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Shades Of Gray #1

  Noir, City Shrouded By Darkness

  Kristie Lynn Higgins

  SHADES OF GRAY: Noir, City Shrouded By Darkness

  Text Copyright © 2006, 2016 by Kristie Lynn Higgins

  Cover Art Copyright © 2012

  Beta-B Phase Ebook

  2012 Cover Edition

  www.KristieLynnHiggins.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Rise above the expectations of others.

  Soar on wings of dragons.

  AabiLynn's Dragon Rite #0

  Click below to Try It Out

  www.kristielynnhiggins.com/DR0.html

  Marked since birth

  Shy must find her way in a

  world of dragons and sorcery.

  Shunned: Dragon's Cord #1

  Click here to TRY It Out

  www.kristielynnhiggins.com/Shunned1.html

  Beauty and the Beast with a delightful twist.

  What if the woman was the one turned?

  Beauty of the Beast #1

  Click below to Try It Out

  www.kristielynnhiggins.com/BOTB1PartA.html

  The Fairy Tales You Know With A Wicked Twist.

  The Beast in Beauty and the Beast

  was never cursed in this way.

  Click below to Try It Out

  www.kristielynnhiggins.com/AaBack1.html

  What would you sacrifice to save your friends?

  Can loyalty and love defeat darkness?

  Ayann- A Fantasy Action Adventure

  Click below to Try It Out

  www.kristielynnhiggins.com/Ayann-1-PartA.html

  Introductions

  This series uses a mixture of omniscient past tense and first person present tense to tell the story of Shades of Gray. I have used bold to separate the first person from the omniscient. Enjoy the series.

  If multiple Earths exist, what would their worlds look like? What kind of people would they be? Societies? Religions?

  Would they make the same mistakes as us?

  Translated from the Assembled Works

  Ginn L. Irynkissgthie 525 B.D.C. (Before Dry Clouds)

  Prologue

  On a parallel Earth, thick puffy barriercumulus also known as Dry Clouds covered the sky, and they prevented the glimmer of twilight from shining on the city of Noir. For three decades, the polluted high-troposphere looming clouds covered half the planet and left part of the world to live in endless night. The mile-thick clouds yielded petroleum based contaminated water dubbed Tainted Rain and polluted the air, and so they were named Dry Clouds for leaving half the planet without drinkable water. At first, scientists believed pollution caused the great cloud barrier, but that theory proved to be false. What caused the Dry Clouds to form baffled scientists and how to reverse them eluded reason, and only technology's constant battle with nature has kept the dark city alive.

  Man's need for conquest expanded Noir to cover more than half a continent of what would have been called North America, and Noir became a Mega-city; it was the only one in the world. Over the last twenty years Transgenics and bio-mechas evolved at a breakneck pace. Transgenics were genetically modified organisms with an extra-genome and were mostly plants produced to survive without the sun. Bio-mechas were robots resembling living things.

  On this world, corporations not governments ruled the people, creating a society where profit set policy and dictated life. Those who resided in Noir were touched by darkness, and the light of goodness seemed a forgotten memory; they... they lived in the gray —Shades of Gray.

  Chapter One

  The Pandora Project

  Isaiah 5:30b

  If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and sorrow, even the light will be darkened by the clouds.

  The year 31 A.D.C. (After Dry Clouds)...

  October 22...

  Thursday...

  4:44 A.M...

  In a secret location known as the Sanctum that housed the main facility of the department known as the Council...

  A few hours ago, unknown forces had breached a few of the Council's other facilities, and the Sanctum had also been breached but from within by a Mole, so everyone was still on high alert. The Chamber was the brains of the Sanctum, and the three members of the Council sat within the Chamber, receiving intel and updates from analysts.

  Fifty flat screen monitors covered three of the walls and lit up the dark inner room of the Chamber as data filled the screens in scrolling masses. Two dozen analysts scrutinized the influx of information coming across the monitors as they typed at their workstations. The men and women toiled, compiling a range of intelligence from several projects and experiments while they also dealt with the breaches.

  "All right people, let's stay focused," a male supervisor shouted.

  The male supervisor walked up and down the line of workstations as the hum of equipment and the chatter of the workers filled the area. The supervisor received updated reports from the analysts and kept his employers, the Council, current on the projects and experiments along with updates to the three breaches. A female supervisor came in to fill in for Supervisor Annette who had been found out to be the Mole. Unknown to the Council, Supervisor Annette had been a Mole within the Sanctum for years, and with the help from some outside force, she had awakened a project known as Pandora, who had been kept at the Sanctum in stasis.

  The male supervisor added, "We need to stay on our toes! We don't know if there are anymore Moles within our ranks or what they might do next!"

  The analysts wore indigo jumpsuits with white stripes on the sides, and the supervisors wore crimson jumpsuits with white stripes. Both the analysts and supervisors wore a wireless earpiece to communicate with operatives in the field and soldiers within their facilities.

  In the center of the Chamber, the Council which consisted of two men and a woman, sat at a long rectangular table. Each of them wore a black business suit and had a laptop in front of them as shadows concealed their eyes, leaving only their mouths and chins visible in the computer-blue illumination. The three scanned reports as they were delivered to them by the supervisors on Hand Held Computers; the standard size for a H.H.C. was two and a half inches by four and a half inches.

  "I want an update on the Pandora Project," Mr. Morta ordered in a deep voice as he sat at the end of the table with the woman to his right and the other man to his left.

  "Pandora is still groggy from its abrupt withdraw from stasis, so it has been escorted to a medical suite and is sleeping," Ms. Nona replied. "The doctor thought it best that the Pandora Project not be fully awaken, but allowed to pull out of the hyper-stasis naturally."

  "There is nothing natural about the Pandora Project," Mr. Decuma spoke up. "I do not see why we cannot induce a full activation."

  "We are not in any hurry," Mr. Morta stated. "We had no plans to wake up Pandora, so we should tell the doctor to allow Pandora to come to on its own."

  Ms. Nona nodded her agreement, and then Mr. Decuma reluctantly did so.

  "Good... Good... I will inform the doctor," Mr. Morta said. "Now to address other matters. I believe we should have a full investigation on how our security was breached. We should..."

  An alarm went off, interrupting him as all three Council members paused and turned to the male supervisor as he rushed over to their table.

  "What has happened?" Mr. Morta inquired.

  The male supervisor rep
lied, "We have a containment breach in another one of our hyper-stasis chambers?"

  "Which one?" Mr. Decuma questioned.

  "The Kraken Project," the male supervisor answered.

  "If I remember..." Ms. Nona started, "Kraken is the creature created to glimpse into the future."

  "It is," Mr. Decuma replied. "It was deemed a failure for Kraken had more of an appetite for carnage than to indulge us with its gifts."

  The male supervisor listened to his ear piece and then reported, "It has escape its room, and it's rampaging on Level 159."

  "Level 159 is the same level Pandora is on. Could this also be a part of the earlier attack on our facilities?" Ms. Nona questioned. "Is someone still trying to take the Pandora Project away from us?"

  The male supervisor replied, "I do not believe so. An experiment was being conducted next door to the Kraken Project's stasis room, and the experiment went out of control and exploded. The explosion knocked out the hyper-stasis chamber's power source along with its back up, and Kraken awoke, and so far, the creature has killed three of our soldiers."

  Mr. Decuma spoke up, "I cannot believe that this is a mere coincidence, but..."

  "But what?" Ms. Nona inquired.

  "Why not use the Kraken Project to test Pandora?"

  "We cannot control Kraken, and it is the reason it was placed in stasis," Mr. Morta stated, and then he inquired, "How do you propose that we use it to test Pandora?"

  "Just evacuate all the workers on Level 159, and Kraken will do the rest for us," Mr. Decuma replied.

  Ms. Nona nodded and then Mr. Morta.

  "I will set up the test now," Mr. Decuma stated. "I will also make sure that our soldiers keep Pandora and Kraken on Level 159."

  * * *

  Level 159...

  Some time earlier...

  The Pandora Project's view...

  Someone's calling my name from the darkness... Someone desperately needs my help... I have to save them, so I slip from sleep into the waking world, and the first thing I notice is that I'm cold. I shiver, and then I hear the voice of a man.

  "I'm with her now," he says. "I'll call you later when I know more."

  I open my eyes to what looks like a hospital room. The sight doesn't alarm me as if it's the norm, but there's someone who's looking down at me that I don't recognize. He... My mind's a little fuzzy... He must be a doctor, and he looks very worried.

  "Drink this," he says. "It's water."

  I take the bottled water and thirstily drink it down.

  "We need to go," he tells me. "Can you move?"

  I don't say anything to him as I try to sit up, and I find that I can't do it on my own, so he moves to my side and assists me to a sitting position. I look around the room and realize I don't know how I got here, but I'm still not upset that I'm in a hospital room as if this place is home. I try to think back beyond the moment I heard someone calling my name. I don't remember anything beyond that moment. It's all fuzzy, then panic sweeps over me like water filling a sinking ship that I'm trapped within, and I grip his wrist tightly.

  "How did I get here and where is here?" I ask him, then pull on his arm, so that he'll lean in closer, and then I tell him, "I don't remember my name."

  My name had been so clear when I was sleeping. I knew it when the person called it out, but now... it's as if I never had a name, and that thought is what sends me into panic mode, no, sends me into nuclear-panic mode.

  "I would like to answer you in more detail than just to say that it's a side effect of the hyper-stasis chamber, but we need to go and go now. Please try to stand."

  The urgency of his voice spurs me to action as I take both his hands and stand wobbly to my feet, leaving behind my questions. I see that I'm wearing some sort of hospital gown a second before my knees buckle underneath me. He catches me before I crumble to the ground, then he helps me over to a computer chair, and I sit. He hurries over to the door, peers out the window as if he expects someone to come barging in, and then he quickly returns to my side.

  "I'm going to inject you with something that should help with the hyper-stasis lag," he tells me as he removes a syringe from his white lab coat pocket. "I didn't inject you right away because there is a side effect to the injection. It's going to make you sick, but the effects should only last for a few minutes." He readies the syringe as he tells me, "You should regain full use of your body again."

  He doesn't give me a chance to tell him if I want the injection or not, and he just sticks the needle in my arm. I don't feel any different, but gunfire some distance away from us pulls my attention and his to the door.

  "We have to go," he tells me with more urgency than before.

  I get to my feet with his help, and we head for the exit. He opens the door, peers outside, and then ushers me into a vacant hallway. He helps me along as we hurriedly walk in a direction he seems to be leading us in. We hear gun fire again coming from behind us, then we hear this inhuman angry scream as something seems to be attacking the people with the guns.

  "A creature has gotten out," he tells me. "We need to run."

  I do my best to start running. I have more feeling in my legs, but the side effect he mentioned earlier comes roaring from my stomach. I push myself away from him and lean against the wall as I upchuck the water all over the floor. I continue vomiting as he rushes over to me.

  "I know your sick, but we can't stop. We've got to keep moving. We can't be caught, but we also don't want to run into whatever is coming. We need to move."

  I nod and rush after him as he takes me by the hand. He leads me through several hallways, and then he ups and stops before we round another corner. I glance around the corner and see about twenty armed men and a few women at the other end set up behind a barrier. The man pulls me back around the corner and out of sight of the soldiers.

  "They're blocking our way of escape," he tells me, and then he peers around the corner. "But they don't seem to be coming after us. Maybe they're here not to capture us, but..."

  The inhuman scream we heard before sounds through the hallway again and sends shivers throughout my body.

  He tells me, "We need to keep moving. We have one other escape route. Let's hurry before the thing beats us to it."

  He takes a firm hold of my wrist, and we run forward, fleeing away from the soldiers and the creature that seems to be pursuing us.

  "I don't know your name," I say, and then I ask, "Who are you and why are you helping me?"

  "You can call me Xavier," he replies. "R.G. sent me to assist in your escape."

  Before I have a chance to ask who R.G. is, the creature screams again. It sounds like it's only a few hallways back.

  Xavier says, "We need to run faster... It's gaining on us."

  We continue running, and then he drags me into a room with only one way in. He shuts and locks the door.

  "Why did we come in here?"

  He answers, "There's a small elevator that takes medical waste up to a furnace. There's room enough for you to go up. I just need to clear everything out of it."

  He unlocks the door to the small elevator by lifting up on a bar, and then he goes to work removing bags of waste from it as all I can do is stand back and watch while I try not to throw up. Bits and pieces of my memory slowly come back, and I remember someone was taking care of me. Her name... Her name was... I can't seem to remember her name or her face, but I believe this person is very important to me, and when I think of her, I get a sense of warmth that wraps around me and makes me feel safe like a child in her mother's arms. I relax a little in this loving blanket, but then this other sensation of fear and horror moves in like a closet monster that has just crawled under my bed. The monster makes me want to flee from the memory, but the motherly arms blanketing me want me to remain in the memory, so that I'll recall all. Something happened before the hyper-stasis chamber... something I'm afraid to remember. The monster yearns to surface and make it
mine once again, but I fight the recollection... I war with myself to keep this buried moment in my life a secret. I begin to lose this battle, and the memory starts to become mine again, sending a fright so deep and terrifying through my soul, I feel like I'm suffocating, but then the memory of the woman whose name I can't remember, places her hand on my psyche's shoulder, and I turn my attention from the monster to her. The monster is scary, but the woman will be there and help me through the...

  "I'm almost done," Xavier tells me, interrupting my thoughts. "Come over here and climb in."

  "What about you?"

  "There's only room for you," he tells me. "Now listen carefully, and I'll tell you what to do once you reach the furnace room."

  The creature screams again, and it's right outside the door. It tries the knob, but it's locked, so the creature starts pounding on the door to break it down. My whole being lights up with fear.

  "I can't leave you here," I tell Xavier. "That thing will kill you."

  "You are who is important here," he tells me. "R.G. has a plan for you."

  I insist, "Either we both go or we don't go at all!"

  The creature outside continues to beat at the door, and then it bust through and rushes in. I freeze as I stare at a monster right out of a horror movie. It stands about seven feet tall with reptile-like features and covered in green scales.

  The creature pauses and looks right at me as it says, "Look at you... look how you've changed."

  Is this the monster that crept from the closet and is hiding under my bed, waiting to devour me?

  "Do I know you?" I manage to ask it.

  "I'm Kraken," it... she says. "And you should remember me. I've killed you nearly a dozen times." Kraken looks me over, and then she says, "You don't have a weapon this time. I believe I'll have no problem disposing of you."

  Fear sweeps over me, but this time it's not for myself, but the man who's standing behind me. I turn and shove Xavier into the small elevator, then shut the door, lock the bar back in place, then hit the button, sending the elevator up.

  "Getting rid of the normal, good idea," Kraken tells me. "I have killed quite a few of them already."

  I turn back to her, and as if I've done this dozens of dozens of times before, I ask, "Why do you want to kill me?"