The First: EVO Uprising (54 page)

A satellite dish symbol appeared on the top right hand side of her holographic screen blinking before holding strong.

“
And we have a connection,” she faintly smiled with relief.

“
Incoming encrypted message from Ms. Dennison’s A.I named Vincent,” Maxine announced, “patching her in now.”

Everyone’s attention, including Rosann’s, turned toward the screen as Sophia appeared with a black starry background behind her. It was clear that she was in a weightless environment. She began to frantically type as Vincent became her mouth piece.

“
I’m alive and exiled into space,” Vincent verbally translated her typing. “Peace, the woman who attacked your base currently has Revenant holding my parent’s hostage in their home, and the one called Wendigo hovering over my island ready to destroy it. I had no choice but to leave. Is everyone all right?”

“
Most of the base has been destroyed,” Abe stepped in talking to her. “We were forced to descend to a lower level and are currently buried under several tons of rock. We also lost Oliver.”

Sophia bowed and shook her head. She started typing again.

“
I am so sorry,” Vincent translated for her.

“
I think you need to tell us who we’re dealing with,” Rogers sternly requested, “since it appears you know her so well.”

She nodded and began to type again.

“
I will tell you everything,” Vincent translated for her.

CHAPTER 22

Back at a locked down Sanctuary, Kimberly stood in Kyle’s home with his parents, his older brother, Earl, Akram, his mother, and a couple other adults. As they nervously talked amongst themselves, the Draugr purposely made his presence known using heavy footsteps which shook the village.  She mustered the courage to peer outside the window, where the monster gave her a vile animalistic glare undeserving of any child her age much less a full grown adult.

“
Kimberly, honey,” Earl gestured, “get away from the window. Don’t look at the evil man out there.”

“
Where’s Sophia?” Mrs. McArthur stammered. “Why isn’t she back yet?”

“
The woman outside said she exiled my mom.” Kimberly nervously stepped up.

“
How,” Kyle’s father asked, “to where?”

“
She’s in outer space,” Kimberly answered. “The woman said she has my grandparents captive, and threatened my mom that if she didn’t leave the planet; she would kill them and everyone on the island at the same time.”

“
Sophia sent me a text message,” Earl backed her up, “trying to warn us that they were coming and to run and hide. Unfortunately we got it too late.”

“
So what do we do now?” one of the men asked.

“
Mr. Earl,” she turned to him, “can I borrow your phone, please.”

He quickly pulled it out punching in his passcode and handed it to her.

“
You’re going to try and text your mom?” he asked.

“
Yes,” she nodded. “I have a feeling she sent that last message from space. If that’s the case, hopefully we can send another message and let her know what is happening here.”

She began to speed type a detailed message while everyone around her silently prayed for it to reach her.

˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

Three miles underneath the destroyed Ranch, the surviving members of the Regulators attentively listened to a space exiled Sophia as she speed typed debriefing them with the aid of Vincent verbally translating what she wrote.

She told them who Peace truly was and how she was related to her. She also told them her intentions toward the human race. She even told them about her daughter Kimberly. What she did not know was her ultimate plan to bring the world to its knees.

“
I knew there was something off about this witch,” Lady Tech sneered.

She quickly threw up a video feed of Peace shrugging off energy plasma barrages from the first initial Doozer attack.

“
What did you find?” Abe stepped in examining the footage with her.

Lady Tech slowed down the footage as three plasma blasts from the Doozer assault struck Peace’s red tank top shirt, leather corset, and the upper thigh leg pants of her biker outfit before dissipating leaving only burn mark patterns.

“
Those three hits should have left three large holes in that Coyote Ugly outfit of hers,” Erica explained, “instead it just grazed her outfit leaving burn marks, which means that’s not leather she’s rocking.”

“
She has gear like us?” Rogers gruffed.

“
Not like us,” she sighed. “Probably first generation bodysuit armor fabricated into that gawky get up.”

 “
How?” his voice dropped bass of irritation.

“
If she is who Dennison told us she is,” Erica grinded her teeth, “she could have commandeered any of the other project EVO facilities and got ahold of both gear and tech.”

“
What other facilities?” Vincent translated Sophia’s typed question mirroring the anger now on her face.

“
Mount McLoughlin was one of many research facilities that were a part of Project Evolution,” Erica answered. “You didn’t think a project this big would be housed underneath one roof. There were R&D installations built, in any number of cities and states.”

“
Like Area 51?” Adrian asked.

“
Area 51 is a decoy facility,” Erica scoffed, “created to focus the attention of simple-minded conspiracy theorists like dogs to a bone.”

“
Wait, so there’s nothing there?” He raised an eyebrow.

“
The only thing there is a heavily armed guard detail rotated every two months to look like their guarding something important and three partially dismantled Lockheed SR-71 Blackbirds painted a metallic silver to look like crash landed space crafts,” she sneered.

“
Can we find these facilities?” Abe demanded to know.

“
Nope,” Erica huffed.

“
Why not?” he snapped.

“
Because they’re completely off the grid.” Erica leered back at him not appreciating his tone, “They’ve been so for over seventy years.”

“
But you know of them,” Adrian followed up.

“
Because of some intelligent research and educated theories,” Erica became impatient, “come on people! Think! In the age of Snowden and other whistleblowers, how is a project like Evolution safeguarded from becoming a WikiLeaks page?”

“
By keeping it literally off the grid like the Umbrella Corporation did in Raccoon City,” Adrian answered, snapping his fingers.

“
Raccoon what?” Abe turned to him.

“
Resident Evil, sir, a video game turned blockbuster movie.” He turned to him. “Anyway, in order to keep a project like this off the grid it would have to be in either a distant location, or in plain sight like a gated residential community full of scientists cut off from the rest of the world. Everyone would be monitored 24/7. The facility would have to be underground like we are. There would have to be no Internet or satellite connection to the servers or super computers, so hackers or spies could not hack it. Only certain people would have authorization to pull the data. You’d also need a system where no paper trail could be made, so no one could steal files.”  

Rogers did not know whether to be stunned or impressed at Adrian’s breakdown, while Erica clapped with approval.

“
I would have left out the whole gated community bit, but very well done Mr. Esposito,” Erica nodded. “Couldn’t have explained it better myself.”

“
But I thought Project Evolution was shut down after the Big Bang Two Incident?” Abe turned to her.

“
Yeah, and Oliver North acted alone, and we really had justification to go to Iraq,” she snorted. “The D.E.A.D project was shut down. You really think they’re going to let go over seventy years of research because one of their viruses got loose?”

“
Something I don’t understand,” Adrian asked, “how come you were able to track Ms. Dennison but not this chick?”

“
Good question,” she huffed. “The answer is based on what we’ve been told about where she’s been; she’s operating on a whole difference energy frequency. If she’s actually been baking on Mercury, her power levels are monstrous, which means her output frequency is similar to white noise. It’s there, just undetectable to my sensors.”

“
So how powerful is she?” Abe asked.

“
Let’s just be glad she wants this planet for whatever she needs,” Erica swallowed, “or there would be no planet.”

“
So we’re screwed?” Adrian huffed.

“
Not necessarily.” Erica folded her arms. “Because she cheated to increase her strength she’s done some damage that her RDH had to compensate for. If she’s emitting a high frequency of bio energy that I cannot detect, it means her body is constantly bleeding off power, not storing it like Ms. Dennison. It’s like filling a balloon with constant gushing water; in order for it not to pop you have to make a small hole for some of the water to leak out. So even though she’s operating a peak capacity, which is on a global killing scale; there’s still a limit to her strength.”

“
Unlike me whose body gradually stored energy over the years,” Vincent translated Sophia’s message.

“
Correct,” she nodded, “you have the potential to surpass her if you can tap into that additional power within you.”

Out of nowhere, Vincent displayed the text message from Kimberly that finally reached her. Her eyes widened while her body trembled. She fought to control herself in order to remain stable in her current drift.

“
What is it?” a concerned Abe asked.

“
Ms. Dennison’s daughter sent her a text message,” Vincent answered on her behalf. “It said they were unable to escape. The woman known as Peace has taken over the island. No one has been hurt, but everyone has been locked inside their homes on a form of curfew, and that two superhumans known as the Draugr and Jiang Shi have been left to guard them.”

Everyone wore mirrored looks of concern at the sound of the Draugr.

“
Well how much does this suck?” Adrian scowled.

“
It’s tactical,” Abe answered, “between those two, they could wipe that whole village out in a matter of minutes.”

“
If she switched up Jiang Shi for Wendigo, that means either the Ghoul or Nachzehrer are at the Dennison’s house,” Erica threw in. “I doubt she’d leave a heavy hitter like Revenant to baby sit two elderly people.”

“
Miss,” Maxine interrupted the conversation, “you will want to see this. The second Source is on the Channel Eleven six o’clock news.”

“
Put it on,” Erica commanded.

The screen lit up revealing the inside of the PIX 11 newsroom, Peace sat with her hands clasped in between a visibly unnerved Scott Stanford and a clearly frightened Tamsen Fadal. She brandished a huge Cheshire grin after successfully storming and interrupting the six o’clock edition of the news.

“
Good evening world,” she began with a chirpy upbeat introduction, “allow me to introduce myself. I go by the name Peace!”

She quickly threw up a Valley Girl like peace sign.

“
The official alpha dog queen bitch of this entire fucking world,” she said dryly leaning forward. “And, yeah, I cursed on national fucking television, I care not for offending your delicate ears, or that of your little hell spawns, especially when they hear and say far worse behind your backs in one session of ‘Call of Duty.’  In fact, my second order of business as the new shepherd of planet Earth is to wipe the FCC off the face of the planet. So if you happen to work there, you might want to put in your resignation starting tonight. I’m talking scorched Earth, bitches. But before I jump ahead of myself, I must first attend to my first order of business.”

She took a minute reaching over to grab Scott Stanford’s cup of water, taking a sip, pretending to quench her throat. She nodded to him putting the cup back down turning her attention back to the cameras.  

“
Ready for it?” Her grin got deeper as she rubbed her hands together. “Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock Eastern Standard time I will be heading to the nation’s capitol of Washington DC to kill the President of the United States of America.”

A sickening silence fell over the country for all those watching. Rogers, with a grim look on his face, turned to Erica who wore one of disbelief.

“
To all those watching or streaming, there’s nothing wrong with your television speakers or whatever device you are watching this on. You heard me correct,” she began to reiterate. “Tomorrow at nine o’clock in the morning, I will kill POTUS followed by the Vice President, whose shotgun I intend to ram up his ass till it comes out the other end. But it doesn’t end there, next I will move onto the United Kingdom, where I will kill the Prime Minister, and just for the hell of it, even though she’s just a figure head the Queen of England. You hear me you, old bitch! I’m going to deep throat you to death with your own specter!”