[GearRyu]

Prologue

?I?m going slightly mad?? ~Freddy Mercury

From the Journal of Dr. Noh
I continued my research.

They wanted to hold me back, to hold the project back, and I knew they would not permit me to pursue my specialized branch of the research. In their hasty declarations, they have doomed their great experiment to drown in obscurity? how can they not see the futility of it all as everything stands? I will save them and they will thank me one day for my munificence ?

I?ll never forget how I realized that I was the only one with any real vision for this project.

My experimentations had come under note. I had been perfecting an artificial aggressor, intended to increase combat efficacy. I was going to surprise them; it was a side-project, meant to hasten the inevitable conclusion; victory.

Then they stepped in. They? inspected my notes, and told me it was too dangerous. Inhumane, they called it. Inhumane, as though the creatures being incubated were human? God knows what they are. They are better than human. They are the ultimate survivors; imperfect ultimate survivors, and that imperfection is what I wanted to erase, even back then.

I told them as much. They said I was mad. I told them the real madness was in leaving the project like it was. It?s impossible to justify doing anything less than your best and I?d sacrifice again everything that I ultimately did if it meant accomplishing more. They would have none of it. They confiscated my notes (they were copies), and made me promise to focus on the task at hand. I lied and agreed.

I am certain Cassandra thought her ?talk? did some ?good?. If her willing laxity had any positive, it?s that it made learning her password and switching security IDs with her all the easier. Within the week, I took the future into my own hands. I copied their notes, borrowed a few of the subjects, and took my leave.

I had to. If they weren?t going to let me help them, they needed me to help them all the more. I had to be the bigger man. I, yes, I, was the one who should have been in charge from the beginning. It was my destiny, but somehow they took it from me and knew I?d never get it back if I didn?t do this. Maybe they would?ve killed me. God knows I saw that look in Cassandra?s eye. Scheming, she was, stealing from my own notes and taking credit? all the more reason to take what was rightfully mine and experiment where I didn?t need to fear someone taking my experiments away from me.

I left Siberia and traveled to India, where I was received with open arms and treated quite well. I had previously received an offer and work grant to move my studies there? I had rejected it a few years ago when the hybrid experiment was first proposed. This time, I promised them something bigger, something better. All I asked for was privacy (and a higher offer than a false figure I created). I provided a few tantalizing secrets, received my grant, and began my work. This was not betrayal. The information I provided them with was chickenfeed compared to what I was really working on, though they gobbled it up. I worked in nearly autonomous secrecy, accompanied by a few occasional lab assistants (whose disappearances will remain a mystery for the police). Under the pretenses of anti-bacterial warfare development, I continued my true experiments.

The Mureo family is brilliant, I must say that for them. I experienced consternation at how simple their notes were, considering the complexity of the process. I spent weeks reading for comprehension, months filling in the blanks and years improving on what I learned. For the life of me, I still cannot understand why they did not take the experiment to its natural conclusion. How could they take my contributions to science and do so little? It was obvious to me only near the end that I could have done better merely by starting from scratch, but they knew how to lie and make it seem like they had more than they did in their notes.

My initial experiments garnered limited success. Almost all of the initial subjects I had liberated from the Siberian military base expired, despite my best intentions. I concluded this should be expected. At the time, my research was still tainted by the flawed brilliance and lies of the Mureo. The second batch of subjects, I had determined, would be free of such imperfections.

The subjects displayed improved mental capacity and adaptability far beyond anything that even I had predicted. It was a disheartening day when their cellular structures broke down suddenly. I was working on a tight budget, you see, and failure at this stage meant the third time had to be a success.

And so I praise God that I was indeed successful. My final experiment was a success. She was? beautiful, the culmination of my dreams. A keen intellect, even in infancy, remarkable physical development and perfect adaptability. She passed tests which the first and even second batch had failed outright. I nearly wept every time I recorded her success. By this time, I had no more assistants. It was just me and her.

I began to? dote upon the subject. She reminded me of the very few years I had with my own child before? well, no, it wasn?t about my child, no, it was more important. The subject was not human, nor could she ever be; she was, like all of her race, more than human and, to me, she would be perfect? and when the world mourned the long-term failure of her cousins, they would see her, and love her, and they too would see her as perfect.


Sadly, this will be the last night I see her face for a long time. With the war at an end, my research has come under question, and it is only a matter of days, or weeks, (dare I hope, months?), before it is known what I have done here. I cannot allow that to happen. If I am found out, I will be killed and she? I cannot write what abuse my most perfect of sciences will suffer. No, I am leaving this place to go elsewhere and it is too dangerous for her to accompany me.

It pains me to know she will mingle with her inferior cousins, but she will be safest amongst their anonymous numbers. As for myself, I will destroy most of my notes and disassemble the machinery. I will travel light, and alone, my research in my head and in a single briefcase. If they should ever find me, and my genius may be hard to disguise forever, they shall find only a single man, with little to account for himself; no record of his success. If that day comes, with any luck, I?ll strike another bargain and life will continue as it once did. And if I die, well, that?s life? and I will rest easy knowing I have still created something perfect.

Yes, you will be safe? I will not lose track of you? Perhaps one day we shall even be reunited? the only important thing is that you remain safe?