Regression - Rise of Mythos Read online



  SPECIAL AGENT EDMUNDS IS ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN HUMANITY AND A CHICKEN APOCALYPSE

  REGRESSION

  RISE OF MYTHOS

  Johnwalkson Stratikatter is:

  STEPHEN JOHNSON

  GRAEME WALKER

  COSTA STRATIKOPOULOS

  JERRY HATTER

  Copyright 2013 Johnson Walker

  For Mythos – Long may he rein!

  ****

  Prologue

  THROUGHOUT HUMAN HISTORY advances in technology have helped overcome many medical adversities. From the discovery of penicillin to the mapping of the human genome, man’s thirst for knowledge has driven progress. In the year 2017 this fundamental concept has not changed and the science itself has accelerated, moving into unknown territory.

  A plunge into the unfamiliar has widened the moral rift between the likes of the World Health Organisation and the faceless corporations that control the intellectual property. The privatization of medical research has seen unparalleled progress, but it has come at the expense of the necessary controls and measures to guarantee a safe society – all in order to provide the best return for the shareholders.

  This risky approach has produced unprecedented findings and with the rivalry between companies reaching an all-time high, drastic measures have been taken – but at what cost…?

  One

  Final Battlefield – 05:05

  THE BOOMING WHIP of the rotor tips on the Sikorsky Black Hawk was drowned out by the armada of military craft traversing the moonlit sky. The wash blasted chilled air inside the dimly lit cockpit and Special Agent Edmunds watched as Herschel performed a final field check on his Barrett M82 sniper rifle.

  All across the globe, previously conflicting military powers had made a truce and joined forces to fight together against a common enemy. Previously unfathomable allies – the United States, Iran, Israel, Palestine, North Korea – all stood side by side not through choice, but rather necessity, as a means of survival.

  From the open door, Edmunds looked at the troops in formation below. “What’s the perimeter for?” Edmunds asked, looking at the soldiers holding a line back from where he normally expected to see the forces arranged.

  “Some form of invisible EMF, nothing electrical goes inside. We’re dropping you here, to be sure we don’t breach.”

  “Understood” Edmunds replied. He would discuss this in more detail with General Adams the first chance he got.

  As the helicopter lowered toward the LZ point, a cloud of dust was thrown up, the soldiers inside unsure of what the day had in store for them. The craft gently settled onto the skids and the team quickly disembarked from the Black Hawk, while its turbine spooled for takeoff to collect the next wave of troops.

  “If what they say is true, this will be like an old fashioned turkey shoot!” Herschel shouted over the noise. Alighting from the craft, they then bent down and worked their way to the rendezvous point. Moments later, the gust of air caused by the craft ascending reminded them they were in this for good now.

  Edmunds directed his team toward General Adams for an update on the situation before continuing on. Herschel took the lead with the snipers whilst Edmunds stayed with the General to discuss strategy. It suddenly all felt real.

  “General, is there an update on the numbers and specifics of the enemy?”

  “Scouts report they are approximately ten-thousand strong and that’s all we can see. They are over nine feet high. Drones can’t pick up infrared; the shield is blocking that. That’s the best we’ve got. Our only play is to hit them hard!”

  A loud, distant screech flooded the valley. The sound resonated through Edmunds, forcing him to clutch his ears and fall to one knee. Propping himself up with his hand on the ground, he felt the earth vibrate under his palm. Curious of the source of energy, he tilted his head up to better his line of sight.

  Overrun by adrenaline, Edmunds’ mind momentarily faded into the background. The physical world seemed to slow to a stop as time lost meaning. Was he overwhelmed by the thousands of soldiers lined up as if they were re-enacting the civil war? Was he frightened of the enemy and the potential outcome? Was it simply the extreme oddity of the entire situation? But Edmunds knew that was all irrelevant. He turned and looked over his shoulder and saw that Herschel and the snipers had let fire, creating a strobe of muzzle flashes. Tracer rounds cascaded across the sky and flares arched upwards before igniting brightly with a fluorescent red light, illuminating the otherwise black field of view.

  “Here they come!” Herschel yelled, “Don’t be picky, highest count gets a week’s R&R.”

  ****

  Five Years Earlier - Cafe Firenze - Sheikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Building, Abu Dhabi,

  United Arab Emirates – 01:24

  The screen on Edmunds’ iPhone lit up, snapping him out of the stare that he had intently held for the last fifteen minutes. It seemed like he had been sitting there for an eternity, watching the two men sipping coffee and smoking a shisha pipe in the coffee shop across Hamdan Street.

  To Edmunds, Abu Dhabi appeared to be chaotic at night. The myriad of lights and flashing signs, hundreds of people out, sitting around on traffic islands and grass verges chatting and playing cards. He understood their rationale, as this time of the evening was much more pleasant. With the setting of the hot Middle Eastern sun, the temperature slowly dropped to a bearable level.

  Suddenly, Edmunds noticed a third man dressed in a white Kandora step out of a black Mercedes Benz and approach the table. He embraced them in turn and pulled out a chair to sit down.

  Mobile surveillance had been underway for several days with both Edmunds and his partner sharing the workload with another operative on loan from the Abu Dhabi Police. He been working for over ten hours straight and was ready to swap out for the evening.

  Rubbing his eyes, he reached down with one hand and answered the call “Yeah, Edmunds.”

  “Are you ready to change?" Monaghan asked. "I’m not far away, just coming along Najda Street. You should see me shortly; I’m in a dark gray Jeep Cherokee.”

  All of a sudden, Edmunds sat up in his seat. “Hey, quiet! They’re finally talking, get here now. I’m recording – hurry!”

  From that distance, it was difficult at times to see the men through the haze. Edmunds wiped the sweat from his brow and focused the recording device on the men, carefully working the digital controls to enhance the signal.

  Through the static, he could barely pick up their conversation. “If it’s not done by tomorrow, we will not be able to meet our buyer,” the first man said, leaning over the table and talking quietly. The man spoke in a strange European accent that Edmunds couldn’t pick.

  “Relax,” said the second man, definitely Middle Eastern, “it’s under control. By tomorrow morning the packet will have been delivered and the money transferred into the account. Insha’Allah”

  ****

  Biological Research Animal Welfare Initiative Unit – Hammersmith, London,

  United Kingdom – 04:15

  The elevator shuddered as it passed the fourth floor and Mendel twitched, leaning back and closing his eyes; he took a deep breath. He hated the fact that the company would not maintain the elevator properly. What frustrated him even more was his own underlying fear of cramped spaces; it started years ago and he had never fully overcome it. The thought of not being in control and for allowing this weakness frustrated him. He was stronger than that.

  Already feeling nervous, the bell made him jump when he reached the fifth floor. His heart was pounding and as the lift doors opened he cautiously looked around the corner, into the reception area. He knew he had to get into the lab and retrieve
the samples before the research team started to arrive in just under an hour’s time.

  With the lights off and working from memory, Mendel made his way down the long corridor. The laboratory was located within a series of old terraced buildings that were partially damaged during the Second World War and had been rebuilt into an office complex in the 1960s. His company, Aviary Biogenetics, had recently leased and modified the building with significant upgrades to house a laboratory. The primary purpose of the lab was to test specifically engineered genetic modifications to animals, in particular monkeys and chickens. As far as test subjects went, they were readily available and not on any endangered lists.

  Coming to the end of the hallway he reached the biosafety level four laboratory, “It’s now or never,” he whispered to himself.

  Removing the proximity access identification card from his pocket, he extended it outwards on a retractable trace wire up to the illuminated control panel and pressed it firmly. A few seconds later, the panel glowed green. Breathing a sigh of relief, Mendel proceeded to key the access code into the digital touch screen and pressed his right hand against the biometric scanner. As the door released, he moved into the decontamination airlock and sat on the stainless steel bench in the centre of the room. He felt the cool air rush past his face, ruffling his hair as the room began to pressurize.

  The door finally released and the air hissed as it rushed out. He moved with purpose toward the large bank of stainless steel freezers that lined one wall of the room. Checking through the illuminated glass doors he worked along the wall until he found the compartment he was looking for.

  Removing breathing apparatus and gloves from his bag, he put them on and picked up a cryogenic flask from the adjacent table. He then proceeded to open the door of the freezer and retrieve two vials, carefully placing them into the sleeves in the flask.

  Screwing the lid on slowly, he paused and then depressed the digital release on the side of the flask. With a quiet hiss, refrigerant flowed around the samples, maintaining their temperature at a stable level. Mendel looked down at the inbuilt timer and noticed that he had less than twenty-four hours to get the samples to the buyer. Removing his gloves, he set a timer on his watch to synchronize with the flask, so he could monitor the safe handling duration.

  Mendel was very familiar with the research that was currently underway in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard University. The team at the Museum of Comparative Zoology was conducting studies on a sixty-eight-million year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex protein. The preliminary results indicated that dinosaurs may share common ancestry links with birds and, in particular, chickens. He wasn’t sure why this really interested him other than he seemed to spend his entire life around the damn things.

  This didn’t specifically relate to his personal research, which involved removing small portions of neural tissue and replacing them with genetically modified stem cells, where he would later examine the embryos for any behavioral changes. The study was promising and in the early phases, three of the spinal embryos, which were artificially hatched, displayed alpha properties within the clutch almost immediately.

  Mendel had long suspected that birds were dinosaurs’ closest living relatives. For years, that hypothesis had rested largely on similarities between bird and dinosaur skeletons. These new results coming out of Cambridge were promising and were strengthening what researchers had suggested for a long time. Looking at entire fossils from these animals, it appeared that dinosaurs shared more of their genetic makeup with birds than with other modern-day vertebrates.

  Working his way back to the door, he checked his watch; he had been in the building for nearly three quarters of an hour. “Unbelievable,” he whispered to himself.

  At that moment, he heard a door open and a man started approaching quietly down the corridor. He wondered who it could be, and considered trying to confront him head on, but concluded the risk of losing the samples was too great.

  Mendel moved toward the exterior wall, but was soon spotted by the visitor.

  “Stop!” the unknown man shouted.

  Mendel ran in the opposite direction, crashing through the fire escape at the end of the passage. The alarm activated the emergency lights and a loud siren screeched, echoing throughout the building.

  The visitor spotted Mendel and chased after him, heading toward the stairs.

  Launching down entire flights, with his feet barely touching the treads, Mendel’s heart was pounding and legs burning as the lactic acid flooded his muscles. He desperately tried to get away from the visitor. Finally, he reached the bottom and jumped into the left side back seat of the waiting car in the rear alley to the building. With an initial screech of the tyres, the car then sped away, before turning the corner at the end of the alley, pulling out into the London traffic.

  “Damn it! I lost him,” the operative said; “I lost him.”

  Two

  Hammersmith Bridge, London,

  United Kingdom – 05:00

  LOOKING IN THE rear vision mirror to be sure they were not being followed, the nervous brunette driving the car asked, ”Did you get what you were looking for?”

  “Yes,” replied Mendel, “but someone was there, they almost caught me.”

  “What!” she squealed in a high-pitched voice, causing Mendel to immediately turn and look straight at her. “You were supposed to retrieve the vials undetected, that was the deal!”

  “I lost track of time; someone arrived early.” Mendel calmly replied. On closer inspection, he noticed that her head was slightly cocked to the left with an accompanying icy stare in her eyes.

  “No matter,” Mendel continued, “I’m confident they didn’t see me.”

  In the five years he had known Lyssa, it was one idiosyncrasy that he simply could not get comfortable with. Any time she was on edge, a nervous twitch would cause her head to tilt to the right, followed by her chin’s urge to shift her head upwards and stare at you with her near eye.

  What concerned Mendel even more was that when bright sunlight struck her pupils, they would shrink to an infinitely small dot. It unnerved him as he had noticed a similar pattern with his test chickens in the laboratory when they were placed under a lamp.

  “Let’s hope so,” she said, “for both our sakes.”

  Mendel met Lyssa during his second year of his PhD at Harvard. A bright law student, she was fascinated by Mendel’s interest in stem cells. In fact, she was one of his closest friends during his acclaimed CCS1867 discovery and had assisted him with the necessary patents and copyrights.

  It wasn’t until after the spotlight had faded away from Mendel that they became lovers. As each year passed, her keen interest in his study grew and she would spend more and more time in his lab, listening and watching, constantly intrigued by his passion and the progress in his work. At times, during long periods of observation, she would even take over from him while he got some sleep.

  She developed a love for the behavioral study of chickens, which Mendel found fascinating. This became evident one night when he noticed she possessed an amazing ability to connect with the chickens almost telepathically and watched intently as they appeared to pay her the respect similar to that of a dominant rooster controlling the pen.

  Turning away, Mendel got lost in his thoughts and an hour later, they were travelling through the winding countryside to a safer place.

  ****

  Safe House – Undisclosed Manor, Kent,

  United Kingdom – 06:07

  Arriving at the safe house, Lyssa dropped her bag on the counter and proceeded to the shower to freshen up.

  Ten minutes later, as she turned off the taps and the water slowed to a trickle, Lyssa delicately twisted the water out of her long brown wavy hair darkened with moisture. She reached around the shower curtain, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her slender body. Walking out of the bathroom she noticed Mendel sitting on the edge of his luxurious bed, head buried in his hands and using the she
ets to cover his naked lower torso.

  Approaching him, she instinctively knew what to do. She pushed his hands away, gently pressing the side of his face against the now moist, warm towel hugging her stomach. “It’s the right thing to do, you know,” she said, with a soothing tone, “In the wrong hands, those vials would be disastrous to the human race.”

  “I know,” he replied, “I have spent the greater part of my life researching this and we are so close Lyssa, I can feel it; we are so–”

  Before he could finish, she calmly interrupted. “How long before the vials become unstable?”

  Looking down at his watch, Mendel checked the timer. “About twenty-two hours,” he replied.

  “Well then,” Lyssa insisted pulling the bed sheets away from Mendel, “Whilst we have a few minutes–”, she then stepped back, letting the towel fall to the floor, revealing her naked body.

  Seeing the morning light cascade through the blinds and across her perfect body brought a sense of calm across Mendel. It took him back to when they had first started seeing each other. Back then, things seemed to make more sense.

  He advanced toward her, pausing only for a moment before picking her up. She responded in kind by wrapping her legs around his waist while he carried her backwards, until she was pinned against the wall. He leaned forward until their lips were almost touching.

  With their eyes locked and breathing perfectly synchronized, Mendel pressed forward to kiss Lyssa. Gentle at first, the intensity mounted until they found themselves lost in the rhythm.