Chapter Two.
Deep within the Amazon jungle, Ester Williams and her team of scientific advisors had ventured into the area where it was rumoured some hundreds of years earlier a colossal fireball had landed, and even now the local tribal communities refuse to travel within three miles of the outer boundaries, as such was their collective fear of this area.
Ester was herself a bit of a geek, and a professor of Entomology, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Genetics, Pathology, Biology, and Geology.
She also had a few additional titles which were known only to a few within the Pentagon and World Health Organization, her clearance level was Above Top Secret and ‘For Eyes Only’, and due to the sensitive nature of her work, Ester was answerable only to the President of the United States of America; such as the importance and value placed upon her work and research.
Her team of researchers were almost equally as impressive and included specialists in Linguistics, strategy, military applications, advanced weaponry, tacticians, and so much more.
Plus! A guard of highly skilled Black Operatives, and chosen from a range of services, and who themselves held specific skills, yet had proven to be able to work equally well within a team, or in emergency situations of separation and survival.
Esters next in command was Cathy, who was herself a specialist in Micro-Electromechanical systems, and also specialised in systems like photolithography, microfabrication, Nanotechnology on an atomic-molecular level, quantum mechanics and molecular self-assembly.
Olga Startoff, and Jerry O’Dell, were kind of oddballs within this group of highly trained geeks, as these two had a strong military background, and among been at the top of their field, equal to, if not higher than the collective group of Black Operations team.
They also specialised in the full known list of Military Tactics and were themselves the creation of Cathy’s secret military work, having been cloned and created from the latest genetic advancements, including what to them was natural Nanotechnology inbuilt at a molecular quantum level.
They were very much the soldiers of tomorrow, and highly advanced in almost every conceivable way, and although at this stage they were unaware of what faced them, they were to learn soon they encountered an enemy equally as gifted and influential, but with many millions of years of evolutionary genetic memory to recall on.
The one advantage that Olga and Jerry had over their fellow team members, as they had been born with these gifts, as they were third generation models, and cloned from human parents who were themselves the original hosts for this experimental technology.
Now, all within the team from Ester downwards had undergone an agonising five years of Nano inserts, and genetic reprogramming, before they had been able even to start this field operation.
Ten years earlier the military had sent in their finest warriors, knowing that some form of alien life form possibly parasitic existed within the central triangle of the thickest part of the Amazon.
Apes, insects and wild creatures, had from within that area, somehow acquired unnatural abilities and were spreading a virulent virus, until the government had managed to capture samples, and upon realising the danger, an exclusion zone was created and a controlled nuclear weapon was used, resulting in a twelve-mile radius of destroyed, scorched land, devoid of life.
Only their desperate actions failed to kill whatever alien life form was there, as highly skilled military teams were sent in, and they all failed to return.
Later satellite reconnaissance showed a series of caves and sinkholes which were previously unknown of, due to the previous dense overgrowth of the vegetation within the jungle, and of no one ever returning alive from that area.
Lord Carlyle had been the only exception, and the military knew who and what he represented, and therefore avoided direct contact with him.
Now years later the jungle had reclaimed the scorched land, and the United States Government, along with the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia and India, had financed an ‘Alien Life Form Research Unit’ and had employed selected individuals who were above the top of their field.
Their budget had been virtually bottomless, and within a few years this organisation grew, and today held the title deeds and copy write of much of today’s research and advanced technology, some which had been created outside the gravity well of earth, and within the Space Station.
All had progressed as expected for the first five days, and a series of sub base camps were created, and controlled zones established, where profoundly advance intelligent biogenetic reconnaissance weapons were set into place.
Each unit had been programmed to recognise individual members of the team and to especially recognise any variation of the virus, which was discovered from captured animals.
The weaponry could target life forms standing next to or upon the designated team members, and used programmed force specifically designed to only kill the target and avoiding what has become termed as killed by friendly fire.
This also gave the operatives a level of security which otherwise they would not have had, and without it, regardless of how good they were, would have doomed their mission before it even started.
It was not until the seventh night that the first real test of this new weaponry was put to the test. As the team members slept, the five guards on watch duty were alerted to suspected areal infiltration, and within moments the automated weaponry took control, and hundreds upon hundreds of huge fruit bats, over a metre long, were being shot from the sky.
The outer ring of defences successfully destroyed over 70% while the central to inner defences killed the remaining 30%, only a few rear stragglers who avoided the outer range were able to escape and return to their roost.
This action had merely decimated these creatures, and never had they faced such a powerful enemy.
Each body was retrieved, and samples were taken to study for variations of the virus, and then the remains were destroyed by immersion into acid, they initially had tried incineration some years earlier, but quickly discovered the fumes and smoke particles still held micro-samples of the virus, which had built up a resistance and remained alive.
“Did you see that?” enquired Olga, “They were actually organised, and simply testing our defences, they sacrificed an entire colony, to learn what they were up against.”
“How could you tell,” enquired Richardson, one of the Black Operation’s team. “Here, look at Abroc’s recordings,”
Abroc was the designated name given to the ‘Advanced Bio Robotic Operations Computer.’ Olga beckoned to Jerry, and he explained to Richardson and the others as they grouped around a computer monitor.
“They could see the recordings of the attack as filmed from the perspective of each munitions platform. After the third replay and the superimposed audio recording as captured by Abroc of frequencies beyond that of the human ear, Abroc replayed them at a level the humans could hear, and to their utter surprise they could clearly hear various communications, and with Abroc’s help, they were able to understand each action taken after selected connections had been made.
The realisation that these creatures also held an intelligence above that of previously studied members of their species gave them a reason for concern.
As they now were aware not only were the enemy which they were fighting the alien, and capable of infecting its victims, it also gave them heightened intelligence as well as incredibly quick reactions of speed, stamina and strength.
