One More Snippet.........

            Next to him, Sarah stood.  “Now it’s Hamish’s turn.  Come on.”

            Smith wondered why Hamish wasn’t being tested in The Tank like the rest.  Truth be told, he was just too overwhelmed to care about asking.  He was led by Sarah, who in turn followed Thomas and Campbell, into a completely separate chamber that was roughly the same size as The Tank.  Standing in the middle of the room was Hamish.  Smith rolled his eyes.  The little exhibitionist was wearing the smallest and tightest pair of bike shorts Smith had ever seen on a man.  Socks and sneakers, coupled with a broad smile and numerous tattoos, were the only additions to his ensemble.            

            “Hey Smithy.”  Hamish greeted him with a broad, genuine smile. 

            For the life of him, Smith could not understand why the young man had decided to take him in hand, so to speak.  But, it seemed that the kid had decided to be friends with the agent, and that, apparently, was the end of that discussion. 

            A compartment in the wall opened, and a treadmill slid out on coasters.  Smith could not help but notice that it was heavily reinforced, and looked more like something a car might be tested on, rather than a single, compact male.

            “Industrial issue?”  Smith asked Thomas curiously, pointing at the piece of equipment.

            Thomas smiled.  “Hamish weighs some three hundred kilos.  When we first tested him on a regular treadmill, it lasted eleven seconds before crumbling apart from the vibrations.”

            Smith stared at the young man.  He was extremely well muscled, with the figure of a championship bodybuilder.  His physique was perfectly symmetrical and proportioned however; having avoided that grotesquely imbalanced physique those other builders had fallen prey to.

            “Try and pick me up.”  Hamish challenged him.

            Smith held up his hands in declination.  “I trust you, mate.”

            Hamish simply chuckled as he climbed on the apparatus.  “Speed or endurance today Penny?”

            “Speed, please Hamish.”  Thomas walked over and spoke into an intercom set into the wall.  “30 second warm up and then go to speed please.”  She instructed.  There was a reply of confirmation, followed by the noise of the treadmill activating.

            Hamish began jogging in a leisurely motion.  On a display screen above him, his speed was displayed along with his heart rate, oxygen saturation and step count.  Even though he only had the appearance of a brisk jog, the display showed his speed as seventy kilometres an hour.  At full speed, an Olympic sprinter might manage forty-two, and even then, only for several seconds at most.  A tone sounded, and the treadmill began to speed up.

            “Here we go, boys and girls!”  Hamish exclaimed enthusiastically as he began to run faster.  Smith was dying to see where the kid topped out.

            For the next thirty seconds, the treadmill sped up with Hamish increasing his own pace to match.  Eventually, the display-reading topped out at four-hundred and six kilometres an hour.  Hamish was pumping his legs and arms at a shocking rate, but it seemed he was doing so with no ill effects.  Smith was fairly certain that the human body was not meant to move at such speeds, certainly it wasn’t designed for it, and yet the kid was pounding away with glee.  Mind you, the kid hardly had a standard human body.

            Smith turned to Thomas.  “Is that his max?”

            Thomas nodded.  “Improved by four per cent.”  She replied as the treadmill began to power down.  Hamish jumped off before it came to a full stop and retrieved a towel handed to him by McCleod.  It was the first time that Smith had noticed them interacting in any way.  He wondered if their relationship was acrimonious, or simply one of interaction as needed.  Hamish wiped off the sweat and tossed it back to his father.  As he did so, Thomas spoke.

            “Heads up, Hamish.”  She instructed him, pointing at the ceiling.

            This, of course, meant Smith looked up as well.  Sections of the ceiling dropped open, and hanging above the young man was a medium sized car. 

            “Aw, hell!”  Hamish exclaimed unhappily as he saw what was about to happen.  With a metallic clang, the car was released from the cradle above it and dropped down, right over Hamish.  Extending his hands above his head, Hamish caught the car, but not without being driven to one knee by the impact.

            “Lady, I hate you.”  He grunted as he held the car over his head.

            Smith was stupefied.  In front of him was a real man holding a real car over his head.  It was not a scene of CGI trickery from a movie, nor was it an old fashioned special effect from a TV show using cranes and pulleys.  This was an actual man, holding an actual car, over his actual head.  Smith felt the room spin.

            “You okay, Smithy?”  Hamish asked with concern whilst still holding the car over his head.

            In reply, Agent Robert Smith, newly recruited Team Leader of the CSD special ops ‘Theta’ team, fainted.

The above excerpt is from a work written by Damien Timms and is protected by International Copyright lodged in Australia and the USA and may not be reproduced in part or whole without the written permission of the author.

Read more »

The Pack.... The Haemocracy......

Organisation:                                      

                              The Pack

Purview:                                             

                              Community of the lycanthropes.

Membership:                                       

                             All lycanthropes.  Currently 40 million.

Profile:                                                 

                             The Pack is the generic term for all lycanthropes everywhere.  It is akin to a government department in that it provides assistance, housing and employment to its' members.  

                            Current leader is Carol Holfensteim ( Baroness Karolinya, Marquise of Tolseichner; Viscountess of Laschavia, Regent-Hereditary of Wallachia).

Organisation:                                      

                            The Haemocracy.

Purview:                                              

                            Democracy of the Haemocrats (vampires).

Membership:                                       

                            All Haemocrats.  Currently 40 million.

Profile:                 

                           The Haemocracy is the generic term for all Haemocrats.  It is a democracy and all Haemocrats participate via the web and smart-phones.  Haemocrats are technologically advanced in telecommunications and many Haemocrats sit on boards of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world. 

                            Haemocrats are devoted to protecting the innocent.  This is why they devoted themselves to only feasting on the bad elements of society.  

                            Haemocrats will feast on alternative foods such as cow blood.

The above excerpt is from a work written by Damien Timms and is protected by International Copyright lodged in Australia and the USA and may not be reproduced in part or whole without the written permission of the author.

Read more »

Them.......Us............

Them........

              He looked down at the human female.  She was restrained to the bed upon which she lay.  He had to concede that, for a human, she did indeed possess beauty.  Her body was firm and ripe.  Her face was pretty and unlined.  But he viewed it with the same objectivity he would as if he were standing in front of one of their paintings.  Whilst he knew the importance of their work, the next step gave him cause to pause.

            “What is the matter?”  His colleague asked from behind him.

            “I really do not want to do it.”  He replied without inflection.

            His colleague walked forward to stand side by side with him.  He looked down at the woman.  “She is a model.”

            The one turned to look at his colleague.  “She sits for artists then?”

            The colleague shook his head gently.  “No.  This one puts on clothes that are given to her and then walks up and back down a raised platform in them.”

            “And?”  The one prompted expecting more.

            The colleague shrugged casually.  “And that is it.  She models their clothes.  She then returns back stage and puts on another set, and repeats.”

            The one’s brow crinkled in confusion.  “And they consider that a way of living?”
            The colleague shrugged again.  It was as baffling to him as anyone else.  “Apparently.  It seems a wasted past time to me.”

            The one nodded slowly in agreement.  “And yet we wish to breed with them?” 

            The colleague nodded.  “Only by breeding with them can we improve them.  They have reached an evolutionary plateau as we ourselves are in danger of doing. At least, in this instance, they will assist us in moving forward.”

            The one looked down at his nude body, and his still limp appendage.  “She does not excite me.”

            The colleague gestured to her.  “She is considered very beautiful by their standards.  And yet I understand your reluctance.  She is not up to our standard.”  He turned to the One.  “Think of me as you do it.  That should assist.”

            The appendage grew.

Us..........

             She laid out the six photos on her desk.  They were an intriguing if not slightly scary bunch.  Inwardly she reprimanded herself.  They were different, not scary.  She sighed.  This was exactly the reason why people such as this were encouraged to keep quiet about what they could do.  Society barely tolerated racial and religious diversity.  To ask the ignorant masses to further accept genetic diversity on this level was simply too much for the tiny little souls to cope with.

            As the person in a high position in an Intelligence agency, she knew it was far kinder to keep the general population ignorant to the realities of the world.  Indeed, the realities of their own neighbourhoods were usually too much for them.  She sighed as she settled back into her luxurious chair, a small perk of her position. 

            She remembered with a shudder her years at MI-6 where she was sustained by her patriotic desire to serve her country and her Queen.  She certainly had not done it for the money.  Thankfully, her new employer demonstrated their belief in their employees by rewarding them with salaries that mirrored their value.  She had been on holiday in Fiji when she was approached with an offer to head an agency that was six hundred years old.  She had eagerly accepted and swiftly took the helm of a group of some four thousand agents, sequestered in various regions of the world.  What’s more, it appeared to be a very well-funded agency.  Certainly her first pay check attested to that.  She was actually surprised to find that money could be used for other things rather than simply paying the rent and the light bill.  Her beachside cottage was testament to that. 

            She still possessed a sense of duty.  However, it was far more generic these days.  As a Regional-Director in a global intelligence community, the world was her backyard, and there was a tremendous amount of weeding to be done.  Thankfully, this organisation had resources unavailable to others.  And this included her little group of genetic treasures.

            The scientist in her found them fascinating.  Five of the group were what they were due to a small, almost inconsequential variation in their genetic make-up.  When analysed, the genetic mutations were so minor, that only the most skilled geneticist would have noticed anything out of the usual.  And yet, these infinitesimal changes resulted in the most amazing abilities.  There was the wolf-woman; the strong-man; the vampire; the acrobat; and the witch.  She chuckled as she remembered the comic books her youngest nephew was always reading.  One of them was about a group of individuals with genetic abnormalities that battled to survive in an unforgiving world.  She wished she could tell him that the myth was actually a reality.

            The sixth member of the rather select group had earned his abilities only through a technological gift that she herself had played a part in devising.  The young man had been the son of a colleague of hers.  When she had heard that his son had fallen prey to addiction, she had advocated on his behalf that his boy be given the opportunity to be their test subject.  Not only had the procedure proved an enormous success, but the resulting side effects had proven to be something of worth to the agency.  Thankfully, the young man was so grateful that he eagerly accepted his new role.  Sadly, his father had not lived to see it, having been terminated during a mission in the Chinese hinterlands.  The individuals responsible had been quickly apprehended and dealt with.  She had taken it very personally, and had reacted in an appropriate manner.

            Now, she had to find a coordinator for her little group of ‘special’ people.  She looked to the stack of files on her other desk.  She had been sent a shortlist of applicants from six different intelligence agencies throughout the world.  She had people in every agency in any country that had one, of course, but the big six were what she used to recruit.  CIA, Mossad, ASIS, MI5, MI6, and Russian Intelligence were all her breadbaskets. 

            One file kept catching her eye.  He was the quintessential quiet achiever.  He was never late for work, and he never left early.  His attention to detail was total.  His analyses were insightful and comprehensive, and, he was a published author in the fantasy genre. 

He had two novels currently in circulation, both concerning werewolves and witches.  It was a personality quirk that would prove valuable.  She summoned her assistant and handed him the file.

            “Get him here.”  Was all she had to say.

The above excerpt is from a work written by Damien Timms and is protected by International Copyright lodged in Australia and the USA and may not be reproduced in part or whole without the written permission of the author.

Read more »