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  “Your first mistake, Mister Bodt.” The prisoner gleefully stared at the agitated, older man. “You failed to gather enough knowledge of your enemy. Doing so would have prepared you for our counterattack.”

  Bodt’s body was shaking, but not from fear. He was furious that he was outsmarted. “I never would’ve imagined that a red eye would be the end of me.”

  “Your second mistake—Mister Bodt—is that you assumed.” The prisoner shook his head as if disappointed with Bodt’s performance as a HAWK operative. Without warning, the prisoner drew his arms back to their natural resting position, tearing the restraints without any effort.

  Holt and Kuhn both drew their pistols, pointing at the prisoner who was now free of his fetters and standing up from the chair after kicking off the restrictors binding his legs. Bodt drew his weapon, albeit with some reluctance. There was a bitter smile plastered on his face. The mystery behind the beast’s ridiculous resilience was finally solved.

  “You’re not a red eye.” Bodt shook his head, clenching his teeth.

  “More or less.” The prisoner took a step toward the group of men, the red color in his eye fluctuating as he approached.

  The metamorphosis played out as if a bucket of liquefied gold was dumped into a washbasin of blood. The metallic properties mixed with the crimson red until the entire eye settled as molten gold. The pupil was now a brilliant white. It had become an alabaster orb surrounded by a moat of melted, precious metal.

  “You are a smart man, Mister Bodt. Unfortunately, you realized my true identity too late. But here is some parting advice … Golden eyes can trick humans by mimicking weaker forms.”

  Ascending the hierarchy of the colored-eyed humanoids, starting from red, progressing to purple, and arriving at the top with the gold, the three men finally understood why there was so little known about the golden-eyed creatures. It was a miracle if a person had the opportunity to record the data and have it sent back before they were never seen again.

  The heavy, metal door swung open, slamming against the concrete wall with a thunderous crash. Both Holt and Kuhn turned to face the new threat while Bodt stared down the golden-eyed Chroma. The humans were surrounded.

  “Kayto! Why did you have us hold back for so long?” one of the purple-eyed Chroma called out to the prisoner in the monster’s native tongue. The guards’ blood from the mutilated corpses left in the previous room covered the purple-eyed monsters’ mouths as they spoke with a series of nonsensical, melted syllables.

  “The timing wasn’t right—remember that I had to cover your Rutem with mine so you could slip in here,” the prisoner named Kayto joked, conversing back in the monster’s language. “What are the Red Tigers doing?” Craning his head, he let his long, black hair drape to one side.

  “The Red Tigers are tracking Gentaro Mori. They will have him cornered and captured by the end of this day,” one of the purple-eyed Chroma spoke up.

  “Even I have made the mistake of underestimating the Tigers’ abilities.” Kayto chuckled, shaking his head and looking at the three humans who held him in captivity for the past thirty-six hours.

  “Let’s tie up some loose ends.” Kayto switched back to English so that his next meals could comprehend their impending doom.

  “Fucking shit!” Bodt glanced at the young men behind him. “I should’ve caught on sooner!”

  “This isn’t the time to bitch, Bodt.” Holt smirked, keeping his pistol pointed at the purple glowing eyes in front of him. He rubbed the wedding band on his ring finger with the opposite hand as he held the pistol.

  I’m not gonna make home, love … Please forgive me. Holt smiled painfully, picturing his beautiful wife’s smile one last time. After his silent farewell, Holt’s expression hardened, portraying his building anger. “The gates of Valhalla are opening for us, gents! Let’s all have a drink on the other side!”

  As a mentor, Bodt could not be more proud of his subordinate’s battle cry.

  “It was an honor!” Bodt screamed.

  Three pistols fired.

  The prisoner and his lackeys dashed toward the middle, absorbing the bullets that barely packed the power to penetrate their robust skins. Naturally, the humans were overwhelmed within a blink of an eye, their chances of inflicting any damage on the monstrous humanoids next to none. However, the team refused to die having done nothing. Their fighting spirit carried them through their final moments.

  The day of the team’s fall arrived unannounced, as the walls were drenched in red.

  PHASE 02

  Cipher Break

  Two weeks ago.

  March 3rd, 2037. Local Time 03:27

  In the desert, near the Arizona and Utah state border.

  1.

  The adamant ticking of the timer that was perched on the desk nearly drove the young man mad as his sleep-deprived eyes stared at the exceptionally bright computer screen. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. The fraying edges of small, sticky bandages on his fingers caught some of the strands toward the back of his head. His eyes slowly widened as the delayed pain signals finally registered in his mind.

  “You know what? This is what they call ‘karma!’ This is what I get for being cocky!” Phillip Delgado groaned as he leaned a little to the side, supporting his upper body with a propped-up arm and a hand under his chin. He kept staring at the screen, sighing deeply by exhaling through his nostrils. The exhaustion that stemmed from his lack of sleep was taking its toll. “I bit off way more than I could chew.”

  Three weeks prior, the right-wing department of NanoXLabs called a massive employee meeting at the Southern Californian location. It was an assembly that Phillip was planning to skip. He read the fine print of the new policies when the packet was first released. Oddly enough, he read it throughout the night into the next day, taking some sort of eccentric interest in the otherwise bland material.

  “Come on! I need you at the meeting, Phil!” Jake Cardinale, a work colleague, urged Phillip before their lunch break was over.

  “You need me to hold your hand, Jake?” Phillip raised his eyebrow as he reached for his bag, getting ready to leave from the cafeteria straight to his car. His plan of getting home early was being threatened by Jake’s relentless nagging.

  “Just keep me awake! Our Lead told me he’s going to write me up for ‘being unprofessional’ if I doze off again! How does everyone else stay awake through those meetings?” Jake complained.

  “For starters, you’re not getting enough sleep! Two, you should be paying attention to those policy update announcements. Looking at the fine print, I realized that I was being cheated out of money because I went with the ‘auto-fill’ option on my policy choice entries last year,” Phillip grunted.

  “You mean the optional program that puts in suggested choices for you?” Jake stopped waving his hands suddenly and stared at his friend in shock.

  “Come on, Jake! Don't act so surprised. The company is obviously going to give people these opportunities to screw them over.”

  “Okay, how much ‘swindling’ are we talking about here?” Jake asked, reaching for his favorite calculator.

  “I did the math. It's about two dollars every paycheck that the company takes back.” Phillip nodded, a bit of pride in his voice.

  Jake's expression dropped as fast as the calculator.

  “You read the fine print, the one that has been projected to take fourteen hours to get through, just to save yourself two dollars per paycheck?”

  “It's not the amount. It's the principle,” Phillip replied with an air of superiority.

  “All right then, Mister Principle. Can you bring your nickel-diming ass to the meeting and help a friend out? All I’m asking you to do is to kick me in the foot every now and then.” Jake was almost pleading.

  “You carrying on with your whining doesn’t change the fact that I’m about to walk out. In fact, my respect for you is dwindling with each moment this conversation continues.” Phillip threw his backpack on and tu
rned to leave the office.

  “Fine, but honestly! What are you going to do in the meanwhile, Phil? Are you just going to stare at the wall in your apartment? How’s that any different from going to that meeting?”

  Phillip stopped in mid-step. Raising an eyebrow, he slowly turned to face his friend, hand tightly gripping the shoulder strap of his backpack.

  “What are you on about?”

  “Phil, let’s be real, you don’t do much outside of work—but please don't take that the wrong way.”

  Phillip thought he always held the “superior” side of the conversation between the two of them. This was the first time in three years Jake said something that completely struck Phillip speechless.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Phillip muttered.

  “Since you started working here, I can’t think of a time where you missed a deadline. Your work is always beyond neat. You never complain about anything—but the one thing that sticks out about you is that you never talk about your home life. Every time we have a group chat with the crew on lunch break, all you can seem to talk about is work! In all the time I have known you, I don’t even know if your parents are alive,” Jake said in a low voice.

  Wow … so Jake can be perceptive. Phillip drew a sharp breath.

  “Listen, all I’m saying is that maybe we should hang out after work. Hey! How about this? We can hang out right after the meeting. Grab a bite to eat, go to the bar, and pick up chicks! Maybe go out to the range to shoot some guns? I don't know! Anything other than work?” Jake shrugged.

  “I … I guess.” Phil sighed, dropping his backpack by his feet.

  If there were two things that Jake absolutely loved more than anything in the world, it had to be guns and women, in that order.

  The two young men left the giant conference room where the policy meeting was held. However, Phillip’s beeline to escaping was interrupted when someone's hand rested on his shoulder.

  “Phillip Delgado! It’s been a while!” the friendly voice called over the general bustling of the front reception area of the company building.

  Phillip froze in his tracks. That voice belonged to the man he respected above all others. The young man spun around to see the middle-aged face of NanoXLabs’ CEO.

  The last time Phillip saw Clay Maxwell face to face was when the CEO disguised himself as a recruiter. Little did Phillip know at the time in that interview some years ago that the CEO of an international corporation would be attentively listening to him ramble on about his senior project in college. Of course, it was difficult to suspect Clay Maxwell’s prestigious status at that time, since he was disguised in a sweater vest, hiding behind a pair of coke bottle glasses.

  “Y-yes! It has been a long while, sir!” Phillip responded, his voice a little shaken.

  “Did you enjoy the meeting? I’m encouraged to say that the meeting was educational … however, personally … I would’ve excused anyone sleeping through it. I was struggling to stay awake.” Clay sighed, dodging the other people who were weaving their way out of the giant meeting room and filing out to the parking lot. It was no wonder why some of the people didn’t recognize their own CEO. The most powerful man in the company was wearing the exact same white lab coat garb that everyone else was wearing.

  “No! It was fine! I’m glad I went.” Phillip’s unsettled demeanor couldn’t be any more obvious.

  “All right, I’m glad that you did make it to this meeting,” Clay said with a slight side-glance that was directed at Phillip. “Would have been a shame if you left early.”

  Phillip audibly gulped.

  What did he mean by that?

  “Jake! You made it to the meeting, too! You don't look nearly as tired as usual!” Clay laughed, reaching over and slapping Jake on the arm.

  Jake let out a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the sore spot where he was struck. One particular trait that set Clay apart from other CEOs was the close interactions he shared with his employees. Most CEOs from other companies would have no idea who was who in the vast pool of workers.

  Phillip tried to conjure up reasons as to why Clay behaved in a way that some people considered “unfitting” for a man of his caliber. The only explanation that Phillip could come up with was Clay’s age. He was more than likely in his mid-thirties, which could explain the more active style in his boss’s daily routine, but did not quite cover Clay’s choice to associate with his company’s “grunts.”

  “Phil, I wanted to speak to you about an important matter. If I could have ten minutes of your time in a quieter room, that would be splendid,” Clay said in a warm voice, rubbing his hands together.

  Phillip shot a glance toward Jake. What could he have done wrong that would warrant a one-on-one with “The Man”?

  Before Jake could reassure him that all would be well, since Phillip never did anything wrong, Clay threw his arm around Phillip’s shoulder and began leading him away. “Splendid! We’ll be right back, Jake. I just need him for a little bit.”

  Clay led Phillip away to a small meeting room in the far wing of the building, closing the door behind him. “Based on our interaction during your interview, you know how I operate, Phillip. I’m straight to the point. So, I want you to head a new project.”

  “New project? Sir!” Phillip was completely caught off-guard. “If I may, I think that my Lead would be a better choice to start on a new project.”

  “Questioning my decision making? Bold, and I respect that.” Clay kept his voice low and cool.

  “N-no! I just don’t understand why you would assign me to head a project when my Lead has far more experience,” Phillip tried to explain his thought process.

  “I gave it much thought, but honestly, all of our Leads are not … well, how do I put this?” Clay pondered for a moment. “They do have the experience, but they’re also rooted in a certain way of thinking, you know? They have their methods, and it’s set in stone that way. Understand?”

  “Yes … sir.” Phillip slowly nodded.

  “I need someone with an open mind,” the CEO said, glancing at Phillip momentarily before pacing back and forth. “Someone who is not ground in a set way of thinking. Someone who is eager to innovate.”

  “I’m that person, sir?”

  “I know you’re that person.” Clay smiled, chuckling toward the end. “A while ago, you and your friend Jake were having a small discussion about how viruses and bacteria all have a particular characteristic to their genetic structure.”

  Phillip swallowed back the gasp that threatened to escape.

  How did his boss know about that specific conversation? A small bead of sweat ran down Phillip’s forehead.

  Did Jake tell Clay … or is Clay monitoring us?

  “You also said that this characteristic could be an exploitable trait, eliminating the microbial threat against humans.”

  “Yes. While conducting research under the scopes, I made some observations that could support my theory. The ‘Cipher Break,’ as I call it, is a discontinuity in the RNA code of a virus. I can utilize that anomaly as a reference point. From there, I can design and cultivate a counter-virus that doesn't target the cells of the body. It would only react with the harmful virus, fuse to its polarized, mirrored half to nullify the virus altogether. After doing some digging, I realized I could produce these ‘counter-viruses’ with the genome manufacturing machine that the company procured from Oscion,” Phillip replied.

  There was a remarkable relationship between the CEOs of the two companies. Clay Maxwell of NanoXLabs was best friends with Calvin Frost of Oscion. However, their rivalry eventually drove a sort of wedge between them after years of competition. Clay could only assume when the machine arrived one day on his doorstep that it was Calvin’s way of burying the hatchet. However, the peace offering merely collected dust, occupying half of a storage room, given its enormous size.

  Once Phillip began to dig around in the genetic engineering field, he happened upon this colossal, medical wonder. I
t was precisely the machine he needed. The apparatus cultured microbes, extracted samples, and was even able to reconfigure strands of RNA and DNA.

  “You propose that any disease can be defeated, simply by creating a counterpart of it?” Clay narrowed his eyes as he folded his arms across his chest.

  Phillip remained silent, slightly dipping his head. He was aware that his theories sounded more logical in his head.

  “It’s very outlandish—but it’s an idea! You said there is even some evidence to back it up … and you don't even mention it to your Lead? Do you mind explaining that to me?” Clay tilted his head slightly.

  Phillip’s hands were trembling as he stood there with nothing to say. What could he say? What was the best explanation? At any rate, silence was not an option. Balling his shaking hands into fists, Phillip raised his head.

  “Sir, the reason I withheld sharing this was … well, I wasn’t sure how to pitch it to my Lead. Please understand how ridiculous this theory sounds to a person who has had their hands in virology for two decades.”

  There was a brief silence.

  Clay seemed to be studying his young employee as he carefully turned over each and every word that came out of Phillip's mouth.

  “Is that all?”

  “No,” Phillip continued. “At one point, I began to think that my own idea was out of reach. It is something so far out there that … I myself cannot exactly understand all of the underlying mechanics—”

  “Wrong,” Clay interjected. “How can your idea be out of reach when it hasn’t been tested? The fact is that you were just half-heartedly talking about it. You lack conviction.”

  “Yes, sir.” Phillip nodded. “I'm sorry, sir.”

  “No, you’re not sorry. I’m sorry—for you.” Clay sighed. “If you think you are on to something, then take the initiative and make it a reality. That's why NanoXLabs exists, Phillip! This company did not get here with people staying silent.”

  Clay abruptly clapped his hands together with an ear-splitting pop! He swiftly moved to one of the far corners of the room. Turning his back to the wall, he faced Phillip with a penetrating gaze.