Evelyn I

I couldn't imagine anything worse than growing old. I had spent my life fighting the monsters in the dark. The monsters this planet made some of us. Growing old was terrible. It was a loss of control. My body didn't move the way it used to. My bladder was small, like a bean, and I was going to the bathroom 20 times a day. My vision was getting so bad that I might need to forgo the glasses and contacts and get implants. Sword would pay for them... Provided I still worked for them.

For a seventy-year-old, I was in great shape. Despite my advanced years, I could still perform my duties as a hunter. The question was for how long that would remain. Even in a hardsuit, I was slower than I once was. I was weaker. I was falling behind. My body was failing me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. This wasn't like a strix, lycan, or a titan. This wasn't something I could battle. This was my body, turning against me.

The inspector I worked with and a few of my old team members were already asking when I was going to retire from the front lines. While I wouldn't be able to battle any longer, I still had a wealth of information that I could pass on to the next generation. I should become a teacher.

Battle was all I knew. The Aquroyan military, and then Sword made sure the only skills I had was protecting humans and taking the lives of monsters. I couldn't be a teacher. I couldn't step down. I might as well be dead. And if I was going to die, I should die facing a strix, lycan, or a titan. Not in some hospital room or a retirement home. I had dedicated my life to Sword and I deserved a better end than that. I was Evelyn Lescheres and I wasn't going to be swept aside to some teaching post at the institute.

I sacrificed everything for Sword, not that I could have children regardless. I was barren. Still, most of my life had been dedicated to Sword and I wasn't going to go quietly into the night. I would steal a hardsuit if I had to and die facing down one of the monstrous enemies. There was nothing more to it.

As I stared at the face of the woman in the mirror, I knew I didn't have long. Her head was full of grey hair, the skin on her face wrinkled and sagging. I didn't even want to think about her breasts. I had been so beautiful when I was younger and now this old crone stared at me from the mirror. I hated the way she looked. The beauty had faded a long time ago.

Ding dong. Ding dong.

I looked away from my hated reflection. Who was ringing my doorbell? Who would be bothering me here? I bought a house out here in Mayfield because I wanted to be left alone when I was at home. Small towns offered the most privacy.

I expected some girl scouts trying to sell me cookies, or maybe the new neighbors coming to say hi. I would have to send them away and tell them to never darken my doorstep again, but when I answered the door, it was Professor Nakamura standing there. He smiled. "Evelyn, you're looking radiant today."

"Cut the crap, Toshiro. What do you want?"

He stepped to the side, revealing a long, black car. "Would you come with me to Laboratory 13?"

I sucked in a breath. He just came out and admitted. After all the lies and denials from Sword, Toshiro confirmed it. "I thought there was no Sword facility in Mayfield?"

"That is our official position, yes. But Lab 13 is an alpha facility. You know better than most we don't advertise the existence of our alpha facilities."

I did. "I'm just a hunter. Why are you telling me this?"

"Just a hunter? You have a combat rating of silver. That makes you more than some mere hunter. In your prime, you had a gold rating. You're one of our very best. That hardly makes you just some hunter."

"That hardly qualifies me to know."

Toshiro sighed. "Please, come with me. I know we've had our... Differences, in the past, but I have an offer that I'd like to make you. If you'll consider it."

"I have to go to Laboratory 13 for this offer?"

"Yes. It's a one-time deal. It might be able to fix your problems, Evelyn. What do you say? Are you interested?"

"If I say no?"

"Then we part, as friends, but I'm afraid I will never be able to offer you this chance again. And from what you've been expressing in your personal logs, I fear this might be your only chance."

"You've listened to my personal logs? That's an invasion of privacy!"

"It is, but I have the clearance to listen and good reason. I promise I haven't encroached on anything too personal. I promise."

"What's this about, Toshiro?"

"I can tell you in the car."

I marched down my front steps, slamming the door behind me.

"Take us to Laboratory 13," Toshiro said when we were in the car. The driver looked in the rearview mirror, and at me.

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Yes. Hunter Lescheres is my honored guest."

"Of course, sir."

"What is this about, Toshiro?" I demanded once the tinted window closed, separating us from the driver. "I'm sick of your cloak and dagger antics. This is why I hate Division Zero."

Toshiro had the nerve to laugh. "Forgive me, Evelyn. This is classified at the very top by Division Three. I can't just go around telling anyone. I'm sure you understand."

Division Three was Sword's Research and Development Division. Some might say it was our most important asset, even more so than Division One or Two. Certainly more than Zero.

Mayfield was a small town, with a population of three thousand, two hundred and seventeen people. Three schools served the community: Mayfield Elementary, Mayfield Middle, and Mayfield High School. The closest school for higher education was the University of Willoughby, located in the town of Willoughby. It was my kind of place. I hated the city, but I attributed that hatred to my job. Strixes, lycans, and titans tended to appear in areas with larger populations, though that was hardly a strict rule. Last week I ended a titan here in Mayfield.

That was one benefit of being forced to retire. I would get to spend more time in Mayfield. The drive to hunt was too strong though. I couldn't stay here forever.

At the edge of town was the abandoned solar station. Discarded in favor of the newer, shinier one at the center of town. It was easier to get to and when I needed to recharge my car, it was more convenient going to the old one. The old solar station sold the building to some investor who hadn't so much as touched it.

Yet that turned out to be a cover story. The driver looked around to make sure no one was watching us, then he hit a button. The ground lifted, revealing a secret entrance that looked like it belonged in some B-rated spy movie. I couldn't control the snort. "Really?"

Toshiro chuckled. "It certainly wasn't my idea, but I suppose it does have its charm."

Charm wasn't the world I would use. We began our descent down a long winding tunnel and we didn't stop until we were deep below Artemis. I looked at the window to see a dark tunnel, poorly lit. It seemed Sword liked to take its cloak and dagger operations to the extreme. I wasn't a fan. "Do you think this is a James Bond movie?"

"Of course not. James Bond lives on Earth."

"Funny."

We pulled up to a stop in a large cavernous room the driver called the Atrium. Armed security personnel lined the walls and walked the floors, watching as the crowd of workers buzzed about like this was some great beehive. I took notice of the security: they were all wearing hardsuits, but they had guns. Guns were inefficient when dealing with advanced healing factors. The security here was meant for humans.

Why bother having hunters stationed here? Who would think a lab this size existed under Mayfield of all places? It was snugly hidden away. I doubted many of the drones (they might look like humans, but they worked for Division 3. Like Happy little worker drones) left this facility often. I even spotted a few kids. Families must be here. All the better for the drones to live and work.

A small vehicle the size of a golf cart appeared. The doors opened and I followed Toshiro from the car to the cart. "Sub-floor Thirteen," he ordered the new drive. The woman nodded without saying anything.

"Pretty impressive, isn't it?" Toshiro asked. "We call it Laboratory 13, but it's far bigger than a mere lab. This is a compound, and we have over one thousand people who work and live here."

"I saw the children."

Toshiro nodded. "Families are encouraged. It makes staying here long term easier."

"Isn't that a security risk?"

"No. The only people that know the location of this lab have been fitted with implants that make them incapable of revealing this location."

That sounded like Division Zero.

"This is the Atrium, the uppermost floor. This is where the housing blocks are located and where everyone lives. Sub-Floor Thirteen is the deepest level, where we will be going. It's where my team was working on Project Phoenix, and we have completed it."

"What's Project Phoenix?"

"Arguably the most important project at this facility. I can tell you more when we arrive."

"Will I meet you team?"

"No. They are here in the Atrium somewhere. They've been given a month of paid leave for their services. If you agree to take part in Phoenix, they will come back for a short time. Just to get everything ready."

The cart dropped us off in front of a small elevator. It was just off to the side of two much larger service elevators and the first in a row of ten smaller ones. It opened with a ding and Toshiro pulled a keycard off his neck.

"That's a bit antiquated, don't you think?"

"I can hardly use a linker and our biometric scanners have been fooled before. You need both a keycard and the biometrics of a team member to reach our laboratory."

He slid the card down an old-fashioned card reader and then pressured his thumb to the scanner. "Access: Approved. Welcome, Team Leader Nakamura." The doors closed and we went down.

"We're alone," I asked as we descended. "I think it's time you tell me what this is all about. I have other things I could be doing."

Toshiro's smile was poisonous. "Really? I was under the impression that you kept yourself fit most days, working out. You can't let that decrepit old body of yours waste away. It would be impossible for someone as old as yourself to get back into shape. One missed day won't kill you if you don't accept my proposition."

I wanted to smack the brat. Hadn't he ever heard of respecting his elders?

"Project Phoenix is named after the mythical creature in Earth mythologies. Are you familiar with the bird?"

"Yes."

"Then you know when it dies, the bird rises again. It is an immortal creature."

"Is Project Phoenix researching the secrets of immortality?"

"Yes."

"Then go research the strixes."

"The strixes are vampiric creatures that do not age. They must suck blood like vampires. Our research is focused on a path to immortality that doesn't involve the Leviathan Virus."

"You're chasing fantasies. Or bad supernatural romance novels."

Toshiro chuckled. "Am I? I'm not so sure."

The elevator door opened to a small office room. I followed Toshiro inside and down an adjacent corridor.

"Even with cellular regeneration technology, which the Artemis Group didn't take with it when it left Earth, we can only extend our lives by a few hundred years. If that. Humans can't live forever."

"You're right and wrong."

I crossed my arms. "I'm right."

The door blended into the metal walls so well that I almost missed it. Had I been a younger woman, I would have noticed it immediately. The doors opened as soon as he stopped, revealing a small room that looked like it belonged in the laboratory of some mad scientist in a B flick or a cheesy cartoon. Beakers filled with fluids? Check. Big tubes, carrying said fluids? Check. Small and suffocating? A big check.

The only thing off was the coffin-shaped box in the center of the room. The lid was made of class, but there was too much condensation. It took me a moment to realize this was a cryo-chamber. The same kind of chamber was used to stop aging on the Flotilla, and for cases that couldn't be solved by modern medical technology.

I whipped the surface of the glass off and I found myself looking at a girl's face. Her eyes were closed, but she had a head full of blonde hair. She couldn't be more than eighteen or nineteen years old, at the tail end of her teenage years. She was beautiful, in a way that made me jealous. She had her whole life ahead of her. She was in her summer. I was winter, the dead end of the year.

"Who is she?"

"No one."

"She's someone's daughter. Is her condition that bad that she had to be frozen?"

"Of course not. She's in perfect health."

Then what was she doing here? "Is she from the flotilla? Someone we never unfroze?"

"No. She's not that old. In fact, she's very young."

"Eighteen or nineteen?"

Toshiro smiled. "Five."

I looked back at the first. She was a late-stage teenager. Her breasts were developed and perky. She had wide hips and defined muscles. She appeared to be 175 or 178 centimeters. "There's no way this girl is five."

"Biologically, she's roughly five years old. Chronologically, she's eighteen."

"Who is she?"

"I told you. She's no one. Until five years ago, this girl didn't exist. She is an artificially constructed human, designed to be faster and stronger than any baseline human could be."

A homunculus in the truest sense of the word. An artificial life form. "Why is she still frozen?"

"Because the Alpha Homunculus doesn't have a mind of her own. We could create the body. We could genetically and cybernetically enhance it, making it stronger than the peak physical condition. But we can hardly create a mind for her. That is beyond our current abilities."

To give myself more time to think, I asked: "Are there more?"

"No. This alpha model is the only one."

"Why?"

"She alone has cost us over a billion credits to fashion. It has taken us five years to complete. Sword wants to see results before they even think about investing more time, money, and resources into Project Phoenix."

I could understand that. This was the first. The prototype. Completely untested, after five years, billions of credits, and uncountable resources? No, they wouldn't be eager... Until it had been tested. Which Toshiro couldn't do, since this homunculus had no mind.

"I fail to see where I fit into this. "I fail to see where I fit into any of this."

He seemed disappointed. "You don't? You can't guess? We called it Project Phoenix for a reason, my dear Evelyn."

"What reason could that be?"

"You said that humans can't live forever. Even cellular regeneration has its limits. But what if we could mimic the phoenix?"

He was dancing around the subject now. I was annoyed. "Just spit it out."

"When the noble phoenix dies, it is reborn from the ashes. It is given a new body to work with."

It was then that I understood his smile. "A new body? You mean to tell me that you want to put me... In her?" I asked, gesturing to the homunculus girl.

"That's exactly it. Project Phoenix is more than just this one girl, though she has been where most of our credits have gone. We have developed a prototype procedure that can transfer the soul from one... Host, for lack of a better word, to another. In layman's terms, we will hijack your mind, remove it from your body, and put it in the body of this homunculus. I've listened to your personal logs, Evelyn Lescheres. I know that you've been angry with Sword and your own body. Growing old has made your week and you feel like you've been tossed aside."

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to be angry, but everything he said was true. It was all true. Still, I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "You had no right to do that."

"Legally, I did. Morally, I agree with you. But that is not the point, is it? No, I've come to make you an offer. You don't want to be old. You hate how your body is aging. It's not as strong and sharp as it once was. It's only a matter of time before Sword removes you from your position. I have it on good authority that they are in the process of having you removed. Soon your clearance as a hunter will be revoked. Then where will you be?"

Steeling a hardsuit and finding the biggest, stronger, Leviathan to throw myself against. I wasn't going to admit that. I didn't say anything.

"But if you work with me, I can give you what you want. A young, stronger body, so you can continue to do what you do best. Or you can leave here and go back to that empty house to live the rest of your life as a washed-up hunter. The choice is yours."

***

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