Page 20 of Saint

“Hey, old man, maybe take a swim in the pond this afternoon. It’s been a while for you,” said Hex.

“I’ve been busy. Leave me alone. Besides, Ajei told me to lay off the running for a while, and I haven’t exactly been listening to her.”

“You mean, you haven’t listened to her at all, and she’s pissed at you,” smirked Eric.

“Whatever, asshole,” he growled. “I’ll get out there today. What do we know about this Michelle woman?”

“Oh, oh.” Pigsty turned to them with his screen scrolling through a long sheet of data.

“Oh, oh? What the fuck does that mean? You know I hate when you do that shit,” said Luke.

“Fine, grumpy ass,” said Pigsty. “You know, you’re more like your father every day.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment,” grinned Eric.

“Anyway, Michelle Fryar joined the Air Force thirty-one years ago. She already had a degree in computer technology and was working on a master’s. Identified as a high potential, she was placed in a special program for advanced research.”

“What kind of program?” asked Cam.

“It doesn’t say. At least not yet. I’m digging. She left the Air Force because she was recruited,” said Pigsty, staring up at the other men.

“Please don’t say she was recruited by the agency,” said Hex. Pigsty continued to stare at them. “Fuck.”

“She went to the agency twenty years ago and then went to the DOD. She has a genius IQ, sound familiar? Recently, she delivered a keynote speech to the United Nations. Anyone care to guess what the topic was?”

“If you say anything with radiation in it, I’m going to blow a gasket,” said Eric.

“Well, gasket blown. Watch.” He tapped the keyboard, and Michelle Fryar, an older woman with silver hair cut in a sleek bob at her shoulders, appeared on screen.

“We no longer have to speak of using radiation in the future sense as if it’s a future thought. It is now. Using radiation, radioactive isotopes, radiotherapy, and even ingested or injected radiation particles will increase the basic levels of our inferior human brains.

“In the future, humans will have superior strength, speed, intelligence, energy-altering abilities, among other things, simply by using these new technologies. No longer will weapons of mass destruction be needed. No longer will guns, knives, bombs, or other traditional defense articles be needed. One flick of an arm and a man will be tossed across a room. A simple alteration of the mind, and we will be able to place ourselves in the brain of the nearest predator bird, seeing what it sees.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” whispered Luke. “She’s talking about them. She’s talking about our people.”

“There’s more,” said Pigsty.

“This is not the far-off future, but rather the near. Experiments have been ongoing for decades to enhance these gifts and bring them into the light. These individuals are out there.”

“What in the world? Do you mean to say you’ve already created these people?”asked one of the members.

“I mean to say that there were dozens, but now only a few remain who are capable of such acts. We are working to find and harness these powers for good, not evil.”

“And just how can we be sure that you won’t use them for evil?”asked a delegate from South Africa.

“I suppose you’ll have to trust me.”

Her smile sent chills down the spines of every man in the room. There was something familiar about that face, and none of them could put their fingers on it.

“Pigsty? Was Michelle Fryar ever at The Depot?” asked Cam.

“Yes. At the same time as Garrett, Griffin, and a few others.”

“Shit,” said Eric. “Then it’s possible that she could have been the egg donor for Marilisa. Do we have any DNA from her that we could use to determine if she might be the mother?”

“Still checking,” said Hiro on the other side of the computer banks.

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