Luke leaned against the wall, regaling the progress of his lab construction. Even though his training had been dismissed a few hours ago, an ounce of energy had not been replenished. A searing pain loomed on his thighs, and his shoulders, probably from the exhaustive lifting and balancing. The shooting range was rather embarrassing than exhausting. Nica designed his training to be hellish.
He crawled, jumped, climbed, crawled again, and ran until he could make the time. He spent every wisp of energy in his arsenal to complete the circuit. Every capability his body could muster had been showcased. Unfortunately, he fell short so many times. Nica decided to redo the circuit tomorrow. After a long stretch of circuit training, Nica dismissed him early in the morning and he decided to catch his breath and recuperate at the ongoing lab construction.
"Monday, talk to me," Luke said upon seeing the construction's progress.
At least the Major had the men expedited the construction. Tubes on one side, tanks on the other, and two large glass canisters on the far end wrapped in translucent plastic sheets. Rolls of wires heaved the floor. Ten maintenance men, travelers from the year 2030, conducted an intricate assignment.
They called themselves the EMD, Engineering and Maintenance Department. They portal-traveled and arrived at the break of dawn with the same jump location. Seemingly, nausea never visited them after the jump and they immediately engaged in a laborious job without a minute of rest. They were seasoned time jumpers.
"I am seeing 30% lab construction progress, Luke. In my calculation maintaining the same pace, they will complete this by tomorrow morning," Monday responded.
"Are the materials they brought on specs?" Luke asked.
"Yes, they are. Two 1000-liter canisters, evolution tanks, and mutation panels. I think Command granted your request."
"How many evolution genes to start with, Monday?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Pending Objective]: Construct Virus Evolution Lab
[Evolution genes]: 10/100
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"How am I going to evolve with 10 points, Monday?"
"This is the only gene points you have that came from your blood to stabilize and increase the shelf life of Nebula Virus basic genome."
"What am I going to do with 10 gene points?"
Monday chose not to respond an obvious question. Probably, his frustration from the intense military punishment, and the sickening portal travel had contributed to his forgetfulness about the Virus Evolution camp training. He never considered himself one of the best students, though. The class subjects seemed to flee from his memory and never had the motivation to chase after them. He was lazy, for short.
However, the Command had seen his potential based on dubious categories concealed from him. A clandestine Psyche Development Protocol established for Government spies to identify behavioral attributes of an individual based on the algorithm set by spy neuro programmers. He was unsure if passing the categories could be morally right or something devious, darkness innate in his personality.
He had rumors about PDP that Government underground espionage operations had been monitoring potential candidates for years, identified the rare bloodline beforehand. Command had been deflective about the details of such programs and Luke passively neglect the red flags.
Of course, with these protocols, Command had to monitor his performance by establishing ranks of every Evolver based on the kill counts they achieved. As his co-trainers had cold whispers about it, even in actual field work, the molded talent would also be evaluated and monitored and stripped from certain freedom.
"Monday, show me my evolver rank,"
A data display was shown in his line of sight that only the beholder could perceive.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Evolver Rank] Newborn Evolver
[Genome choice] Nebula Virus
[Genome type] Weaponized Virus
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The scientists, the evaluators, the Head of War Operations, and Command, had relied on data that Luke's certain blood strain posed compatibility with a virus among other pathogens, such as Bacteria, parasites, Histamines, enhanced brain worms and others. However, viruses ranked first in adaptability to evolution in terms of transmission and mutation rate. The downside, these viruses had less efficacy in fatality compared to other pathogen types. Hence, the need for more evolution genes.
The ranking served a guide for Evolvers on their objectives. Rankings for him were preposterous, but because he enlisted not a soldier, military ranks do not apply to him. Therefore, Command generated rankings for the likes of him. As his training progressed, the Virologists and the program directors motivated him to achieve the highest rank possible, named as the World Eater - with a kill count of over 4 billion aliens.
Population had proliferate to 8 billion people in the year 2030. Global warming happened and the population increase rate plummeted for another thirty years. The Government executed stringent protocols for population control, modelling from other Easter Countries of Arcadia Continent. When the bugs invaded Earth in 2059, they controlled about 90% of the remaining population, killing over 4 billion humans within a decade. As alien invaders progressed until the year 2069, the remaining non-combatant and military humans combined population was around 100,000 or maybe less. Command had no solid information.
"Monday, show me my next rank," he commanded.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[Next Rank] Ensign Evolver
[Rank up requirements] Kill 5,000 Bugmen using the virus
[Kill records] 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The late Jameson came to his mind, as he achieved the rank of Ensign Evolver, wiping out on Alien Fort base surrounding Brigham City. Command had exhausted resources acquiring potential Evolvers like him and he hoped that they would find one as soon as possible. Two Evolvers are better than one.
By the use of a digital forklift, four men lifted the giant glass canister framed by stainless steel metal on both ends of the cylinder. The digital one-tonner forklift efficiently moved about inside the unkempt room, swerving and weaving through piles of equipment and wires, it snugged the giant canister in its metallic mount. Right after, they connected the wires that provided power to the Canister serving as life support for the Nebula Virus.
The EMD personnel easily installed and adhered the schematic designs of his lab to the letter, with no need for further manual reading and questioning. They moved about the room as if they followed an organized spate. Suddenly, a familiar metallic smell punctured Luke's nostril.
'The nutritive media,' Luke thought.
The smell that of formaldehyde being sprayed into the atmosphere together with the blood of the dead, could pierce one's skull, looming headaches. Siphoning the nutritive media from the tank to the giant canister pervaded much of the smell. The translucent viscous bluish liquid gradually filled the cylindrical glass.
Then on the other side, near the canisters, held his control panel that consisted of a wide tablet touchpad, surrounded by a throng of sophisticated buttons and knobs. Luke sauntered close to the construction and trained his fingertips along the wide touchpad. He tested the switches and the dynamics of his hand simulating to an actual operation.
'My global monitoring tab,' Luke thought. Such equipment would link him to a satellite that enabled the user to monitor the world's population and the location of the cities like a large map.
'The death tab,' Luke thought. He was sanctioned to kill Billions, and the tab would verify the kill count. One could have a stone of heart to do it. Wiping an entire species defined his hesitation for the assignment. Very opposite to his moral inclinations.
'How did it come to this? Why an ordinary kid like me was able to pass the behavioral assessment?'