Dead Ends, and Loose Cannons

Posted on Mon 18th Jan, 2021 @ 5:31pm by

396 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Denouement
Location: Oblivion, decommissioned Klingon D4 cruiser
Timeline: MD3, 14:00

Adrian Dobbs sighed and finished his final report on project Purple Helium. He'd had Victoria Briggs terminated and the remains recycled weeks ago, but Doctor Aynohaex had dragged her -- entirely metaphorical -- feet on getting the results written up. This marked the second major failure on a project Dobbs had designed and overseen, and he feared his backers would soon run out of patience, and with the patience, his funding would dry up.

Perhaps, the former Admiral thought, failure was too strong a term. After all, the basic concept had worked. They had been able to separate the consciousness of the test subject, to translocate it to the subject. He sighed and rubbed his face, reviewing the report, trying to decide if he could spin the results any more positively. He decided it would do, and hit send.

Dobbs rose from behind his desk and left the room. Project Alto Partisan was moving slowly; too slowly. Part of his mind regretted having killed Doctor Addams -- the man had been a genius with genetics. If only he'd refrained from that attack of inconvenient morals. You had to keep your eye on the greater good, not get bogged down in individual test subjects.

He paused at a pressure door and let his retina be scanned. The doors opened, Dobbs entered. The room was dark, except for the Camino Devida cloning cylinders. The last major expense he could afford, he thought, unless he had success soon, and the backers sent more funds. He stopped at the first cluster of cylinders, the only one where the subjects were reasonably advanced. Five bodies, identical girls, grown around quantum resonators within their brains. Engineering those to be bio-compatible had been... problematic. But apparently functional, now. He clung to that.

In a month, perhaps a month and a half, the bodies would be ready to decant. Four would be taken to the nursery, and one placed in the support cylinder which had once held Victoria Briggs. If things worked the way he hoped, anticipated, there would be one mind, one consciousness, split between the bodies. Loss of a body wouldn't mean losing the experience, the training, of the operative.

He sighed, shook his head, and walked out. So much riding on this. If he failed... he wouldn't have to bother looking over his shoulder; he'd never see the assassin.

 

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