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androidred0100 — Rebirth Part 1
Published: 2007-03-29 18:19:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 848; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 6
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Description “DAMNIT!” he said as he slammed his fists against the tabletop, sending various tools flying on impact. His shaggy light brown hair fell into deep brown eyes as his unshaven face contorted in a sweaty rage and sadness. "How could they do this to me, ME?" he thought. He slowly dragged his arm across the surface, bumping into a few random pieces of crap along the way until his hand came to rest on a half empty bottle of sake. He quickly drew it to his lips and downed the rest of its contents into his gut. He wiped the dribble from his mouth on his sleeve and grimaced at the empty bottle. He threw it at the wall, shattering it with fury.

He stood there all hunched over as if the burden of a great loss weighed him down and panted as if he used the remained of his energy to lob the bottle to its doom. "After all that I’ve done for them, THIS is how the thank me?" He wearily looked around his disheveled laboratory, half-finished inventions lying on their sides and formulas and equations haphazardly strewn about. He took in this sight and realized how futile it had all been. All his work, all his progress were all for naught. The Reaper Syndicate, for whom he was previously employed, had, effective immediately, cut the scientist’s funding to a mere fraction of what it had been before. But that was not the real reason why he was so upset. He knew how the organization worked and it brought him little comfort to know that the only reason he was still alive after gleaning incite to the true nature of the beast was because he was to valuable to “disappear” as did the rest who defied them. But at this point, deal would be welcome to him because in his mind, it was better to be dead than a pawn, no a slave to the Advocate. That thought sickened him more than anything else in the world.

As his eyes drunkenly made their way over the debris, which he caused in his rage, they came to rest on a tattered poster on the far dimly wall to his south. It detailed the flow of chi, the life force that supposedly bound the universe together according to legend, throughout the human body. It contained notes and diagrams of the vital channels and pathways that the chi took through the body as it ebbed and flowed into the every essence of one’s being. He knew for a fact that it was extremely accurate as he had drawn it himself using years of research. He gave a heavy sigh and a slight smile as he walked up to it, put on hand over it and caressed it with care. Again, his anger flared as his hand became a fist and he pounded the wall through the poster. A solitary tear ran down his face mixing with the sweat and hate that oozed from his face until it disappeared into his stubble.

As he hung his head in shame and shook it from side to side in despair another sight caught his attention. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the poster just next to the one with the chi. His solemn expression hardened into firm disgust. This poster outlined the theoretical conversion of chi into raw, usable energy as well as the process and machinery in which it would require. Though most of it was conjecture, if it worked the way it was supposed to, it could lead to massive leaps in technology and possibly even human evolution. However, if harnessed improperly, it could lead to large-scale deaths of unethical proportions. Of all the abominations he had created, this was the most potentially dangerous in the hands of the wrong people, the kind of people that paid him to develop such theories.

Just as he thought that his depression couldn’t get any worse, it struck him. If he bent the rules and was extremely exact there was a slim chance that it would succeed. They were planning a similar procedure anyway, what should it matter if the test subject is different? He had all the tools required, all the necessary materials, and all the time in the world. Since his telling off, the Advocate had all but forsaken him even if they did still need him. They figured that since they broke him he would slink back into his lab and do what they say no matter what. They were wrong and he had the perfect plan to get back at them. He quickly assembled a slew of odd tools and parts, most of which looked like the belonged more in an autobody than at a research and development laboratory. He positioned a large lamp above his workspace, set down a surgeon’s tool kit and spread a towel over the area so as to catch any stray liquids. He reached over to a gas tank and paused for a second. Is this really what I want? he asked himself as the implications of what he was about to attempt finally set in. he thought back, not only of his years with the Advocate but of his entire life. It only hardened his resolve.

He turned the gas on, put the mask over his face and inhaled deeply. His entire body felt numb for a second as the vapors took effect and almost instantly felt acutely aware of all that was around him. The nerve gas worked perfectly as all pain and intoxication drained from his system and allowed his other senses to expand. He knew the gas wouldn’t last for more than a few hours so he quickly got to work. He laid his left arm down on the towel, picked up a scalpel and drew it down the length of his forearm, blood splattering slightly onto his pristine white lab coat before clotting from the gas’s influence. He only winced once, not from the pain, he couldn’t feel that any more anyway, but from the sight of his own flesh being massacred. The thought of self-mutilation had always made him a bit queasy, but he assured himself that this was for the best.

As he worked at a feverish pace, thought of everything in his life that led up to this one point in time. It was a lifetime of achievement and misery. He was born the eldest of five and from a young age defined himself as a scholar and an athlete. He graduated from high school as valedictorian, MVP two years in a row on the wrestling team, president of the student government, member of the National Science and Technology Honor Societies and all of it achieved before the age of twelve. During that time his “peers” ostracized him because of his age and “immaturity” and his teachers valued him only for his intellect. He joined the wrestling team as an attempt to learn self defense as he was surrounded by people twice his size every day and quickly mastered the arts skillfully. The only reason he was voted into office as president was because he rigged the votes. Everyone knows that school elections are merely a popularity contest but there was no way he was going to be beaten by his bubbly blonde haired “competition” that had more STDs than a New York City hooker. But it was all in an attempt to preserve himself from the dangers of being a kid in high school. Before he got away with it, he was bullied and picked on, even after he began wiping the floor with them with his new found grappling techniques, but he knew that if he was in a position of power and influence, they wouldn’t dare assault him any more. It worked, but the fact that he had to rig the election to accomplish it never really settled right, even if getting away with it fueled his fragile ego a bit.

Collage wasn’t all that much better. While everyone around him was getting smashed, he was struggling through puberty like a middle schooler. Of course, they were more tolerant of him than those in high school and often gave him some booze out of pity but that didn’t help when he couldn’t hold his liquor down. Besides what he really needed, or at least what his ever-changing hormones told him he needed, was love, and nobody in college could help him there.

He quickly delved deep into what had gotten him there in the first place, his studies and his sci-fi. Oh, how he loved science fiction. In his early days he would spend hours upon days reading novels and comic books and when he discovered the wonders of the east manga and watching movies and anime. Giant robots, androids and space cruisers were all that filled every spare moment he could find. He could say without a shadow of a doubt that the reason he went on to do the things that he’s famous, or infamous depending on your point of view, was because of science fiction and the worlds and technology that they depicted. What really made him decide to go into his line of work was a single comic book character: Dr. Ivo’s android, Amazo. It was a nanotech robot that could steal the power’s of any superhero that crossed its path, which allowed it to evolve into a more perfect unit. It was this notion that spurred him along through the years so that he could say, “Hey, look what I made.” Though his goals have changed over the years, that was, is, and shall forever remain the original reason he chose this path that lays before him.

By the time he could drive he graduated collage with a bachelor’s of science in robotics and nanotech. By the time he could vote he had completed his doctorate and had moved on into medicine and the human body in an attempt to fuse the two together. Soon after that, the Reaper Advocate came to him and promised funding for his research so long as they received access to all of his findings. Due to the blinding ignorance of his youth and staggering amounts of money they offered him at the time, he accepted without a second thought, despite advisement against it. He quickly made huge breakthroughs in the development of his theories, but theories weren’t enough for the Advocate. As his research continued, he decided to dig up some dirt on the Advocate itself to find out just what his efforts were fueling. What he found shocked and appalled him to the point where he considered throwing it all away and committing suicide, but he couldn’t bring himself to end his pathetic life. When the Advocate found out that he learned the truth they severely limited his activities and turned him into the slave he now was.

By the time he finished his trip down memory lane, five hours had passed and the procedure was complete. He tightened the last screw, shut the compartment closed and flipped a few switches. All that was left to do was to take one last hit of the nerve gas to be safe and turn himself on. He inhaled a quick mouthful of the fumes and plugged an extension cord into the wall on the top plug. “Well, here goes nothing.” He clamped his eyes shut tightly, grit his teeth together and flipped the light switch on, sending current to the lights and all the power outlets in the room. As the lights came on and illuminated the room the sound of a computer booting up filled the stagnant air with an almost musical hum.

He cautiously opened his eyes and properly looked over his handiwork in a mirror. At first nothing seemed to look out of place save the massive amounts of stitches that bound his new technology within himself. His hair was the same unusual shoulder length and hue of brownish-blonde it had always been, dark at the roots gradually getting lighter as it reached a near bleached white tips, though it was all natural. His rigid face was just as exhausted and scruffy as before. Though he was still young, times had not been kind to him and his boyish charm was masked by years of stress that he shouldn’t have endured till he hit his mid life crisis, but it was still there. He remained just as lean and muscular as he had since wrestling ended in high school and Aikido took its place in collage. Though a bit bloodied up from the operation, his skin still emanated that bronzed glow that it had since birth. All was as it should have been considering what he just put his body through, if not, than better. He felt great but tired and he knew it wasn’t just the gas.

As he admired himself the stitches slowly began to unravel themselves. Rather than work himself into a panicked frenzy to try to stop it, he merely watched calmly as the events carried on. To his amazement, his body was actually healing itself and expelling the foreign objects as his new machinery was programmed. "Amazing, absolutely amazing! The process has already started! I can’t believe how easy it is to manipulate my chi!" Not only did it eliminate the strange sinews that bound his flesh in place but his body also began to mend the numerous scars that he had managed to accumulate over the years.  

Each scar was a memory and a permanent reminder of each and every one and he watched as they all faded away. One on his arm had finished and he remembered the time he fell off his bike after hitting a squirrel. One on his leg vanished and he relived the time he went camping with his dad and slipped on that wet rock. Then one on his abdomen disappeared. "My appendix…" he quickly clutched his side as a sharp pain jabbed through where his scar used to be. Then he grabbed his ribs and his wrist. Just as quickly as the pain appeared it vanished without a trace. For a second he was confused as to what was going on within his body and then he realized what was happening. His appendix, which was removed when he was 7, had regrown itself and his ribs and wrist, which he broke when he fell out of a tree when he was 10, had properly set themselves. His body was slowly restoring itself to the way his genetic code had originally designed with the help of its new mechanical implants. It was as if his body had been given a second chance, as if it had taken an eraser and wiped its slate clean. He was reborn. He grinned maliciously and said “Project S.E.T.H. complete.”

2

Project S.E.T.H. or Synthetically Enhanced Tera-Human was a project that had been in the theoretical development stages for the past five years. It was intended to be used as a medical treatment for amputees to give them a second chance at normal life with all their limbs in tact. The process, in essence, involved grafting a mechanical limb onto a person’s body, connecting each nerve to it to control it and powering it using the person’s chi. For the past five years, that’s what he thought he was working towards and for five years the Reaper Syndicate had taken his research, warping it to their own needs with the inevitable intent of using it to create a new breed of weapons of mass destruction; bio-weapons: combat cyborgs for use at their own disposal. With these new brainwashed monstrosities at their command nearly nothing could stand in the way of their goals, whatever they may be. The “Tera” in the acronym once stood for Earth, the source of all chi for humans, but now the “T” stands for “Terror”.

With his rebirth, he shed all of the shackles of his former life. He had no friends, so no loss there. His family would have disowned him anyway if they ever found out what he had done. With his new found regenerative abilities, the effects of time and age, possibly even mortality, no longer bound him to his previous state of existence. More importantly he now had the power to break free from the bonds of his enslavement to the Advocate. With this knowledge he realized that to continue to go on using his old name, a name tainted with the possibility of causing unspeakable atrocities upon mankind, he abandoned it and took up a new name. He now became Seth, in honor of what he originally intended Project S.E.T.H. to be. Perhaps once he has rectified his mistakes he might take up his old existence, but deep down it mattered not to think about it now. Calling himself Seth seemed like the logical thing, even if it has a few problems. "Kind of lame considering the names of androids I’ve grown up with, but come on, who would take a guy with a ridiculous name like Amazo or Hourman seriously? At least Seth sounds normal. People will just think I’m Jewish. God knows I got a big enough nose for it." And he was right, his Italian heritage had graced his face with a rather distinct nose.

He quickly ran a few tests on himself in the quiet solitude of his abandoned laboratory to make sure the software and hardware meshed with his personal chi properly and to find the full extent of his new body. To his surprise, it would have given the man of steel himself a run for his money. “One final test…” He took a USB cable from underneath his desk and plugged one end into his desktop and the other behind his neck. Without touching the computer once, he powered it up, logged on and accessed the Internet. A wide toothy grin spread from ear to cybernetic ear as he began to download a wealth of information into his new synthetically enhanced brain.

After spending a few minutes emerged in the constant flow of information he closed out of the Internet and came to two conclusions. The first was that while his progress was far better than he could have dreamed, there is still limitless untapped potential for him and his new body, even if it meant becoming that which he wants to save others from. The second was that he needed a wireless connection, but that could wait for now. As much as he would have liked to focus on both topics for hours on end he knew that the more time he wasted the more time the Syndicate had to begin their sinister plans. He refocused on the computer and opened up every file that ever had to do with Project S.E.T.H. in the Syndicate’s archives and proceeded to delete them after copying them to his new internal hard drive. While he already knew all that they contained he felt it safe to have them on hand at any time. He also realized that the Syndicate was not dumb enough to let those be their only copies of the data, but for now his will do. Though it was late at night, or early in the morning, he couldn’t tell even if he did have a built in chronometer now, he was sure that someone would notice the missing files soon enough and that meant that he had to hurry along with his plan. He shut down his system and torched his laboratory. He made sure not to leave any scraps of his former life, and mistakes, behind. He then proceeded to make his way through the complex labyrinth that is the Reaper Syndicate’s headquarters to a high security prison in one of the basements. From the records he reviewed prior to his log off, it was said that an extremely dangerous specimen lay behind those guarded doors. It was labeled "Project: SCION."
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Comments: 2

Ravencroft8 [2007-08-24 17:32:54 +0000 UTC]

YAY SETH!!!!!!!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

androidred0100 In reply to Ravencroft8 [2007-08-27 01:29:44 +0000 UTC]

we never did finish this did we.....if i take a creative writing class in the spring, which i'd really like to, i'll see if i can work this into it somehow

👍: 0 ⏩: 0