In walked four metasoldiers, heavily armed. They each positioned themselves in the four corners of the room and stood at attention, eyes staring straight ahead. Dr. Williams smiled at them before continuing.
“Did you know that a human female is born with all the eggs she will ever have already stored in her ovaries?” Dr. Williams’ face took on an even more grotesque smile bordering on elation.
“No, sir.” Creed frowned deeply now, unable to maintain his stoic fa?ade at the sick change of topic.
“It’s true. Anywhere from one to two million of them,” Williams continued. “Did you further know that these eggs can be harvested and frozen indefinitely for scientific study and use?”
“Harvested from a baby?” Creed’s eyes widened at the thought.
“Of course.”
“But why?”
“I already told you, for scientific study.”
Creed’s face went pale. The Director nodded happily at the effect.
“You see, Mr. Young, I’ve been studying physiology for decades. It’s how I was able to create the first Infinite serum. I enhanced nature; made it better, stronger, smarter, faster, more resilient and quicker to heal. You are a product of my science.”
Creed looked away from the Director and met the sickly gloating expression on Dr. Bjorn’s face. He nodded with fake empathy. Dr. Chaunders, on the other hand, was studying a paper clip at the edge of his folder—obviously less comfortable with this discussion.
“Some fourteen years ago, Mr. Young, I was working in the States at my first research facility affectingly dubbed ‘The Institute’ where I began working with human subjects. The first few dozen didn’t survive the test serums, but through their deaths, I perfected my work. The first surviving subject was a female, M57.
“Once I determined she had survived the dosing, I proceeded to further my testing on her by harvesting a couple hundred eggs from her ovaries. I was already in the process of building this site here in Germany, so I sent her samples to be cryopreserved onsite. The decision was a fortunate one on my part because it wasn’t long afterward that the subject, along with two other infant metahumans, were stolen by a rogue scientist who had been in my employ.” The Director paused to take a sip of his coffee. Creed watched in disgust as he left bloody smudges around the rim of the white mug.
He looked up at Creed and motioned to his untouched drink. “Would you prefer tea or a glass of water, perhaps?”
Creed stared for a moment, overwhelmed by the macabre tale the Director spun before shaking his head, no.
“You must be wondering what this all has to do with you, Mr. Young,” he chuckled to himself as he used his red handkerchief to absently rub the bloody marks off his mug.
“You see, I lost everything pertaining to those successful test subjects when the thief stole them. She destroyed or took every document I had on them including everything stored in our computer files,” he shook his head sadly. “But, she didn’t destroy the harvested eggs safely tucked away in the cryogenic state here in Germany,” he smiled widely causing fissures to crack open in what should have been his cheeks.
“The female meta was remarkable, by the way, Mr. Young. I wish you could remember meeting her.” He watched Creed’s eyes as he said the last.
Creed frowned anew. “I’ve met her?”
The Director nodded. “She was part of your assignment six months ago. Here, I have a photograph somewhere,” he shuffled through a second folder in front of him and pulled out a single page. “Here she is.” He held it to himself for a moment and beamed at the image before sliding the picture across the table to Creed.
It was the dark-eyed beauty from his dream. His jaw nearly dropped.
“She is lovely, isn’t she?” the Director nodded at the picture Creed held as though he was her father and felt pride for everything beautiful about her.
“She is still in the thief’s possession, with the other two metahumans stolen from me. They go by the name Winter. She is called Meg.”
Creed couldn’t speak, so struck by a flood of emotions woven with fear and confusion.
“During your recovery, Dr. Bjorn was easily able to extract the necessary samples from you, Mr. Young. Your unique gifts are to be, how shall I say—recreated? Yes, I suppose recreated is a good enough word. Your sample can easily be combined with the eggs harvested from that female meta. Dr. Bjorn, how quickly could we begin creating metahuman zygotes?”
Creed didn’t want to take his eyes off the dark-eyed girl in the photograph, but he was equally terrified at what Dr. Bjorn was about to say.
With a wicked glint in his eyes, Dr. Bjorn said, “We could have the eggs thawed and ready for fertilization in seventy-two hours.”
Creed stood so fast, his chair flew back and crashed against the wall. His face was a picture of rage. “WHAT?”