Dr. Vasaliev arrived early in the morning, he got out of his private transport to the dull grey scenery, lightly pattered by rain, if he could he thought he'd like to spend more of his time at his office in Genetech Academy surrounded by the magnificent greenery he'd designed. "Morning sir," came a greeting from the building security, he nodded to the man as he walked towards the elevator, he took the elevator to his private office. Vasaliev felt that the building was to high not that there would be much to see of the Moscow cityscape anyways but such is the price of progress. He switched on the television and opened his laptop. Vasaliev frowned when he saw what they were playing on the global news, they were still on the story about the missing Earthwave CEO's son, it seems the story had expanded as well, it had begun to talk about various missing persons from other nations. Lately eyes had been on Russia due to a small criminal organization which had been abducting people twenty and under, the reports were inaccurate though since the abductions had only been women. Regardless Vasaliev had to publicly acknowledge and deny any involvement in the kidnappings, aside from these problems he had the constant reports from his research team on subject zero one's mental instability. "What's that damned girl doing, she said she had him under control, I'll have to call her in for another report now" he muttered to himself.
The elevator door slid open "Sir, I've got your daily schedule, you're scheduled for the press conference in a few hours, following that you need to address the energy crisis in St. Petersburg, the environmental crisis in Vladivostok, and the overall food shortages" the man said. "The research team requests your presence again, and the Academy needs your confirmation on the two transfer students," Vasaliev thought to himself life must have been much simpler for his predecessors. They only had to run the company and weren't expected to run a massive country as well. "Very well, bring me my morning coffee and I'll get to it" he replied. He couldn't see this new assistant lasting long this was the third day in a row the man didn't bring his coffee in during the morning report.
"I had to cancel our practice for today, my father called he requires me to visit him at Genetech after school today" Anya reported, "Really? do you work for the company while going to school?" Darren asked. "Of course not!" Anya retorted, "He has me go there every so often to report how school life and everything is going, he's always super busy so he never goes home," "Must be hard having a father who is a CEO non?" Jeanne said. "Not really, I live in the dorms anyways so even if he did go home we wouldn't see each other" Anya replied "Not much different then us" Darren said, "I haven't seen or even heard from my parents since coming to this country."
The school day went by fairly quickly and Anya headed to the front gate following class, waiting for her was her fathers private transport the words Genetech Corporation embossed in gold along the side of the otherwise black vehicle. She climbed in and the vehicle sped away, "How's school been young miss," the driver asked "The same" she replied nonchalant, Anya bent forward and pressed a button, fresh tea was poured into a cup. Anya grabbed the cup and opened one of her books showing she wasn't in the mood for casual conversation, she listlessly flipped through the pages while sipping at the tea as the transport continued on its way.
Anya took the elevator up to the research level, as she moved her way towards the changing rooms an assistant handed her a ledger, Anya leafed through the contents, as usual the research staff were causing unnecessary problems. She pulled on a white lab coat and moved towards the indicated room, one of the scientists was presenting his report to her father when she entered,
"And that's why it was a mistake to allow subject zero one to leave the facility" the man finished. Dr. Vasaliev considered what the man had said before acknowledging Anya, "So?" he questioned, "Yes, I had a brief moment to go over this report and in my opinion the constant interruption to zero one's daily life by repeated uses of the code word are causing the problems." Anya glared at the man who had written the report, "Were you aware that in the twenty days he has been attending the academy this lab has used the code word on him fifteen times?" "I wasn't" Dr. Vasaliev admitted also looking at the man who had given the report, the man shrunk back under the scrutiny, "In light of this its my opinion they are trying to sabotage the experiment so they can recover their precious specimen" Anya stated. The scientists began to argue and point fingers at each other, Dr. Vasaliev raised his hand for silence and motioned to their director, "There is no proof that the code word causes any issues in cognitive functions" the man said. "Do you really understand so little about the brain?" Anya questioned "You said that the gene therapy had increased his brains capacity to repair itself, what do you think is going to happen when he constantly wakes up tired and has lost time where he can't remember going to bed?" she asked. Dr. Vasaliev took Anya's report into consideration, being a trained psychiatrist and having a background in neuroscience everything she had said made sense to him. "What do you propose we do going forward?" he asked his daughter, "I'll take full responsibility for the subject" she said, "As the handler it should have been that way in the first place" she stated giving the research director a cold glance. "Very well, going forward the science team isn't to interfere with subject zero one, Anya has full jurisdiction over his continuing progress" Dr. Vasaliev said. "However, I expect monthly reports, you'll also have no back up from the lab so should you fail and the subject need to be liquidated you'll be held accountable" he finished.
Anya stared into the mirror of the dressing room washroom, she hated this, she thought back to the time when she had first met Darren, it was on the planet Alpha Kojo, she was part of an infiltration team sent to sabotage a Earthwave - Kurotaka joint project.
Anya got seperated from her team, the prototype was ahead of her, she had been dressed as a student for this mission, because of her age it was unlikely anyone would identify her as an operative. She approached the prototype and lined in to a wire in its leg, the software has highly encrypted and she couldn't make heads or tails of it, she loaded the virus into the software but before she could download any files a voice called out to her. "Hey, what are you doing here, I was supposed to meet an engineer here, are you his daughter?" Darren asked, "Yeah" Anya said smiling, "He asked me to do a final check on the software for him" she said unplugging her device and closing the leg panel. "Wow, you must be a genius, you're still so young" Darren said, "Bet you've heard this before but.. How easy is it to count in binary?" he asked, Anya looked at him blankly "We haven't used binary for anything since the year two thousand one hundred and one" she replied matter of fact, "That's not it" he said "It's as easy as zero one one zero one one." Anya stared at him a blank look on her face, she just didn't know how to react to such a clearly horrible joke, she felt bad for him but wanted to assault him at the same time.
Anya laughed at the memory, that man had always been the absolute worst when it came to jokes, she was glad for a moment, maybe the procedure hadn't changed him all that much.
"I really don't have a response to that" Anya said "It wasn't funny, in fact I feel dumber just for having listened to it" she said, Darren laughed at her response, "Will your dad be getting back anytime soon?" he asked. "He said if he didn't get back before the test time to just wave you ahead" Anya replied, "Are you in a hurry?" "Not really I still have a good fifteen minutes before the test begins but I wanted to get accustomed to the controls before the actual test" Darren replied. "Well I can't give the go ahead for that" Anya admitted, She knew the engineer wouldn't be back, her team had disposed of him before she got seperated from them. Darren's communicator began to ring, "Darren, have you run the machine through a test run yet?" a voice asked. "No, unfortunately the engineer seems to be indisposed I haven't seen him yet" Darren replied, "Forget it just fire up the machine and head outside, everyone is here already and they're getting impatient" the voice said before hanging up. "Sorry young lady, they want me to begin the test you'll have to leave the area" Darren apologized, "You're not that much older then me!" Anya replied indignantly.
Anya recalled how Darren thought she was a child because of her height at the time, its true she was only around fifteen at the time of the operation but Darren was only eighteen, she wasn't that much younger then him. She didn't see Darren again after that point till her dad brought her into the lab to observe the tests the research team were running their captives through, the screams of pain that came from the operating room at the time still gave her nightmares. She would also never forget the look Darren had given her when he saw her from the operation table, the recognition that quickly turned to hatred.
"This is ridiculous, Anya is a test subject herself how could you possibly let her take charge of our most successful specimen to date" the director said incredulously, "Loyalty" Dr. Vasaliev said, "Since the experiment I have treated Anya like my own daughter, and she has never once questioned her memories." "Still she was a failed experiment overall" The director argued "Maybe, but she has a keen intellect, if nurtured she could become indispensable to the future of the company" Dr. Vasaliev said with finality.