Failed Containmet: Chapter 14- The Incubator Project
#14 of Failed Containment
Stephanie and Zeig find each other again in a tragic reunion as her lion boyfriend does everything he can to get the stolen disk back to Protectorate jurisdiction.
The moon settled over the modest town of Warwick, Rhode Island. A silvery gray 2003 Toyota Corolla barreled down the street, followed closely by three black vans. All four vehicles raced along at eighty miles per hour. Rubber screamed as every turn left burning traces of tire on the asphalt.
A disheveled lion wearing a ripped and bloody Facility uniform sat in the driver's seat of the otherwise-empty Corolla. Only one of his paws were controlling the 32,000 lb vehicle traveling at almost a quarter of the speed of sound as he frantically dialed at his old flip phone, cursing any and all deities that would listen that he'd been born a lion, his large paws having trouble with what may be his only lifeline. As his brain struggled to maintain control of the vehicle and simultaneously tried to surgically press the buttons on his phone, the lion pressed his foot on the gas, trying to stay ahead of the sleek black vans in hot pursuit. He had to be careful, though. The steering column cover had been ripped off and several loose wires hung uncomfortably close to his legs. The last thing he needed was to be electrocuted.
"YES!" he allowed himself a brief moment of elation as he pressed the call button in his phone, and pressed the speaker button. He'd heard the click of someone answering and proceeded to yell into the phone as he focused most of his attention on the road.
"Infiltrator Echo Seven calling Protectorate Site 3! This is Zeig Chartrand requesting immediate assistance and care package to the Main Gate! Repeat, this is Zeig Chartrand requesting immediate assistance and care package to Site 3 Main Gate! I have Facility hostiles on my tail and I need backup!"
"Copy that, Infiltrator Echo Seven, will comply. Over." The voice of the Site dispatch was a breath of relief to the large lion, who steeled his resolve and turned a sharp corner into the warehouse district near the docks. He picked back up his phone, and it only took two clicks to reach the menu he sought. Right there, the first contact on his texting list. He steadily keyed with shaking paws, I- -L-O-V-E- -Y
While trying to concentrate, Zeig misjudged a corner and caught the sharp edge of a brick wall on his passenger side. He tried wrenching the steering wheel in the opposite direction, but his heavy foot on the gas ensured that the car flipped instead of turned. Zeig's world was a blur of color and the crash of metal on concrete before the car came to rest.
****
Inside the cafeteria of Site 3, a white-furred rabbit girl waited in line, silently wishing the death of those who stood between her and the rich black goodness of her morning coffee. The smartphone in her pocket vibrated to signal that she had received a text, which she thought was odd. No one ever texted her, except for her boyfriend, who was currently on assignment.
Stephanie reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone, looking to see that she had received a message. It was from Zeig. She opened it and read: "I love y"
All thoughts about coffee were driven from her mind as she immediately left the cafeteria line and headed to the control room. "Zach!" The little rabbit boy did not look up from the terminals. "Steph." he said wearily, his mind lost among the seven computer monitors that sat in front of him. "I need the status of Infiltrator Echo Seven."
The rabbit boy yawned, not a sign of disrespect toward Steph, but it was just as insulting. Everyone knew Zach hardly slept, slaving away over the main terminal of site 3. He single-handedly kept the Protectorate Site's computer systems up and running. It was often wondered exactly how much he was getting paid, but Zach hardly spoke to anyone. The little brown rabbit boy shook his head, chasing the residual sleepiness from his mind as his hand fished among several empty energy drink cans before he found the one he was looking for. Zachariah drained the last of the can and replaced it among the empties. "Steph, I really can't be checking on your boyfriend every time you start to miss him..." Zach said very jadedly.
Stephanie resisted the urge to clap the young minilop across his ears, knowing that she needed his cooperation. "Shush you. I got a text from Zeig... it's odd. I need to know what's up."
Zachariah heaved a sigh. Ignoring Stephanie's request often ended in a tactical decision to smack him and tweak his ears until compliance. This was one of the times the teenage rabbit boy cursed his intelligence. Being a computer prodigy meant that he had a lot of power when it came to the systems, but it also meant that everyone came to him for everything, and being a kid among adults, often meant he was forced to do what was asked of him, one way or another. "Fine, fine." he said with a sigh, bringing up the window that would let him check the statuses of the missions....
"Fuck." Zach said, and Stephanie's heart race dramatically increased.
Stephanie didn't know what she was looking at as she peered over the rabbit boy's shoulder, but she did recognize the words flashing red over Zeig's profile: MISSION COMPROMISED. "What the fuck, Zach, what's going on!?" Stephanie said frantically.
"His mission's been compromised. Him and John..." Zach said as he looked deeper into the mission status. "Uhhh, Steph..." he said worriedly, "Zeig's called in an emergency situation at the Main Gate... I think you better get over there."
The minilop's words fell on deaf ears. The white rabbit girl had already left.
****
Zeig crawled his way out of the broken window in the battered car. Shards of glass stuck in his tattered mane alongside a week's worth of grime, dust, twigs, and dirt. He gritted his teeth, his gums stained with blood as he was almost certain he'd bitten through his tongue. More blood ran through his fur as the glass left long gashes across his person. His large brown eyes narrowed as he inched his way toward the Main Gate. The door to Warehouse 13 was in view, and Zeig steeled his resolve and got to his feet.
Pain lanced through the tiger's body, his large brown eyes becoming half-lidded and his vision swimming as he struggled to make it to Protectorate ground. The three black vans pulled up behind him, and several people in black Facility security uniforms got out. They all trained their guns on Zeig. "Freeze!" they yelled. Zeig payed them no mind, all his conscious thought thinking of the door to the Protectorate, and the rabbit girl waiting on him within.
****
Stephanie was pulling out a sleek black plastic case. Her hands trembled as she pulled it from under her bed and set it on top. She knelt before the case as if she were praying before an altar, and carefully clicked the snaps open. Nestled carefully in a bed of black polyurethane foam laid a pair of sleek black handguns. Polished to a sheen and bearing a large letter F engraved on the barrel, Stephanie lifted both of them out of their holding place, something she had not done in years.
Tears welled up as she read the inscriptions along the handles of the customized AMT AutoMag Vs. She took one of the two loaded magazines and slid one into the the first handgun. "Securos..." she said as she heard the CLICK of the magazine settling into the chamber. She slid the hammer back and cocked the gun. The word SECUROS matched the inscription on the handle. She placed it down.
She lifted the other gun, and slid the second magazine into the pistol. "Capere..." She clicked the hammer back, the gun ready to be fired as a round was chambered. The inscription along the second gun red CAPERE.
She picked up the other gun with her free hand, holding both of them, they hung limply at her side before she brought them up to hold them side by side in front of her face, as if she were praying holding the guns. "Tueri."
Stephanie's vision was clouded with a myriad of numbers and calculations as her Heads Up Display was activated. A large red letter F in Algerian font hovered in front of her vision before the words "SWEEP MODE: ACTIVATED"
-July 17, 2023-
"What is your main objective!?" bellowed a large crocodile.
"Securos! Capere! Tueri!" Stephanie yelled, her black Security uniform blazoned with the red letter F of the Facility. The crocodile gave a low laugh, "Excellent, Subject 33." he turned to the person beside him. "So you see, Captain. Completely obedient in service to the Facility. We've completely removed her eyes and outfitted her with a special biomechanical experiment of our own. Splicing eagle, tiger, and mantis shrimp DNA, we've taken the best genetics of each species and evolved this set of semi-compound bionic eyes. Able to see infra-red, ultraviolet, polarized light... hell, even hyperspectral color vision. There is no one on earth that can see more than she can. We've also tinkered with her brain a bit, modified it with living microprocessors to process that information into her neural cortex featuring the latest in bioelectronic relays. Yes," the crocodile said, tapping the rabbit girl on the skull. Stephanie remained unmoving.
"We've also suppressed her personality to make more processing room for the program we've installed. Yes, with the microLED Head's Up Display we put in her head, now she has a better targeting system than most autoturret networks. And completely under our control."
"Good, good." said a tall, muscular Rottweiler in fatigues. "Can't wait to field test her out. How far can she shoot?"
"110% farther than the maximum range of whatever gun you put into her hand with pinpoint accuracy... every time. Don't worry about recoil, we've modified the muscles in her hands and increased her bone density and tendon strength way beyond normal limits."
"Excellent, Doctor. I've got a sniper team ready to assign her to." the Rottweiler said. He looked at Stephanie, who cut an unimpressive stance save for her eyes... or whatever it was the doctors put in her head. The Captain couldn't care less what they did, as long as they provided him with useful soldiers. "Well, Subject 33. You're now assigned to Tactical Response Team Sigma.
Welcome to the Eagle Eyes."
-April 30, 2028-
"Steph, what's wrong with you?" a large lion dressed in Security Dress Blues stood next to a white rabbit girl in a turquoise dress. They stood next to the rails on the side of a boat. The sounds of a ball emanated from within the main cabins. Zeig focused on the rabbit girl, who's eyes seemed red, as if she'd been crying. "Nothing" she sniffled, looking away from him. Zeig huffed, giving a disbelieving look. "You're lying to me."
"I'm not... good enough." Stephanie mumbled. "What was that?" said Zeig, not catching what she'd said. "You're a nice guy, Zeig. You deserve someone that's not a computer... someone more... normal..."
Zeig placed a hand under the rabbit girl's chin and tilted her head up. He looked deep into her eyes. Etched onto her bright blue irises were four deep red Fs, they protruded on the top, bottom, and all sides. Markings of the Facility marred her eyes like some sort of twisted compass. Being artificial, there were no blood vessels, the sclera of her eye bore a network of silver lines. The whites of her eyes looked more like a circuit board than a true eye, apart from the branded iris and the pupil that expanded and contracted almost mechanically.
"I think they're beautiful..." Zeig said, leaning in to kiss Stephanie full on the lips.
-Present Day-
Stephanie shrugged off the memories playing in her head and narrowed her eyes. She was needed.
****
Zeig heard the whirring of the doorway to Warehouse 13 opening, and Protectorate security guards rushed out. There was a flurry of hammers clicking as the Facility and Protectorate security each trained their guns on each other.
"Drop your weapons!" said a male fox training his M4 carbine on Zeig, the leader of the Facility personnel.
"'Aint gonna happen, cap'n." said a short corgi, training his own Baretta 92 FS on the fox.
The fox narrowed his eyes. "Protectorate Security personnel, my name is Sergeant Comisario. You are aiding and abetting an insurgent bearing Classified Facility information. You are hereby ordered to safety your weapons and drop them on the ground. If you comply, we will take the lion and leave. Non-compliance will be met with hostile action taken against you."
"My name is Officer Jacob Slater, Team Leader of the Protectorate Security forces. And there's no way in hell I'm complying with that order. Stand fast, men."
"Officer Jacob Slater, you are hereby relieved of your command and ordered to safety your weapons and drop them on the ground. This is your final warning." stated Sergeant Comisario.
"Like fuck we will, Facility scum." said Officer Slater.
While the security personnel squared off, Zeig slowly marched his way toward the Warehouse door, fully aware that he was in the middle of two groups of people bearing guns. He was in direct path of the crossfire. He trudged onward.
"Take him down." said Sergeant Comisario.
Zeig was almost to the Protectorate security line. As long as he crossed that line, he would be safe. He was merely feet away before he saw a blur of white fur running towards him. A smile broke across his bloodied face as a sense of elation rushed through him.
BLAM.
Zeig felt a push from behind him. A lancing pain in the core of his body and a splattering of blood erupted in front of him. He looked down at the blood as he stumbled, and he looked back up, into the screaming face of Stephanie, her unusual eyes widened in a look of abject horror.
****
The roar of gunfire drowned out the sounds of the pained, desperate cry of a white rabbit girl. The Protectorate were taking cover on either side of the large garage door that marked the entrance to Protectorate Site 3, and the Facility personnel took cover behind their fans. Bullets and the smell of gunpowder filled the air as Stephanie sobbed over Zeig's body. His bloodied corpse stained her fur with red. Her HUD saw his life signs fading away, and something snapped within her.
DECREASED MENTAL ACTIVITY DETECTED... CHANCE OF MENTAL SHOCK: 76%... OUTSIDE OF NORMAL TOLERANCE.... SWITCHING TO AUTONOMOUS MODE OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE ALL TARGETS BLACKOUT PROTOCOL: ACTIVATED
Officer Slater made his way over to Stephanie and gave the traumatized rabbit girl a shake on the shoulder. "Hey! Girly! You have to get out of here! Take him to the Medical Bay!" he yelled.
Stephanie gave no response. She stood up and waded out into the middle of the doorway. "Are you crazy!?" one of the guards yelled. "GET DOWN!"
"Securos." she said, twisting her body and pulling the triggers on her two hand cannons. Her voice was not yelling, not whispering. She spoke mechanically and methodically with no emotion.
Two Facility guards dropped, their heads exploding in a mass of blood, skull, and brain matter. "Capere." she twisted again, two more guards were executed. "Tueri." she said mechanically, another twist of her body and another two shots bathed the area in more blood.
"SHOOT HER! FOR FUCK'S SAKE TAKE HER DOWN!"
Step, move, shoot. Step, move, shoot. Stephanie danced straight out from her position, each gun taking out a Facility personnel with no thought at all. She pulled both triggers at the same time, her .50 caliber bullets splattering the brains of every Facility member she aimed at. She was precise, and untouchable. Each time she moved, she assumed a position that was mathematically optimized to reduce her chances of being hit by her enemies to nigh-zero, the targeting calculations telling her both where to move and where to shoot. She danced along, entirely focused on the one purpose: Kill.
Two by two the Facility guards fell. Stephanie did not miss a single one. The Protectorate even stopped shooting to watch the spectacle, not believing their eyes. The Facility guards shot frantically at the rabbit girl, but to no avail. She'd anticipated their shots, and had already moved out of the way.
Sergeant Comisario frantically pulled the trigger, but his clip was long empty. The rabbit girl approached him, the last one alive. She lowered her weapons, giving the scared fox a glimmer of hope that she would let him live. He looked down at her as she approached, and proceeded to scream.
The etched F's in Stephanie's eyes flashed a myriad of colors as the fox looked into them. The Facility had programmed the Mortality Strobe into her eyes one year after she'd been implanted with them. The F's around her eyes flashed different colors in a certain pattern and a certain frequency. Being as close as he was, Comisario was no match for the Facility's own epileptic kill agent.
Designed to short-circuit the brain with pattern electrical signals induced at a specific frequency through the ocular receptors, the Mortality Strobe Epileptic Kill Agent caused massive brain hemorrhaging, and blood ran from every orifice on Sergeant Comisario's head before he collapsed at the feet of the rabbit girl.
TARGETS: ELIMINATED.
Stephanie walked back over to the lion's body and sat down, seeing that the Protectorate personnel were already loading Zeig onto a stretcher and carrying him off. The rabbit girl seemed catatonic to the world, merely standing by Zeig's side and staring at him as he was carted off.
****
"This is the disk Zeig fought so hard to get back to us. He's been missing for a week ever since he and Zach was discovered... I thought you might want to take a look at this, Curator." said a bespectacled wolf girl as she stood in front of a monitor. Curator Roland nodded. "Let's see what they didn't want me to know so badly..." The wolf girl pressed a button on a black remote, and the monitor sprang to life.
****
The monitor displayed seven girls of various ages and races strapped to restraint machines. The girls were arranged in a circle, the X-shaped devices that bound the arms and legs ensured that their legs were wide open. At first, they seemed to be fetish devices, but knowing the Facility, they served a much more sinister purpose.
"Begin recording Test Subject 26 for the Incubator Project. Bring in the Specimens." an unfamiliar voice ran over the PA system.
A single canister was raised out of a floor port into the middle of the circle, and immediately the girls set to crying out in fear. The canister labeled "D-NQBT" whirred before the canister lid opened, and the girls started screaming in earnest.
A thick viscous green fluid seemed to raise up from the canister, before spilling out onto the floor. As it spilled, it seemed to coalesce. It seemed to take on the consistency of a jelly rather than a liquid, and the being slithered out onto the floor, leaving none of itself behind in the canister. It seemed to take stock of its surroundings, looking at each female in turn. The slime monster seemed to shudder and pulsate before seeming to split into seven star-shaped pieces.
"Subject has divided itself in accordance with previous observation. Continuing study..."
The slimes made their way toward each female, each of whom were trying to escape their bonds and get away from the slime creature. "Subject is approaching the specimens..."
The star-shaped slimes proceeded to climb the girls before settling alongside the spine. Each part of the slime had five appendages, and they seemed to work in unison. Each slime brought two tentacles to cup the girls' breasts, using the middle two to latch around the stomach and waist for balance. The fifth and final tentacle, sought out the exposed sex of every girl and proceeded to enter among screams and moans of protests.
"Subject is entering the genitals of the specimens, in accordance with previous observation. Switching to x-ray specification..."
The slime pieces continued to invade the nether regions of its assembled hosts, some of the girls starting to moan as the massive tentacle stretched them open, its movements stimulating them strongly. Others fought the pleasure, knowing that they were being filmed, and others too scared to do much of anything but whimper helplessly as they were violated by the coherent slime.
"X-ray observation seems to have no adverse affects on the subject..."
Several girls seemed to cry out in pain. "Please... stop this... It hurts..."
"Subject has pressed passed the cervix... Two minutes, fifty two seconds into the experiment, subject has reached the ovaries. Egg harvesting is commencing."
The girls seemed to collectively increase their struggle. What was this thing doing to them? As if sensing the increased struggle, the slime tentacles over the girls' breasts commenced to moving and writhing, each tentacle starting to suck at the nipple it was offered. Even the central tentacle writhed more, sending waves of pleasure through its victim's bodies, trying to gain complacency.
It worked on all but the most scared and/or stubborn individuals. The cries of pain turned into moans of pleasure as the slime continued to inadvertently fuck them, trying to make them docile by forcing them to endure the sexual stimulation. The girls visible resistance subsided as each one moaned out in turn as they were brought to orgasm, the slimes relentless assault on their erogenous zones did exactly what it intended. Indeed, the slime tentacles started to swell as they pumped faster and faster.
"It's cumming inside me!" one of the girls screamed as she felt a thinner substance erupt from the slime inside her.
"Specimen has begun injecting gamete into the modified eggs."
The girls cries of fear mixed with cries of orgasm as their bellies started to distend from the amount of fluid the slimes injected them with.
"Eggs have attached to the cervical walls. Impregnation complete."
The video cut to static only to be replaced by another scene. "Six weeks into experiment. Subject development almost complete." came the voice, accompanied by a video display of the seven girls, each strapped to a hospital bed, visibly pregnant, and clearly in distress. "I... can feel them.... squirming inside me..." one managed to weakly say.
The video cut out again to view one of the girls. A cheetah girl, who seemed too weak to move. "Specimen D-NQBT-4. Subject impregnation complete. Ready to deliver, sir."
The cheetah girl's stomach was distended almost three times the amount of a normal human pregnancy. She gave a loud scream of pain before she seemed to contract, and then let loose a torrent of green jelly out of her vagina. Several figures in biohazard suits rushed in. "Get the alcohol on it! Don't let it escape!"
The figures rushed to contain the newly-born specimen while the cheetah girl in the hospital bed seemed to perish, her vital signs going flat on the monitor near her bed. The video cut out again, this time cutting back to the body.
"No abnormalities about the body, save for severe desiccation. Subject NQBT apparently drains all the moisture out of the host upon birth."
****
Curator Roland watched the wolf girl shut off the video with narrowed eyes. "....this."
"Sir?" said the wolf girl.
"I will have to meet with Tabitha again." the old mole said. "Call the proper channels and get me another meeting with her as soon as possible..."
"Right away, sir."