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The elite recon team made their way through the ruined cryogenics building. The hallways were filled with rubble and garbage. The walls were cracked, and the ceiling was caved in at various places. Advanced recon team seven was tasked with retrieving a high value asset from within the ruined building. They were three hundred miles south of Markov in a ruined satellite compound of one of Cevanti’s many old-world corporations. The team came to a locked security door.
“Recon three, run a bypass.” The lead soldier ordered quietly.
One of the team members approached the door and pried the face of the security lock off the wall. Connecting his terminal, he input a series of codes and the lock turned from red to green and unsealed with an audible hiss. Pushing the door open the rest of the team continued further into the building. The hallway emptied out into a series of rooms filled with cryogenic tubes, all of them still online.
“Masters, find the main power controls and shut it down. Command wants all these pods taken offline. Ours should be in the room up ahead.”
“We’re just going to kill these people? Don’t they deserve to be unfrozen and given refuge in Markov?” He questioned.
“Look, I don’t question the orders from up top. I only know that they want this one chick and to kill anyone else still alive. Now go shut the power down. The pods themselves will remain active for a few days before the life support fails internally.”
“Yes, sir.” Masters said dejectedly as he moved ahead to find the main power breaker.
“It’s a miracle there is still even power left on in this place.”
One of the team members radioed in, “Found her.”
The rest of the recon team formed up in the room where the target cryogenics pod was.
“Lamb, Henderson, disconnect it and get it ready for transport with the hover dolly. Jericho, recon our exit. Make sure it’s still clear.”
A few moments later the power within the building shut off and a siren pierced the quiet of the building.
ALERT! MAIN POWER FAILURE! CYROGENIC PODS AT RISK!
“Damn it, Masters! Shut off that alarm!”
“I can’t from here. It’s hardwired into the system. There must be an auxiliary power source.”
“Shit, shit, shit. That’s going to alert every spook for at least a mile.”
Lamb and Henderson had successfully gotten the pod out of its chamber and floating on the hover dolly. Gunfire from Jericho’s location made the commander’s stomach turn.
“I’ve got a pack of Akata bearing down on our location! Hurry up or we’re going to be overrun!” He radioed.
“Fuck.” The commander cursed.
He took the phone off the radio pack of Henderson. “Breaker one, Breaker one, Breaker two do you copy?”
“Solid copy, Breaker one. What’s the situation?” The person replied.
“Dust off now, we need immediate evac. We have Akata on our heels. It’s going to be a hot extract.”
The rest of the team, along with their objective, rushed out the way they came. Jericho was at the entrance behind cover keeping the Akata at bay.
“One minute until evac. Lay down some fire boys.”
The entire team made their way outside and opened fire upon the encroaching Akata who seemed to pour out of every corner. With each death the screams and wails of what could only be ordinary civilians and citizens cried out to the firmament.
Nooooo! Oh god stop! Why are you doing this? Please no! Not yet!
The roar of the dropship approaching began to drown out the horrific sounds of people dying.
“Move people! Move!” The commander pressured them as they made their way to the landing bay they had marked as exfiltration.
The Akata swarmed out of every nook and cranny and followed right on the heels of the recon team. The team didn’t see Henderson fall. They only heard his screams as he was ripped apart by the encroaching void creatures.
“Henderson is down! Henderson is down!”
“Oh shit there goes Jericho!”
“Breaker two! Breaker two! Where are you!?”
“Breaker two inbound, fifteen seconds.”
“We don’t have that much time!” Shouted the commander into the radio.
“Lamb! Watch out! On your left!”
The Akata were charging at the fleeing recon team who was down to just two people. The pair of soldiers rushed the hover dolly to the landing pad where they turned around and opened fire at the mass of void creatures swarming them. Lamb had been given a heavy laser cannon and was mowing down Akata as they tried to encroach on the pad, but his weapon was overheating.
“Breaker two! Where the fuck are you!?”
One of the Akata snuck up from the side and ripped Lamb’s arm from his socket, tossing him forward.
“Lamb! No!”
The roar of the dropship filled their ears as well as automatic gunfire from the ship’s heavy turret.
“Load the package! I’m getting Lamb!” The commander said to the flight crew.
Hoisting Lamb up on his shoulders the commander sprinted for the dropship. He leapt into it as the shuttle lifted off from the ground and into the sky, the swarm of Akata pouring over the landing pad. The mission had cost Recon Seven three of its members, with one needing cybernetic implants to replace his arm.
“Breaker two to breaker command. We have secured the package. Alert the trauma team, we have an injured man.”
The flight crew packed Lamb’s torso to stop the bleeding and stabilized him for the flight home. Two Veritech fighters shot past the dropship and unleashed their payload upon the ruined building. The shockwave from the blast shook the ship as it flew away. There was nothing left of the people inside. By decision of some Cytokine Industries executive all the souls in that facility had been deemed unworthy of waking up, save for one pod.
Cryogenics Pod 7761342.
The dropship touched down gently on a landing pad located on top of the main Cytokine Industries complex. A team of scientists and security guards were there to escort the pod to the lab while a medical team was ready to take Lamb into surgery and outfit him with cybernetics. The commander was the last to leave the dropship, approached by the executive who had ordered the mission.
“Rogers.”
“Severin.”
“Who’d you lose?”
“Henderson, Jericho, and Masters. I hope what we secured was worth it, because losing most of my team is not what I consider to be a win, sir.”
“They’ll be replaced. I’ll see you commended for this. Maybe even a promotion, Captain.”
“They’ll be replaced? Those were good men, sir! We were told nothing about an Akata swarm near the target!”
“We didn’t know either. It was a calculated risk, and we took it. What matters now is that you’ve earned some time to rest and that we’ve acquired the package we were looking for.”
“Yes, sir.” The commander said dejectedly.
***
Within one of the science labs a team of Cytokine scientists were prepping the pod to be connected to the network. They had wiped off the dust and debris and exposed the naked woman inside for everyone to see.
“Is this her?” One of them asked.
“It’s gotta be. It matches the description we found. Quick! Huey, run a diagnostic of the pod. Can we call up a file on it?”
“Right away, ma’am.”
The scientist plugged the pod into the computer network and activated the software on the terminal. The screens around him lit up as the program searched through the immense Cytokine Industries databanks. Within seconds an error beeped from the terminal and a bright flashing red box came up on screen covering the redacted information beneath it.
“That’s priority access clearance. Level 12? Only Aria has that access. Who is this woman?”
From somewhere within the Cytokine Industries complex a popup came across Aria’s screen. She smiled and punched in a retrieval code before going back to whatever it is she was doing.
“This should be fun.”
The terminals in the room where the pod was being kept flashed green before closing out of the documents the researchers had intended on studying. The pod lit up like a Christmas tree with renewed power and began thawing the target within. The face of the woman in the pod twitched as she began to awaken.
“Get security in here now! Code orange!”
A group of armored men proceeded down the hallway towards the laboratory, but it was too late. The door to the pod flew off into the room crushing several researchers under its weight. The woman sat up and using the force, gripped the nearest scientist to her, force choking him off the ground.
“Where. Am. I?” She spoke, her voice raspy.
“Y-you’re in M-Markov! In a-“ She crushed his throat and threw him against the wall.
Markov? Why do I know that name?
She leapt out of the cryo pod and grabbed a nearby lab coat off the floor, throwing it on herself. Meredia rounded the rear of the pod and went for the exit only to be confronted by a series of guards armed with batons.
“You cannot keep me here!” She screamed as she charged into the group of men.
Taking one of them by the head she slammed him into the wall, rotating clockwise to block a baton swing. Using the force, she pushed the remaining guards out into the hallway, they collided with each other under the weight of her abilities. With her arm still outstretched she continued to crush them into the wall until all you could hear were bones breaking and shattering. She sprinted down the opposite hall and disappeared behind a set of double doors.
“Find her! Find her!” The lead scientist yelled as an alarmed blared through the research wing.
Meredia descended three flights of stairs before coming to a security door on an empty floor. She threw her open palm against the door and with the force it exploded off its hinges and into the hallway. Sprinting into a nearby office she shut the door and closed the blinds. She pulled the desk chair away from the active terminal and leaned over the keyboard, her hair falling over her shoulders and around her face. She began typing into the console, pulling up any information about where she was.
Cytokine Industries. Markov. Why do I know these names, but not my own?
A message popped up on the terminal screen which she clicked to open.
Your name is Meredia Forleizen. You are the sole survivor of your family name. You are from a time long past. A relic. A valuable one. My researchers wish to dissect and study you. I have different plans for you. Escape from this facility and head to the northern part of the city. There you will find an organization called The Guild. Meet with Big Jim at the strip club on Bleaker Street and tell them the Shadowbroker sent you. They’ll be waiting. I imagine you can’t remember anything about who you are. If you follow my instructions I’d be willing to share that information with you. In due time.
The terminal went dark after thirty seconds, and the power cut out.
Big Jim. Bleaker Street. The Guild. Shadowbroker. My name is Meredia?
The sound of guards entering her hallway alerted the woman and she ducked out of the office and retreated further into the empty wing of the building. Stopping short of a locker room she began rifling through the contents to find a set of clothes.
Nothing but scrubs. It’ll have to do.
Donning the pair of doctors scrubs she took a hair tie from one of the lockers and fashioned a ponytail in her hair. Slipping back into the lab coat she slid to the door of the locker room and peeked down the hall. Nothing but flashlights and various murmurs from the personnel trying to find her. Making a break for it she rushed towards the end of the hall where a giant glass pane window was.
“There she is!” Someone yelled.
She could hear them sprinting after her. Time seemed to stop around her as she bolted through the set of double doors at the end of the hall. She could see a fracture in the glass. A shatterpoint. Throwing her fist into it she dumped force energy into it and the wall exploded outward into the pouring rain. Meredia leapt from the building and plummeted into the streets below.
By the time they got people down to the street she was long gone.
“Recon three, run a bypass.” The lead soldier ordered quietly.
One of the team members approached the door and pried the face of the security lock off the wall. Connecting his terminal, he input a series of codes and the lock turned from red to green and unsealed with an audible hiss. Pushing the door open the rest of the team continued further into the building. The hallway emptied out into a series of rooms filled with cryogenic tubes, all of them still online.
“Masters, find the main power controls and shut it down. Command wants all these pods taken offline. Ours should be in the room up ahead.”
“We’re just going to kill these people? Don’t they deserve to be unfrozen and given refuge in Markov?” He questioned.
“Look, I don’t question the orders from up top. I only know that they want this one chick and to kill anyone else still alive. Now go shut the power down. The pods themselves will remain active for a few days before the life support fails internally.”
“Yes, sir.” Masters said dejectedly as he moved ahead to find the main power breaker.
“It’s a miracle there is still even power left on in this place.”
One of the team members radioed in, “Found her.”
The rest of the recon team formed up in the room where the target cryogenics pod was.
“Lamb, Henderson, disconnect it and get it ready for transport with the hover dolly. Jericho, recon our exit. Make sure it’s still clear.”
A few moments later the power within the building shut off and a siren pierced the quiet of the building.
ALERT! MAIN POWER FAILURE! CYROGENIC PODS AT RISK!
“Damn it, Masters! Shut off that alarm!”
“I can’t from here. It’s hardwired into the system. There must be an auxiliary power source.”
“Shit, shit, shit. That’s going to alert every spook for at least a mile.”
Lamb and Henderson had successfully gotten the pod out of its chamber and floating on the hover dolly. Gunfire from Jericho’s location made the commander’s stomach turn.
“I’ve got a pack of Akata bearing down on our location! Hurry up or we’re going to be overrun!” He radioed.
“Fuck.” The commander cursed.
He took the phone off the radio pack of Henderson. “Breaker one, Breaker one, Breaker two do you copy?”
“Solid copy, Breaker one. What’s the situation?” The person replied.
“Dust off now, we need immediate evac. We have Akata on our heels. It’s going to be a hot extract.”
The rest of the team, along with their objective, rushed out the way they came. Jericho was at the entrance behind cover keeping the Akata at bay.
“One minute until evac. Lay down some fire boys.”
The entire team made their way outside and opened fire upon the encroaching Akata who seemed to pour out of every corner. With each death the screams and wails of what could only be ordinary civilians and citizens cried out to the firmament.
Nooooo! Oh god stop! Why are you doing this? Please no! Not yet!
The roar of the dropship approaching began to drown out the horrific sounds of people dying.
“Move people! Move!” The commander pressured them as they made their way to the landing bay they had marked as exfiltration.
The Akata swarmed out of every nook and cranny and followed right on the heels of the recon team. The team didn’t see Henderson fall. They only heard his screams as he was ripped apart by the encroaching void creatures.
“Henderson is down! Henderson is down!”
“Oh shit there goes Jericho!”
“Breaker two! Breaker two! Where are you!?”
“Breaker two inbound, fifteen seconds.”
“We don’t have that much time!” Shouted the commander into the radio.
“Lamb! Watch out! On your left!”
The Akata were charging at the fleeing recon team who was down to just two people. The pair of soldiers rushed the hover dolly to the landing pad where they turned around and opened fire at the mass of void creatures swarming them. Lamb had been given a heavy laser cannon and was mowing down Akata as they tried to encroach on the pad, but his weapon was overheating.
“Breaker two! Where the fuck are you!?”
One of the Akata snuck up from the side and ripped Lamb’s arm from his socket, tossing him forward.
“Lamb! No!”
The roar of the dropship filled their ears as well as automatic gunfire from the ship’s heavy turret.
“Load the package! I’m getting Lamb!” The commander said to the flight crew.
Hoisting Lamb up on his shoulders the commander sprinted for the dropship. He leapt into it as the shuttle lifted off from the ground and into the sky, the swarm of Akata pouring over the landing pad. The mission had cost Recon Seven three of its members, with one needing cybernetic implants to replace his arm.
“Breaker two to breaker command. We have secured the package. Alert the trauma team, we have an injured man.”
The flight crew packed Lamb’s torso to stop the bleeding and stabilized him for the flight home. Two Veritech fighters shot past the dropship and unleashed their payload upon the ruined building. The shockwave from the blast shook the ship as it flew away. There was nothing left of the people inside. By decision of some Cytokine Industries executive all the souls in that facility had been deemed unworthy of waking up, save for one pod.
Cryogenics Pod 7761342.
***
The dropship touched down gently on a landing pad located on top of the main Cytokine Industries complex. A team of scientists and security guards were there to escort the pod to the lab while a medical team was ready to take Lamb into surgery and outfit him with cybernetics. The commander was the last to leave the dropship, approached by the executive who had ordered the mission.
“Rogers.”
“Severin.”
“Who’d you lose?”
“Henderson, Jericho, and Masters. I hope what we secured was worth it, because losing most of my team is not what I consider to be a win, sir.”
“They’ll be replaced. I’ll see you commended for this. Maybe even a promotion, Captain.”
“They’ll be replaced? Those were good men, sir! We were told nothing about an Akata swarm near the target!”
“We didn’t know either. It was a calculated risk, and we took it. What matters now is that you’ve earned some time to rest and that we’ve acquired the package we were looking for.”
“Yes, sir.” The commander said dejectedly.
***
Within one of the science labs a team of Cytokine scientists were prepping the pod to be connected to the network. They had wiped off the dust and debris and exposed the naked woman inside for everyone to see.
“Is this her?” One of them asked.
“It’s gotta be. It matches the description we found. Quick! Huey, run a diagnostic of the pod. Can we call up a file on it?”
“Right away, ma’am.”
The scientist plugged the pod into the computer network and activated the software on the terminal. The screens around him lit up as the program searched through the immense Cytokine Industries databanks. Within seconds an error beeped from the terminal and a bright flashing red box came up on screen covering the redacted information beneath it.
“That’s priority access clearance. Level 12? Only Aria has that access. Who is this woman?”
***
From somewhere within the Cytokine Industries complex a popup came across Aria’s screen. She smiled and punched in a retrieval code before going back to whatever it is she was doing.
“This should be fun.”
***
The terminals in the room where the pod was being kept flashed green before closing out of the documents the researchers had intended on studying. The pod lit up like a Christmas tree with renewed power and began thawing the target within. The face of the woman in the pod twitched as she began to awaken.
“Get security in here now! Code orange!”
A group of armored men proceeded down the hallway towards the laboratory, but it was too late. The door to the pod flew off into the room crushing several researchers under its weight. The woman sat up and using the force, gripped the nearest scientist to her, force choking him off the ground.
“Where. Am. I?” She spoke, her voice raspy.
“Y-you’re in M-Markov! In a-“ She crushed his throat and threw him against the wall.
Markov? Why do I know that name?
She leapt out of the cryo pod and grabbed a nearby lab coat off the floor, throwing it on herself. Meredia rounded the rear of the pod and went for the exit only to be confronted by a series of guards armed with batons.
“You cannot keep me here!” She screamed as she charged into the group of men.
Taking one of them by the head she slammed him into the wall, rotating clockwise to block a baton swing. Using the force, she pushed the remaining guards out into the hallway, they collided with each other under the weight of her abilities. With her arm still outstretched she continued to crush them into the wall until all you could hear were bones breaking and shattering. She sprinted down the opposite hall and disappeared behind a set of double doors.
“Find her! Find her!” The lead scientist yelled as an alarmed blared through the research wing.
***
Meredia descended three flights of stairs before coming to a security door on an empty floor. She threw her open palm against the door and with the force it exploded off its hinges and into the hallway. Sprinting into a nearby office she shut the door and closed the blinds. She pulled the desk chair away from the active terminal and leaned over the keyboard, her hair falling over her shoulders and around her face. She began typing into the console, pulling up any information about where she was.
Cytokine Industries. Markov. Why do I know these names, but not my own?
A message popped up on the terminal screen which she clicked to open.
Your name is Meredia Forleizen. You are the sole survivor of your family name. You are from a time long past. A relic. A valuable one. My researchers wish to dissect and study you. I have different plans for you. Escape from this facility and head to the northern part of the city. There you will find an organization called The Guild. Meet with Big Jim at the strip club on Bleaker Street and tell them the Shadowbroker sent you. They’ll be waiting. I imagine you can’t remember anything about who you are. If you follow my instructions I’d be willing to share that information with you. In due time.
The terminal went dark after thirty seconds, and the power cut out.
Big Jim. Bleaker Street. The Guild. Shadowbroker. My name is Meredia?
The sound of guards entering her hallway alerted the woman and she ducked out of the office and retreated further into the empty wing of the building. Stopping short of a locker room she began rifling through the contents to find a set of clothes.
Nothing but scrubs. It’ll have to do.
Donning the pair of doctors scrubs she took a hair tie from one of the lockers and fashioned a ponytail in her hair. Slipping back into the lab coat she slid to the door of the locker room and peeked down the hall. Nothing but flashlights and various murmurs from the personnel trying to find her. Making a break for it she rushed towards the end of the hall where a giant glass pane window was.
“There she is!” Someone yelled.
She could hear them sprinting after her. Time seemed to stop around her as she bolted through the set of double doors at the end of the hall. She could see a fracture in the glass. A shatterpoint. Throwing her fist into it she dumped force energy into it and the wall exploded outward into the pouring rain. Meredia leapt from the building and plummeted into the streets below.
By the time they got people down to the street she was long gone.
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