Authors: Tes Hilaire
“Shit.” He was so fucked.
***
Stateside: Thirty-four hours later
Teigan stared at the top right hand corner of the wall-to-wall transmission screen where each second crept by with agonizing slowness in dimly lit, green numbering. Each second that passed was one he lost when he could be at home, waxing the vintage 2076 Toyota Storm he’d acquired less than three days ago. With its sleek, metallic-gray, streamlined exterior and 520 mag-wave drive system it was the true gem of the New Age. Maybe not quite as rare as the original ‘72 model—they’d only made 250 of those—but this baby had a whole bunch of extras the ‘72 didn’t have. Like the exceedingly rare black leather seats, or the full extension stabilizers which made it corner like a wet dream. And the original reverse-wave thrusters that allowed the vehicle to hover rather than completely converting to land mode to let off a passenger. The ‘72 Toyota Storm may have been the beginning of a new transportation era, but the ‘76 had driven that new era in with style.
Teigan’s hands, currently stuffed deep in his slacks’ pockets, itched to dig into the rusted innards—they’d still used metal up until 2096 on some of the internal parts—and work some magic. He was going to get that baby up and flying again if it was the last thing he did. That is, he would if he ever got the requested time off he’d put in for.
He rolled his stiff arm—
should have known better.
Hadn’t he concluded years ago that the Agency didn’t actually believe in vacation? Teigan alleged the 497 hours that showed up on the bottom left-hand corner of his monthly report was another one of those token gestures the government handed out. It looked all pretty and nice, but was not to actually be used. And his little scratch? All it had gotten him was a two-hour stint with the Agency doc, an irritated com from Whitesman, four extra hours of reports—but no sick leave.
“So, you know what this is all about?”
Teigan glanced over his shoulder at John. All limbs and appendages, John leaned back in the director’s swivel chair, his loafers propped on the desk in front of him. If the techi-schmuck wasn’t more careful, he was going to scuff the surface and ruin the integrated control panel.
“Nope. Whitesman said to be in his office at 0700 hours, so I’m here,” Teigan said with amazing restraint. Not his desk. Not his money. And technically, as Head of Systems Research, John outranked him…technically. If Teigan wanted to leave the field and work his hours from behind a desk, he could probably be Head of Something, too.
“Man.” John pushed off with his toe, spinning the chair around a couple times before anchoring his palm on the transparent surface and dragging himself to a halt.
Great, smudged fingerprints. If the idiot hadn’t scratched the surface before, the oil smears would ensure that the sensors wouldn’t work properly. When the panel didn’t work, Whitesman would be annoyed. And when Whitesman was annoyed, he would predictably take his irritable mood out on them all.
“You’d think the man would at least have the decency to be here before us. I can’t believe we had to drag our asses out of bed at this godforsaken hour,” John went on, oblivious to the possible damage he’d done to Whitesman’s panel and Teigan’s potential hope of a somewhat peaceful day.
Teigan shrugged. “My alarm goes off at 0530 regardless.”
Not to mention he’d been up already, filling out that damn injury report. He hadn’t had more than a couple catnaps in the last 48 hours. But, as always, Teigan’s missions were need-to-know, and in his opinion John didn’t need-to-know.
“Suck-up,” John accused.
Teigan didn’t get a chance to reply. Whitesman breezed through the door, tossing a security key card down on the desk and—jerking his finger—signaled the Head Tech-head out of his chair. John, not being as socially stupid as he sometimes appeared, quickly vamoosed. He even had the decency to scrub his long sleeved tee over the panel on the way, thus repairing the fingerprint problem. Not that it mattered. Teigan need not have worried about the potential damage to Whitesman’s mood. The director was already in a bad one.
Teigan’s thoughts immediately turned to the mission and the information he’d pulled from the chip on his wrist unit thirty-four hours earlier. As soon as he’d seen the file name, he’d yanked the chip away and attempted to wipe the unit’s memory clean. He hoped to hell that this current meeting had nothing to do with the chip he’d retrieved. And if it did, he prayed he was here to get a slap on the wrist and not something…worse.
Fuck. The V-10. How in the hell had the V-10s ended up on a chip in the Global Police underground warehouse? Teigan didn’t know much about the group of elite soldiers and frankly, given their rep, he’d been more than content in his naïveté. Used for only the most mysterious and unworkable missions, they were rumored to be invincible and so top secret even the president wasn’t privy to their entire file. They were legend. Agency myth stated that if a mission went down the tubes, the V-10s were the guys called in to clean up the mess. No one but a Head had ever seen a V-10. If you saw them, then you were part of the mess being cleaned up.
Now Teigan just had to pray that accessing a file didn’t translate into being the mess that needed cleaning up. Career suicide, literally.
“One of our V-10 soldiers died last night.” Whitesman heaved his stout frame into the recently vacated chair, his already thinned lips compressed to the point of being nonexistent.
John snapped straight from where he’d taken up residence leaning against the far wall. Teigan blinked, his mind whirling as dread grabbed hold of his chest. Damn it all to hell, he had no luck. Though, it didn’t make sense. How did a dead V-10 soldier tie in to a chip he’d stolen almost a day earlier? Given that he wasn’t supposed to know what was on the chip, that question wasn’t something he dare ask.
He cleared his throat, and got the go-ahead nod from Whitesman. “Is it safe to assume the soldier didn’t die of natural causes?”
Whitesman sighed, rubbing his temples with both hands. “That would be a good assumption.”
“The V-10s?” John squeaked, having finally picked his jaw up from off the floor. “Aren’t they some sort of elite soldier?”
Whitesman grumbled something inaudible, running his fingers over the desk to code into the panel. He pulled a visual file up onto the transmission screen. A message flashed across the lustrous white surface at the same time the politically correct, gender-neutral automated voice piped in. “Voice authorization required.”
“Vernon Whitesman, Head Director of Military Affairs,” Whitesman replied, using a title that Teigan hadn’t heard him utter before. Head of the Agency, yes; Director of International Affairs, yes; Chief Political Liaison to the Global Police, yes; but this rather significant connection to the military was a new one to Teigan. Not that the Agency didn’t work with the military, of course they did, but Teigan had always believed there to be a significant level of distance between them, separated by mountains of politicking, regulations, and reports.
Teigan shifted from one foot to the other.
“Welcome Director Whitesman, your authorization is accepted.”
Whitesman ran his fingers across the panel, navigating through the Agency file systems.
“Please insert key card to access files located in source folder Viadal, subcategory program 2077 proposal and implementation.”
Whitesman took the slim key card and was about to slip it into the slot on his paneled desk when he stopped, glaring up at Teigan then John. “I don’t need to remind either of you that what is revealed in this office does not go beyond these doors.”
Both John and Teigan nodded.
“Good.” He stuffed the card in, keying in a code. “Just under sixty years ago, the government funded scientific research on gene purification.”
John whistled. Whitesman looked over at Teigan expectantly.
“Yeah, I heard about it,” Teigan replied to the unasked question. Whitesman would know his mother had been front and center in the protests against the research. His screening would’ve shown that. “Dr. Viadal and his claim to produce a genetic panacea. His research was dubbed as the perfect solution to all human ailments. Everything from cancer, diabetes, and genetic heart conditions, to predisposition toward mental and psychotic imbalances would be a thing of the past.”
“Obviously it didn’t pan out,” John said on a laugh. “Otherwise my doctor wouldn’t keep trying to push those high blood pressure pills on me.”
“Too much opposition,” Whitesman explained. “Human rights groups, church groups… everyone banded together to get the politicians to kill the program.”
“Why?” John cocked his head. “I mean if—”
Whitesman raised his hand, silencing John. “As far as the world was concerned, the program was ended. But, in actuality, it was picked up under military funding.”
“Military funding?” John stepped forward, scrutinizing the data. He turned back to Whitesman, eyebrow cocked. “So what happened to the program in the military’s capable hands?”
“Damn military,” Whitesman groused followed by a string of uncomplimentary curses.
Teigan folded his arms and waited. He thought John was laying on the dense a little thick—hello… genetic research plus military equals… yeah, the V10—but since Whitesman seemed ready to explain further, he wasn’t going to interrupt.
“The program was successful in producing its ultimate goal.” Whiteman’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “Forty-five years ago, the first genetically perfected infant was born to a surrogate mother in Nevada.”
John shook his head and popped the piece of gum he’d been chewing. “Area 51, baby. Figures. Can you imagine what would happen if all those conspira—”
Whitesman gave him a hard look. John snapped his mouth shut, cleared his throat with a cough.
Whitesman continued, “The procedure was very costly and prone to mistakes, so the program was put on hold. The hope was to start it back up again in another decade or so, once they could show that the children held as much promise as originally hoped.”
“And did they?” Teigan wondered if there was another set of super-soldiers out there that he wasn’t aware of. The ages weren’t right, so he figured the current V-10 must be some offshoot of the original program.
“Oh yes. Very much so.” Whitesman’s tone suggested there was a lot more to this story.
“Maybe too much?” Teigan offered.
Whitesman nodded. “Not only were they specimens of physical perfection, they were highly intelligent as well…to the point where they had a bit of a god complex.”
“Bet that went over well,” John commented.
“Indeed,” Whitesman drawled, pulling up a news story on the screen.
Teigan looked quizzically at Whitesman. “Midwestern Black Out of 71?”
Whitesman nodded. “In 2071, when you two were just barely out of diapers, ten boys managed to take over operations at the base where they were being raised. They also hacked into government mainframes, took control of information satellites, and shut down vital power plants.” His mouth puckered into a look of disgust. “They were playing a game. Nothing more. They were so smart; they could take over the world from their dorm room.”
John snapped his gum. “They didn’t though. We’re still here.”
“Only because they were kids.” Whitesman’s tone was firm, his jaw tense under the cheeky jowls that came with advancing age. “At the time they weren’t actually out to hurt anyone. Once they had everyone’s attention, they fixed the damage, put everything right again. They actually expected to be praised for their ingenuity.”
“But they weren’t,” Teigan stated.
Whitesman absently cracked his knuckles. It was a habit of his when he was frustrated. “No, they were…eliminated.”
Teigan worked hard not to show his disgust. Eliminated: Another term for murdered. But he suspected that the former allowed certain people to sleep at night. “I would say that was the end of the program, but then…”
Whitesman inclined his head. “Though frustrated with the loss of their perfect soldiers, the military wasn’t going to give up on the program. They pushed their budget through under a different bill and got the funding they needed to contract with Dr. Viadal again.”
“And did it work any better this time?” Teigan asked.
“A bit,” Whitesman shrugged, keyed in another code. A list of ten numbers lit up the screen. “There were fewer complications. Viadal had been perfecting the genetic selection process on his own whenever other projects left extra funds. Between 2074 and 2075 he provided the military with ten more boys.”
“That makes them what, about thirty now?” Teigan frowned. He knew the V-10 team wasn’t very large, three, maybe four men. “So these are our V-10s, but I didn’t think the team was that big. Are there others from this batch of super-babies hidden in the ranks somewhere?”
Whitesman shook his head. “Just the V-10s. We have three active at this moment in time.” He paused. “We’ve… lost a few over the years.”
“Not so perfect then,” John put in from his corner with a snap, snap, pop.
Whitesman gave him a long stare before responding. “Close to. It takes something extraordinary to bring these boys down.”