Friday, June 16, 2006

Gryphon-X > Part One:
Part One:

The sunlight poked its way through the long curtains of the master bedroom. The room was ignited in bright colors, the crimson red silk of the bed sheets, the rusty brown of the mahogany four poster bed and drawers and the cream colour of the walls and walk in wardrobe. The white carpet on the floor was only disturbed when the golden retriever moved. The light flashed past a young girls face causing her to squint, she slowly pushed back the blankets and pushed her legs out of the bed. The dog got to its feet and went over to the girl and started to sniff her affectionately.
“Morning, Alexander.” The girl said as she gave off a big yawn and the dog ran out the door with its tail wagging. She crept out of bed and sauntered over to the walk in bathroom to the east of the bedroom. Steam filtered out from the bathroom into her bedroom whilst her butler Lorenzo walked in her room.
“Lady Alexis?”
“Yes, Lorenzo!” murmured Alexis.
“FTi is in desperate need for you assistance, shall I cancel your appointment with Prime Minister Warren Churchill?”
“Um, yes please Lorenzo if you wouldn’t mind.”
Lorenzo exited the room and disappeared behind the hallway. Alexis came out through the door way with a towel around her long red hair and around her torso. She rubbed her head and took away the towel and threw it on her bed. She swiftly walked to her willow tall boy and put her fingers to her lips and then to the picture of her parents. Alexander came bounding in the door way and jumped on Alexis, knocking her to the ground.
“Haha Alexander, come on get off me.” The dog’s excessive licking made Alexis a little agitated until a young man around her age came in and pulled the dog away from her. After wiping her face of the dog drool she was amazed to see who pulled the excited dog off her.
“Jackson.”
“Hiya sis, how have you been?’
“I-I thought you were in Queensland on important business?”
“Well I was I just- well aren’t you glad I’m home?” Jackson had a wide smile on his face; he bent down a little and extended his hand out to his little sister. She naturally grabbed hold of it and hugged him tightly.
“Well make yourself at home and I will be down in the Dinning room soon, I just need to change.” said Alexis.
“Ok.”
Jackson left the room with a wave of the hand and Alexis hurried. She went into her walk in wardrobe and chose her favorite red suit and rushed into the bathroom to brush and pull back her hair into a professional bun. Fixing herself up in the wall mirror and ran out of her room and hurried down the flight of steps just down the corridor and past the games room. Alexis trotted into the Dinning room, filled with antique jars and wine glasses, by the fireplace at the end of the room on the mantle piece was an Australian Goblet encrusted with opals and gold nuggets. On the east side of the wall hung a portrait of some of Australian heroes and pictures of the Rhodes family, existing since the 17th Century. The table was made from yew and pine smoothed out into a fine brown finish; the chairs themselves were 18th century French Fluers with white silk cushions. Jackson sat at the end of the table in front of the fireplace, with a smile he stood up and hugged his sister once more. Lorenzo smiled for the affectionate reunion. For a couple of hours they reacquainted themselves with each other and did a little reminiscing. After a time Alexis had to go so she left Jackson and Lorenzo with a firm goodbye.

* * * *

Alexis arrived at the front of FTi. in her limo and barged threw the double doors and hustled down the corridors on her way to the council room. From every direction people swarmed Alexis, handing her stat charts and building graphs talking about technical difficulties and other major problems with all the national funding and machinery. One by one they were told what they had to do and brushed away.
“Miss Rhodes we are having trouble locating Damien.”
“Well find him, I don’t care what you do just locate him and bring him here. I don’t even care if you have to drag his sorry ass down here!” They reached the chrome double doors of the facility council room and Alexis turned to face her Secretary Assistant.
“Leah, I do not want any one to disturb this meeting, we are dealing with high management that could definitely shut down this organization. Please don’t let any one enter.” Her assistant Leah nodded, holding close to her chest a brown clipboard. Alexis turned, took a deep breath and opened the doors and strolled in the room looking like she meant business. The grey and white iron room gleamed in the sunlight illuminating form the windows to the left of Alexis. The board members sat staring at Alexis waiting for her to start this very important meeting. The room was silent for more then four minutes, Alexis went and sat down on the black ebony chairs and pulled herself in to the ebony table. She pressed out the kinks in her suit and made her hands into a closed fisted state.
“Welcome ladies and gentlemen of the board, we are here today to witness the rebirth of human genetics and biometric robotics. We have made a brand new discovery; we are entering into the realm of evolution. Our bodies are now impregnated with radioactive molecular compositions and are entering mutancy.” The room erupted with tones of excited yet worried voices.
Alexis’s eyes roamed around the room, carefully surveying the faces of others. Once the board members hushed down and were quite once more. Alexis got to her feet and paraded around the room.
“Although this is happening at an accelerated speed, our scientist and mutants are well on the way to designing a protocol that will hope fully stop or at least slow down this horrific stage of evolution.” Alexis walked to the back of the room and pushed a button, murmured a word and a screen fell from the roof in view of the council. “This new exoskeleton is called. Gryphon-X.” A figure appeared upon the screen, slowly it moved up and very visually, the members saw a robot body that was white and grey. From the way it looked it was sure enough made from chrome and iron extracts.
“This robotic engineered skeleton is to help humans who have already gone through mutancy to either further develop their powers or completely erase the radioactive molecular compositions from the genetic strands within the body. This is of course only up to the test subject.”
“Lady Alexis!” a council member shouted from his seat. Alexis slowly diverted her gaze to the middle age man.
“Yes, Bartholomew?”
“You are spending our well earned tax dollars on a hunk of junk that helps freaks!” From this little out burst, Alexis’s mood quickly changed from explanatory to furiousness. “Bartholomew Jenkins, you were asked to be a part of this organization by my parents, you have helped out a lot and I appreciate that. But you are in no position to tell me such things, after all my family created this place and will continue running it so keep your threats and disgusts to your self!”
The old man was red in the face; he eye balled Alexis for sometime until one of the female members asks Alexis a question.
“Miss Rhodes, what exactly does this suit do?”
“Well Margaret, this suit is designed to slowly extract the human genetics that will slowly develop into mutancy, although this is only theory we are still building this machine.” Alexis went to the front of the room again this time pleased with the reaction from the council. “Now if you please, my work isn’t finished yet. I hope you all have a great day.” Alexis stared at Bartholomew for a couple of seconds and simply smiled to the rest of them and left the council room. Outside the door were two guards in a blue and grey uniform, they were supporting a man in cuffs.
“Damien.” Alexis was stunned he was in ruins; his black jacket was in scraps whilst his black singlet and brown baggy pants were only hanging by a thread. Alexis got down to her knees and surveyed Damien after a couple of minutes she ordered some medical assistance and she hastened the other way, towards her office.
Alexis walked right past her assistant Leah and straight into her office. She was frantic, pacing up and down the room she had no clue what to do, and being only 18 years off age was tough enough but to also run a multimillion dollar operation. At this moment her assistant knocked on the door and entered the large room.
“Miss Rhodes?”
“Yes Miss Atkinson?”
“Well Damien is facing some critical injuries, and we have found the 50 test subjects.”
“Oh ok then schedule an appointment with Damien and push foreword the building rate for Gryphon-X please Leah.”
Leah left the room with a firm nod and Alexis sat down at her mahogany desk. Alexis took out the pin that held her hair in a bun and let her hair drop. She ran her fingers through her hair and placed her elbows on the desk. In front of her was a LCD screen computer and nothing else. Alexis pushed a button on the edge of the desk and the keyboard appeared out from under the desk top. Although this keyboard had no keys, only a LCD black surface. She waved her hand over this padded part and a hologram emerged form it. She typed in the letters GX and the number 13. Automatically the LCD screen flashed and showed graph designs and stat charts.
She clicked on a circle that changed the screen to a profile of a human. The screen said Damien Drake. Alexis clicked on another icon that brought up a sheet that titled:

Carrier of the mutant gene Hex Corpus Mutatis Mutandis

Alexis frowned upon what she read, details about were he had lived and when his mutant ability manifested. After looking at everything about Damien a loud siren sounded, and red lights flashed. All the electronic devises either blew up or shut down, she could hear the emergency chrome doors closing and magnetizing shut. Alexis jumped from her seat while the red lights flashed and she could hear the soldiers yelling and running to were the commotion was. Alexis ran up to the chrome door and started to bash on it, until she walked back a bit and extended her hand to the door. With a flash of red, flames came from her hands hitting the door with full force, melting the metal down in an accelerated rate. The heat from the fire picked up her hair, the metal alloy disintegrated and Alexis could see men running past her room.
“What has happened?” Alexis demanded to a passing soldier.
“Master Drake has gone nuts; we are holding him down in the manufacturing plant.”
With this news Alexis got really angry she ran with the soldiers to the manufacturing plant were she saw Damien using his power against her men. Damien screamed in agony, his power of causing bad luck was making the metal in the room bend and collapse and electrical equipment to shut down. The ground beneath him was braking apart and disintegrating. The soldiers were using automatic rifles and shooting Damien with Mutatis Mutandis hallucinogen. The bullets were sent back at some of the men and pierced their vests. Alexis ran in and tried talking with him.
“Damien, settle down!” said Alexis. “Damien can you hear me settle down, there is no reason why you have to be like this!”
Damien tried walking towards Alexis he was moaning in pain his power was destroying the Manufacturing Plant and soon, himself.
“Al-Alex-Alexis!” Damien was yelling at the top of his lungs, it was hard to hear with the buzzing noise of the metal bending and the glass shattering. Damien collapsed to the ground on his knees, the soldiers still trying to inject him with the antioxidant. Thoughts ran through Alexis’s mind but only one seemed to be the right course of action. She extended both her arms out and pointed at Damien. A tear ran down her stern face as the wind picked up and was pushing her. A burst of fire ignited from her hands and hit Damien in the back, with a scream Damien fell and his power depleted. The soldiers ran towards Damien and hand cuffed him. The soldiers looked towards Alexis awaiting orders.
“Place him in the Recovery Ward.”
The soldiers saluted and carried Damien to the Recovery Centre. Alexis rubbed her forehead and started to walk down to the Operations Sector. She was a mess, her hair was all tattered and he clothes were dirty. As she entered the Operations Sector she bumped into some one, as she looked up a small smile appeared.
“Hi Jackson, what are you doing here?”
Jackson had a worried look on his face. “I am here because my little sister was nearly hurt.”
“It’s nothing I handled it like mother and father would have.” By this time she had her hands on her hips staring into her brothers eyes.
“Yes. But mother and father dealt in robotics not mutant creation.”
“I am not creating mutants I am trying to dull the effects so then the people with mutancy can control them, that is why my manufacturing plant was nearly destroyed.” Alexis pushed past Jackson and walked into the Operations Sector and was talking to one of the employees. Upon the walls were maps of the world, there were also little red dots in certain places. Jackson hopped a bit then started to walk to wards his sister.
“Alexis, you’re a mutant…hell I’m a mutant but being a mutant isn’t a curse.”
“Try telling that to Damien.” Alexis walked away and headed to a massive computer and typed in GX46.
“His power is unfortunate, listen Alexis I just don’t want my only family to die.”
Alexis smiled and showed her brother something on the computer screen. It was an image of a young 15 year old boy.
“This here is Jamie Quartz. He is from Perth and his mutant ability is Astral Projection. What I am manufacturing is a suit containment that will give him the chance to decide whether he wants his power or if he doesn’t. If it comes down do what he wants then the suit will give him total control.”
Jackson sighed and hugged his sister hard.
“Alexis, it is nice that you are doing this, just promise me you will try to be careful next time.”
Alexis nodded and kissed her brother on the cheek “I promise Jackson. Sorry to make this short but I have a corporation to run, I need to go and give Damien his shots and see how production is going.” She waved goodbye to her brother and left the room. Jackson stood there and smiled.

* * * *

Outside it was becoming dark, the day was nearly over but Alexis’s work had not yet finished. She had called a rebuilding crew to fix up the manufacturing plant and heavily sedated Damien. All that was left was to find out were production was on Gryphon-X. She slowly walk down the white and grey corridors rubbing her sore neck, she had had a trying day and was ready to go to bed. She turned right down the corridor and down a flight of stairs. At the moment she was in Sector B, this is the area of most of the testing centres and cryogenic sleep, were all test subjects were held. Workers and soldiers paroled the perimeter and occasionally passed Alexis in the corridors.
She came across the Performance Enhancement Bay; she entered and found 56 scientists hard at work. She went to every person and asked questions about when and where the project was at. Close observation was made and faults were detected with the machinery.
“Project Gryphon-X will be operational in 2 to 4 weeks Miss Rhodes.”
“Ok thank you Lucas.”
Alexis left the Performance Enhancement Bay and went to her office. She packed up her things and left for her home at 11:56pm.

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