Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Cranking the air, I reach for the envelope and open it, only to blanch at the note that reads: Do you know what your father has done?
I suck in a breath and flip to a document that’s labeled “Top Secret” and “Project Zodius”. I start reading and my blood runs cold, my mother’s warning to my father back in my mind: Don’t create a problem to fix a problem. And that’s exactly what has happened. Special Forces soldiers were given immunizations laced with alien DNA, and not only are the soldiers living with the consequences, so might the world.
Chapter One
Present day…
Nevada’s Area 51, otherwise known as Groom Lake, is not only the subject of government conspiracy theories and my father’s base command, it’s now officially my new home. A good hour before sunrise, I pull into the military parking lot outside a top-secret underground facility. This is where the top-secret Project Zodius GTECH Super Soldier Program is now eighteen months underway.
It’s surreal to finally be here after months of working through my job transition, leaving a grant that was renewed with NASA behind for nothing more than a scientific consulting job with the Army, and do so as my father’s daughter, the General’s daughter. Despite this hard-to-escape label, I’ll strive for my own identity, and do so quickly. I need to get to the bottom of the reports I was given. but I also have to go into this new job with an open mind. It would be dangerous and perhaps counterproductive to assume my father did anything but try to protect his men. This despite the fact that someone, the person who dropped me those records and went on to write me not one, but three letters in three months, believes his intentions far greedier and deceitful.
Now, I’m here. Now, I’ll find out the truth myself.
The ride from my new on-base housing is a whopping three minutes, which, considering the inhuman hours the military favors, will be a big plus. The simplicity of a standard green Army skirt and jacket—required despite my contract status—seems to be working for me as well. The cardboard bed, not so much. It has, however, made a great desk for my laptop and all-night reading.
Considering I’m only three days on the job—taking over for the former Head of Clinical Psychology, a title that fit my mother, but hardly fits my biomedical and research science background, I’ve had my hands full. In my opinion, and frustratingly so, no one on this scientific team has done one-fourth of the studies I’ve deemed absolutely critical to properly evaluate these soldiers.
As for my official job title, which my father told me to ignore, I cannot do the same for the responsibility attached. I’ve worked closely enough with my mother in the past to say that I’m not one bit pleased with the lack of resources and support they’ve offered to these soldiers. I’ll certainly be nudging my way into that territory. These men deserve everything and more from our country, and I’m going to make sure that happens.
Files in hand, I exit my red Volkswagen Beetle and push the door shut with a flick of my hip. I’ve walked all of two steps when the wind whips into high gear, fluttering my suit jacket at my hips and tearing to pieces the blonde knot tied at my nape.
Shocked by the sheer impact of Mother Nature’s outburst, I halt, swiping at the loose locks of hair now in my face, only to gasp. As impossible as it seems, four men dressed in black fatigues materialize from out of what appears to be nowhere on the other side of the long parking lot next to the elevator.
Only it’s not nowhere at all. They traveled by way of the wind, I think. These are the GTECH soldiers I’ve only studied on paper, and unfortunately in a too limited way, as of yet. These are men who can not only travel with the wind but also have superhuman strength and are immune to human illness.
I draw a shaky breath, my heart pounding in my chest and my knees trembling. Apparently, I’m not quite as prepared for the phenomenon that is these men as I’d assumed myself to be. They’re perfect weapons, men deceived and told they were being immunized when they were being injected with alien DNA. Suddenly, a dark parking lot is not where I want to meet them, a concern that is fleeting as the four men disappear into the elevator.
Eager to be inside, I start walking, but make it all of two steps before another man appears beside the elevator. This time there is no wind as warning. That’s not supposed to be possible, and yet, I just watched it happen. My God, the things he could do, the danger he represents. And is it only him that can do this, or can the other’s as well, and it’s simply not documented properly?