Life-After (18 page)

“
It’s not just a matter of what you can tell us, David.” Jonathan said. “That’s not the information we are looking for.”

As I walked through the last set of blast doors I quickly realized where we were. The Alpha Medical building was also one of the twelve bunkers created during the global war. It was more than just that. Along with medical and scientific equipment I could see several familiar areas. A clean room, a research lab, a medical bay, the bunker was almost a mirror image of Naxum Research.

I walked ahead of Jonathan looking across the vast area at the hundreds of people going about their tasks as if they were oblivious of what was occurring outside. It was as if they were there all along working on a project. I turned to Jonathan, this time to demand some answers.

“
What are you talking about?” I asked. “What are you looking for?”

The flash of white and pain hit before I realized Jonathan had struck me with his side arm. My body went limp. I fell to the ground fighting to remain conscious. I looked up at Jonathan who had his weapon trained on me. His eyes turned away from mine. He was looking ahead at someone else. I could hear the footsteps approaching me.

“
It has been a long time, David.”

The voice from behind, it was impossible, it could not be him. I only had the strength left to roll onto my back and look up and behind me at the man approaching. My body began to shiver at the sight of him. I could not believe what I was seeing. Losing the fight to remain conscious my eyes rolled to the back of my head. My last thought was that I must have still been trapped in a dream world. Jonathan would have never betrayed me and the man that stood over me, Doctor Henry Flag, was killed over twenty years ago.

11

I could feel the cold floor beneath my body. A surge of pain flashed images of Jonathan striking me and Doctor Flag standing over my body. Face down on the floor I pulled myself to my feet. I had a flurry of questions and emotions coursing through me. I needed to know exactly where I was. The floor was grated. Reinforced steal designed to allow any liquid to drain out. There was one small air vent in the top left corner of the jail cell sized room. It was also reinforced. I felt like a caged animal or more like a specimen being held for examination.

Three solid concrete walls surrounded me and one was made of a glass-like material. Smooth to the touch I quickly realized it was one-way glass. All I could see was my reflection. They had clothed me in a black body suit. It was fitted tightly like scuba gear. I could not remove it. It was as if the material was attached surgically to my skin. It reminded me of the suit soldiers wore before being connected to the virtual reality training unit.

They had tended to my wounds. Before I loss conciseness I could feel my own blood running down the side of my face. My friend, the one of very few I still trusted had turned on me. What I was really looking at was a reflection of a man who had lost everything. I had no strength left to fight. The world with Clara was a lie and my true reality was a nightmare. All I had left was the pursuit of answers and revenge for those who had hurt me.

“
You were unconscious for over twenty-two hours.” Doctor Flag said, his voice coming through a small speaker just above the one way glass. “Doctor Kane is as puzzled as I. You should not have been out that long. Did you experience anything while unconscious?”

They were studying me but for what purpose I did not know. I fought to keep it together, not to lose it, but it was battle I did not think I would win. To get answers I would need to give some, but every ounce of me wanted to scream out, to tear at the walls like an animal. The rage inside me was building and only kept in check by the sadness of Lola’s and Jonathan’s betrayal. Flag’s question did not concern me. I had experienced nothing while unconscious. No dreams of an afterlife. No visions of Clara.

“
How are you still alive?” I replied trying to remain as calm as possible.

There was no response. I could not see or hear anything outside my cell. I closed my eyes trying to focus, to think about what had happened and why I would have been in that situation. If I was to disregard everything that happened with Clara as a dream then the fact would be that during patrol I encountered an Asher while trying to save a little girl. I was caught off guard and knocked to the ground by its weapon blast. I could do nothing but watch as it killed the girl dissolving her body with its green energy weapon.

The Asher chose to kill a defenseless girl before a trained solider. It made no sense, but it did not matter at that moment as it turned its attention to me. It stood over me and was about to fire, but I had set my grenades to explode once I triggered the detonation. I closed my eyes and pushed the button and everything went black.

I woke up in the exact same spot, but it was clear many hours had past. The trigger had been pressed but the grenades did not explode. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to find out why because a resistance helicopter had found me. The soldiers inside trained their weapons on me as if I were the enemy and before they had a chance to land was destroyed by one of the Asher’s orbiting ships.

The blast was only a few meters from me and the resulting wave should have killed me, but I awoke thirty-six hours later at Alpha Medical. Doctor Lola Kane believed I may have been infected by the radiation caused by the Asher’s energy weapons, but the tests she conducted on me proved negative.

“
This is important, David.” Lola said. “If you experienced anything just tell us, please.”

I knew something was wrong. Being under guard and on a special floor inside Alpha Medical was clear enough proof and then it was the way Jonathan and Lola looked at me. Jonathan was clearly holding something back, but I did not think it was because of me personally. Lola looked concerned for my well being even though she said I would be fine.

The facility that I was brought to after the Asher’s attacked Alpha Medical was almost a mirror of Naxum Research. There I saw Doctor Flag, a man who was supposedly killed by a Federation assassin. The pieces did not add up, but I knew for certain my involvement could not just have been because of my encounter with the Asher. There had to be something else.

“
Why are you doing this to me?” I asked. “I did nothing wrong and you brought me down here and locked me in this cell. Was the attack even real or was it staged to?”

“
The attack was real, but then you should know that shouldn’t you, David.”

It was Jonathan’s voice, but unlike I had ever heard it before. His tone, it was if he was speaking to a captured enemy solider or a traitor. I remembered the look on his face when he struck me with his gun. He was angry. A thought lingered in the back of my mind, one I kept away from my evaluation of the facts became relevant. Twice I should have been killed but I survived. Often when someone survives when everyone else did not that person becomes the subject of interest, of suspicion.

“
What are you accusing me of?” I asked.

“
David, listen to me.” Lola said. “You are not just in a cell. You are in a containment chamber. When you arrived and we conducted tests on you, we found something. At the time we weren’t sure exactly what it was so we took a sample and ran further tests.”

I knew whatever they had discovered it was not good. I could clearly hear it in her voice. The room I was in made even more sense when she told me what it was. I did not know if she lied about the radiation, but it was almost certain that something was done to me. Jonathan’s suspicion also began to make sense. The Asher may not have killed me because it needed me.

“
What we found was interesting to say the least.” Doctor Flag began. “You want to know how I am alive and I know you want to know why I am here so I will tell you. However, first you need to understand what you are and what those like you have meant to the study of life science.

Before the Global war began a team of scientists gained access to a man who could recover from what would normally be fatal injuries. This man was discovered near what was formerly China. My father, Nathan Flag, worked with the team of scientists to discover why this man had such abilities. It was a joint effort between multiple countries. Twelve scientists in all were part of the team.

The man did not know where he came from. He claimed he was orphaned and was raised in Korea. They were able to learn his ability was written into his DNA and it affected his cells however, it was unlike any sequence the scientists had ever seen. While he was human there were parts of his DNA structure that they could not identify. The scientists considered them alien since they were not part of any known pair we had seen at the time.

Originally this man was willing to have them run tests on him, but after several months he wanted to be released. By then there was not much more that they had learned. Unfortunately, during this time talks broke down between some of the countries and war was on the horizon. Once the Alliance and Federations were formed my father was ordered to take any samples and research and return home.

The plan was to kill the subject codenamed, Alpha and destroy all the research leaving only my father’s. What was unknown at the time was that the alliance government was compromised and that information was passed on to an enemy agent. In the end all the scientists along with Subject Alpha and the research and samples were destroyed.

At the time I was working for the newly created division dealing with scientific exploration codenamed, Factor Twelve. My father and I were not on speaking terms, but when I heard of his death I began looking through the letters and packages he had sent to me. Among them were copies of his research and various samples. I soon discovered he was keeping information from the government. He discovered what gave Subject Alpha his abilities. It was the same thing that allowed me to give you your temporary abilities, David, life energy.”

I was nothing but a test subject to them. The way Flag spoke, chronicling the events that led to something I had fought to forget. I should have realized Flag would not have just run random experiments on me, he knew exactly what he was doing. There were still many unanswered questions, but Flag was just getting started.

“
I, unlike my father, was loyal to the government and turned over all the information my father had sent me.” Flag continued. “They allowed me to hand pick a team to continue the research. Over the following years we conducted experiments and discovered a way to identify people with the potential to develop abilities. We knew all humans had this life energy within them, but it would lay dormant just as it did within your body, David.

However, there were more people that were special, their DNA would eventually allow them to awaken their life energy and grant them abilities and thus our study had a name, The Awakened Project.”

While it was not clear exactly what Luis did or did not know about The Awakened Project it was clear he knew something. When he told me about the project I wondered if someone had continued Flag’s work, I never thought it was Flag himself. What I wanted to know is why I was chosen to be experimented on and what exactly did he do to me. I wanted to know if he had tracked my progress and if so why he never did anything to help me when my abilities faded.

“
I know you are wondering how you fit into all this, David.” Flag said. “Prior to the Awakened Project while we were looking for more test subjects we discovered Subject Alpha was originally born in your home country. We asked the Alliance military to go there and use our testing process to see if perhaps your people all possessed the same DNA markers as Subject Alpha. Sadly your people resisted and many test subjects were lost, even more unfortunate we discovered there was nothing special about your people sans one family.

We ran tests on the remains of your grandparents, David, and found they had the same DNA structure as Subject Alpha. While your grandparents and Subject Alpha were not related we wanted to see if your grandparent’s offspring would carry the differences in their DNA. It took some time to discover who they were as many of the records were destroyed. By the time we found them they had fled the country and we assumed killed during the war.

That was until the incident at the Factor Twelve research station in Naxum Mountain. We had collected samples from five other subjects we had discovered around the globe who possessed the same DNA markers. Our research was sabotaged and all the data there was lost. The only good that came from that incident was the saboteur was captured and that was when we discovered the Federation had been conducting their own Awakened Project and it began with two test subjects. A man and a woman, Martha and Alexander, but their last name was Chase.”

Any resolve that remained within me at the moment broke apart. I fell to my knees not once doubting what Flag had told me. Chase was my mother’s maiden name. It was changed to Zavior when she married my father. They abandoned me because they knew the Alliance was looking for them, but to flee one enemy into the hands of another did not make any sense. For so long they were branded as traitors just for leaving and what Flag was telling me was that they defected to the Federation to become test subjects.

“
I can hear your reaction, David.” Flag continued. “Let me put your mind at ease, they did not defect, they were captured while fleeing. The agent the Alliance captured gave us detailed information. Your mother and father fought against the Federation and even tried to escape and destroy the research. They died trying to alert the Alliance to their location, sadly we never received anything.