Chapter 1: I do not exist

I don't mean like, "I don't think; therefore, I ain't". I mean, as far as the government is concerned, I don't exist. I am one of those secret projects that you hear conspiracy nuts always talking about to anyone who will listen, and they are right a lot more often than you would give them credit.

There never was a secret lab in the West Virginia Mountains, nor was there ever a project code named "Nova Sapient", and again I do not exist. If I did exist I would have been born (if that is what you can call it) on June 21st 2013 at 7pm est., 8lbs 4oz, and 21 inches long. I would have had a mother, not some poor homeless girl that was kept in a coma to be my uterine incubator. I would have had a father and not some fifty geeks in lab coats deciding which strand of DNA was to be grafted here and which strand doubled there, or what animal DNA to add (just for shits and giggles) to create my genetic soup.

I would have an average to moderately high IQ, not something in the 300s. I would be like other kids and get bumps and bruises, cuts and scraps, even the odd broken bone or childhood illness. Not me, my muscles are six times as dense as the average human, giving me about twelve times the strength. My reflexes are heightened with feline DNA so I can run faster, jump higher. I'm more agile, and I see in the dark pretty darn well.

From the canine (read wolf) DNA I have a sense of smell that would cause me to gag anytime anyone in the facility would so much as fart, and the ability to run for hours... even days without stopping. Somewhere along the line I got the ability to regenerate like a starfish on earthworm. And NO, you can't cut me in half and get two of me; one is quite enough, thanks.

I knew twenty languages by the age of fourteen and would have had three or four PhDs by the age of sixteen (if they allowed me to go to school that is). AND just before my "liberation" at the age of nineteen, I had unlocked several of my "Hidden Talents"; things like mind reading, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, cryokinesis (I can build up an electric charge like an eel and zap the hell out of someone) precognition, which saved my butt more that once from letting on to the guards and techies that I was even more different than they thought. But my precog is "rented cheap" so I can tell when I'm about to get in trouble or sometimes what horse will come in first, or even what number on a roulette wheel is going to come up, but it's never like "four days from now on Highway 10 you will get a flat tire." At most it's maybe one hour or even one minute before the event.

My last ability (that I know of) is that somehow I can extend some kind of "force" blade from my closed fist about ten to sixteen inches out, with which I can cut through flesh and bone and even thin steel.

I'm telling you all of this so you will know that when I woke up to the sound of gun fire outside my room/cell you will understand I knew the shit had hit the fan.

Sitting up and doing a quick sweep of the base I happened on the mind of several people that did not belong. The main thing going through all of their minds was "We must cleanse the evil from this place and destroy the abomination which dwells within."

"Great!!!" I thought to myself, just what every red blooded American freak wants... my own fan club of religious zealots. There was no doubt in my mind that I was the abomination for which they spoke/thought. Then I picked up on a thought directed at me and me alone, I zeroed in on this thought pattern and dug deep. Teddy, that's what the guards had called him. I had seen him around the facility once or twice, he was a janitor (sorry, government title "Sanitation Engineer") and every time my eyes caught him it gave me the creepy crawlies. I extracted from his mind that he had had a crisis of faith and had to confess to his priest that this base was doing the devils work and creating life against God's will. His priest had reported this up the chain of command (it's not just a military thing) to the Pope, who decided that this base and all in it must be destroyed because only God was allowed to create life.

Don't get me wrong, God's a great guy and everything. I mean he did the whole world in six days then kicked back to rest for a day (they once told me that I was the culmination of over thirty years of work and study, beginning with the work of Dr. Josef Mengele... king asshole). But other than the cool beanie and some great bling-bling, the Pope is just a man. Where does he get the right to say that I have to die because I didn't have "Made by God" stamped on my ass? That's just wrong.

Anyway Teddy and his band of merry men where headed my way for a little "one on one" and I decided I would have to miss that party, seeing as they hadn't called ahead for an appointment. So checking outside my cell, I found the area empty and with a thought of my mind I ripped the door off the hinges (I can control about 2,000lbs, double that if it's only for short periods) and looked around. It seemed that the guards had run towards the trouble and, while not being a coward, I was unarmed in a place full of weapons, so that best thing I could do is "exit stage left".