Chapter Five: Subject Number Five
Hero Jenkins --- 4/29/13
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Chapter FiveJeff's entire body hurt, the pain was indescribable. His conscious moments had become muddled and hazy, punctuated only by pain and agony. How much time had passed? Hours he guessed. The fact that he wasn’t sure concerned him a little, he used to be pretty good at keeping track of time. So much so he rarely wore a watch. But what really had him scared was the fact that he was feeling less and less human with each passing moment. It was as though he was de-evolving. His cognitive functions seemed to be diminishing, while his senses, like his sense of smell and hearing, seemed to be sharpening.
He was starting to recognize some of the sounds and smells... he knew where he was now... he was in New York. The men who had broken into his apartment had taken him from Los Angeles and flown him to New York… but why?His head was clear for now. There was a small amount of light filtering in. He could tell that he was strapped to a metal chair and that the metal chair was bolted to the floor of a metal cage. Jeff had been straining against the bindings that held him. He had been at it for hours and he was having some success. The bindings were loosening. Suddenly, he could hear something else. Over all of the other sounds that were attacking his ears, he could now hear something new. Someone was coming. There was the faint sound of footsteps and they were coming closer. Then amazingly he could hear a terrified heart beat just on the other side of his cage’s door. Jeff worked his left hand free. It was just in time too... because whoever his visitor was, they were now fiddling with the lock. Jeff closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He would wait until his prey got closer and then he would strike.***The Gulfstream G650 was parked in the center of a gigantic private hanger. It was large enough for three planes but today there was only the one. A tremendous amount of extra light had been brought in and there wasn’t a shadow large enough to hide a mouse. But that wasn’t the strange part. The plane was ringed by a six foot wide, four foot deep structure of some kind. Sawdust and wood fragments littered the floor. When he got closer he saw that the structure consisted of two parallel walls that had been recently built from plywood with 2X4’s for support. Plastic tarps had been placed in the center of the walls. The tarps were laid end to end, sealed water tight and then the whole thing was filled with water. It was like a moat around a castle. Herman made eye contact with the guards… they looked away. They were nervous and they were not even trying to hide it. Herman also noticed that they all had the moat between them and the plane.A couple of the guards muscled a small poorly built wooden bridge into position so that Herman could get to the other side of the moat. The “bridge”, once he got a closer look at it, was constructed from two wooden step ladders each about six feet tall. Three, six foot long 2x4’s had been nailed between the step ladders to form the bridge over the water, but why was it necessary? It made no sense. The moment the bridge was in place, the heavily armed guards to a man raised their weapons and aimed them at the jet’s door. Herman was getting nervous. Like a condemned man walking the plank of a pirate’s ship, Herman slowly inched his way across the bridge above the “moat”. The guards immediately removed the bridge the moment Herman was on the other side and then they just stood there and watched him approach the plane. Each one of them had a “better you than me” look plastered on his face. Herman had seen a lot of creepy-questionable things since he came to work for Sloane Industries, but this… a moat around an private jet was just bizarre. And what worried him the most was that no one else assembled in that hangar seemed to think so. The jet’s door was open so Herman jogged on up the steps and poked his head through the door. The gulfstream had been gutted, it was basically a shell. The cage was in a specially designed cargo area in the rear of the jet. Herman had to hurry because he had been told that the jet would be there just long enough to be refueled and for the new pilots to arrive. Rumor had it that the cage and its contents were next destined for Brazil. But Herman didn’t care his task was a simple one and it wouldn’t take long. The doctors based here in New York needed a tissue sample and he was low man on the totem pole so he was assigned the task. He had been assured that there was no danger, that the monster was secure. Either they were wrong or they had lied to him, in the end it didn’t really matter which. Herman opened the door to the large metal cage but he was unprepared for the stench. He froze for just an instant to steady himself and was caught completely by surprise by the swipe of a large hand with razor sharp claws. A monstrous hand that was supposed to be securely strapped down. Herman had absolutely no time to react. He felt the monster’s claw ripping through his flesh, tearing at him as though his heart was literally being ripped right out of his chest.Herman managed to back away from the cage. He was in shock by the time he turned and stumbled towards the door. As soon as he reached it, his survival instincts kicked in. He had seen first hand what his company was willing to do to those careless enough to get contaminated with whatever. He cinched his lab coat closed to conceal the wound. He forced himself to ignore the pain that seemed to be slowly spreading throughout his body. When he stepped from the plane the guards immediately moved the bridge into place. Herman got lucky, none of the guards would even look at him. They made no effort to stop him, after all they were told only to keep the unauthorized out. He stumbled from the hangar and considered what he should do next. He couldn’t go back to the office and a hospital would ask too many questions. Soon Herman had a singular focus, he was hurt and he wanted to go home. The last thing he remembered was boarding the subway train.***The two men rode in silence down unfamiliar streets. They were on a mission in a van that had been stolen for just the occasion. The first thing they noticed as they approached the four-story toy factory was the giant water tower in center of the roof. Beyond the tower, there was nothing else distinctive about the building. The people who lived in this neighborhood walked past it everyday having no idea what was really going on inside. The van had been painted to resemble one of the toy factory’s delivery vans. The bored security guards at the front gate simply waved them through after only a cursory glance at their paperwork.Once past the gate, the men didn’t go to the loading dock, but detoured to the employee underground parking lot. There was only one shift at this facility, the night shift. As a result the lot was nearing capacity. The men in the van were in luck; they found a parking spot just where they needed to be… near the center of the building. The driver and his passenger climbed out of the van and stretched, it had been a long trip. Then they opened the back of the van and got busy setting everything up. The two men moved with the ease of skilled operatives who had done this kind of thing before… because they had. They took little notice of the dedicated employees arriving to work at this corporate “black site”. Employees who, like sheep, moved casually towards the elevators... chatting about nothing in particular, carrying lunches and backpacks, whatever else they needed to get them through a full shift of work. They had no idea they were all about to die. They were all going to die because they had committed the unforgivable sin; they had allowed their security to be breached and the company’s secrets had been exposed. They had now become a liability so the employees and this entire facility needed to be erased. As it turned out, that was the specialty of the two men from the van.The explosives they were using was an advanced version of “tritonal”, which was a mixture of aluminum powder and TNT. It had the same lethal blast radius (150 yards) of the military’s MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb). The MOAB bomb could devastate an entire city block. But where the MOAB weighed nine and a half tons and was the length of a bus, their device fit neatly into the back of their stolen van.After they armed the bomb, they got to the minimum safe distance before setting it off. The bomb was a specially designed, two stage marvel of destructive power. The first stage of the device would launch a bunker busting projectile up through the floor and would reach as high as the third floor before exploding. The resulting fire would incenerate everything inside. Then they would set off the secondary device, the MOAB to collapse what was left of the building.***The blast was enormous and within minutes the four story toy factory was reduced to fire and rubble. The blast tore through nearby buildings including the one that was being used as a surveillance post by the agency. Only one of the agents, the one lucky enough to be sleeping in the back at the time of the blast survived.
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Chapter FiveJeff's entire body hurt, the pain was indescribable. His conscious moments had become muddled and hazy, punctuated only by pain and agony. How much time had passed? Hours he guessed. The fact that he wasn’t sure concerned him a little, he used to be pretty good at keeping track of time. So much so he rarely wore a watch. But what really had him scared was the fact that he was feeling less and less human with each passing moment. It was as though he was de-evolving. His cognitive functions seemed to be diminishing, while his senses, like his sense of smell and hearing, seemed to be sharpening.
He was starting to recognize some of the sounds and smells... he knew where he was now... he was in New York. The men who had broken into his apartment had taken him from Los Angeles and flown him to New York… but why?His head was clear for now. There was a small amount of light filtering in. He could tell that he was strapped to a metal chair and that the metal chair was bolted to the floor of a metal cage. Jeff had been straining against the bindings that held him. He had been at it for hours and he was having some success. The bindings were loosening. Suddenly, he could hear something else. Over all of the other sounds that were attacking his ears, he could now hear something new. Someone was coming. There was the faint sound of footsteps and they were coming closer. Then amazingly he could hear a terrified heart beat just on the other side of his cage’s door. Jeff worked his left hand free. It was just in time too... because whoever his visitor was, they were now fiddling with the lock. Jeff closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He would wait until his prey got closer and then he would strike.***The Gulfstream G650 was parked in the center of a gigantic private hanger. It was large enough for three planes but today there was only the one. A tremendous amount of extra light had been brought in and there wasn’t a shadow large enough to hide a mouse. But that wasn’t the strange part. The plane was ringed by a six foot wide, four foot deep structure of some kind. Sawdust and wood fragments littered the floor. When he got closer he saw that the structure consisted of two parallel walls that had been recently built from plywood with 2X4’s for support. Plastic tarps had been placed in the center of the walls. The tarps were laid end to end, sealed water tight and then the whole thing was filled with water. It was like a moat around a castle. Herman made eye contact with the guards… they looked away. They were nervous and they were not even trying to hide it. Herman also noticed that they all had the moat between them and the plane.A couple of the guards muscled a small poorly built wooden bridge into position so that Herman could get to the other side of the moat. The “bridge”, once he got a closer look at it, was constructed from two wooden step ladders each about six feet tall. Three, six foot long 2x4’s had been nailed between the step ladders to form the bridge over the water, but why was it necessary? It made no sense. The moment the bridge was in place, the heavily armed guards to a man raised their weapons and aimed them at the jet’s door. Herman was getting nervous. Like a condemned man walking the plank of a pirate’s ship, Herman slowly inched his way across the bridge above the “moat”. The guards immediately removed the bridge the moment Herman was on the other side and then they just stood there and watched him approach the plane. Each one of them had a “better you than me” look plastered on his face. Herman had seen a lot of creepy-questionable things since he came to work for Sloane Industries, but this… a moat around an private jet was just bizarre. And what worried him the most was that no one else assembled in that hangar seemed to think so. The jet’s door was open so Herman jogged on up the steps and poked his head through the door. The gulfstream had been gutted, it was basically a shell. The cage was in a specially designed cargo area in the rear of the jet. Herman had to hurry because he had been told that the jet would be there just long enough to be refueled and for the new pilots to arrive. Rumor had it that the cage and its contents were next destined for Brazil. But Herman didn’t care his task was a simple one and it wouldn’t take long. The doctors based here in New York needed a tissue sample and he was low man on the totem pole so he was assigned the task. He had been assured that there was no danger, that the monster was secure. Either they were wrong or they had lied to him, in the end it didn’t really matter which. Herman opened the door to the large metal cage but he was unprepared for the stench. He froze for just an instant to steady himself and was caught completely by surprise by the swipe of a large hand with razor sharp claws. A monstrous hand that was supposed to be securely strapped down. Herman had absolutely no time to react. He felt the monster’s claw ripping through his flesh, tearing at him as though his heart was literally being ripped right out of his chest.Herman managed to back away from the cage. He was in shock by the time he turned and stumbled towards the door. As soon as he reached it, his survival instincts kicked in. He had seen first hand what his company was willing to do to those careless enough to get contaminated with whatever. He cinched his lab coat closed to conceal the wound. He forced himself to ignore the pain that seemed to be slowly spreading throughout his body. When he stepped from the plane the guards immediately moved the bridge into place. Herman got lucky, none of the guards would even look at him. They made no effort to stop him, after all they were told only to keep the unauthorized out. He stumbled from the hangar and considered what he should do next. He couldn’t go back to the office and a hospital would ask too many questions. Soon Herman had a singular focus, he was hurt and he wanted to go home. The last thing he remembered was boarding the subway train.***The two men rode in silence down unfamiliar streets. They were on a mission in a van that had been stolen for just the occasion. The first thing they noticed as they approached the four-story toy factory was the giant water tower in center of the roof. Beyond the tower, there was nothing else distinctive about the building. The people who lived in this neighborhood walked past it everyday having no idea what was really going on inside. The van had been painted to resemble one of the toy factory’s delivery vans. The bored security guards at the front gate simply waved them through after only a cursory glance at their paperwork.Once past the gate, the men didn’t go to the loading dock, but detoured to the employee underground parking lot. There was only one shift at this facility, the night shift. As a result the lot was nearing capacity. The men in the van were in luck; they found a parking spot just where they needed to be… near the center of the building. The driver and his passenger climbed out of the van and stretched, it had been a long trip. Then they opened the back of the van and got busy setting everything up. The two men moved with the ease of skilled operatives who had done this kind of thing before… because they had. They took little notice of the dedicated employees arriving to work at this corporate “black site”. Employees who, like sheep, moved casually towards the elevators... chatting about nothing in particular, carrying lunches and backpacks, whatever else they needed to get them through a full shift of work. They had no idea they were all about to die. They were all going to die because they had committed the unforgivable sin; they had allowed their security to be breached and the company’s secrets had been exposed. They had now become a liability so the employees and this entire facility needed to be erased. As it turned out, that was the specialty of the two men from the van.The explosives they were using was an advanced version of “tritonal”, which was a mixture of aluminum powder and TNT. It had the same lethal blast radius (150 yards) of the military’s MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb). The MOAB bomb could devastate an entire city block. But where the MOAB weighed nine and a half tons and was the length of a bus, their device fit neatly into the back of their stolen van.After they armed the bomb, they got to the minimum safe distance before setting it off. The bomb was a specially designed, two stage marvel of destructive power. The first stage of the device would launch a bunker busting projectile up through the floor and would reach as high as the third floor before exploding. The resulting fire would incenerate everything inside. Then they would set off the secondary device, the MOAB to collapse what was left of the building.***The blast was enormous and within minutes the four story toy factory was reduced to fire and rubble. The blast tore through nearby buildings including the one that was being used as a surveillance post by the agency. Only one of the agents, the one lucky enough to be sleeping in the back at the time of the blast survived. 
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