5th Column Comics: Gaia #1
Xiphos Bio-Technology Solutions, Scahill Technologies Research Park, Outside the Indigo City ‘Blight Zone’
I look down at the spectacular little piece of hell I’ve created, beaming proudly like a mother watching as her daughter achieves a perfect ten in gymnastics. True I’ve created hell but it is my hell, and no one on the Project Phage team can deny that there is a sick beauty to the man-made blight environment contained in Bio Lab Fifteen. For what seems like an age I had argued that controlled tests on the worst diseases known to humanity could save the world but employer after employer recoiled at fear, called me a mad woman, visibly shook as they saw what I had done to myself for science. Not Xiphos though, they looked past Eloise Clayton, Eco-Toxicologist reduced to half a woman, looked past the smallpox scars and missing fingers and saw what really mattered. They saw raw ambition combined with the frontier spirit and they knew that they wanted me.
“You know I’ve spent so long down here that I’ve forgotten what a real oak tree looks like.” The man standing next to me sighs. His name is Robert Owens, a loud mouthed American with a fancy bio-chemistry degree which in a normal situation would out rank mine. That said Owens may be the only normal thing in Bio Lab Fifteen, I know that I’m not, not when I had spent a decade to create cures for Ebola, for Malaria and a wide range of ailments, only to be thrust into the forefront of the development of biological warfare.
“Who’s to say the world above isn’t like this.” I answer, gesturing to the alien looking trees and the slime covered stones in the centre of the room, shielded from the outside world by walls of high intensity light. “I imagine this is what Gaia felt when she and Oranus looked upon the titans when they were born; a mixture of affection and revulsion.” Silently I add that I am Gaia and that on days like this I’m the most powerful person in the country, if not the world.
“That’s the problem; the board wants to know about the security breaches.” Robert announces, his words shocking me out of my goddess fantasy. “Someone has been going into the Blight Ecology, and that is a breach of protocol.”
“Yes, it is.” I answer coldly, knowing all too well that when the board can’t do a thing to me, even if I have breached policy. They can’t afford to loose me this late in the project, not without an even greater risk of exposure, one that would end their company and bankrupt them beyond anything they ever could imagine. “Any ideas on who the person breaking protocol is?” I ask innocently as I turn to look at him for the first time since he started talking. His next words don’t shock me, even if they were designed to. “They thinks it’s you doctor.”
I stop and smile, something that puts him off kilter, if just because it reminds him of who I am, that I am a survivor as the set of painful looking healed sores on my left cheek bare evidence of. “They are right.” I whisper as I walk away from him, descending down the lab stairs into a sealed room. Robert is pudgy, balding and naturally ugly, the board won’t side with him, and no one will miss him, even if he was to die. Unlike the man waiting for me, dressed in ballistic armour save for his face, one that rivals Cupid himself in childish innocence and boyish good looks.
“Doctor you requested my presence.” He states bluntly in a Texan accent, his hand resting on a holstered Machine Pistol. My smile vanishes; my work has made me ugly; cancer took my breasts and my shoulder length red hair, smallpox marred my ivory skin, a flesh eating bacteria ate my ring and index finger on my left hand and a life time of being shunned has killed my humanity. I may have a crush on him but he most likely is repulsed by me but at lest he has the audacity to smile when I enter the room. I know him as Stallion, just Stallion, the head of Bio Lab Fifteen’s security, hired by Xiphos from a small PMC called Mattock Military Solutions.
“I did.” I state as I remove a gas canister just as Robert arrives, flustered by his lacklustre pursuit. He tries to say something but is silenced when I turn on the video link to the board and their most wealthy investors.
“Gentlemen, Ladies.” I state, seemingly oblivious to the wheezing behind me. “As you may know Indigo City is infested with blights. For those who have never seen one, you are about to witness something spectacular.” I add before slipping a gas mask over my face, pausing until I see Stallion do the same. “This chemical is the natural source of the mutation, and as requested we have improved on the design, made it easier to contain, and increased the half-life and crucially reduced the time taken to mutate those infected.” I add pulling the tab and dropping the canister. With panicked eyes Robert looks at me before he begins to cough uncontrollably, his infected body staggering towards me in a fit of rage and panic. Before he can finish a hail of gunfire silences him forever, causing me to flash a smile at Stallion before activating the lab’s emergency venting system.
“That was Stage 1 of the transformation.” I tell the board, “In the wild strain that transformation would take months to occur. We can accelerate the mutation to be fully complete within three days.” I announce before walking to the window, revealing my little blight ecosystem to my backers. “Targeted variants can even affect food crops and animals, effectively starving a population. And as you requested there is a kill switch encoded in all the genetic profiles of our ‘man made ’blights.” Within seconds the mini ecosystem is aflame as the blights combust, a years worth of work raised to the ground in seconds. I should be sad but my mind darts to the last days of Carthege and the demand for child sacrifices for the good of the population. Like the Carthaginians I am strong, independent and smart; the board will be pleased, happy with an unfinished project, I however am not.
“So we are ready for mass production?” A woman in an expensive suit asks. My smile fades, this woman has power, maybe as much as I wield in my lab.
“No Director Scahill we are not.” I answer, defiance flashing in my eyes. “There is a by-product; one with a destructive potential beyond that of mere blights, they are called Carriers, infected humans who mutate along a divergent path. Something in their genes keeps them safe and that makes them dangerous.”
“Do you have a solution?” The director asks, knowing all too well that I do.
“Yes, I need samples though.” I state watching Stallion in the corner of my eye, his body twitching in excitement. “And a more secure lab.”
“And you will have them.” The Director answers. A few thank you sir’s and promises later and it’s over. Excusing himself Stallion leaves, no doubt to request more men for the increase in activity, leaving me alone. Today is a Gaia day, I tell myself, as will the next and the next. Right now I’m beyond the Carrier’s with their freakish powers, beyond governments and armies, I am a goddess, the one with the power, and I plan to keep it for as long as I can, all usurpers be dammed.
Log in to comment