Prologue

Twelve Months Ago

Dr. Carter Richards pushed his thick-rimmed glasses higher up on his nose as he studied the chart in his hands. Carter was a short, older man, possibly in his early fifties. His dark green eyes were hidden beneath bushy eyebrows, he had a long, hooked nose, and a slight weight problem that caused him to break out in sweat at the most unfortunate of times. He had never been much of a looker, but the government hadn’t wanted him for his appearance, but instead for the brain and intelligence he possessed.

Carter was capable of doing things most other people weren’t. He could always see the big picture, and that was what made him the prime candidate for the project he currently found himself the head of. After Carter had read through the reports—twice, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything the first time—he bent to examine the subject on the table in front of him. It was bound down with leather straps, and it squirmed in an attempt to free itself as its eyes rolled into the back of its head in sheer terror.

Carter refused to allow himself to feel any sympathy for the subject. She was cute, in an annoying, distracting kind of way, but he felt no sorrow for what he was about to do. It was impossible to make scientific leaps without sacrifice and experimentation, and what he was currently working on could very well be the greatest scientific discovery in all of history.

You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, Carter thought to himself with a dark chuckle, despite the fact that he had never made an omelet in his entire life.

He bent down closer to the subject once more, and she turned to look at him with clear gray eyes. “Please,” she said, making a whimpering sound that reminded him of a mewling kitten. “Let me go.”

He hated cats.

Carter ignored her pleas as she continued to make them, sounding more and more desperate each time. When the door at the end of the room slid open and two assistants in lab coats walked in with the tray he was waiting for, the woman bucked against the straps in one last wild attempt to free herself. Carter placed his hand on her chest and shoved her back down to the table, causing her to whimper in pain.

An assistant placed the tray on the table beside Carter, and turned around and left. Carter didn’t blame them for not wanting to stay, not after what happened to their last subject. No matter, Carter thought lightly. They would just be in my way. I’m better off on my own.

He grabbed a syringe off the tray that was filled with a thick, black liquid. He waved it in the face of the subject tied to the table, and her eyes widened in terror. “Do you know what this is?” Carter asked, bringing it closer. “This is the future of warfare. You should be honored that you’re helping the United States of America win future wars before they start. Think of all the American soldiers you’re going to help save.”

Let’s hope this new formula works better than the last one. I don’t want anymore liquefied bodies to clean up.

Carter leveled the syringe over the subject’s chest, trying to gauge where her heart lay beneath the protective layer of ribcage. When he had a close guess, he brought his hand up, and slammed it down, breaking through the bone and sending the needle straight into her heart. She screamed and fought, but it was no use.

Carter pushed down the plunger on the syringe, and the thick black liquid filled her heart to the brim. He extracted the needle and placed it back on the tray beside him. He jotted down a few notes in his clipboard while he waited for the serum to spread throughout her body and take effect. He knew the second the serum hit her brain stem, because she began to thrash on the table and scream in agony. He guessed the serum probably felt like acid burning its way throughout her entire body, but he was much more interested in the side effects of the pain she was experiencing than he was in the fact that she was hurting at all.

She continued to thrash and fight her bonds as Carter catalogued her reaction. It was surprisingly different from his last test subject, who had quickly lost consciousness and hadn’t even felt himself begin to liquefy. How anyone could sleep through melting alive Carter wasn’t sure, but he was glad to see the same thing wasn’t happening here.

He looked down at the stop watch in his hand that was timing her reaction, and as the timer hit one minute, the subject went still. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, jotted down the time of her death, and bent down to examine the now dead subject. When he was sure that the liquefaction process wasn’t going to start, he turned to the giant glass partition and announced, “Gentlemen, I think we’ve done it!”

He could see a few other scientists begin clapping and congratulating each other, and even the General that had arrived today was looking on with a grim smile on his face. Carter knew that if they could master this serum, they would never have to deploy their troops to another country ever again. All they would have to do was spread this serum into the drinking water of any country at war, and the fight would be over before it started.

There was absolutely nothing that Carter loved more than his science and his country, and knowing that he could potentially spare the lives of those that fought for his beloved home filled him with a huge sense of overwhelming pride.

The laboratory door slid open again and several of the scientists began to congratulate Carter on his miraculous work. An assistant stepped forward. “Sir? What now?”

“Get rid of that,” Carter said, jerking his head at the subject strapped to the table. “I don’t care what you do with the body, just get rid of her and make sure nobody ever finds her. The last thing we need is cops in the area poking their noses where they don’t belong.”

“Yes, sir.”

The assistant stepped up to the table and began to quickly undo the leather restraints holding down her legs and stomach. He undid the first arm, and as he leaned over the subject’s body to undo the last one, movement caught Carter’s eye. He turned to look, and he almost dismissed his eyes as playing tricks on him…until the subject’s fingers began to move once more. Before Carter could begin to make sense of this new development, the subject sat up with a wild screech.

She sank her teeth into the assistant’s neck, ripping away a chunk of flesh. Blood spurted from the wound, coating the subject’s face and chest with bright red liquid. It slowly dripped down her chest as everyone began to panic. Carter ran for the door as the subject leapt off the table, tackling another scientist and bringing him down.

Carter began running scenarios through his mind—faster than anyone else could have—and he went with the most logical course of action. He slid his keycard through the keypad, closing the door shut firmly behind him, trapping the remaining four scientists in the room with the subject. They pounded on the glass partition, begging for the door to be opened, and Carter stared coolly back at them as the subject tore into them, slaughtering them all in only a matter of minutes.

As the subject dragged the last scientist away from the glass and down to the floor, Carter leaned forward to get a better view. Blood splattered the glass, and he jumped back, completely amazed at the subject’s ferocity and brutality. He didn’t know why the serum affected the subject the way it had, but he was determined to study her and learn just what he had created.

As he looked at the bloody bodies in the room, a smile slowly crept onto his face. Good God…she is magnificent…