anyone willing to partake at lunch the following day. Thursdays were originally spent discussing news stories from the outside world, but now they belonged to Evan, as Joseph realized the need to show his other child of science some one-on-one affection. So now Thursdays were Amanda’s nights to put her extraordinary mind to creative uses by drawing, writing, and dabbling in other personal explorations of a near superhuman nature. Amanda had discovered she had abilities not shared by common men, but she couldn’t control them, nor did she fully understand them, and she had yet to openly share them with anyone, including Joseph, because the truth of the matter was that they scared her, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

Friday nights were the best nights, the ones Amanda looked most forward to week after week. Because on Fridays, Joseph would show up at Amanda’s bedroom door at ten o’clock sharp with a large, moist chunk of strawberry shortcake. It wasn’t the subpar strawberry shortcake found in a standard neighborhood grocery, which may have been sitting on the cooler shelf going stale for several hours. Instead, it was the special kind of shortcake made by fancy bakeries and high-class restaurants, with lush, juicy strawberries, freshly prepared whipped cream, and a syrup that wasn’t too sweet, but sweet enough to perfectly compliment the dish’s other flavors. On several occasions, Joseph had tried to bring Amanda other desserts to try- apple pie, chocolate mousse, baklava- but though she acknowledged how tasty they all were, the young girl still wanted her strawberry shortcake. It was an odd obsession unbefitting someone of such intelligence, someone who longed to try so many new things, but it made her happy. And Amanda being happy made Joseph happy, so he used the little free time he had each week to ensure he made a special trip into town to buy her a piece of shortcake.

But like the calms before storms, all Fridays gave way to Amanda’s least favorite time of the week: Saturdays and Sundays. Whereas during the week Amanda and Evan underwent tests of physical health, intellect, and motor skills, all of which were paused in the early evening to allow for personal time, the weekends were heavily loaded with tests of physical endurance. These ranged from going the weekend without food to being placed in a metallic room with no furnishings and then subjected to extreme temperatures for extended periods of time. Upon graduation from one physical endurance test to the next, the children of science faced cumulative exams in which all tests to date were layered on top of one another to create an unusually harsh atmosphere. Amanda obediently faced her challenges, though she had expressed in private to Joseph her discomfort with them, and only on rare occasion showed signs of faltering to her temporary conditions.

But that was enough.

Those who funded Helix Unbound from behind the scenes, and in turn funded Project Impulse, didn't want to see any signs of weakness from their genetic experiments. That these children were still human and subject to certain human frailties wasn't acceptable in their eyes. To them, Amanda was broken- amazing, yes, and a miracle of modern science- but broken, nonetheless. They had discussed her permanent removal from Project Impulse many times, some discussions behind closed doors, and others with the participation of Mary and Joseph. Of course, the two scientists went to bat for Amanda, with Joseph swinging the hardest, but their opinions lost weight over time, and in the end only one thing kept Amanda alive: money. Too much money had been invested in both children of science to throw away either of them. And so the experiment continued as it had for several years, albeit with an ever-growing importance placed on the development of Evan.

The boy had begun his life with a kind disposition only rivaled by Amanda. He was given equal treatment as she and shown the same caring love by both parental scientists… at least until Joseph developed his deeper bond for Amanda. Even then, however, Mary continued to play a motherly role and strove to strengthen her emotional bond with Evan. She tried to encourage him to take part in nightly activities, but after a few nights, he would get bored and lose interest. She would push him to attend movie nights with Joseph and Amanda, but even then he grew tired of those and started attending irregularly. Perhaps it started with Joseph’s attachment to Amanda, or perhaps it was something that brewed slowly within him since birth- Mary honestly couldn’t recall when she had first noticed- but a change overtook Evan, a change that differentiated him ever so slightly, and yet so importantly, from his counterpart.

He became cold, not in a mean way, but with an increasingly closed off demeanor, one which eventually could not be penetrated by the warmth of either scientist. Mary tried the hardest to get through, and Joseph sacrificed his Thursdays with Amanda to show Evan the kind of attention reserved for his little girl. But none of it worked. For better or worse, Evan had decided who he wanted to be. He absorbed himself in his training. From morning till night, he pushed the boundaries of his mental and physical capabilities. He leaned on the only thing he felt he could for support: a seed of inner anger, anger at Amanda for getting the most attention, anger at himself for not pushing even harder, anger at the world… it sprouted and bloomed, feeding Evan’s natural male instincts of dominance, embedding within him a deep-rooted sense of rage.

And yet, though Evan could have let that rage run wild, he made the conscious decision to contain it, never once exposing it to those around him. Even he didn’t understand why he did this, only that, for all his anger and all his coldness, he still yearned for what Amanda had, he still yearned for that love, the love which was right at his fingertips, but so far beyond his grasp. Those in charge of Project Impulse were unaware of the child’s inner conflict, and to them, Evan was the only genuine success of the experiment.

I suppose that’s the reason he’s upset… Mary agreed with hesitation.

A feeling he will have to overcome if he wants to continue working on this project, the male replied.

So you say, Mary challenged. But I reiterate: we need him.

The other woman took charge. Are you proposing a compromise, then?

I think-

We don’t compromise, Doctor.

There was no denying Amanda’s sweet nature lacked certain qualities that Project Impulse’s coordinators sought to exploit, qualities which Evan was all too willing to embrace. After all, they hadn’t ushered in the creation of enhanced beings for an existence of happy, peaceful living. They still wanted that which first served as the driving force behind the experiments of Helix Unbound: advancements applicable to modern combat. In this case, they wanted a new breed of genetically modified soldiers, battle-ready by nature and capable of survival under any condition. They wanted killers willing to take orders, the type that could lead to their tyrant-like control of not just opposing countries, but of the entire world. They wanted living, breathing, biological weapons suited to destroying property and taking lives without thinking twice; things which, given her track of development, Amanda could never do.

But that could be changed…

Amanda may have been too costly to dispose of, but there was always more money to throw at the possibility of converting her toward a successful end result. A vote was taken, a decision was made, and soon afterward, a plan was thrust into motion. It would forever impact the young girl’s life, and the lives of all those around her, though the dark consequences of reality were too far off to have ever been foreseen.

Mary took a deep but subtle breath and regained her composure. She had taken a blow with that last remark, but needed to hold her ground and remain strong if she was going to win this debate. Only once before had she stood so adamantly before her superiors- as opposed to Joseph, who made quite a habit of it- and that one time was enough to deter her from ever doing it again. The backlash she had endured in lost privileges and increased oversight far outweighed the cause for which she had been fighting. But Mary felt this time was different, that the cause was more than worth it. She, like the rest of those present, had betrayed her colleague, hidden facts from him that would have caused Joseph to unleash a backlash of his own. Mary knew it had been wrong, but extreme pressure to produce the next level of results at Helix Unbound forced her to make the hard choice and proceed with what needed to be done, even if it meant lying to her partner, her friend, all in the name of scientific progress. Ashamed of her actions, she wouldn’t abandon him now.

It’s of our opinion that Professor Madison has overstayed his welcome at Helix Unbound, the Suited Man said.

That was Mary’s name for him: the Suited Man. She didn’t refer to him as such because she was fond of nicknames, or simply because he always wore suits- he did- but because she really didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know who any of them were. Nineteen years earlier, the Suited Man had conducted Mary’s final interview before offering her a position with Helix Unbound. He hadn’t given his name then, even after she presented her own, and Mary soon learned that he never would. She thought it very peculiar for the first few months, but slowly the oddness of their anonymous repertoire faded away. After a year, Mary stopped questioning her employer’s identity, choosing instead to just accept the way things were.

The Suited Man was a typical government-employed overseer, stoic in voice, tired in appearance, and ever reliable on having another question ready when Mary hadn’t even finished answering his first. He had a habit of only halfheartedly listening to responses, scribbling quick, apparently illegible notes onto a sheet of paper, and frequently excusing himself- but only to the extent that his chair would comfortably roll back from the table- to whisper into his cell phone. He was clearly the ringleader of this officiating group and, sadly, he was the most tolerable of them all.

Least tolerable was his second-in-command, the Woman in White. Mary named her such for her bland choice in clothing color. Shirts, skirts, pants, shoes, and accessories- none ever fell into an artist’s standard spectrum. Her demeanor was as chilly and dispassionate as her color of choice implied it would be, and she appeared to have some small amount of influence over the Suited Man. Mary had noticed the two of them at odds occasionally, and while the Suited Man usually got his way, there were times, ever so rarely, when he reluctantly caved to his icy colleague.

We’ve agreed that it’s time to remove him from the project, the Woman in White added.

I don’t feel that’s wise, Mary responded, careful to suppress her personal emotions while communicating her professional opinion. Professor Madison has not only been an ongoing contributor to this project, but he has also become a regular part of Aman- excuse me, Alpha and Epsilon’s lives. She’d slipped. Mary had learned long ago not to use Amanda's and Evan’s proper names in front of this panel. To those present, the use of such references diminished her credibility as an objective scientist.

We’re all very aware of his relationship with the Alpha child, the Suited Man said bluntly. The Epsilon child, on the other hand…

I know it seems like he’s shut us out-

It’s a weak argument, the Woman in White cut in.

The icy official glanced at Two, a clean-cut man standing behind her left shoulder, who nodded in support of her claim. Two was a member of the Plainclothes, as Mary called them, five identically dressed individuals who, also nameless, the doctor referred to by sequentially assigned numbers. The Plainclothes rarely spoke and always deferred to the Suited Man and Woman in White, clearly lower in the mysterious Helix Unbound hierarchy than their associates. They were skilled listeners and even better watchers, serving as the eyes and ears of their superiors when the Suited Man and Woman in White were absent.

Mary pressed her defense further. It’s true that Epsilon has developed an introverted personality, but he isn’t as withdrawn as you think. He may have the intelligence and abilities of a grown man, even more so as we all know, but he’s still a young teen from a purely developmental standpoint. He hasn’t had the life experiences to accompany his mental age.

What’s your point? the Woman in White asked bluntly.

Children need someone to look up to. Girls typically have their mothers and boys, their fathers. Relations may be strained at times, but their presence in their children’s lives matters, nonetheless. Mary had to be careful how she presented her argument; she didn't want to overstep the professional boundaries expected of her. I am not a mother, and Professor Madison isn’t a father, but at least he’s a male, and he’s involved, and Epsilon needs that in his life if you want his development to continue proceeding down the road it has until this point. It was time to hit it home. You are pleased with his development thus far, aren’t you?

They were, and Mary knew it. But they wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of answering. The Suited Man smirked slightly, secretly admiring how well the doctor had played her hand. The Woman in White, however, wasn’t amused in the least. She stared at Mary with her deadpan eyes, an unbreakable rock in stature. Mary could feel a nervous tremble building inside of her as tense silence enveloped the room. She fought back her autonomous reaction while praying that the sweat beading on her forehead wouldn't be too noticeable in the fluorescent lighting.

I’m curious, the Suited Man said, swinging the conversation in a new direction, how did the professor find out about the changes to the girl’s program?

I’m really not sure, Mary replied honestly. But when he approached me about it… I’ve never seen him so angry-

It happened a few weeks back. Mary had been eating lunch in the cafeteria when Joseph approached her. She thought he was coming to join her for a quick bite before resuming experiments. But as he approached, the professor’s pace picked up speed, and by the time Mary’s tray of food went flying out from beneath her hands and clattering against the nearest wall, Joseph’s intentions were clear.

What the hell did you do?! he screamed.

Mary knew immediately what he was talking about, but her first instinct was denial. Joseph, I don’t-

I’ve seen the supplement program, he growled furiously.

That was the only detail he gave her.

Joseph was no fool. During his past dozen nightly visits with Amanda, he had noted a reduction in the young girl’s attention span. At first, he attributed it to lack of rest- the preceding days’ tests had been unusually rough on her- but when it not only continued, but appeared to be getting slightly worse, the professor suspected something was wrong. He started spending his downtime sifting through page after page of test results, looking for any inconsistencies to support his suspicions, and those he found were nothing short of strange. Joseph had expected to see a decline in Amanda’s performance on par with her deteriorating mental state. But what he actually found was that Amanda’s results were improving at an accelerated pace compared to her long-term development. This baffled the scientist… but also raised a new suspicion.

The next night, he challenged Amanda to a game of chess. It wasn’t game night, but the young girl didn’t seem to mind- at first. Several moves in, her attention lapsed, as Joseph knew it would, giving him the upper hand. Once Amanda realized she was only five or six moves from getting checkmated, her frustration showed. She whipped her hand out at each piece she moved, picking them up with jerking motions and slamming them back down on the game board with unnecessary force. When Joseph won, Amanda stormed away, expressing her desire to go to bed instead of engaging in a rematch, and that was all the scientist needed to hear to understand what was going on.

He spent the rest of that night in the lab, first analyzing computer records of Amanda’s testing program, searching for any unusual changes. There were none. Then, not trusting the records to be unaltered, Joseph began reading through the details of each individual program currently being executed on his little girl. Three hours later, the result was the same: nothing. Fighting a combination of exhaustion and anger, the scientist refocused himself and put his famous problem-solving skills to work. Though he didn’t want to believe it, deep down he knew what he was looking for. The problem was that he wasn’t seeing it in any of the likely places. Then, on the brink of giving up for the night, it hit him-

Every home, business, and government facility needs supplies in order to maintain operations, and Helix Unbound was no different. Realizing this, Joseph retrieved the six most recent chemical orders placed by the laboratory and, knowing exactly what he expected to see, ran his eyes straight down to the desired line item. And there it was.

Trizorapine.

It was an aggression hormone created by Helix Unbound, now mass-produced and supplemented with amplifiers by an off-site facility. If the chemical orders were correct, the use of Trizorapine at Helix Unbound had nearly tripled during the prior month and a half.

They’re trying to alter her mental state… Joseph thought, his anger slowly being replaced by knowledgeable concern. They’re trying to force her to become the soldier she’ll never be.

But how could they do it unless-

How could you? Joseph asked his colleague with a mixture of rage and hurt feelings as he leaned across the cafeteria table. How?

Mary’s eyes swelled with tears. She tried to think of something to say, anything that could quickly diffuse the situation, but she was agonizingly speechless. In that moment, the error of her ways became unmistakably transparent, and Mary instantly wished she could take them back. A security guard approached the two scientists, his hand already gripping the butt of his holstered gun, but Mary subtly shook her head at him, signing that she didn’t require his help. He backed away, but maintained watch over the situation.

I’m going to fix this, Joseph said softly, but sternly. I’m going to fix it, and I advise you not to interfere.

That was the last time he had spoken to her. He hurried out of the cafeteria before drawing any further attention, and had worked privately on his own schedule ever since.

So he hasn’t participated in Alpha and Epsilon’s daily test routines for weeks? the Suited Man asked with a hint of smugness. You are trying to make an argument that he’s still necessary here, aren’t you?

He’s been doing his work, Mary defended. He’s just been doing it on his own time.

And his interactions with Alpha and Epsilon? the Woman in White followed.

He still spends time with them, Mary said. I monitor the interactions remotely while respecting Professor Madison’s space. I’m hoping to salvage the working relationship we once had.

And if you can’t salvage it, the Suited Man asked, will it be appropriate to remove the professor then?

As I’ve already said, Mary responded irritably, each word exaggerated for effect, we need him.

Mary’s attitude didn't impress the Woman in White, who simply raised her brow and came back with, Do we need you?

Mary was silent, not because she didn’t have an answer, but because she was astounded and angered that they had even put forth the question. She hated the Woman in White, the feeling apparently mutual, and this remark was all Mary needed to inspire a string of words from her lips that would make her mother blush. But the doctor resisted her urge as quickly as she had given into it, holding her tongue when barely a syllable had left her lips. It wasn’t that Mary was afraid of losing her job; she knew that her removal from Helix Unbound would set Project Impulse back by years as a replacement tried to pick up the pieces. It also wasn’t that Mary didn’t have the guts to put the Woman in White in her place. No, it was that those guts paled compared to the fear she felt, a fear she couldn’t explain, a fear that originated from Him…

He stood in the back, beyond the reach of lighting, his dim face appearing over the shoulders of Two and Three. He was always there, at every meeting, no matter how insignificant the topic, the last member of this shady group of government officials. Mary called him the Dark Man. He never sat, never spoke, didn’t even breathe heavy enough to cause noticeable movement in his all-black ensemble. His age fell somewhere between that of the Suited Man and Woman in White, though Mary couldn’t be certain since the shadows always distorted her view. He gave no indication of his place in the Helix Unbound hierarchy, and yet his presence alone gave the impression that he wielded more power than any other in attendance. His presence is also what scared Mary, kept her in check when she would otherwise cross lines, for the very existence of this man made her feel as though she was but a worker ant, and Helix Unbound but a metallic cave in a much larger and more expansive anthill. The Dark Man severed any sense of control Mary felt for her project, removed any ideas the doctor had of still being in charge of her own life, made her feel that no matter how important she assumed she was, she was even more so expendable. All of this, without ever saying a single word.

So what now, Doctor? the Suited Man said quickly, his words cutting through the tension. We let you two continue work as normal and hope the professor eventually comes on board with our ideas?

Yes, Mary answered with confidence. Given time, I think Professor Madison will realize what we’ve done is for the best.

It was a lie, but she delivered it so well that Mary thought she had the government officials sold. That was until she looked at Him. The Dark Man twitched, ever so slightly, as Mary completed her sentence, his uncharacteristic motion catching the doctor’s peripheral vision. Now he stared, as if he were peering into Mary’s mind for the truth.

Does he know? She wondered. No, he couldn’t possibly-

But she wasn’t sure. Mary tried to hold her composure, to stand behind her lie as if it were the truth. If she did that, perhaps the Dark Man’s questioning gaze would subside. But a minute passed, maybe more, and he continued to stare. The room remained still, the other government officials waiting like vultures, waiting for the Dark Man to leave his prey helpless and ready to be picked apart. It was borderline unbearable, but finally, when Mary felt she could take no more, the Suited Man spoke.

That will be all, Doctor. We’ll take your argument into consideration and let you know our decision early next week.

Mary saved her breath of relief for later. Thank you, she said quickly before maneuvering her way to the door, avoiding eye contact with the Dark Man as she passed.

The Suited Man waited until the door had shut behind Mary before speaking again. Well?

The Woman in White looked to the Dark Man, who gave no discernible response, then said, She’s hiding something.

I agree, replied the Suited Man, who then turned to the Plainclothes. Contact Colonel Davis. Tell him to find Joseph Madison and have him detained immediately. Make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near the Alpha child.

Three floors up, in an otherwise empty laboratory, Joseph drummed his fingers impatiently on a steel counter top as the cubic lab mixer before him hummed with life. Inside its pressurized belly, a vacuum-sealed bag of deep purple liquid compressed and contracted rhythmically, the molecular components trapped within being forced to form unnatural bonds between them. The culmination of three night’s worth of secret lab work, the mixture was Joseph’s personal concoction, a rushed response to the Trizorapine in his little girl’s system. If he could get it into her blood stream quick enough, then just maybe-

Jackson, come in. Over. It was the voice of Colonel Davis, former military drone, now Helix Unbound’s chief security officer, skewed by electronic transmission.

Jackson, here, a deep African-American voice answered. He was close enough to hear, but just barely. Somewhere out in the hallway. What’s the situation? Over.

Report to the control room, ASAP. If you see Madison along the way, bring him with you. Over.

Yes, sir, Jackson said obediently. Over and out.

With an uneasy feeling growing in his stomach, Joseph now listened as the sound of Jackson’s boots grew even more distant. The scientist was lucky this particular laboratory was at the opposite end of the hall from the primary elevator shaft which served the building. He released a nervous breath and checked the status of his mixture, which was almost complete.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

The sound gripped Joseph’s heart like a vise. It was Jackson, walking back in his direction. Had the lone light from this otherwise abandoned floor garnered his attention? Was the elevator down for service or moving too slowly, in which case the major would have to rely on the stairwell which resided only ten feet away? It didn’t matter. Joseph looked for a means to defend himself. The lab was full of heavy and sharp equipment of all shapes and sizes, but none of it had been designed for combat. Jackson was a trained soldier; the scientist didn’t stand a chance.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

He was only seconds away. Joseph’s eyes darted around the room frantically. He could try to hide, but the running lab mixer would give him away. It was used for unstable chemicals such as the one inside now, and it wasn’t the type of machine that could be left unattended for long periods of time. He needed another way to conceal his identity. He needed-

Jackson entered the lab slowly, his sidearm raised and readied. Professor Madison, are you in here?

The soldier moved with caution, his instincts prompting him not to take his quiet surroundings or Joseph Madison’s typically peaceful demeanor for granted. He reached the edge of a large, gray filing cabinet which stood from floor to ceiling, blocking his vision of the left side of the room, and sharply maneuvered around its edge.

Wait! Said the crinkly yellow figure standing just two tables away. It raised the baggy arm of its radiation suit to halt Jackson’s progress. This stuff won’t kill you, but unless you want a bout of prostate cancer, I suggest you keep your distance.

Jackson stayed put. Identify yourself.

Lietz, Neil, Joseph said through the suit’s filtration unit. He pointed to the radiation badge bearing that scientist’s name and position hanging from his waist. Prepping this weekend’s biological trial.

The professor kept his head tilted in a manner that would partially obscure it behind the radiation suit’s helmet. He was confident his voice