The End Ch. 01

"I don't think you realize how lucky it was that you are with me when this happened. Even the uninflected will be turning against one another to rob, rape and pillage. Let me show you something, since you'll be stuck with me for awhile." He said.

They headed out to the workshop connected by the wrap around deck. He walked up to a safe and put in a combination before there was an audible click and some of the boards popped up to reveal an entrance. Once she reached the bottom of the ladder, she realized it wasn't a basement but rather a tunnel with wooden support and dim lighting hung overhead.

"What is this?" She asked.

"A short tunnel that the previous owner built that connects to a 19th century mine shaft, which in turn leads to a subterranean cave." He explained as they reached said cave.

She thought it was amazing. An underground plat team pooled against one wall while benches and compartments had been carved into the stone along the other wall. In the back there was a large storage room, the open door revealing weapons, food and medical supplies.

"This is amazing. But why? Why do you have all of this stuff?" She wondered.

"I guess the short answer would be that I bought some of it, confiscated some of it, found some of it and had the rest given to me. I think it's fairly obvious which items came from legitimate sources and which...didn't. But I'm guessing you want the long answer? Be warned it is quite hard to believe but it is also why I know that something like this outbreak is possible. The only reason I would even share this with you is because the governments it would concern are currently falling along with most civilization most likely. And for the first time in a long while, I feel like I might be able to trust someone."

"Might be able to trust? You flatter me." She cracked. "And don't you think the 'end of civilization' is a bit extreme?" She asked, already knowing the answer deep down.

"I said 'most civilization' and if this virus or whatever it is already has spread to the major continents, no I don't think it's extreme at all." He replied, "you saw how hard they were to take down yourself. And I'm not sure if you noticed but it spreads quickly. A few of the first women to fall back at the lodge were among those rabidly chasing us as we rode away."

"I thought I might have recognized one or two but..."

They both just sat in silence for awhile before he spoke, "so, do you want to hear a story almost as crazy as the end of the world?"

She smiled at him and softly nodded.

"Alright then. Well, the Cold War. It was the cause of all sorts of insanity and cruelty bordering that if the Dark Ages." He started. "The West had the advantage in financing, resources and therefore technology for the most part. The Soviets stole a great deal of the technology that they used. However, they did have one advantage over us. People. Quantity and, in some cases, quality. For example, despite having effective but inferior technology, both the Soviet Union's Spetznat special forces group and KGB foreign intelligence agency had operators that were at least as effective as their more advanced American counterparts.

A large part of this was because the officers and drill instructors could drive their charges as hard as they wanted without fear of repercussions. Training programs often proved lethal to multiple recruits or trainees in every class. This not only served to prevent weak people from gaining such positions in the ranks but also made the strong even stronger.

Unfortunately, for them, the corruption and nepotism in the upper ranks often led to misuse or even abuse of such dedicated men, but ultimately naive men." He explained, stopping to pour them each a glass of Scotch from the decanter on the bar.

After downing the drink and quickly pouring another, he continued. "There was one scientific area in which the Soviets had the advantage. Much as the Americans focused on enhancing the Human brain or developing psychic abilities with projects like MK Ultra, the Soviets focused on enhancing the human body.

When it became clear that the West had the advantage in weaponry, they put huge amounts of effort into gaining the advantage in the men operating the weaponry. That they had access to huge amounts of test subjects from Gulags, military prisoners and political reeducation camps along with almost a complete lack of oversight only made them more daring.

To prepare for the eventual success of their "super soldier" formula they started mandatory breeding, for the good of the state, between specifically selected couples. Generation after generation, the smartest, fastest and strongest offspring were paired off for breeding with their assigned partner once they came of age. And their children and their children.

All the while, the scientists working on the formula in various independent groups were learning a lot, but accomplishing little practical results. At least nine that were immediately useful. They eventually developed a complex but lethally ineffective compound using the combination of customized steroids, both rare and proprietary prescription drugs, recombinant growth hormones, stem cell manipulation, specific nutrient and vitamin bombardments, genetic manipulation and even introductions of various animal DNA towards the beginning that killed all whom they tried it on.

It was even more lethal than the experiments with chemical injections or exposure to various forms and levels of radiation to see if either would somehow 'activate' their treatments. In the end, it was one of the offspring from the selective breeding program who found the answer, while another from his generation figured out how to apply it to the serum. At least in theory.

Apparently "student A" was pursuing his own complex and extreme evolutionary theories through archeological digs in his spare time. He was an odd young man, very quiet and reserved some of the time while he was funny, if a little goofy, the rest of the time. It was hard for him to concentrate on orders or guidelines when he gets excited about something in his personal studies or his work, which normally would have gotten him in serious trouble.

Fortunately for him, he was not only a product of the selective breeding program but also an amazingly intelligent genius. He lacked social graces and didn't pick up on social cues much of the times and if it was today they would probably have diagnosed him with Asperger's. As it was, he was simply shipped off to a science outpost in Siberia where they could send him projects or assignments while punishing him and keeping him in case of the need for his genius or his DNA.

What they didn't know was that he had been wanting to go to Siberia for years and was truly excited to gain the solitude in such an amazing place. He found the harsh beauty of it alluring but more than anything, he was interested in the human history of the area.

Less than thirty miles from his post was a site he had marked on a map two years prior as the possible origin of a creature from which he only could recover some small slivers of bone that he found but couldn't match to any species, man or beast.

He was, however, able to collect trace elements that likely came from food and water consumption that indicated his area of Siberia as the source with the matching mineral signature in the water and sediment. "Student A", being a genius even when compared to other offspring from the program, had a specific aptitude with mechanics and computers though evolutionary theories was his personal passion.

So, he developed his own form of ground penetrating radar and had it calibrated to the general depth at which everything from the time period lay. This allowed him to check more ground than would ever be possible, especially with the frozen ground and scarce reason for any archeologists to come this way as there never any great civilizations or cultures nearby.

Geographically, the closest would've been the Scythians around 1000 BCE and the northernmost tribes of the Mongols in the 13th century who were both a good deal south and on much more hospitable and accessible land.

He was almost positive nobody had done any digging here outside of the construction of his partially subterranean post for a long, long time. He pushed around his wheeled ground-penetrating radar whenever he had any spare time. He dug for what appeared to be interesting fossils on a few occasions though he had to constantly use boiled water to soften and melt the ground. He found a very rare dinosaur fossil that was surprisingly intact as well as what turned out to be nothing on a few occasions.

Just about the time he was wondering if he would every be called back to civilization, he made an amazing find after deciding to adjust the depth calibration of the radar before following the river that had cut it's path into the cold stone over thousands of years of freezing solid more than half the year and rushing rapidly during the other half.

It was inside a bend in the river that he detected a familiar shake beneath the earth. Having discovered it shortly before sunset, it was well into the next day when he actually reached the depths and was able to confirm that it was indeed a large piece of bone.

As he looked at it though, he realized he had no clue what it actually was beyond being part of a humanoid head, deeply frozen with hair sprouting from the scalp and a leathery layer of weathered and withered skin covering several areas.

The preservation was quite astonishing, even if it was just s portion of a skull and jawbone. Though there were subtle differences between it and a human skull, the biggest difference was the few teeth on the small section of jawbone attached to the 'face' if the skull. The upper incisor was a fearsome canine that was still ridiculously sharp and the other teeth appeared human from the outside but when they looked from the inner side they realized that they are not the flat grinding teeth of a human but diamond hard cutting teeth.

As he carefully removed the dirt and ice encasing it he grew even more amazed. There was plenty of tissue, hair, bone and tooth that he was able to get samples of, thought apparently a small amount of dust was all he could grind off of the tooth before the drill but snapped.

It was when he shared his findings as well as tissue, hair and bone samples to his genetics professor from the year before that it became apparent how much of an impact it may make. Her analysis' were even more shocking than his.

She was able to get a complete genetic signature and her exam if it confirmed that the creature was one that had never been documented or accounted for as it wasn't modern human, early human or Neanderthal in species.

What is more, the cells were somehow not actually dead, but rather just dormant and introducing them to plasma seemed to bring them to the edge of revival. This was something that was not possible yet she had witnessed it with her own eyes time after time again.

When she explained her findings and their source to the Serum team, they were eager to try in their desperation for completion. After experimenting and making adjustments they eventually used the creature's DNA as an ingredient in the serum, even more, it was stabilizing the other more volatile or disagreeable ingredients.

After another five years of experimenting, in which they began cloning and modifying the creature's DNA (for improvement as well as compatibility) which was 99.87% similarity to human DNA to start with. It was around then that they started testing their compounds in various combinations and levels on human subjects.

After 18 months of death to every subject injected with the serum, they had finally figured out the appropriate levels, concentration and combination of the various ingredients. After making some final adjustments they finally had their first survivor of the treatment. After it was clear that he was going to live without obvious defect or damage, he was quickly executed and dissected for study. Then, repeating the process twice more and getting the same result, they were approved for attempting practical application.

The most recently matured generation from the selective breeding program supplied the generation's most promising male and female candidates based on both their performance as well as genetic analysis.

However, after both of them completed their transfusions, they were still alive and in good health in the following days but there were no obvious effects and their tests revealed nothing conclusive. As a result the man and the woman were forced to be observed in isolation and undergo various tests while only being able to see or speak with each other for the following months.

Somewhere in the process the two fell in love. After it was assumed the serum was no longer lethal yet obviously not complete, they were released and went back to their lives. He went back to work as an agent for the KGB while she began her preparations to win a few gold medals the coming Olympics.

It was then that she found out she was pregnant and the happy couple married immediately. They were happy anti hear that the baby appeared quite healthy and very robust.

However they were both heartbroken when she went into labor at the beginning of her third trimester. As it turned out though, the healthy baby boy was not born premature or unformed. He was the picture of a beautiful baby boy. Since her doctor hadn't been in when she went into labor, her baby had been delivered by a doctor she didn't know. When she explained that she was only six months along and didn't want to lose her baby he looked at her like she was crazy. When the baby boy was born looking so healthy and string, he was really convinced that she was crazy or in the least, very confused about dates.

To the new parents, it was nothing short of a miracle. They planned to be a happy family with a successful life in Russia. However, plans rarely work out according to plan in such circumstances. For the Cold War was coming to a close and the were on the wrong side. While this was unsettling, it was news of the various scientists they remembered from the program began dropping dead of heart attacks and car accidents that really put them on edge.

When he heard about an 'accidental detonation of the munitions shed' that destroyed the entire section of the military base dedicated to their human biological sciences. Including the building where they were isolated and tested the year before. The same building that would contain all of the records, samples and test results. It was becoming painfully obvious that someone didn't want the information to get out and he wasn't going to bet that he and his wife had simply been overlooked.

They were packed up and on their way within two hours of making the decision. They had been betrayed by their falling country and though defecting to the West held immense appeal, it would be just what their hunters would suspect and fear most.

So instead he headed to his great-grandfathers land on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea where there was an isolated ranch. The house had been unoccupied for two generations so it took a bit of work and repair but soon the house was in good shape and they had placed defensive measures, traps and early warning systems around their property as well as emptying several of his lesser known weapons caches and safety deposit boxes at random times using heavy disguise just in case one of the locations had ever been mentioned in passing or documented for one reason or another in the files of him or his men.

As it turned out, only the three men and two women on his team knew of the locations as he had told them of them in case they ever needed support or supplied but couldn't go through proper channels. All of his team members proved loyal, disgusted with the actions of their country and not really knowing what to do with their lives now that the war was over.

So, they decided to do what they did during the war, follow their leader. It simply made it easier when the corrupt Colonel assigned them the task of eliminating their beloved leader or be faced with career death. The bastard was speaking as if the damn wall wasn't about to come down. Not to mention the fact that they wouldn't trade their Captain's life for a promotion but that is something that the corrupt bureaucrats could never understand.

Instead, they had decided to join their Captain and split up to cover the boxes and caches in an effort to find him. They didn't find him, but he found them. At each location he would manage to detect any observation of his destination without being detected, even if his team were the best, he still trained them. He played it cautious initially, unsure of their intentions, but soon realized they really were simply like lost children in a way.

They were among the most skilled operators and lethal killers in the planet but they never really made a place for themselves in the real world and as such, they had no idea what to do outside of the structure of the KGB.

They unanimously accepted his invitation to his ranch, none of them having family of their own. As they drove back from the last buried weapons cache, he did his best to explain the chain of events as well as the details of both the program the bred him and the program who tried to turn him into a super soldier. They all shuddered at that thought for they knew what he was capable of as a biologically normal man.

They were all excited to finally meet his new wife and little son but they agreed to build their own cabins on his land. He told them they could all stay free of rent as long as they helped him out around the ranch and agreed to tutor his son in their isolation. They all immediately accepted the generous offer.

After that, life on the ranch regulated some. The happy couple finally had the simple life they had desired since they fell in love. Their son was tutored, starting before his second birthday, in everything from basic academics based on American curriculum as well as Russian studies, martial arts, weaponry, tactics, strategy, psychology, anatomy, survivalism and whatever else any of his tutors wanted to instill in him, though they never attempted to force belief systems, ideology or religion on the boy.

His mother encouraged him to learn as many languages as possible but only really pushed him to learn Russian (as they had spoken only English in their home from the day their son came home, though it proved a challenge for a couple of his team members), Italian (her mother had fled Italy with her parents to escape Mussolini's reign of terror and she didn't want her son to forget his ancestry so easily), Latin and Greek (which all 'educated' boys over the last couple millennia could read and write and which allowed him to read the classics in their original form).

Soon though, it became apparent that something was different about their son. Much like he had been born fully mature after barely six months in the womb, he also began to grow and mature at a faster rate than normal and by his second birthday he as physically and mentally mature as a child of at least five years. After his seventh birthday his growth slowed down and he remained approximately three years more advanced in every way than a human boy his age would be.

Perhaps the oddest change occurred between his seventeenth and nineteenth birthday as he seemed go to from a gangly seventeen year old boy to a nineteen year old man, jumping through the totality of puberty in two years and giving the female ex-KGB agents and even his mother a heart flutter every time he flashed a smile or worked without a shirt on. Of course, he was oblivious to such effects as he had never seen a girl his own age. It was because of this that the two female ex-agents generously decided to instruct the boy in seduction, they informed his father, their Captain, who gave his blessing. He knew that the hormones that had flooded his son so suddenly were probably quite confusing and he knew that the two women were in need of more than each other's tongues and fingers as both loved cock too much to be solely with each other and the unattached men in their group lacked either the inclination or the equipment to satisfy the two deadly beauties. And teach him they did.