The Final Option Read online

  “Insubordination,” Oswalt told the shocked and inquisitive soldiers. They sat Dr. Halverson down with that blank stare. “Get back to base, now.”

  The cloaked helicopter sped away in whisper mode. It had taken four minutes to complete the mission. Three members of the family brutally murdered. The father and baby were missing.

  Things change.

  Chapter Two: Acts 25:20

  It was a hot, muggy afternoon when the 187 call came in. Special Agent Owen Berry drove towards the scene, inflamed. He was going to be off in fifteen minutes when the call came to tie him to his job a little longer.

  Every time I want to truly leave this crap for the day, some lunatic kills somebody and screws up my schedule, he thought as he parked across the street from the Halverson home.

  Agent Berry was the head of the Special Genocidal Division. Whenever a group of people were killed, he did the investigation. His division usually didn’t have a backlog of cases. It had increased exponentially the past three months across the nation. It began on Easter Sunday. Another reason for his irritation.

  As he walked to the backyard where all the commotion was happening, a policeman stopped him from entering the gate.

  “I don’t know if you want to go in there,” the policeman warned Owen. “It’s pretty ‘nitro’ in there.”

  Owen saw the policeman’s rank. He saw he was the captain, and realized he thought he was the lead law enforcement in this investigation. Knowing the captain thought they sent a lieutenant to aid him, instead of taking over, irritated him even more for his arrogant presumption.

  “Pretty ‘nitro’ huh? My God! I’ll avert my eyes so I won’t piss myself and have nightmares!” Owen sprayed sarcasm over the surprised captain. “I am Agent Berry. Yes, the head of SGD, and yes, I have commandeered this investigation!”

  Owen looked at the captain’s name tag and said, “Get CSU here, and a HAZMAT team, Captain Czecher. The only thing I want to hear from you is ‘yes Sir’. Now do your damned job, cop!”

  The verbal explosion cracked across the backyard and temporarily stopped everyone from what they were doing. Captain Czecher saw his identification and realized his mistake of passing this agent off as a rookie. He knew how the chain of command worked and respected it.

  “Y…yes Sir,” he said humbly.

  Owen walked past the captain through the wooden gate door. Owen had headed up the SGD for many years. He had seen some barbaric scenes, but Czecher was right. This was even ‘nitro’ to him.

  He saw the two children with their heads inside out, and a bullet-ridden, eviscerated dog. The gate behind the children had brain chunks and skull splinters stuck to it with just two bullet holes in the oak beams with drying blood that stayed sticky with the humidity.

  Owen had seen a dead man with a wire hanger, scalding hot, forced into the shaft of his penis, with frozen horror on his face. That didn’t disturb him as much as the heinous murdering of these children.

  He knew the man’s wife had caught him cheating with her sister. He didn’t deserve a death that vile, but Owen understood the reasoning. At this point, there was no reason for the children’s demise.

  Having children himself, no reason would have been legitimate enough to quell his disturbance.

  He closed his eyes and sighed in parental grief. He caught himself quickly. He decided long ago not to have any feelings for any victims. It was the only way a sane man could keep that sanity and his job at the same time. He was good at his job, so he kept it that way by being callous in his vocation.

  Owen saw the dog smoldering in front of the sliding doors to the kitchen. It smelled like burned, sweaty leather. There was no blood around the dog. It had been hit by incendiary rounds. They cooked him from the inside out.

  I know you had no chance. Owen thought about how unconditionally protective the dog was. You were a courageous knight, weren’t you boy?

  Owen remembered the call. It stated three family members had been murdered and two were missing.

  “The third victim, in the house?” he asked one of the policemen writing in his notebook.

  “Uh, yes, Sir.” The policeman looked up from his writing. He pointed to the kitchen door.

  Before Owen entered the house, he called for the captain.

  Czecher was still standing by the gate opening. He walked briskly to Berry, and stood at attention.

  “Canvas the area for the father and baby,” Owen ordered him. “Find the numbers to all immediate relatives in this country. Call to see if they know of their whereabouts. Do it discreetly. Check all exits from this country to see if passports were used. You probably won’t find anything, but I want to make sure they are either kidnap victims, or the father is the suspect.”

  Czecher already had a team of officers canvassing the neighborhood. He felt good that he was already following procedure.

  “Yes, Sir. I will get right on that,” he said to Owen.

  As Czecher briskly moved to his command vehicle, Owen prepared himself for the speculated carnage he was about to witness in the house. He took a deep breath and entered the house through the sliding doors.

  A few policemen were exiting the bedroom. Owen motioned to one of them. He pointed to the bedroom, and the policeman nodded. Owen walked towards the rear of the house to the bedroom.

  He saw two policemen around a woman's dead body. One was writing in a pad, while the other reported into a handheld recorder. She lay in a pool of her own blood. The smell of death permeated the bedroom with a disgusting thickness. It assaulted Owen's nostrils as he knelt down to survey the method of murder.

  Wow, your imagination can make things much worse than they really are. Owen thought. She just has two bullets in her head. That's not that gruesome.

  He caught himself and realized his job had desensitized him. She was still murdered. That was vile enough.

  “CSU will arrive soon, so finish your reports,” he told the policemen in the room, dismissing his initial thought.

  Owen pulled out his cell phone and dialed headquarters. He had to finish his report also.

  An impatient voice answered, “SGD. How may I direct your call?”

  “Agent Berry here. Get me Pinnet. Confirmation code arclight,” Owen spoke.

  “Code confirmed. Mr. Pinnet will respond momentarily.”

  Owen knew Pinnet would be upset at these events. He would have to give the order to execute the final option.

  “"Pinnet here, Berry. Response code Head Hunter.” Pinnet clicked on the phone. ”Report.”

  ”Sir, it's another Geno-cleanse event. They are looking for the husband and baby, but we know it will be the same outcome as the past twenty-eight cases,” Owen reported.

  Pinnet was quiet on the other side of the line. He knew as well as Owen they wouldn't find the husband or baby. He also knew he had to give the order.

  “Get back here, Owen. If they don't find them, we have to prepare for the inevitable,” Pinnet finally responded to Berry.

  “Yes, Sir. On my way,” Owen said. “They'll find them. This case will be just a normal homicide.”

  “My ass is closed, so stop trying to blow smoke up it, Owen,” Pinnet said with a more realistic view of things. “Just get back here.”

  Chapter Three: Samuel 14:20

  Ron Pinnet sat at his desk, gazing at the national map that hung on his back wall. He was studying the red push pins that littered random locations of the United States. They had no pattern, or reason for occurrence to location. They were just there. Ron wasn't studying why they showed up at these locations. His mind was rationalizing the decision which had to be made by him. It wasn't where it was how many. He was concerned about how push pins forced his hand at decisions. How they coerced fate. He was not happy.

  Owen walked through the open door to Ron's office and stood at the front of the desk. Ron didn't notice his entrance. He was too wrapped up by his map and decision. Owen knew he had to interrupt in order to continue.

  “They
haven't found them yet, Ron,” Owen spoke up to let Ron know he wasn't alone anymore. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to wipe this map clean, and go on a skiing vacation,” Ron began, letting Owen know he knew he wasn't alone. “But that's not going to happen, is it?”

  Owen remained silent. He knew how heavy this decision was for Ron. He knew once he gave the order, there was no reconsideration. If they were wrong, they would have to live with whatever happened.

  “The last time I gave the order, an entire village was laid to waste. They weren't the primary target. We made a mistake and two hundred thirty-six people died in the process,” Ron said regretfully.

  “You’ve gotta have a short memory, Ron,” Owen tried to reassure him.

  Ron turned to Owen sharply and said, “I didn't throw a God damned interception, Owen! I can't afford a short memory!”

  “Then stop living in the past, learn from your mistake, and get over it! You can't afford, and don't deserve self-pity in your profession!” Owen retorted.

  Ron looked at Owen with exasperation. It was hard to listen to the truth. Owen was right. He still had to do his job, no matter how arduous it was. The entire reason he was in this position was his deft decision making in difficult situations.

  “If I have to issue the order, I want to see Geogyn Kai's statistics,” Ron said to Owen, accepting his perception of his actions.

  “They have him in sub level sixteen testing their prototypes on him,” Owen said. “Let's go and check status.”

  They left the office and began to descend levels.

  “I've gotta call the wife and let her know I'm pulling an all-nighter again,” Owen said to Ron as they exited the elevator.

  I'm glad I set my DVR to record the season of that new show, ‘A Hunter's Blood‘. At least I won't miss that."

  “I heard that was going to be the quintessential Sci-Fi crime drama,” Ron said. “You'll let me know if it sucks or not, right?”

  “Let's get past this Geno-cleanse event crap, and I'll invite you to a Hunter party,” Owen responded. “We'll get drunk enough so nothing sucks.”

  They both walked the corridor to a soldier standing at attention in front of a door, showed their badges, and the soldier stepped aside. Walking through the door to a combat area, they walked to an observation area above the combat grounds. A team of scientists were there, monitoring the activities transpiring below them.

  “How's Geogyn's status, Chet?” Ron spoke to a scientist who was studying a laptop computer intently.

  “His status is normal,” Chet replied. “He's destroying every one of our high tech prototypes we send at him. With all the work and sleepless nights we've endured to make those prototypes unstoppable, he's not even being nice.”

  Ron looked down to the combat area to see a large, menacing prototype advancing towards Geogyn. It wielded a katana. It came down in a violent, body splitting, vertical, finishing stroke over Geogyn's head. Geogyn clapped his hands over his head, stopping the sword's deadly velocity right above his determined grimace. He bent the titanium blade into a harmless ninety-degree angle, and grabbed the prototype's wrist. He pulled it towards his swiftly executed backhand. With a loud war cry, Geogyn struck it in the face, separating its head from its body. It fell to the ground with a clang and thud.

  “Satisfied?” Owen asked Ron.

  Ron nodded as he watched Geogyn standing over the mangled prototype.

  “We need him again, Chet,” he said to the scientist. “Since your team is nowhere close to mimicking him, we're going to use people from Ghost Alpha to assemble his team.”

  “Paranormal commandos are some bad mothers, but I think they are getting tired of not returning,” Chet warned Ron.

  “Then I guess you better perfect those prototypes,” Ron replied. “We don't have time for discussion. Alert Ghost Alpha to this mission.”

  Chet reluctantly obeyed Ron and dialed a number on his cell phone to begin to mobilize the team.

  “You've committed to this action plan,” Owen said. “They might still find the father and baby.”

  Ron looked at Owen with disdain. “If you believed that, you'd be home with your wife, watching a crime drama. You know as well as I do the order will have to be executed. Time to take off the kid gloves.”

  Owen reluctantly nodded in agreement. Using caution as the result of the last mission's mistake made the division impotent in its ability to administer. It needed this pill to correct its E.D. Ron vehemently prescribed the cure.

  “The briefing will commence at 0200 hours at the Plasma Hawk facility,” Ron told Chet.

  “Ghost Alpha will be ready and waiting, Ron,” Chet said while entering a code on his laptop.

  “After you clean up all that shredded metal mess, alert Geogyn of his activation,” Ron condescendingly told Chet.

  Ron had come to terms with the decision. It was necessity which propelled caution to the wind.

  Chapter Four: Esther 2:23

  I wasn't born, I was chosen. I was put on this planet for a reason. That reason was the master of ambiguity. It will reveal itself in time. I gave up investigating it long ago. Enigmatic affidavits arbitrarily choose their own revelations.

  This government ‘discovered’ my existence. Strange how the United States found me in Kinshasa Africa and claimed me as their property. That is what power does. Intimidates the weak into submission.

  Now they ‘own’ me. Power also forces your rights, no matter how unfounded they are.

  I will comply for now. I have no choice.

  I am constructed from alien technology. Humanoid in form, but concocted of cybernetics and synthetic material.

  I am not an automaton. I have my own thoughts. This government decided my free will was a security risk. They attached a special device on the right ventricle of my heart. It is set to rupture my blood flow with an acidic charge.

  It is on a timer, but no one knows the duration of time for detonation. As long as I do their tasks, they can add more time to the countdown. The sadists control me with imminent expiration. As long as I'm a loyal pet, they throw me the bone of longer existence.

  When they found my natural skills of strength, subterfuge, and involuntary unwavering certainty of objective accomplishment, they estimated me an asset. I was used for black ops. Some of the blackest ever executed. Even the insanely corrupt wouldn't attempt these exercises. That was when I was activated. I am Geogyn Kai, the Final Option.

  

  It was 0200 hours. Geogyn Kai sat at a stark boardroom table with three members from Ghost Alpha. He had no idea about this new mission. He wondered if they did. He had never seen this part of the squad before.

  “What's your call code?” Geogyn asked the commando nearest him.

  The commando was lost in thought when Geogyn spoke. He turned to Geogyn and said, “Sergeant Tory Chan, call code, Binary Cypher.”

  “And you?” Geogyn pointed at the commando adjacent to Binary Cypher.

  “Sergeant Eldridge ‘Bricks’ McKay, call code, Futureshock.” he responded.

  “How about you?” Geogyn asked the final commando who sat the farthest from him.

  “What difference does it make?” the commando started. “We're about to die because we pulled the ‘short straw’. We're just your bullet sponges.”

  Geogyn looked down with a smile and shook his head. He said with a calm vexation, “It's rather funny you believe I control your fates when I don't control my own. You volunteered for this shit. I had no choice, now, what is your call code and what do you do?”

  The commando was surprised, and taken aback by his sudden and abrupt response, deepening the gravitas of their grave situation. “Sergeant Cody Remington, call code, Snagz. I am your defensive point man. My skin can become dense, and spike in close combat situations. I absorb deadly impact.”

  Geogyn, with a slight smile, began to chuckle to himself. “Now I see why you're so pissed off, you are an actual bullet sponge! What do you tw
o do?”

  “Futureshock is a covert assassin,” Ron said as he walked into the room. “The faster he strikes an enemy, the longer it takes for that strike to become active. The blow becomes exponentially stronger during that time. Most targets are already dead before they knew they were struck.”

  Eldridge put his hand up and nodded to Geogyn.

  “Binary Cypher is the cornerstone of this mission,” Ron said. “These Geno-cleanse events are randomly cryptic. We needed a paranormal mathematical chaos theorist with a positive outcome rate of at least ninety-six percent to execute with any probable outcome. Well, Cypher has been one hundred percent on seventeen missions so far. He's going to find them.”

  Geogyn stared at Ron trying to figure out what this mission consisted of. “Them?”

  “Them, they, the ‘bad guys’. The ones you have to neutralize.” Ron said.

  Geogyn knew these bad guys were very disruptive to this government to activate him.

  “What's my entity time allowance for this one?” Geogyn asked Ron.

  “Two years, eight months,” Ron said. “This is a big one, Geo.”

  Geogyn began to understand the importance of this mission. If they were willing to give him that long on his existence expectancy, they needed this done.

  “Excuse me, Mister. Pinnet?” Tory spoke up. “I am not a combat-hardened commando. I can't defend myself with probability codes.”

  “You're still a commando. Even the women have good hand to hand, and weapons training. Futureshock invented a battle suit that makes you invisible.” Ron said to Tory.

  “Invisible?” Tory asked.

  Eldridge interjected, “It's called N.O.S.E. gear. Negative Optical Sensory Envelope.”

  Tory had a confused look on his face, so Eldridge continued.

  “The suit consists of two hundred thousand cameras. Each camera is the size of a pinhead. They are placed in the center of two hundred thousand flexible digital screens which make up the suit. Each camera displays the image in front of it on the opposite side of the suit, therefore making you invisible. It's also heat controlled so you won't show up on thermal imaging. You're a math guy, so you should understand the concept.”