Page 89 of Dark Shaman: Love Found
The enhanced soldiers were planning something, had developed their own communication system, and they seemed to be operating as some kind of collective consciousness. It was one of the several nightmare scenarios he'd feared when the psychological changes had first begun manifesting.
But reporting it would mean admitting failure. Navuh had ordered him to fix the problems, to create counter-medications that would restore obedience whilemaintaining the physical enhancements. Zhao had tried, but they adapted to every compound he developed within days.
The enhanced soldiers weren't just evolving physically—they were evolving mentally, socially, and perhaps even spiritually into something beyond his ability to control or understand.
Zhao took another long pull from the vodka bottle, then moved to his primary workstation. If he couldn't control them, perhaps he could at least create a fail-safe. His fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up the files he'd been working on in secret—a neurotoxin specifically designed to target the enhanced nervous system.
The formula was elegant in its brutality. It attacked the very enhancements he'd created, turning their improved neural processing against them. The faster their synapses fired, the quicker the toxin would spread. Their enhanced metabolism would pump it through their system at incredible speed. Death would come in seconds, perhaps minutes at most.
He'd tested it on tissue samples, run computer simulations, even tried diluted versions on some of the enhanced soldiers under the guise of routine medications. The results were promising, which was to say, horrifying.
Naturally, he encrypted everything with military-grade protection. If something happened to him, or rather, when something happened to him, at least there would be a record. Maybe someone would find his notes, understand what he'd tried to do and why he'd failed.
Because even though he'd failed, what he'd done was revolutionary. He should get a Nobel prize for it, but of course he wouldn't.
Perhaps he would at least be acknowledged posthumously.
The vodka bottle was half-empty already, and the lab had taken on a soft-focus quality that made the harsh fluorescent lights almost bearable. Zhao added final notes about the enhanced soldiers' communication system, their resistance to chemical interrogation, and their talk of transcendence.
He paused at that word.
Transcendence.
Not rebellion, not escape, but transcendence.
They saw themselves as becoming something greater, evolving, and it was exactly what he'd designed them to do, but the joke was on him.
He'd succeeded and failed at the same time.
Zhao saved his files, backed them up to three separate encrypted drives, then took one more drink. The vodka burned, but it was a good burn, a reminder that he was still alive.
His cot called to him, the mattress and blanket offering the promise of temporary oblivion. He lay down fully clothed, not even bothering to remove his lab coat. The ceiling tiles above him had water stains that looked like faces if he squinted right—screaming faces, laughing faces, faces twisted in transcendent joy.
He needed to make a decision. Report to Navuh and likely face his wrath for failing to control the enhanced soldiers, which would almost certainly lead to his demise, or stay silent and hope he could either develop a better controlling agent or perfect his neurotoxin before the subjects decided to transcend their current circumstances. Whatever that meant.
Neither option offered much hope for his survival.
29
NAVUH
Navuh stood at his second-floor office window, hands clasped behind his back, surveying his domain with the satisfaction of a leader who'd built an empire and became the most dangerous male on Earth.
He'd had his father's legacy to build upon, but Mortdh's ambitions had been very different from Navuh's. He had been influenced by the rebel gods and their do-good mentality, but to his credit, he had believed that his approach to managing humans was better.
He'd had the right idea, but he hadn't taken it far enough.
Humans were like cattle. Mortdh had thought to be their shepherd, while Navuh thought of them as nothing more than slaves. That was what they had been created to be, and that was the only thing they were suitable for.
At their core, they were barbarians and left to their own devices they would annihilate each other. At least under hisrule, they would serve a purpose other than filling graveyards with their worthless bones.
The problem was that humans multiplied like rabbits, and even though they were pathetically weak as individuals, they were formidable in numbers.
Even with his clever machinations, compulsion, and thousands of immortal warriors, he still couldn't achieve world domination. But the future looked bright thanks to his latest masterpiece move.
The enhanced soldiers were a leap in the evolution of the species. Through his vision and Zhao's know-how, they'd created the next step in immortal development. Stronger, faster, more resilient than anything that had come before them.
They were gods among immortals, titans among men.
