Chapter 3

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Hey all, this is my very first attempt at writing, I hope you all enjoy this story.  I would first like to thank The Radio Rancher for his assistance in editing this story.  I was afraid that he would hurt me when we got working on this because of how obsessive I can be, but he’s been a real sport about it.  I would also like to that Akeentia for hosting this story, http://www.paddedroom.us/   Yes, if you like this story, you can find all the chapters that are posted on the Padded Room. You can also find other excellent stories on this site, such as Str8mybe's Haven, and Fire. Also there are Akeentia's stories, such as Ark. I highly recommend all of the stories on this site, and all the sites linked with the Fort Family of Sites. Finally, I would like to thank all of you for reading this.  If you have any questions, or comments, I would really like to hear from you. Please feel free to email me at roland@paddedroom.us   Again thank you.  Roland

(Authors Notes:  Hey all, thanks for sticking around to keep reading.  I really appreciate all the responses I have gotten so far.  I was truly not expecting the kind words.  I apologize if there is anyone I have not written back to, I had a problem with my Email, and lost everything.  I would ask you to please write back. 
         

Also, I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few people who have helped turn this story around for me.  Radio Rancher has helped make this story readable.  Dark Star has helped flesh it out some, and Tickie has helped a lot with the research of the various weapons and tactics used.  I also need to thank everyone else who has helped take this story in new directions.  You know who you are.  And last but not least, I would like to thank all of you readers.  With out you, there would be no point in writing anything.  Roland)

          I don't remember much on the way home, I was still trying to digest what I found out.  I have a family.  Or at least those that are like I am.  I can't remember much of what I thought about except that I had to save them.  I looked back down at the list.  Joris, Juan, William, Chang.  Something inside me stirred with those names, but I can't put my finger on what it is.  It's almost like I knew them, but I never even knew they existed before. 

          I didn't have much time to think about it, all too soon, we pulled into the driveway of a nice little two story, in a somewhat rural neighborhood.  I took a look around, and was pleased to see that the closest neighbor was a little way down the road.  It looked like we had some privacy, for that, I was thankful.

         Janet pressed a button, and the garage door started to open, and she moved to pull in.  “Who's that?” she asked, as she noticed there was already a vehicle in the garage.  How it fit in there is puzzling.  The garage usually only had Janet's small little car in it.  Sitting in there now was a large four door pick up truck with a long bed.  There was a lot of stuff piled in the back, and it had a tarp over it.  Just as she put the car into gear, and we got out, I heard the front door open and shut.  I turned around slowly; I already knew who it was.  There was only one possible person who could smell like that, here.  There's only one person who would smell like a kid.  I was somewhat worried about how Logan would take to me, seeing as it's basically my fault that he was being ripped from his life like this.  I finally turned completely around, but I was not at all prepared for what I saw.  I had seen Logan's pictures all my life.  I got to see him grow up, and I knew very well, what he looked like.  That still didn't prepare me for the angel that was standing before me.  He had very long, mid back length, sandy blond hair that he wore loose. His face was something that I would think to see on an angel.  But what captivated me the most were his eyes.  They were so blue, and so... alive.  I read somewhere that the eyes were windows to the soul.  Staring at his eyes, I had to believe that if that saying were true, I was looking at someone who was not only beautiful on the outside, but was beautiful on the inside as well.  Thankfully, I was saved from staring at him, by Janet's stepping up and saying.  “Adam, I would like you to meet Logan, my son.  Logan, this is Adam, I told you about him, last night.  I extended my hand, and he took it.  In just that little touch, so much was conveyed; it was like we were able to share everything in that touch.

Logan's Point of View

          I couldn't believe it, I was finally meeting Adam.  Yesterday at this time, I was sure I was going to have another boring week, month, year, what ever.  It's all boring.  Ever since I was in first grade, and they told me that I was a genius, everything has been screwed up.  I mean how many thirteen year olds have actually already graduated high school, and have to worry about where to go to college.  Everyone is always treating me like I'm something special, everyone, except mom that is.  She's always been able to bring me back down, when I start ranting and raving about the stupid idiots at school, thinking I'm some sort of freak because I am smart.  I mean it's not bad enough that I graduate high school at thirteen, but I had to also be the fucking valedictorian.  Now that I'm finally out of high school, I can look towards college.  I finally talked mom into letting me take a few courses on line, so I wouldn't have to worry about actually going somewhere.  I may be a genius, but I'm still thirteen.  I wish people would remember that.

          I was thinking about all this last night, when mom came home.  I knew something was wrong, and she had been crying.  “Mom, what's wrong?”  I asked, as I pushed away from the computer.  “Logan, we need to talk.”  Oh no, I knew it was bad.  The last time she said “we need to talk” was last year when she found out I was gay.  She figured out that I had been to gay porno sites on the Internet.  I thought she was going to kill me when she told me what she found.  I actually just got the “talk.”  God, talk about embarrassing.  Anyways, I got up, and we went into the kitchen and sat at our places at the table.  She sat there for a minute, but finally got up and started to make herself a cup of coffee.  “You want anything while I'm up,” she asked, as she was pouring her coffee.  “Nah, I'm fine.”  I just wanted to figure out what was wrong.  Finally she sat down, took a sip of her drink, then looked up and started.  “Logan, how much do you understand about what I do at my work?”  I got a really confused look on my face.  This is not what I expected.  “Um mm.... not much, I mean, I know you're a geneticist.  But other then that...”  I trailed off, not knowing where she was going with all this.  “Well,” she started, “after your father died, I was offered a job, here in Omaha, that I was told, had the chance of solving a lot of things that are important to me; birth defects and the like.”  I nodded, I knew she was working to try and figure out why people got sick, and what could be done to prevent it.  “Well,” she continued, “when I got here, I found out that I was not told everything.  It seems that they had taken things much farther then I thought they had, and they were actually testing the genetic alterations on people.”  My eyes got wide, as I thought about that.  “Now, I was told that all the subjects were volunteers, and were being paid for this.  I, however, found out about one that wasn't.  He was a six year old little boy, who had been found on the streets of LA.  He was a homeless child whom, it seemed, no one would miss.  By the time I found this out, he had already been through a good deal of genetic resequencing.  I vowed, at that point, that I would try and help him as much as I could, and finally got transferred to his personal team.  That's when I found out the particulars of his being there.”  She paused there, and took another sip of her coffee.  I knew this had to be bad, because she's usually not this timid about things.  Finally she took a deep breath, and continued.  “What I found out disturbed me greatly, but it also made me even more determined to help this boy.   It seems that we were also being funded by the military, to create soldiers.”  I sat back in shock, and she stopped to let that sink in.  My mother was involved in creating genetically altered people.  From what I knew about genetics, that shouldn't be possible, yet.  I started to ask a question, when she held up her hand.  “Let me finish, please. I might actually answer your questions, before you ask them.”  I nodded, and let my mouth shut.  I leaned forward again, and indicated I wanted her to continue.

          “What we created, was, someone who was stronger, faster, tougher, etc.  the perfect weapon.  However, and you may be able to relate to this, he's just a kid.  About a year younger than you, and he's a really great kid, at that, even in spite of what he's been through.”  She must have seen the questions in my eyes, and said.  “No, you'll have to ask him, I will not tell you what he's been through.  It wouldn't be right.”  I nodded, and she continued.  “When I got to work today, I knew something strange was going on.  The Military was there, to get an update on Adam, the subject of the experiments, and I guess they didn't like what they found.  When they left, they gave specific orders that the project was to be “terminated”.  I gasped at that.  Not knowing what was going on, I just kept my mouth shut, as the tears started to flow down mom's eyes.  After a few seconds, I thought she was going to loose it completely, and I knew I had to say something.  “Mom, what're you gonna do?  You can't let them kill him.”  I said, with as much force as I could.  “Logan, you don't understand.  If I help him, and, by the way, he's already asked me to, it means we would have to leave here permanently.   Not just that, either. We would be on the run from the military.  We would never be able to show our faces in this town again, and... and… and I don't know what to do about... you.  This could ruin your life.  She was about to keep going, when I cut her off.  “Mom, listen to me for a second, will you please?  I may be only thirteen, but you said it yourself, I'm a genius, who could do anything I wanted.  Well, I want to do this.  We can't allow them to just kill him.  We have to do something!”  I just couldn't stand the thought that they would kill this kid for nothing more than just not being what they made him.  Mom studied me intently for a few seconds, then she seemed to gather herself.  “Okay, if we're going to do this, then we really have a lot of work to do.”  Over the next half hour, we put together our game plan, on what needed to be done.  She left the house to go gather supplies, and I started to pack everything we would need. 

          Now, I finally got to meet the kid who changed my life, and what did I do? I just stood there in shock.  He was easily the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen.  He had long black hair tied back, and the most amazing Grey eyes I've ever seen.  He was a bit shorter then I was, which surprised me, for some reason.   He really didn't look like he could possibly be all that dangerous.  But then, I thought, that was probably done on purpose.  He really didn't look like a living weapon. 

          I was interrupted again, by someone coming out the door behind me.  I turned around to see the guy that showed up this afternoon.  Mom told me last night she called someone named Joseph Casey, a retired Army Ranger, who had promised to help Adam, if needed.  When he showed up, I was scared at first, but then he made me feel better by asking me what I had gotten done and then by helping me with everything else.  I really liked him, because he treated me like a person, instead of just a really smart kid. 

Adam's Point of View

          I finally pulled my eyes off of the angel that was standing in front of me, and I saw who was coming up behind him.  “Joe!” I said, with a huge grin, "thanks for coming.”  I ran up to him, and stuck out my hand.  He pushed it aside, and pulled me into a warm hug.  I just sat there stiffly, in shock.  Other then Janet, no one had ever hugged me, and it was a bit weird, but God, it felt so good, but it was still weird.  He must have felt my discomfort, because he broke the hug, he dropped his arms and slowly stepped back and said.  “Adam, you sure do know how to start a shit storm, don't you?”  I just giggled a bit and nodded.  “Okay, we can get caught up, on everything that has happened once we are on the road, but now, we need to leave,”  He said it with such force that I blinked.  Then it was back to business mode, for me.  “Your right, Joe,” I said, as I turned back to Janet, “Did you get all the stuff I asked for last night?”  She nodded and I said “good, thanks, then let's hit the road.  Did you guys get everything out of the house?”  I asked, turning back to Logan.  He nodded and said,

 “Yeah, everything's packed; we just need to get out of here.” 

"Good, you guys get loaded up, I want to make one last check of the house,” with that, we broke up.  The three of them heading to Joe's truck, while I went inside.  I wasn't really interested in looking around the house, but I knew that neither Janet nor Logan were professionals, at covering their tracks. And Joe hadn't been there long enough to make sure they didn't leave any clues about where we were going.  I really didn't have the time to look for them, either, so I did the next best thing.  I quickly walked over to the stove, and pulled it away from the wall.  With one good yank, I pulled the gas line out of the stove, and heard the hiss of it pouring gas into the air.  I could smell the pungent odor of the nasty chemical that gas companies use to make it so nasty that no one could easily forget it was left on.  I figured it would take about 10 minutes for the gas to reach the furnace's pilot light, and when that happened, I wouldn't have to worry about any evidence being left behind.  I ran back outside, and climbed into Joe's truck.  I settled comfortably into the back seat, with Logan next to me, and said, “Let's go!”  Joe looked at me with a question in his eyes, and I just shook my head saying, “I'll tell you later.”  He nodded, and we took off down the road.

          I took out the papers that I had pulled out of Dr. Marcus's wall safe, and started to go through them.  The shock that I felt, was deepening with every page I read.  In front of me, I had the full files on each of the five kids involved in what was called “project Genesis.”  I'm not sure how long I was going through the papers, I suppose it was quite a while, but I was pulled back to reality by Joe, saying that we were here.  I looked around and was somewhat surprised by what I saw.  We were somewhere deep in the woods, at an old rustic cabin.  The thing looked like it had seen better days, but I can say after not remembering what anything looked like outside of the research center, it looked kinda rough to me.  We started to unload all the gear that Joe brought with him, into the cabin.  It was a lot nicer on the inside than it looked from outside.  There were three bedrooms, a rather large living/dining room, and a nice sized kitchen.  After I made my third trip from the truck into the house, Logan called me over to the truck.  He was having some trouble pulling a long case out of the bed.  I went over, rather effortlessly lifted it out, and put it on the ground.  He just giggled and remarked,

“Boy, Adam, it must be great being that strong.”  I just grinned and nodded. 

“It comes in handy sometimes.” 
“What's in there,” he asked, pointing to the case, I shrugged, bent down and opened it up.  Once it was opened, I gasped in surprise.  Inside was probably the nicest rifle I had ever seen.  Almost in a trance, I picked it up out of its case to look at it. 
Logan must have seen how I was looking at the rifle, not really knowing what it was, he asked,

 “What's so special about it, it's a rifle?”  I looked over at him like he had six eyes.

 “A rifle?!?! Man, this isn't just a rifle; this is a Barrett M107 sniper rifle.”  I said, almost reverently.  “It has a twenty nine inch barrel, and a recoil suppression system that's good enough that you could probably fire it, without breaking your shoulder.  This fucker could put a bullet into the engine block of a truck, at two thousand meters.  That's roughly six thousand five hundred feet, or just about one and a quarter miles.”  Joe must have come out while I was talking to Logan, because I heard him laugh behind me.  “Don't worry, Logan, he gets like this sometimes, but he's right, that baby right there is probably one of the finest pieces of equipment you'll find in the Army's arsenal.”  He walked over and patted me on the shoulder.  “Happy Birthday, Adam.  I know I was never there before, for you, but I hope to be there for you, if you ever need me in the future.”  I was looking at him with wonder in my eyes.  I had no real idea what he meant.  He just looked back, and smiled, sadly.  “You don't even know what today is, do you?”  I thought about it for a second, and shook my head.  He sighed again, and said.  “Adam, today is your birthday.  You're thirteen years old today.  I know you haven't gotten anything for it, before, but I wanted to give you something.  This was all I could think of that I had, that you would really appreciate.  “I looked at him with shock, and I stuttered.  “I... I... I can't take this.  It's yours, and it's really expensive... and...”  I just trailed off, totally at a loss for words.  He just put his arm over my shoulder, and said.  “Adam, it's for you.    I'm sorry to have to say this, but, unfortunately, I think you're gonna need it.”  I looked up at him, and suddenly, I was overcome with emotions.  I quickly put the gun back in its case, before I dropped it.  I don't know what came over me, but suddenly, I was crying my heart out.  Joe wrapped me up in a hug, and was trying to comfort me.  I just couldn't get myself to stop crying.  When I felt Logan join in the hug, I totally lost it, and I must have passed out or something, because the next thing I remember was waking up in a bed, and it was dark out. 

          I looked around the room, and saw Logan on the other side of the room messing with a stereo.  He put on a pair of headphones, and sat down at the little desk in the corner.  Because of my enhanced hearing, I was able to hear the drums start on a song, even though he was wearing his headphones.  I listened to his angelic voice, as he started to sing along with the beautiful song that was playing.  It was a song I had never heard before, but I knew I would always remember the words, as he sang them.

          When the song finished, I silently got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom.  After I was finished, I went out to the living room where Joe and Janet were quietly talking while sitting on the sofa.  I waved to them as I passed, and went into the kitchen.  I grabbed myself something to drink, and I went back to the living room and found the stack of papers I had been going though.  I noticed that sitting on top of the pile, was the CD that Dr. Marcus had made, which had my name on it.  “Janet, do you have your laptop here?  There's a CD here that was with that stuff I got from Marcus's office.  I want to look at it?”  She pointed to the desk, where the laptop was already set up, and I went over to it.  I loaded the CD, and sat there, as I watched the face of Dr. Marcus appear.  I listened closely as Dr. Marcus talked from the screen.  After twenty minutes, I sat back heavily in my chair, in absolute shock.  Joe must have seen the look on my face, cause he got up and walked over to me.  “What is it, Adam?”  He asked, as Janet made her way over there too.  “I just can't believe it.  Here, you have to see it for yourself.”  With that, I restated the CD, and sat back again to listen to what the Doctor had to say.

          Dr. Marcus was sitting at a rather large, very expensive desk.  He was wearing a white lab coat, over a well tailored suit jacket, and had a very weary look on his face.  “Hello, Adam.” he started.  “If you're listening to this, then I can only imagine that I didn't survive your escape attempt.  Yes, I knew you would try.  I figured out quite a while ago, that you were holding back on what you could do.”  Janet looked over at me, with surprise, but I didn't react, and she turned back to the screen.  “Earlier today, General Pinkerton stopped by to get an update on your progress, and was not pleased by the results.  He went on a tirade, saying that I must have made a mistake somewhere, as you were showing as being physically less advanced than your brothers were.  Yes, you have brothers out there.  They are not related by blood, but they are intended to be your family.  I'll get to more of that later.”  He sat back in his chair and continued.  “I kept the fact that I knew you were holding back to myself, hoping you would figure out a way to escape.  I even helped you out, where I could, by letting it slip to Dr. Hayes, what was going on.  I hoped, against hope, that she would break the rules, and inform you, as to what was going on.  I know you probably won't believe this, but I am not quite the evil monster you think I am.  When I started on this project, it was in the hope, that I could find a way to cure cancer.  You remember the picture that the wall safe was behind?  The picture of two young boys, dressed as cowboys?  Those two boys in that picture were myself and my twin brother Michael. It was taken when we were ten years old.  One year later, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, a terrible type of cancer.  He died less the two years later.  The day that he died, I made a promise to him, that I would do what ever I could to find a cure.  I know that none of this is a good enough reason to put you through what you have been put through.  I realize that you probably will never understand why I did what I did, and I am not asking you to.”

          He leaned forward once again in his chair, and looked intently right into the camera.  “Adam, I think you already know that you have a responsibility to the other children that have been altered.  You are to be their commanding officer, and more than that, you are their older brother.  They each have the same abilities that you do, and they have the same basic training as you do.  However, they each also have a different area of expertise.  First, there's Juan, who is in Los Angeles; he is trained in heavy weapons use, and is also trained as a sniper.  Then there is Joris, who is in Syracuse NY. He is the demolitions expert.  Chang is the doctor, who's in Seattle Washington.  Lastly, we have William, who is in Orlando Florida.  His training includes both piloting, and electronics.

          He sat back in his chair, one last time, and said, “Adam, I wish I could change the way things have gone, but I think I did the best I could, to make you ready for this.  The only thing left, now, that I can do is this.  At the end of this disk, you'll find a bank account number, and the bank routing number.  That is a keyed to a secret, off shore bank account, in a fake name.  It is completely untraceable, and I set it aside for you to use, when the time is right.  By now, there should be just over fifteen million dollars in there.  Please use that to help you and your brothers, survive.  Good luck, Adam, and I pray that God holds you close to his side, as you face the troubles you will encounter in the coming days.”  The screen went blank.

To Be Continued...

***(Holding Out For a Hero, Preformed by Bonnie Tyler, First released on the Footloose Soundtrack 1984)

Editor's note:
Well how about that! I didn't think the Doctor was any good at all. That took me by surprise. Too bad he couldn't have told Adam while he was still alive. Adam might have been able to get him out too, but of course it is too late now, isn't it?
Roland has done a great job with this story. As I find myself saying so often lately on these stories, "Every chapter is better than the last one."
Darryl
AKA Radio Rancher