The Island Project: The Sequel To Code Xero

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DJ BloodFrost

New member
Alright, it's time I put something up for this. This is the sequel to that story few ever read and/or commented on, Code Xero. If you didn't read Code Xero, The Island Project will make no sense to you, so go read it:

http://www.linkinparkforums.com/showthread.php?t=6174

I will be posting Code Xero in a Blogger.com account soon so people don't have to sift through posts to find the actual story.

So, here it is. The Island Project.

 
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DJ BloodFrost

New member
The Island Project

***

Foreword

​




2200 hours (EST)

08.22.2016

FIREPAWN World Headquarters

Antarctica

​



“Good evening. I am speaking to you tonight concerning the rumors and myths about a certain ‘Island Project’. After consulting with my personal advisors and those involved in the Project, we have come to a conclusion that the people of this country, and the world, deserve some answers as to this Project. To that end, broadcasts much like this are going on at this moment all around the world in over 150 other countries to assure the worried citizens of the world as to the nature of the Project.

“The ‘Island Project’ was founded in the year 2010. I cannot disclose the purpose of the Project, in the interest of the security of those involved. What I can say, however, is what the ‘Island Project’ is not. It is not an assassination plot against myself or any American politicians. It is not a terrorist operation. It is not a war, it is not a governmental overthrow, and it is not a repeat of the ‘Manhattan Project’. The ‘Island Project’ in no way endangers the lives of anyone on this planet.

“There have also been rumors as to who is running this ‘Island Project’. The United States is not running the Project. Neither Al Qaeda nor any other terrorist group is not running the Project. The UN is not running it. The U.S.S.R. is not running it, the Warsaw Pact is not running it, and NATO is not running it. The ‘Island Project’ is being run by an organization known as FIREPAWN. FIREPAWN is an acronym that means: ‘For International Relations Encircling Peace And Worldwide Neutrality’.

“FIREPAWN is an organization comprised of the best employees of the world’s governmental agencies. FIREPAWN has feeder agencies all over the world, from the African Defense Force to the CIA to the Russian KGB. Naturally, I cannot divulge any specific goals of FIREPAWN in the interest of international security. I can say, however, that FIREPAWN is a legitimate group of men and women committed to international peace. The ‘Island Project’ is one of the many methods, albeit one of its more popular methods, of reaching to that end.

“Rest assured to the American people, the Project is not something to be feared, but to be looked forward to. When the ‘Island Project’ is complete, the world will know, and the world will celebrate. Good night, and *** bless America.”

FIREPAWN Director Cray Jantil picked up the remote and turned the TV projector off. He then looked around his office. The people surrounding him appeared to be in a fog. Xero, the Director of Special Services, turned to face Jantil.

“You know, Cray, you could have told me you were going to have this done. I could have started to write your eulogy for you.”

Special Agent Jonathan Randall Markin snorted and begin laughing hysterically. The others followed suit; they knew it was simply too humorous of a remark to ignore.

Jantil smiled in reply. “Xero, you know well enough how important that broadcast was. Everybody across the globe was freaking out when the American media found out about the Project. They figured it was some sort of secret war being planned in the middle of nowhere.”

Special Agent Christian Sanders looked as if he had sunk into a deeper fog. “Isn’t that what the Island Project is?” Sanders asked.

“No,” Jantil replied. “The Island Project is our little way of telling everybody that we’re moving. That’s all.”

“Big way to say something so unimportant,” Xero mused. “Why not just pick some uninhabited landmass? Why the Project?”

“Xero, you know why we started the Island Project. This will put us as close to the Yukon as we can get without ******* off the Canadians. We need to be close if we’re going to finish BLOODHORSE. We have no choice. We can’t fly in that many troops on an AirBus without attracting attention.”

Sanders’s colleague, Vadim Rachlav, jumped into the fray. “We’ll be doing that anyway, won’t we, comrade? How else will we be able to move everything? You would need about one million freightliners twice the size of the Titanic to move it all.”

“True,” Jantil acknowledged. “But what I’m saying is that if we sent twenty AirBus units into the Yukon without warning, the Canadians would **** their pants and DHC would shoot us down instantly. And then the Canadians would ***** to the UN about it. I don’t like to waste my men like that, and I don‘t want to have to deal with the UN either.“ Jantil stood up, somewhat irritated. “Diplomacy is not my bag, and I already have one agency to deal with here in the world‘s frozen ****, so everybody just cool it about the Project broadcast, okay? It hasn’t been compromised, and it won’t be compromised, so don’t worry. We‘re almost done with the Project anyway.”

“We are?” Xero asked in shock.

“Yes. Approximately one year from now, the Island Project will be finished. Now I have some things to do, and I don‘t need to be supervised by any of you. Dismissed.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to get caught watching **** on the agency systems, now would you?” Markin joked. Jantil simply laughed in reply.

The members of Operation BLOODHORSE, with the exception of Xero, stood up, saluted Director Jantil, and quickly entered the elevators to return to their respective offices. Jantil began to busy himself with some work on his desk, but soon realized that Xero was still there.

“What is it?”

Xero was staring out the window. “It seems like yesterday, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“The clone war.”

Jantil smiled lightly. “Yeah…it’s hard to forget, isn’t it?”

Xero nodded and slowly sat down in a chair. “Where did you get this idea?”

“What idea?”

“The Island Project.”

Jantil smiled painfully and sat down at his desk.

“Well, it started right after the clone war…”

 
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DJ BloodFrost

New member
Keep in mind, The Island Project isn't going to be as fast-paced as Code Xero was. I'll be taking time to develop the storyline more, something I wish I would have done the last time. But oh well.

Here's the first chapter. :)

 
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DJ BloodFrost

New member
One

​




1805 hours (EST)

05.05.2009

FIREPAWN World Headquarters

Antarctica

​



Click.

Jantil stared at the phone in horror. He had forgotten the most crucial thing of all. Profenski had a successor.

Hutson, Omar, and Izon burst into the office with their weapons holstered and their beers already half-emptied. “Hey, boss!“ Izon yelled too loudly. “Come down and celebrate!”

Jantil shook his head. “It’s not over yet, gentlemen.”

The three inebriated special agents looked at each other with clouded confusion. “What are you talkin’ about, man? We beat ‘em, boss!” Hutson exclaimed.

“Timrison is still alive. Sit down, all of you.”

The men, confused as ever, took their time in sitting down lest they fall over. Omar attempted to keep a straight line of vision with his superior but found it to be a daunting task. “What do you mean, he’s not dead?”

“Does the word ‘dead’ have a double meaning for you, Omar? He’s not dead. He just called me.”

Izon’s jaw dropped. “How could he have called you directly?”

“I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care. Our main task at this point-”

A cooling engineer from the Structural Integrity department suddenly appeared at the elevator. He ran up to Jantil’s desk, gasping for air.

“The ice shelves…are melting…bombs…too strong…trying to re-freeze…having problems…coolant not…fast enough…” And the engineer fell to the floor, breathing harder and harder by the second.

Jantil grabbed his phone and quickly dialed a number. “An engineer just came up to my office and said something about the shelves melting. What the **** is going on down there!?…what?…wait, hold on…forget it, I’m coming down there myself.” He slammed the phone on the cradle and stood up. “Follow me, now.”

The three men, somewhat sobered by the intense pressure now placed on them by the heating ice shelves surrounding the HQ, stood up as quickly as their B.A.C. would let them and moved to the elevators. Within seconds the four men were approximately 500 feet underground in the FIREPAWN Structural Integrity Center. The lead engineer, Jack Nevrith, saw them from his office and ran up to them.

“The coolant’s not working fast enough, Cray. We need more of it, and fast.”

“OK. Where is the excess stored?”

“In here.” Nevrith lead them past his office, past the huge coolant converting engines, to a large vault. “For some reason, I can’t gain access to this vault myself. I think that was Timrison’s fault.”

“I can guarantee it,” Jantil responded. He quickly swiped his ID card through the reader, punched in the twenty-digit ID code, and the vault unlocked. The five men ran inside.

“OK, guys,” Nevrith said. “Grab all the boxes labeled ‘Hexane’ and start hauling them out into the engine room. Stack up sixteen boxes next to each engine, as fast as you can.”

“You guys use hexane to cool the ice?”

“Yes. I’m not explaining right now. Just do it!”

The men began grabbing boxes and running back and forth in a panic, loading up one after the other by each hexane refrigerant converter engine. Nevrith grabbed his radio and called for reserve engineers while Jantil and his men continued to empty the storage room. As Omar and Jantil carried out the last two boxes, a group of ten reserve cooling engineers ran into the engine room and began throwing on lab coats and gloves. They then started to unpack each box and connect multiple bottles of hexane gas to the input tubing systems.

“Nevrith! What else do you need?” Jantil yelled over the roar of the engines.

“Nothing for now. Thanks, Cray!”

Jantil turned to his men. “OK, we’re done here. Let’s head up to the surface. We have some business to attend to.” The four men quickly went back to the elevators and returned to the ground floor of the headquarters. Waiting for them in the main lobby was the Director of Military Services, Peter Treflin, in full armor and temperature protection. His anger could be seen and felt from the elevators to the front doors.

“What is it, Pete?” Jantil shouted.

“The ice is melting, damnit! What the **** is going on!?”

“I know. We just came from DSI, they’re refueling the refrigerators as we speak. Listen, Timrison-”

“-is alive, I know already. He’s somewhere out there. We gotta catch him, preferably before he leaves the continent.”

“Agreed. We need some suits.”

Treflin nodded swiftly and lead them to a nearby locker room. The four men quickly threw on the gear they knew they would need. Hutson and Izon grabbed Dragunov sniper rifles, and Jantil and Omar snatched up Steyr Aug rifles. Armed with guns and radios, the five men quickly ran out into the cold dark tundra.

“Who’s out there?” Jantil yelled into his radio.

“Eagle Division and Lethal Group,“ Treflin replied. “I just talked to Eagle One, says Timrison and a few of his men are on a trajectory towards South Africa.”

“Izon,” ordered Jantil, “which way is South Africa?”

Agent Izon pulled out a GPS unit. “I need coordinates!”

“25 degrees south, 28 degrees east!” Hutson shouted into his radio.

Izon entered the data and looked at Hutson in awe. “How the **** did you know that!?”

“I’ll tell you later. Just get the path.”

Izon looked down and then pointed to his left. “This way!”

The five men ran to a nearby Jeep and leaped inside. Omar took the wheel and took off in the direction his colleague pointed. Treflin attached a sniper scope to his MP5 and began scanning the area; Izon and Hutson watched the barren ice desert as well. For several minutes, no one said a word. Treflin then set his MP5 down on his seat and pulled out his radio.

“Phoenix to Eagle One. Phoenix to Eagle One. Over.”

“We read you, Phoenix. Go ahead.”

“What’s your twenty, over.”

“We’re at the shore. No sign of Timrison or any clones, over.”

“10/4, we’re on our way.”

“Roger that.”

Treflin looked at Omar. “Speed up, they’re at the shoreline.” Now being closer to the shore, the snowstorm was not nearly as powerful, so he could remove his mouth covering. The others followed suit.

“Any sign of Timrison?” Jantil asked.

“Negative,” Treflin replied. “Sounds like they left already. They may have simply moved further down the coast, but I doubt that.”

“COMPROMISED! COMPROMISED!”, the radio screamed.

Treflin quickly grabbed the radio. “Eagle One, report status!”

“He’s here! There’s about fifteen clones with him. I see a chopper heading this way. We’ll try to stop them, over!”

“Confirmed. We’re on our way.”

 
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DJ BloodFrost

New member
The five men were incredibly alert now, poking out from behind their scopes to scan the tundra with naked eyes. Omar had the pedal on the floor as he watched the dark world surrounding him. Nothing met his eyes but darkened ice and an empty black sky.

“It’s a wonder we were ever able to build a building out here,” Omar commented.

“It’s a wonder that building is still standing,” Jantil replied.

And then an idea occurred to Director Jantil. What if FIREPAWN moved its headquarters? No, that’s not possible, there’s no place as remote and secure as Antarctica…unless…

Omar suddenly hit the brakes and the Jeep slid to a halt. All five men jumped out of the vehicle and ran towards what appeared to be a wounded FIREPAWN soldier.

“Hey, man,” Hutson yelled, running up to the soldier, “where’s the rest-”

Ten clones materialized from behind nearby ice rocks, weapons drawn. Jantil and his men looked around slowly. The clones steadily moved closer, choking the space the men had to move. Timrison walked out from behind another rock, unarmed.

“Nice day, isn’t it?”

“**** you,” snarled Treflin.

“Now that isn’t exactly a nice way to greet your captor, now is it?”

“Freeze!”

Out of nowhere, a woman in a FIREPAWN uniform appeared behind Timrison with a ice pick to his throat and a Micro Uzi pointed at the clones. The two clones nearest Timrison aimed at the woman while the rest held their positions against Jantil and his men.

“Here’s the deal, jackass,” the woman snapped. “You save my men, I save you. Get your test tube babies the **** off my home ground, and everybody goes home alive. That or we just kill all of you.”

“I don’t think that’s an option for any of us, my dear-”

To everyone’s surprise, the clones suddenly burst into flames. Timrison elbowed the woman in the stomach and dived behind a nearby rock just as Jantil and Omar opened fire. The woman fell to the ground. Hutson quickly leaped onto the rock and aimed his Dragunov at Timrison. Hutson pulled the trigger and the bullet slammed into Timrison’s back. He stumbled, but continued to run. Timrison quickly leaped into the chopper and it lifted off the ice. All five men and the woman quickly took positions on and around the rock and opened fire on the chopper, to no avail. The chopper flew off into the distance and out of sight.

“**** it!”, Izon yelled. He slammed his Dragunov on the rock, which did nothing but damage to his hand. Omar started laughing at him, which he quickly regretted when Izon threw his rifle at him.

Treflin faced the woman. “Identify yourself, soldier.”

“Angela Jackson, sir. Eagle Five. The rest of my troop is over here.” She led the men behind the rock she had been hiding behind, where Eagle Division was silently crouched down out of sight. A man quickly stood up and saluted Director Treflin. “Eagle One reporting, sir. All of Eagle Division is accounted for. As you can see, we have one man down.” The man pointed to the wounded soldier.

“Bullshit, one wounded soldier, you’re wounded too!”

“It’s nothing, sir. Really. I’m fine.”

“We’ll get both of you to the medical center immediately.”

“That’s not necessary, sir.”

Treflin ignored him. “Izon, is there a warp point anywhere nearby?”

Izon, wincing, pulled out his GPS unit and began typing. “Searching…” he announced. “Give me a minute or so.”

“Alright,” Treflin ordered, “let’s get the wounded into the Jeep. Everyone else follow suit. Where‘s Lethal Group?”

“They went back after the clones were dead,“ Jackson replied. “They didn’t know Timrison was here.”

Treflin turned to Jantil. “Can you try and get a hold of Lethal One for me, sir?”

“Of course.” Jantil pulled out his radio and stepped away from the group to begin talking with headquarters.

Treflin and Omar picked up the wounded soldier they had found and hoisted him into the back seat of the Jeep. As they were doing so, Treflin yelled, “Izon! Where’s that warp point?“

At first Izon didn’t answer. He simply continued to stare at the unit. Suddenly, he yelled back, “Two miles due east of here.”

Jantil returned to the group. “Lethal Group has checked in at HQ. As Eagle Five stated, Lethal Group was unaware of what happened here. No fault on their part.”

“OK, let’s do it,” Treflin shouted. Eagle Division jumped into the Jeep; Eagle One took the wheel despite his injuries. Jantil, Treflin, Izon, Hutson, and Omar climbed in the back and occupied the cargo area. Eagle One started the engine and the group took off into the distance.

A few minutes later, Eagle Division and Jantil’s group arrived at an ice cave. Treflin was the first out of the Jeep with his MP5 in hand. The others followed his lead while Jantil and Omar hoisted the wounded soldier, now identified as Eagle Two, out of the back seat. The group moved to the cave entrance.

“Alright,” Treflin said. “Let’s move in.”

The troops slowly moved into the mouth of the cave, seeing what they expected: stalagmites and stalactites rising up from the floor. Thousands of years of calcium and ice buildup caused the natural pathways down which the FIREPAWN soldiers now moved in a wedge formation. Turning a corner in the cave, the troop found what it was looking for; a large circular object implanted in the cave floor. The group could easily see through the circle, but they knew that was about to change.

Treflin walked over to a control panel approximately ten feet from the circle object and began typing. “Thankfully,” he noted, “the KGB bombs didn’t disrupt the power lines to the warp portals. Well, this one at least.” He tapped a few more keys, swiped his ID card through the reader built into the panel, punched in his ID code, and picked up his weapon.

“Stand back.”

The inner part of the circle came alive with electricity firing to and from every possible point in the outer edge. After several seconds, a sheet of electricity had formed within the circle, and it became an image. The image was of Director Jantil’s office.

“It’s ready. I’ll drive the Jeep back. You guys go.”

“OK, thanks, Treflin,” Jantil replied. “Don’t get yourself killed out there.”

Treflin smiled and tapped the scope on his MP5. “Don’t worry about me.” He ran around the corner and out of sight.

“OK, people. Let’s go home. Let’s take Eagle Two first. Omar, we gotta run through this thing or else we’ll get stuck in it…a bad thing to have happen.”

Omar silently nodded and moved to one end of the stretcher. The two men picked up the stretcher, moved to the ramp leading up to the warp portal, looked at each other in confirmation, and ran headfirst into the electrical field. They instantly popped out the other side, almost dropping the stretcher in the process. Hutson, Izon, and the rest of Eagle Division followed suit.

 
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DJ BloodFrost

New member
To anyone who cares, I will no longer be updating this story on LPF.

If you are actually interested in any updates at all, PM me and when I have a site up you will be able to read it.

 
D

DJ BloodFrost

New member
Never mind. Had a paranoia attack again. ******* HATE PARANOIA ATTACKS.

I'm still working on Chapter 2. Hopefully I'll get it up before Christmas :p

P.S. That sounded dirty. o_O

EDIT: I'm such a liar, lol. Here's Chapter 2.

 
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DJ BloodFrost

New member
Two

​




1942 hours (EST)

05.05.2009

FIREPAWN World Headquarters

Antarctica

​



“Everybody OK?”, Jantil asked.

Hutson struggled to get to his feet; he had run a little too fast through the warp portal. “Yeah,” he said, with a weak smile, “we’re fine.”

“Good.” Jantil strode over to his desk phone and called the medical center. “I need some medics up here immediately.” He hurriedly replaced the receiver and walked over to Eagle Two, who was still lying on the stretcher.

“Omar, let’s get him on the couch. It’ll be better for him.”

Omar and Jantil quickly picked up the sheet on the stretcher and moved the wounded soldier onto the couch. “Eagle One,” Omar said, “have a seat next to Eagle Five here so the medics can work together in the same area.” Eagle One complied; as he was sitting down, Jack Nevrith and Peter Treflin came out of the elevator.

“Thanks for the help down there, guys,” Nevrith said. “You basically saved the HQ. We’ve been able to stabilize the temperature of the ice foundation, and we’re working on cooling it down even further.”

“Excellent,” Jantil replied with a smile. “I figured your boys could handle it.”

Nevrith laughed. “Yeah, we’re pretty good at that stuff. We do get paid for it, after all.”

Treflin took a seat in the office. “The entire area around the HQ is now secure, sir,” he stated. “The machine gunners are on standby at the forts, and they’ll be keeping watch until we have the property cleaned up. Janitorial Services and the Army Division are out on the ice-”

Another man stepped out of the elevator with a very stern look on his face, highly enhanced by his pure black suit. He held a silenced US SOCOM pistol in one hand and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the other. The others in the room saw him enter, and looks of confusion spread quickly across their faces. Jantil simply stared at him.

“Well?”

“The body combusted. Antarctica did the same.”

“Fine. Dismissed.”

The man turned around and walked back into the elevator without saluting Director Jantil. The doors quietly slid shut. Eagle Three, a tall well-built black man holding an M16, turned to face the Director.

“Who was that, sir?”

“That,” Jantil replied, “was a WAR agent.”

“A war agent?”

“Glad you can hear, soldier. WAR. World Assassins Ring.”

Izon looked up, dumbfounded. “I thought WAR was a myth.”

“It is. It doesn’t exist. At least not officially. WAR is responsible for some of the most famous hits of the 21st century, and they just added another one to the list.”

“Which one is that?”

“The apparent helicopter crash in Morocco that killed George Timrison.”

“Holy Christ!”, Omar exclaimed. “How the **** did you manage that?”

“WAR has been tracking DHC’s movements in Tomsk for months. They uncovered the plans for the clone war operation, including the flight path of the AirBus units carrying the clones themselves. The plane went from Tomsk to Morocco to Antarctica.”

“Why Morocco?”

“Easy choice. Cheap gas and DHC’s largest air strip. Timrison sent a clone with the army to direct them and boarded a chopper to Constantinople. Agent Yuric, whom you just saw, shot the chopper down as it was passing over the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately, Timrison was one step ahead of us, and he combusted just before Yuric shot the chopper down. Just after the Antarctica chopper left with Timrison and his top associates, WAR detected a sudden increase in temperature in the co-pilot’s seat. I would assume that he combusted and his associates flew the chopper to South Africa, where they boarded an AirBus unit and returned to Canada.”

“So Timrison’s in Canada, Morocco, and Antarctica at the same time? ****, he gets around,” Hutson snorted. “I thought we were doing good when we went undercover at FBI in Las Vegas.”

“The CIA put you undercover in the FBI?”, Treflin asked. “Why?”

“Well,” Izon replied, “we didn’t exactly know what for then, but we obviously know now. Director Jared called us in and said that he wanted us to help out the FBI with something called Operation BLOODHORSE. We were given a short briefing on DHC and what the FBI had on them, and then we were sent out.”

“Why didn’t the FBI and CIA just cooperate?”

“Jared feared that DHC was coming after him and his fiancée, which they did. There would be an obvious conflict of interest in the event that Jared ordered CIA action against DarkHorse, so he put us in the FBI in the hopes that we would be transferred to FIREPAWN, which we were. FIREPAWN hires a lot more agents from the FBI than the CIA, due to their unorthodox connection through Xero and the MKULTRA project.”

“OK, let’s return to the present here. What’s the current situation?”

Jantil spoke up. “Timrison’s location is unknown, assumed at DHC HQ. All the clones are dead. Markin, Dermitelli, Nitro, and Xero are on their way home from Mexico. Former CIA Director Jared and Kelsie Paldono are currently being wed in San Antonio, Texas, unbeknownst to anyone at DHC of course. And, the rest of us are here. Any questions?”

The people in the room looked around and smiled. They figured it was time to leave Jantil alone, and they themselves needed a break. It had been a long day, and it was time to check out.

“Alright, then. Good work today, people. Go home and get some sleep. You all have the day off tomorrow. Dismissed.”

Everyone stood up, swiftly saluted the Director, and moved to the elevators.

“Jack, I need you to stay. We have something to talk about.”

***

​




2332 hours

05.05.2009

San Antonio, Texas, United States of America

​



He walked swiftly into the darkened lobby, carrying a silenced 9mm pistol…

“I love you so much.”

“I love you too, baby.”

He walked into the elevator car and pressed the button labeled “16”. The doors slid shut…

They climbed into the bed together, kissing passionately.

The elevator doors slid open, revealing the man holding his weapon. He began walking down the hallway…

He quietly kissed her on the lips.

“Are you ready?”

BANG.

The woman screamed at the sound of the shotgun and the two of them fell out of the bed onto the floor. They regained their composure and looked over the bed to see a man in a trench coat holding a breaching shotgun and a pistol.

“Good to finally meet you, Director Jared.”

The man crouching behind the bed narrowed his eyes.

“Who the **** are you?”

“I am the head of DarkHorse Corporation,” the man replied. A smile crept across his face as he turned away from them. “You may put your clothes back on now.”

The woman slowly stood up. “I figured you would have wanted to see me nude after all these years, Erik.”

“I believe you have me mistaken for someone else, Mrs. Jared.”

As Former CIA Director Leonard Jared’s wife continued to dress herself, his eyes widened in surprise. “Aren’t…you…”

“The mission was a success, Jared. I run DHC now.” The man slowly turned around, but he was now missing his smile. “I am George Timrison, former director of FIREPAWN and, now, director of DarkHorse Corporation.”

Timrison smiled again as he grabbed a nearby chair and sat down. “Too bad you reserved this floor all to yourself. Nobody heard the shotgun. Sadly, nobody will hear you die either.” He set the shotgun on the floor beside him and looked at the two lovers with an even bigger smile.

“Things came out exactly as I planned. The MKULTRA thefts, the freezing, the high school fights and romances, the establishment of DHC…it all worked perfectly. And now, with the two of you and Profenski dead to boot, I have carte blanche to wipe FIREPAWN off the face of the earth forever. And no one can stop-”

Blood spurted out the back of Timrison’s head, and his body crumpled to the floor. The woman screamed and the two newlyweds ducked behind the bed once again. When they reappeared over the bed, this time with pistols in their hands, they saw a man in a DarkHorse uniform holding a silenced 9mm pistol over Timrison’s body.

“Erik?”

The man looked up and smiled. “Kelsie. Leo. I expect your wedding night has been going well thus far.”

Another man, also in a DHC uniform, appeared at the doorway. “Erik, his units are surrounding the building. We gotta go, now.”

“Thanks, Markin. OK, you two, get your **** together, now. We’re leaving.”

Leonard Jared stood up in anger. “Like **** I’m going anywhere with you!”

Profenski stared at him. “Fine. Let Timrison's men kill you. Don’t say I didn’t try to save you. No, wait. Don’t say I didn’t save you at all.”

Timrison’s body burst into flames. Jared and his wife jumped back in shock, while Markin and Profenski simply snarled in frustration. “I knew he wasn’t here,” Markin shouted. He ran out of the room.

“Now look at that, Leo,” Profenski ordered. “Not only would you have been killed, but by a clone. Aren’t you glad I saved you?”

“You want us dead anyway.”

“I can understand why you would think that. Timrison is a good manufacturer of lies. Now let’s go, before Timrison’s people get here and kill us all.”

Leonard leveled his pistol to Erik’s head. “I don’t know why I’m listening to you, but I am. One wrong move and I’ll kill you.”

Profenski laughed. “You’re a little outnumbered…but OK.”

Leonard stuffed the pistol into his jacket and the newlyweds began to pack at a rapid pace. Anthony Dermitelli appeared at the door.

“You know, you’re lucky we got those taps from Tomsk, or we wouldn’t be here at all.”

“True,” Erik replied in a sad tone. “I am truly grateful to FIREPAWN once again. DarkHorse will never be able to repay F8 for this.”

“I doubt Jantil will expect payment. Come out here, Erik, someone’s here to see you.”

 
D

DJ BloodFrost

New member
Erik Profenski stepped out of the hotel room to find the one man he never expected to see helping his cause: Xero. Erik shook his head in disbelief.

“In all my years…”

Xero laughed. “Just leave the MKULTRA **** to us from now on, OK?”

“Trust me, I’m out of that game forever. I’m sick of clones, man.”

“Well, Timrison sure isn’t, so let’s get out of here.”

Leonard and Kelsie Jared stumbled out of the hotel room and froze at the sight of the group of men they never expected to see together in one place.

“What the **** is this?”, Kelsie demanded.

“DUCK!”

Nitro was spread-eagle on the ground with a MP5 in his hand, shooting down the hallway at the elevator, which had just opened its doors to reveal several men in leather jackets with assault rifles. Markin, Profenski, and Xero quickly joined the fight. Dermitelli grabbed Leonard and Kelsie and pushed them down the hallway. “Let’s go! NOW!”

The three quickly ducked into a nearby open door, which happened to be the emergency stairs. Dermitelli looked down the stairs to ensure safety, and then pushed Leonard and Kelsie up the next flight. The group quickly ran up the stairs to the roof, where they found an Apache helicopter with two M134 machine gunners waiting for them.

“About time you showed up!”, the nearest gunner yelled. “Where’s the rest of them?”

“They’ll be here in a minute!”, Dermitelli replied. He and the newlyweds climbed into the Apache and sank down into the uncomfortable seats in the back.

“What is going on!?”, Leonard yelled over the noise.

“Things came up,” Dermitelli shouted. “F8 has new intelligence on DarkHorse. Apparently there are things about Profenski that we didn’t know.”

“Like what!?”

“Well, how do you think Profenski stole MKULTRA data and graduated with you two at the same time?”

Leonard and Kelsie stared at each other in disbelief. “Was that the cryogenic-”

“Yeah, that’s right. Get down!”

Profenski, Markin, Xero, and Nitro tripped their way through the roof access door and raced to the chopper. The leather-clad men were close behind them, but ended up being no match for the M134 gunners. The four men leaped into the passenger area and the chopper lifted off, still spraying the roof with machine gun fire. The Apache flew the group to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, where an Boeing 747 was waiting to fly them to F8HQ. F8 units and battalions stood watch at each end of the runway and all throughout the airport. The group quickly bypassed airport security, boarded the plane, and in no time were in the air over the Gulf of Mexico.

As the plane entered Gulf airspace, Profenski and Xero entered a conference room together and sat down at the table next to each other.

“I never thought we would be able to be in the same room together without killing each other,” Xero chuckled.

“Yeah…it was strange seeing you with the guys. I figured you four were comin’ to whack me.”

Xero laughed. “Had I come without the new intelligence that F8 got, I might have.” It was a precedent for both of them to face each other in some form of camaraderie. It almost scared them.

“But tell me something,” Xero asked as he grabbed a water pitcher off the table. “You claim that you stole data from MKULTRA under orders and with the intention of taking over the world. But…you don’t look that old.”

“Cryogenic freezing will make anyone look good for their age, Xero. I was born in 1944 to George and Helen Timrison. In 1954, my father took me aside one day and told me, ‘I’ll give you anything in the world you want if you go somewhere and get something for me.’ Little did I know what I was stealing. Being ten years old and a child prodigy, I was easily able to break through the poor security measures at Langley and steal the data my father desired.”

“Then what?”

“Then…my father froze me. Kept me frozen until 1989. He must have frozen himself for the same time frame, because he looked the same when I came to. Anyway, when I woke up, my mother was gone. My father said he died in a car accident, which I believed. After all, I had just awoken from a 45-year nap, and I thought it was only 10 minutes. I wasn’t fully functional yet. We moved to Wisconsin, where I went to high school and met Leo and Kelsie. I know you know how that worked out. After graduation, my father and I moved back to the Yukon, where he established DarkHorse Corporation and put me in charge of it. Then, he left.”

“Where did he go?”

“Not sure. He was gone for about a decade, then he came back. Helped me run DHC and all that. Then he went to work for the CIA, oddly enough. Rose through the ranks fast, just like Jared. Jared wanted a new international agency created, and my father jumped on the opportunity. He came back to DarkHorse, unfroze the MKULTRA project, and gave him FIREPAWN.”

“What…”

“Yes, Xero, you were the lone product of MKULTRA…and when I stole you, my father froze you as well…but he didn’t unfreeze you until 2005.”

“When I founded FIREPAWN.”

“Exactly. He wiped your memory and put a new one in for you so you wouldn’t wonder where the last 60-some years had gone. He put you in charge of creating the agency. You played right into his hands and you didn’t even know it. Sucks, huh?”

Xero slammed his fist on the table. “I should have known!”

“You couldn’t have. He fooled his own son, after all.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Simple. There is one person my father would never lie to, and that person is the best source I have…”

A woman of about fifty entered the conference room with a smile on her face. She walked past Xero and took a set next to Erik.

“Xero…meet my mother, Helen.”

Helen Timrison extended her hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Xero.”

Xero, with a confused look spreading across his face, shook her hand. “Pleasure is all mine…as soon as I absorb all of this information.” He grabbed his head and weakly smiled.

“Everyone makes mistakes, dear, and sometimes without full knowledge and thought. Look at me…I married George. What a fiasco that turned out to be, right?”

Xero snorted. “I killed your son’s clone with a ferocity and fury I have never seen in myself before. What if that had been the real him?”

“Like I said, dear…sometimes without thought.”

Xero looked up and took a drink of water. “OK. So what’s the game plan?”

Markin, Dermitelli, Nitro, and the newlyweds Jared walked into the room and took their seats. “Jantil wants to talk to us,” Markin announced. He walked to the other end of the table and turned on the laptop. “Give it a minute; wireless connections are temperamental when you’re 30,000 feet off the floor.”

Markin’s words were quickly eaten; the projector lit up and showed a somber Director Jantil sitting at his desk in Antarctica. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is with the greatest pride that I inform you that Operation BLOODHORSE has been completed. With its completion, however, comes a new mission: Operation WATERWIND. Based on information provided by the lovely Helen Timrison…” (Helen blushed) “…it appears that George Timrison has set up shop in South Africa and he plans to strike at FIREPAWN in a much different, much more traditional format - missiles.”

“Missiles?”, Nitro piped up. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

“It isn’t his style, but he wants us taken out because he suspects that his wife is cheating on him with a large international espionage agency.” Jantil smiled at this. “So, I have assignments for each of you upon your arrival at F8HQ. Helen, you are to report to this room and contact me when the plane lands; you will receive your instructions then. Markin, Dermitelli, Nitro: come directly to my office. Xero and Erik: report to Jack Nevrith in the Department of Structural Integrity as soon as you land. Leo and Kelsie: report to the main desk and you will be assigned living quarters until we feel it is safe to return you to San Antonio. Understood?”

The group resounded their comprehension.

“Good. See you all soon.” The feed died and went black, and Markin turned the laptop off.

Xero snorted again. “Guess that answers my question.”

Profenski started laughing. The others had no clue as to the humor whatsoever.

***

​




Unknown Time

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Unknown Location

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“Where are they?”

“The agents stormed the hotel, but came up empty-handed. They’re returning here as we speak.”

“**** IT! My son and his **** agency are running around the globe looking for answers, and they’re not very well hidden either! I want him dead! Xero as well! NOW!”

“Yes sir.”

 
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