Chapter 5

"I'm urging you to reconsider, people. What happened was an accident."

"An accident is when a car collided with a trailer, or when a flowerpot fell from the balcony, Director Hazri. When thirty-seven renowned and respected scientists and researchers died in one go, it's a disaster of unacceptable scale."

"But Ms. Speaker, she is just a little girl. We accelerated her growth until she looks seven years old, but in reality she's only 12 months old and-"

"It is not a little girl, director. It is not even human. It is a tool. A weapon we created to counter western military superiority. It is nothing more than an advanced clone which we have lost control over. We are aware of how close you are to the subject, but do not mistake your enthusiasm for passion."

"She is human, Ms. Speaker. She is derived from my own blood. She is not a lab rat!"

"Case in point. Are you human?" Silence.

"I am human, Ms. Speaker. The genetic difference between you and me is only .018%. You don't call yourself a monkey, do you, Ms. Speaker?" Hazri said, as he and the speaker stared daggers at each other.

"Regardless of your arguments, our decision is unanimous and final. Project Descendant is, as of now, officially terminated. All records, backups and assets of the project shall be sealed or destroyed. May we never make this mistake ever again," the speaker, a wrinkly middle-aged woman, announced so loudly even the glasses whimpered from the sonic attack.

Hazri balled his fists.

Half an hour later Hazri determinedly walked along a dim tunnel with three of his remaining scientists and a full escort of armed guards. The tunnel was long and made of reinforced concrete, again reinforced with non-conducting titanium and carbon-fibre materials. Any visitor would be able to tell that the place was designed to withstand great punishment, unless of course one were to detonate a 10 megaton nuclear bomb inside it, but even then the architects of the original design had faith that it would still be largely intact.

When they arrived at a large blast door at the end of the long tunnel, their armed escorts took position along the sides of the tunnel, aiming their M16 assault rifles and the Malaysian-made ATM14 anti-tank rifles at the large blast door. Hazri and one of the scientists proceeded to both sides of the blast door and activated the mechanism that controlled the door. When the locks came undone and the heavy steel door slowly swung outwards, the armed escorts steadied their posture and waited for any sign of threat from the inhabitant inside.

What they saw made their cold hearts waver. For in that room, a little girl, no more than eight years old, was chained suspended above the floor. The chains, made of pure non-conducting titanium, covered her entire barely-clothed little girl's body. The chains kept her limbs apart, pulled taut so she had no room to move even a muscle. It wrapped around her tiny little body, like an obscene metallic bandage from a sadist's nightmarish vision.

One of the men, the father of a six year old girl, was trained to kill without remorse. And indeed he had killed many in the name of duty, even ones as young as this. But this scene in front of him, of this girl wearing only shreds of cloth, bare-footed, chained from the ceiling, the walls and the floor touched his cold heart. This girl who looked tired, haggard, hungry and dehydrated, whose sunken eyes unable to open beyond halfway point, reminded him of his own daughter. He couldn't help but picture his own daughter in a similar position, and without realizing it, his steady form started shaking.

"Brother?" the little girl said weakly, without raising her head.

To Lieutenant Mat Sabri Mat Karang whose daughter was only six, that single word brought a tear to his eyes. After all, he was still a human before he was a killer.

"Brother? Is that you?" the little girl said again, as she tried with all her failing strength to raise her head.

Hazri looked at her in disdain. All these years, ever since he was born, he had been looking for one just like him. One who knows the knowledge, one who hears 'their' thoughts, one who understands 'them'. Not even his mother who had given birth to him was anything similar to what he was. When he told someone what he saw, what he heard, people called him a freak. He had since learned to study those things he saw 'them' do, to reproduce it in a way that humans can understand, and then he claimed 'their' knowledge as his own. When he was 17 they called him a genius, one that only comes only once every one hundred years. They put him on the same pedestal as Albert Einstein and Nicola Tesla, as Avicenna and Leonardo da Vinci, by the age of 26. Nobody knew that he was nothing more than a sham. 'They' never complained. 'They' were, after all, long dead.

And now that he finally managed to make one just like him after countless failures, they told him to kill her. Hazri looked at the little girl in front of him and said in a clear voice, "Subject A21438, the Council of Watchers has decided that you and the whole Project Descendant is too dangerous to be continued. Following the 127th Council Interventionary Order, the project and all its assets shall now be sealed or terminated. Subject A21438, you are hereby sentenced to death-"

"Who is Subject A21438? My name is Alice. You gave me that name, brother," the little girl objected in her failing voice.

"Subject A21438, you are sentenced to death by firing squad, failing which, by complete nuclear incineration. What is your last request?"

The girl wept at that point, though no tears came out of her dehydrated body. When she recovered, she pleaded, "Would you sing me that song again, brother?"

No, not that, Hazri had hoped that she would say sorry. Wished that she would fight and say that it wasn't her fault. Prayed that she would tell him how much she hated him. It would be much easier to order them to shoot her if she had fought back. He didn't expect this, that she would ask him to sing that song, the same song that he had sung to her since the first day she came into consciousness in that age progression vat. She couldn't hear him from inside the sound-proofed vat, but he knew she could feel the song.

"Take her down, we're putting her into stasis," Hazri gave the order.

One of the scientists sputtered, then said, "But director, the council specifically ordered 'it' terminated."

Hazri took out his gun and put one large hole in the scientist's head.

"Anyone else want to object?" when he saw none argued back, Hazri said, "This is Special Directive Order 55, Subject 21438 Alice shall be put into stasis for an unspecified duration. Dr. Tan Siao Beng shall be replacing Subject A21438 inside the nuclear incineration chamber. All records of this order shall be erased and those who repeat this order to anyone will be committing treason against the king and country, and be sentenced to death by hanging."

Hazri took a deep breath, "Now take her down, people."

The sky was already dark, and the battle had been going on for about half an hour when another one of the dogface's ion cannon lanced through the battlefield and arced near the 5th Wataniah Special Signals Unit position. Leftenan Abu Hasan had lost five of his men when two of the dogface troopers assaulted their position just ten minutes earlier. His brave team of engineers and technicians, pressed into service when the alien invasion began, started this mission with 27 able men and women. Now he had less than five trying to hold the enemy at bay with their AT55M armor-piercing anti-tank rifle. The rest, the wounded but still lucid, had a gun in their hands, not necessarily to kill incoming aliens, but to shoot themselves when they came. Suicide is not the Malaysian way, sinful even, but compared to the hell on the alien's motherships, suicide is the better choice.

"Special Signals Unit, we are of His Majesty's Royal Guard, we are coming by air. ETA 30 seconds. Over," came a voice from the radio amidst the booms of the battlefield.

Lieutenan Abu Hasan quickly snatched the wireless transceiver. "Roger that. Please arrange medical aid as well. Some of my people are badly injured. Over," the 1st lieutenant said as he scanned the wounded bodies on the battlefield.

"We don't have many medics on board, leftenan. Your wounded will be EVAC'ed to Foundation Base. We are coming from the east. DO NOT under any circumstances shoot at the sky. Over and out!"