Eurus and Astraeus land in Siberia after an hour in flight with the H-Craft. Their first site is in a desolate environment. The air is filled with tiny particles of crystallized water as the snow dangles down from the sky. The access to the facility from the outside has been fenced off and instead of keeping guards or security there, the current government was persuaded by the Cells to simply write it off the history books. The reason for it is that nobody there would then get any funny ideas about mucking about with things and devices they may not understand.
The snow is a meter thick around the building which is reminiscent of an old hospital. Even by modern standards of the world today it’s massive in scale. Not in height but in sprawl is its scope palpable. The windows are dark and parts of it are collapsed. There are other parts that are scorched by fire and natural growth even in an environment as hostile as the Siberian Tundra.
As Astraeus and Eurus stand at the front entrance Astraeus asks:
“You think it could have traps inside?”
“Unlikely. But I guess anything is possible. If we were to collapsed in, I think it would also serve as a trap,” Eurus says.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Eurus says.
The super soldier duo walk into the darkened environment and their eyes immediately adapt to the darkness. They don’t need flashlights or night vision goggles because their eyes are cat-like in structure allowing them to peer into the darkness without blinking back at it.
A lobby filled with marks of fires, old papers scattered all around, bleached white from the enthropic decay the place is straining under. There are definite spots of old dried up blood – people clearly found their demise there. Eurus and Astraeus realize that the place was shut down and cleansed with some people still resisting inside. They don’t falter, it was a necessary sacrifice to hide the temptation of absolute power from the powers that were.
“We need to find a passage into the subterranean complex,” Eurus says.
“Said easier than done,” Astraeus responds.
“It needs to have its own security station nearby for a quick response time in case anything would be strange. We should map out the place for those. One of them must have a reinforced door near,” Eurus says.
“Where are the corpses?” Astraeus asks as they walk.
“Animals,” Eurus says.
They continue their descent into pitch black and complete silence nary making a sound themselves. Every shard of glass carefully navigated past. There may not be any physical threats in the structure but a Cell only ever acts with optimal approach.
They see a pile of centuries old fabrics – clothes in a corner – a mix of children’s and women’s clothes haphazardly lobbed on top of each other. What might have their fates been? But a faint aroma of musky presence imperceptible to the human nose sneaks into the atmosphere around the Cells. Astraeus says:
“Wolves, can you smell it?”
“Yes. A single family it smells like,” Eurus says.
Then a faint shuffle and a series of sniffs are cast off in a distant end of a hallway. The moonlight faintly casts shadows on the walls around the threshold. A family of wolves quitely waddles out of the room, not snarling, not barking at what they could consider to be food. Easily realizing that the hallway in question has no such security desk they seek, the super soldiers turn into another. Soon after the wolves follow, an adult male, an adult female and 8 pups. They approach the super soldiers from behind.
“They’re heartbeats are erratic,” Astraeus points out, “Adrenaline secretion detectable.”
“They’re not aggressive,” Eurus says, “Just hungry and afraid.”
The wolves follow them closer, sniffing their hands and feet before stopping. The alpha male lets out a howl echoing through the barren complex. He then motions his pack to follow him and leaves the men alone.
After a few dozen minutes of searching and coming across several security desks and stations Eurus and Astraeus are no closer to finding the passage or an entrance to the underground complex. But one security station has a strange layout to it which is where Eurus and Astraeus stop last. Astraeus says:
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I think so. The two wards here and there should share this wall here,” Eurus says while pointing at the locations.
“Yes, but both the wards surrounding the station cut off before they would naturally reach either side of the wall,” Astraeus says.
“Agreed. I think there’s a switch here somewhere but it might work through the computers here. They look destroyed enough to not be usable though,” Eurus says, “I’m deploying a sonar charge to map out the passage maybe we can bust through.”
He takes a hockey puck device from one of the pouches on his power armor and inputs some settings. The device then whirrs and lets out a loud bang. The ground beneath their feet shakes and rumbles and the duo collapse through the floor but not without catching themselves with their jump packs at the optimal moment before reaching the ground below.
The collapse leads them to a larger chamber set with gynecological chairs on either side of the wall, dozens of them. Eurus says:
“Looks like an insemination chamber,” while looking around.
“Yes, and clandestine in nature, likely not disclosed to the patients above. Seems like they were recruited while they came in with secondary illnesses or problems and then given the opportunity to participate in research,” Astraeus says.
The men then look around the chamber, going on into the distance, clad with medical tools and chairs. Unlike the stillness and eventual wolf-borne musk of the air above, the air is sterile, completely purified aside from the layers of dust having collected over the centuries. The offices of the doctors are clean, and so is every area, clearly having been scrubbed to an inch of its life. There aren’t any papers lying around or in any of the drawers, as everything has been wiped much more thoroughly. They finally arrive at what looks like the administrator’s office, a larger space with dusty seats and a computer.
“This place hasn’t been powered for a long time. You think it still runs?” Astraeus says.
“No reason why it shouldn’t,” Eurus says, “I’m going to draw power from my suit, if there’s anything here.”
“The servers were likely wiped clean,” Astraeus says.
“Very likely, yes, but any organization has violations of protocol,” Eurus responds.
He takes the power chord from the desktop computer, and breaks off the end that goes into a socket, exposing the wires inside. He then takes a box of tiny tools from one of his pouches and fashions a new plug for the chord which would be compatible with his armor’s output sockets. He then connects it to his suit, and presses the on switch. The computer beeps and activates. The screen lights up, singularly casting light in to the otherwise pitch black environment, and displays a login screen. Eurus manages to enter the BIOS and from there he bypasses the log in screen by setting the computer to start in a troubleshooting mode. Once he’s in the administrator account, he looks at their personal hard drive, using the mouse and keyboard – an ancient interface by that point. There are emails that hadn’t been synced with the server still on storage. The oldest one reads:
“Hey,
So again, the fertilization didn’t take. 1500 subjects this week, 21 with non-lethal complications but a 100% failure rate so far. Sending you the vital data to analyze. The file is in the attachment.
With regards,
Dr. Martin Szevlov”
“Interesting,” Astraeus says.
“Indeed,” Eurus says, “It seems the toll was quite high.”
“Can you open the attachment?”
“Yes,” Eurus says.
He clicks to open the attachment to the email – a tabular file with data from the subjects. He scrolls through the 1500 rows and dozens of columns of data in a few seconds.
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“Interesting, donor control groups are genetically diversified in regards to the mother, test groups are genetically homogenous. Seems like they were looking for the correct recessive alleles,” Astraeus says.
“Yes, a standard deviation of .3 in the control group, and .01 in the test group,” Eurus says.
He then opens a similar email sent at a later date:
“Hey,
So, some success this week. It looks like coma patients have a higher fertilization rate compared to the conscious ones. 2000 patients tested, 55 with non-lethal complications, but still a 100% failure rate so far. Sending you the data in the attachment. Also Victor ran a quick logistic regression on it, see what you think.
With regards,
Dr. Martin Szevlov”
Eurus opens the data file again, scrolling through it.
“Looks like this time they were hoping a stasis-like condition might improve their chances. Equal control groups 1000 for coma patients, 1000 for conscious patients, all non-lethal complications were coma patients,” Eurus says.
“A marked difference,” Astraeus says.
An email with an attachment surfaces, which Eurus opens, the date is marked months after the previous ones.
“Hey,
So now some success. It seems like using several generations separated homogenous sperm on coma patients might be the way out. 4000 patients this week, check out the dataset. Check out the radiology reports as well.
Martin”
Eurus opens the dataset attached.
“Seems like they got lucky. 121 patients survived complications, all in a coma. Looking at the environmental factors – athletic, nonsmokers mostly based on Chi-Square analysis,” Eurus says.
“Not surprising,” Astraeus says, “All 121 with increased fertilization duration were held under UV and low-dose gamma emitters it seems.”
“Zygote separation rate showing marked increase,” Eurus says.
“Addressed to Test Lab 99, that’s the next one on our list,” Astraeus says.
Eurus and Astraeus look through more data but soon it turns out the facility was forced to close as their research was finished. According to the information on the computer, the facility was mostly fertilization research, but another one a few hundred kilometers away was used for gestation research.
The Cells leave the facility the way they came by jumping out through the hole they created in the floor a few chambers back.
The next facility is in a messy state. Most of the surrounding hospital has collapsed or been destroyed, with no clear entrance. There’s a rising howling of wind, ruffling the treetops around.
“Hm… the entrance might be collapsed under,” Astraeus says.
Eurus uses one of the Multi Array drones hovering around them to send new pulses around.
“What’s the plan?” Astraeus asks.
“Facilities like this usually have a secondary exit, kept secret, the drone might find it,” Eurus says.
He watches through the visor of his helmet as the drone circles the facility, taking larger and larger loops around it. The loud bangs of its sonar pulse causing a circulating Doppler effect around the super soldiers as it increases its distance and then loops back. After a few minutes of iterative search, Eurus’s interface chimes, noting a likely passage. They make their way over there and it’s a drainage pipe sized manhole in the ground, with a metal lid capable of shrugging off a rocket launcher round.
“Open sesame,” Astraeus says, using his plasma cutter to melt through the hinges.
Eurus lifts the lid off with some effort, as it weighs hundreds of kilograms. Eurus jumps down the hole, using the jump pack to catch his landing, the tunnel before them barely big enough for humans, cramped for the Cells. Slouching over, they huddle through the tiny passage, moving towards the underground facility.
The sight before them is of a large chamber, filled with jars, thousands of them. In each jar there are embryos or fetuses in varying stages of prenatal development. They’re sealed shut, the contents floating in some preservatory fluid.
“A graveyard,” Astraeus says.
“Or storage,” Eurus says.
They inch deeper into the facility, set on finding an administrative office. On their way there’s also a similar room from before, an insemination chamber with a hundred seats and wards for the impregnated women. Arriving at their destination, they uncover that the computer there has been smashed and destroyed beyond recovery. Determined to get what they came for, they settle for the office of another doctor, with their computer still intact.
Eurus proceeds to juice it as well to gain access to it and before long he’s in the computer. There are only two emails on their hard drive that haven’t been synced or deleted:
“Dear Dr. Szevlov, Dr. Horace of Lab 51
We’ve found moderate success in gestating the embryos your fertilization process produced after 14000 attempt. The last batch of 1290 patients all lasted up to 16 to 24 weeks of gestation. Also we’ve found success in repurposing alleles beyond the stopper via the CRISPR device to cause systematic changes to the developmental process.
Dr. Marek”
“Hmm,” Eurus says.
“16 to 24 weeks,” Astraeus says, “A common interval for when a fetus shows signs of movement. Read the next one.”
“Dear colleagues,
Consider this email my resignation effective immediately. Research shows that normal human uteruses cannot sustain the development of the enhanced embryo. The decision to produce a generation of genetically altered females to withstand this until a sufficient developmental period is where I stop. I won’t waste hundreds of thousands of born children and young women to chase an impossible pipe dream. Humanity is not worth saving if this is the price.
Dr. Marek”
As the Cells start moving out of the installation, they hear a faint sound in the distance beyond the insemination chamber. It’s that of a quiet but distinguishable heartbeat. They halt their progress, listening to the heartbeat move further away. It subsides.
“What could survive down here?” Astraeus asks.
“Nothing,” Eurus says, “I’m positive we were followed. We let whatever that was in.”
“I can’t smell it,” Astraeus says.
“It could be a Dynamo. We’re likely being watched,” Eurus says, “Come on, we have one more facility to go before figuring out the next plan.”
The last facility is more similar to a large military base than a hospital. Through it runs a railroad and there are obvious structures that were once used as dormitories for the residents. The wind and the snow have now grown into a storm. Eurus uses his Multi Array Drone to map out the underground structure and its entrance. It shows a tunnel hidden beneath a mound on the ground with a regular metal door.
“Hiding in plain sight,” Astraeus says.
“More likely despair,” Eurus says, “It’s possible the time for caution was drawing to a close for humanity.”
They go to the mound and easily remove the metal door from its secured spot. A gust of wind blows past them as the structure below sucks in fresh air from the outside.
“Feel that breeze?” Eurus says.
“Yes,” Astraeus says, “Likely a nuclear reactor or hot water spring underground, warming the air inside. The rush was temperature rebalancing.”
They step into the mound but find the staircase totally collapsed, with no direct way down. It doesn’t matter though, as they can jump pack their way down like they did before.
Unlike the previous facilities with their hospitalized feel, this one is more reminiscent of a bunker. The walls and surroundings are solid concrete and there’s no tiles or white rubber or plastic surfaces to ward off bacteria.
“You were right,” Astraeus says, “They were desperate.”
They walk through the bunkers halls, arrows guiding the way this time on the walls. “Intensive maternal care” says one sign, “Armory” says another, written in Cyrillic and in English both. They see another sign that says “Warhead Storage.”
They choose the direction to take them towards “Intensive maternal care.” The hallway to the left is where the arrow points and that’s where they go. In there were obviously previously dormitories and storage units as well but it’s obvious to the soldiers that they were hastily converted into research facilities. The underground bunker is massive in scope, the “Intensive maternal care” going on for hundreds of meters. The insemination chairs are much more numerous, having a thousand of them spread across the several chambers on either side. The wards are filled to the brim with beds, many of which are dirty and have signs of blood on them. Eurus and Astraeus make it to the archival part of the Intensive Maternal Care Unit. Going in, they find a lot of burned and thrashed papers and files, but an arrow telling them “Administrator’s Office” keeps them going.
Their luck is still intact as they find a functional computer there as well. This one has only a single email. But it does have other locally saved files. It turns out that first generations of prime-mothers were successfully completed there. But due to the intense warfare at the time, it was impossible to properly prepare them for insemination such that the resultant embryo would adhere to the creation process of the Cells. The place was not equipped with enough materials or food by the time the research was completed on around 30000 women who came there. Eurus opens the aforementioned email:
“Hello,
Dr. Vakkar, I am writing to you because our research here has to be brought to a close. I’ve sent you the documents with the data, but we’ve been given the evacuation order as the Machines are almost here. I hope you’ll continue the work.
For Humanity,
Dr. Solomon
********** EMAIL NOT SENT AT [email protected]</a> CONNECTION SEVERED **********”
The name Dr. Vakkar is well known for what the man behind it accomplished then. Eurus says: “Dr. Vakkar. Interesting.”
“Look at the timestamp,” Astraeus says.
“Year 2095,” Eurus says, “Five years before the first Cells were deployed. We must get back to Dr. Georgia, she might have details about his whereabouts at that time.”
“But not before we kill the snakes following us.”
Astraeus and Eurus have both been acutely aware that they’re not alone in the facility but rather have been followed the whole way down. Their way out of the administrator’s office is blocked by 10 2.5m tall men, armor-clad and carrying Bull-rifles. One in front of them says:
“You are trespassing on Cell Codex classified territory. Prepare to die.”
The 10 soldiers then disperse and open fire, as Astraeus and Eurus do the same. One charges head first towards Eurus, hoping to cut off his head with a power sword, but Eurus dodges the strike and splatters its brains with a round from his own Bull-rifle. He must yank the fresh cadaver behind himself to defend himself from oncoming fire from two other Bull-rifles in the room. Meanwhile Astraeus has ripped off the limbs of two soldiers in there. He uses his power sword to strike another, who manages to block his attack with his own power sword – demonstrating impressive speed. But this victory is short lived as he too gets shot by Eurus while he kills another with their own power sword. He then uses his jump pack to get at the two firing their Bull rifles while Astraeus gets into hand to hand combat with the rest three. Eurus’s flight is too fast for the soldiers to react to, and they end up with a power sword slicing through them with one motion. As they fall, Astraeus kicks one of the soldiers down who reaches for a grenade as a last attempt to take out the Cells. Eurus takes it from his hand and tosses it out of the room in a fraction of a second, then pulls off his head. At the same moment the two who remained with Astraeus collapse too after calculated power sword strikes cut their bodies into pieces.
“These aren’t Cells,” Astraeus says.
“No,” Eurus responds as he rips one’s chest cage open, “Two lungs, a single heart. But made to look like us. Clever. A non solid-state brain as well.”
“A good way to false flag a Cell these,” Astraeus says.
“Or to do what we do with no accountability. They could do some of our tasks,” Eurus says, “Let’s get back to London.”
They leave the facility, returning to their H-craft and start their journey back to London.