Children of Terra

-Tucked into the front inside cover of a bound notebook is one yellowed sheet of paper, handwritten in tiny, neat cursive. It reads- I can't take it anymore. It's not the human testing, the horrible things I've done to innocent people, or the nightmare I've wrought by my own two hands. It's whose giving the orders. There's nowhere left to go. Vault-Tec. The press. Military contacts. Family. None. All compromised. The rot runs deep. What they don't tell you is that the 'New Plague' was created years ago. Here. How do I know? I was head of the lab. I'm not asking for forgiveness or understanding. My place will be in hell for the things I've done, the horrors I've made -- and the awful truth I see in the news everyday. I expect my name will be redacted or omitted from the reports once this all blows lid. My only hope is to smuggle as much as I can outside the US, just to get this out there. Which is why I won't edit a damn thing. Look upon my works, ye mighty; upon what I did, what is happening, what has happened, and what will happen if things don't change, pictures and all. Be warned, the jaws are closing around the world. We don't have time. -No visa records or emigration logs show success of border expatriation. Assumed killed before expose. Documents follow- Let's see, it must have been . . . ~around Summer of '53~ ~Near the Nevada Proving Grounds~ ~Big Mountain Research and Development Center~ ~Jack 'Algernon' Edwards, Scientist 1 - Biological Applications~ I don't remember the date anymore -- shouldn't be too hard to find in here somewhere -- my memories from that time have long been interfered into one another. All I can say for sure is that it was the summer McCarthy got in. The black suits called for all sorts of us. Manhattan boys. Los Alamos. von Braun's crew. Stanford. Harvard. You get the idea.       We were packed up and shipped from all over, to a new national security site. Information blackout. Secluded, under a big mountain in Nevada. All amenities provided on-site, and all restrictions effectively lifted. If you did a good enough job for the vesting period; even got your family shipped out. Should've been the first red flag, but let's remember this from the 'renaissance of science' angle. A haven of research, a place where the future itself could be forged . . . It wasn't long before that little idea became both dead and resurrected. We should've let Frankenstein lie . . . ~It simply requires a shift in perspective, Doctor~ Jack signed the papers. Didn't know why, really. But as he read just how airtight they were, non-disclosures, pledges of allegiance, consent forms, declarations; he grew increasingly exited. This was real! Things happened faster than fast. That afternoon, he was aboard a train on the Santa Fe rail line, bound west. Couple transfers here and there; Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, but as the geography of quiet outer New York gave way to mountains, heartlands, hills, passes -- and now the rugged terrain of southern Colorado -- Jack felt it. The gravity of it.       He would either pass and get to be an actual, tangible part of the future, or fail, and probably be at the bottom of the next atomic test site.       Jack held his now-useless overcoat folded on his lap, head against the window post of the rail car, listening to the rhythmic clatter-clatterof wheels flexing joints. Ever closer to a think tank unlike any other. Science unleashed. One last transfer before he'd finally sleep in private class. The promised switch between rails exposed him to the main difference between the northeast and southwest: throat-cracking dry air. He didn't much care for that, shutting the hatches of his private room to seal himself away. And despite the municipal rail passing through legendary Vegas, Jack closed the blinds to settle in. Statistical uselessness. He was more in the business of making reality bend to his will than vice versa. That said, he didn't mind catching up on sleep as recompense.       A knock on the rail door woke him back up in due time, muted. "Dr. Edwards? It's time to depart." He fixed his spectacles and got up from the cot with a short breath. Opening the door to a military gentleman, from the epaulettes, Jack looked at him a moment before turning back to get his suitcase. The man put a hand on his shoulder. "No need, Doctor. We'll take care of that. I have orders to escort you to your vehicle."       "This briefcase has my notes and current research, young man. I need it with me." As he turned to look at the man, it's clear as the day he'd be going without his effects. He huffed, but relented. "No, it's fine. Let's go." The man gave a hint of nod, but otherwise opted to silently guide him to the cadillac. And despite trying, his driver wouldn't strike up a conversation as they wound through Vegas suburbs. Instead, the doctor watched from his rear seat casinos winking into horizon as they coasted over the north Vegas hill line. Ah, Nellis. The car stopped at the checkpoint, guards slinging serious rifles to point. New ones --old standard phased out just as the world changing by. His driver handed over paperwork, radioed in for verification. A flashlight into the face. Then a guard rapped knuckles on the rear window, Jack looking to his driver.       The eyes in the rear view mirror softened just a hair. "Roll down the window, Doctor. Decorum with security is thorough in the military." Jack rolled the crank while the guard craned at his hands, peering down to make sure they were clear. Then the flashlight beam came up and into his pupils, Jack squinting as he looked back.       The guard radioed in, chatter incoherent -- then whistled and signed away. Checkpoint barriers raised to allow them into the airbase. Jack aside, Nellis was otherwise operating just as one would think. Helicopters -- experimental twin rotor -- flew about as various other staff performed functions unfamiliar to the doctor. No personnel gave heed to the pair on foot way to base command. Another checkpoint before he and his escort were cleared for inside, then up to a cozy meet room; if a little on the small and unfurnished side.       Jack looked around. A guard had followed the pair in, and the driver and he were standing by the door motionless, staring ahead. Jack looked back to the room. A single wooden meeting table and chairs in the center. He cleared his throat. "D-do you mind if I . . . ?" He gestured to a chair. Neither spoke for an uncomfortable time after. "Ah, okay. Ahem." He took a seat. They would stop him otherwise, right?       No clock. He tapped his fingers on the table, knowing it would be pointless to ask. Jesus, how long did this take? It's almost uncanny how just as he was getting frustrated -- the door opened. Two gentlemen, one probably the base commander from uniform and the other a black suit. With a nod from the first, both guards left. With a nod from the second, the commander left. The black suit made himself comfortable across from Jack before taking his Ray-Bans off. Folding his hands with a sigh, he spoke. "Doctor Edwards. Princeton educated. Young, freshly married. Promising future. Is this man you?"       Jack squinted. No nonsense. Might as well in kind. "Yes. Born February 15th, 1935. Graduated this year."       A folded copy of his doctoral dissertation was produced from within the black suit liner. "Your research into biochemistry has caught the attention of some powerful eyes. This offer, if you choose to accept, comes with perks the likes of which I'm sure you've already dreamed of. Myjob, is to offer you one last chance to refuse. Once you sign this contract- " Out came another sheet of paper, simple and sweet. " -you waive your right to leave. National security, espionage, treason, and communism sympathies. Already written for you and your wife." A finger tap on the paper. "Top Secret classification, Big Empty."       Jack began a cold sweat. "And if I refuse?"       The suit took a lighter out. "All documents in this room are burned. You will be injected with anesthesia, memory probed, drugged, and accused of petty crimes; which will be dropped if innocent, although you won't remember. You will go back to New York, and live a life of tranquility. To assure your compliance, I must inform you that the charges I mentioned before are only dropped upon confirmation of your memory loss. I'll give you 5 minutes." The suit took out a stop watch, winding and setting time. It began its clicking as he set in on the table.       Jack was planning on signing immediately, but this presentation broke him -- if that was its purpose. He placed his elbows on the table to carry his chin in thought as the stopwatch tickety-tacked unabated. Ugh. "I'll sign." The suit pushed over the simple paper, reading something to the effect of 'you acknowledge and become as of this day of signing an asset critical to the functions of the United States for until deemed free by impartiality of this writ.' Oddly simple, but it gave the suits unlimited power over him. He signed. With a determined press of the pen back down against the table, Jack pushed the paper back.       "Very good, Doctor. One last trip before you can rest. I have to my understanding your effects will be returned sometime tomorrow. Have a good day." The suit gathered everything on the table and put them in a briefcase before leaving the room. As Jack let out a sigh, other suits came in to escort him outside and to a GP, general purpose vehicle. Strapping in, they rode out of the base into the desert further to the north-northwest, if his internal compass was working. These guys didn't speak much either, but at this point, Jack was so tired he didn't care to.       They must have gone 5-10 miles before disembarking by a nondescript mining shaft, long since abandoned from the warped and gnarled wood beams demarcating the entrance tunnel. With a grunt, Jack swiveled off the high ride vehicle, ass sore from the stiff leaf suspension and jerking hitches of standard transmission over the terrain. Bow legged, he staggered after the suits into the cool mine tunnel. Stopping by the cart rails, Jack watched one of the suits stoop down to pick up dynamite wire and press it into an analog control console -- entering a confirmation sequence before unplugging and standing in the quiet tunnel. The affair took so long that Jack almost joked if the thing was broken or what, but the combination of prudishness of them and tiredness of himself saved his rib.       He leaned against the wall in exhaustion as they waited, when finally squeaking along the cart joints denoted something arriving. He opened his eyes to stare into the dark tunnel, and eventually a wiry man in a cart arrived in slow fashion, dressed in rubber scrubs with the most ridiculous goggles about his face. On his left breast was a name tag, reading - Jones Logistics 2. The man looked the three over before grinning. "You're the new guy, huh? Jones, Logistics 2. Nice ta meet ya." He stuck a hand out.       Jack looked down at the hand and back up to the mole goggles. The suits had already begun leaving when he looked back to the mine entrance. Ah, only enough room for one. He shook the proffered hand and was pulled inside the cart. Jones flipped a switch and the pair began lurching back down the tunnel. "Edwards. Uh, new hire."       "Tired, makes sense. Hold on." The man stuck a hand in the scrubs, looking for something before pulling up a white pill. "Here, pick-me-up." Jack looked at the hand holding the pill. Then to the mole goggles and grin. Then back again. What the hell? Just pills in his pocket?       Jack took the pill and rolled it in his hands. "What is it?" An uneven joint threw him into the side of the cart, getting his suit covered in rust. Great.       "B vitamin complex and caffeine stimulants. Citrus flavor. Gonna be your favorite in time, I bet." He elaborated when Jack looked back at him. "It's normal in the Big MT to work as you want and crash harder later. So, a lot of the boys and girls in Culinary knocked heads developing pills with increasingly exotic flavors. Some swear by spice and zing, like wasabi to kick it off -- others like muted flavors to gently push off. Like citrus." Jones gestured to the pill. "But, there's all sorts of flavors. Swing by Culinary when you have time. In the Tank. And don't worry about it, it'll make sense before you know it . . . " ~After orientation and assignment~ ~En route by motor cart~ ~Y-5 Immunological Responses Research~ ~Jack Edwards, Scientist 1 - Biological Applications~ Jack crashed in minutes, being assigned a room within the geodesic dome of the Think Tank -- carved directly inside the mountain pass of Big Mountain. Apparently well over 14 hours passed, give or take. The scientists of Big MT didn't care for particulars here, as long as you put in time, effort, and worked for the goal of science -- schedules were a thing for standards, as people outside were called. He rolled out of bed, showering, putting on his slack wear and white coat, and taking the citrus pill in hand. Well, shit. He downed it with a glass of water, shaking his head and leaving his private room. Ooh, citrus left a nice aftertaste . . .       He stood under a route stop nook-in-the-wall for the Logistics crew to caddie by. Various other scientists in the midst of crashes or starting the cycle anew waited with him. Every single one a genius, and every single one with some shade of eye bag. It was a short wait for a caddie to stop and pick them on and off again down the rock tunnels to their respective labs and stations.       Jack was dropped off by a door, matching the alphanumeric of his minted name tag. He stepped through the door into an air conditioned corridor. Observation glass on either side, both airlock and decontamination for the laboratory. A tired man looked languidly up before speaking. "Oh, new guy? Okay. I'm sure you understand what to do, but I advise taking deep breaths and keeping your eyes shut." There were no holes or speakers for viruses to escape through, so the voice was heavily dulled by the glass.       Nodding, Jack stood in the center of the room, closing his eyes and breathing in. After a moment, the room began to fill with a sweet smelling gas before nozzles in the ceiling sprayed compounds in the hallway. His clothes soaked through with the warm liquid. Then, hot air filled the room, stinging his nose in acridity. What? Ah, straight sublimation. Fascinating. He could feel over his body the clothes rapidly drying and before long, he felt anew.       "Good to go. Welcome in, Edwards. To Y-5."       He opened his eyes to see the door ahead unseal and swing open. Stepping into the main lab, he could see centrifuges, beakers, vials, chalkboards, stations, and people all about. Some were crashed in corners, others lay on benches in front of unfinished work. Many bustled about. Finally. He walked into the room, looking for an area that caught his attention.       From glances at boards and papers he could see, there were vaccine researchers, hypothetical analysts, genetic modification theorems, and . . . taking a clutter of paper in hand, he skimmed through. Oh! Immuno-suppression research! The holy grail of super serums. Just casually laying right by the entrance! He flipped through the pages. My God, what radical theories on tackling it! The greatest hurdle to genetic modification. The human immune system.       Chiefly, the human immune system, I.S. for short, is one of the most well tuned systems of biology in existence. Super soldier theory has been long debated in some form since the Second War, but the main problem is simple: the immune response to being injected with radical mutagens invariably leads to death or invalidity.       There are a couple of avenues to tackle this, with problems in each.       One, immunity suppression. The problem with this route is twofold. Cancers and viruses. It is technically the case that we all have cancer in a semantic sense, being that mutagenic cells crop up all the time in mitosis. The innate immune system catches this for decades in most people. Cells also self-regulate committing apoptosis, and other myriad systems check every step of the way. Two, viruses. We all have dormant viruses in the blood and bacteria in the gut.       So, if we just switch off the I.S. in test subjects -- Jesus Christ, was human testing really that jaded here? -- they tend to succumb to rapid cancers, viral overload, or bacterial infections within a week or so. Sepsis.       Two, newborns. Natural born babies unfortunately come with antibodies from the placenta, we've already tried . . . Jack put the papers down, suddenly taken with the desire to vomit. He knew Big MT had a mystique for being unrestrained, but, still . . .       Taking a deep breath and hating having taken stimulant pills -- his mind racing with unnecessary thoughts -- he flipped to the end of the papers, skimming for the general ideas. Just the theory, please . . .       Depending on the pace of breakthroughs, we have two viable paths forward. One, we find a method of systemic regulation that completely shuts down the I.S. while maintaining genetic stability in vivo. Two, we grow human embryos in vitro. The latter path is assured to work given control systems, but will take at least 10 years, preferably 15 to wait until physical maturation. The process is already underway -- Fuckin' A -- but we hope to achieve in vivo stabilization far faster than that.       And overshadowing all is a third implicit problem: time. The human body takes decades to regenerate cells, with chiefly the cardiac and neural cells being the most long lived. While mutational epochs can in-theory be undertaken in a single subject if timed to coincide with regenerative cycles; the main inhibitors to this are cardiomyopathy, vascular diseases, neural diseases, and subsequent maladies. In short, heart attacks and seizures.       Jack put down the papers. Of course, most of that is already understood in academia, it's the actual undertakings here that differ. He shook his head of the thought. Focus on the good. He walked up to a nearby overseer, judging by the fact she was standing around with a clipboard and directing orders rather than research.       "Excuse me. Edwards, new assignee. Can you point me to Immuno-Suppression?"       She gave a small laugh, just faint. "Crazed. Alright. Go ahead if you want." She pointed to a hallway off the main room. "Down 5 doors, on the right."       "Thanks." He smiled and turned away, heading to the designated room. Inside was a smaller room and decontamination corridor visible on the left. Some scientists looked up, but went back to work after noting his features. Perfect. Jack began noting where current research was at, sitting down to thumb through notes and theorems, placing them carefully back where he found them.       It was time to do what he came here to do. ~Iterations later~ ~And months, too~ Jack held up his latest batch of suppressant-inhibitor. He had looked into various methods of Immunology and concurred and disputed with his fellows in the lab. His eyes now had nice, soft bags and he was running about 3 stimulant tablets deep on this bend. He quite liked citrus. Its soft flavor muted the rush that came in about 15 minutes after ingestion, making for a pleasant ride at least for a couple days. He was tired, but just one more try before crashing.       Getting up from the bench, he suited up to enter the live suite, vials suspended in vacuum storage. One decontamination cycle later and he was in Live Testing. "Alright. Let's light this candle." He walked over to the current test subject, 311a, and undid the hermetic seal of his latest batch. "Subject elevated heart rate, blood pressure. Recalculating dose to compensate." Anesthetics diluted the blood. All testing was done battlefield-style. Id est, no painkillers. "Dose 311a, mark." The man struggled against his restraints, shouting and threatening, which made finding a suitable injection site a bit of a hassle, sure. Jack found a good mainline and pumped him.       The man screamed out within seconds, veins darkening. "Inflammation at injection site noted, heart rate reaching cardiac thresholds. Blood pressure causing . . . " Fuck, and there it went. The man's arteries blew up, judging from the gushes of blood from mouth and rapid drop of blood pressure. His forearm vessels visibly collapsed, spurting blood out from the injection site. "And flatline. Subject expired in . . . 2 minutes, 43 seconds. New record. Gathering samples." He took biopsy cuts, walking over to the Live Suite lab. Where is a pattern showing itself now?       And on and on he tested. "Dose 312, mark . . . flatline. Gathering samples."       "Dose 328, mark . . . "       "Dose 335, mark. Flatline. 3 minutes, 22 seconds. New record. Gathering samples."       "Dose 401, mark. Flatline. Gathering samples."       How many months passed? How many bodies had he laid down in this room? How long before an . . . epiphany! He ran the simulations back again. The latest subject exhibited a mutation in sequence D13Bmt401! A mitotic split! Failure of the cell to undergo cytokinesis due to entanglement, but progress! He gathered as much data about the event as he could, before leaving the Live Suite. Fuckin' bastards! Choke on this!       It caused a bit of a storm in Immuno-Suppression to see the latest results. Jack was promoted to Scientist 2 and given wider reign on his laboratory access amid adulation.       He was in Live Suite on Dose 417 when the call came. Summoned to the Nucleus before the Board of Directors. Oh shit. Due to fear in the beginning of the trek, and increasing fervency as the words sunk in, Jack forgot most of the conversation. The main takeaway? He was scouted by another private company! West-Tek. He was interviewed by the Board for viability and mental stability before being cleared for extraterritorial assignment. His new title?       West-Tek Liason Officer - Extrajudicial Biologics Applications. He would be the egg head of egg heads in their NBC -- nuclear, biological, chemical -- division. Answerable only to military staff of appropriate classification and the Board.       Jack packed away his latest samples in sealed, vacuum-hermetic cases, and began turning the next chapter of human history.       He didn't even flinch at the thought of more human trials.