NationStates Jolt Archive


Project Thanatos [MT; Slightly Open]

Thrashia
10-09-2008, 04:10
Erebos Island | 130 N.M. from mainland Thrashia


The cool tropical air made the long sun set all the more enjoyable to those who had time to sit and watch it. Erebos Island’s shape and physical features, a horseshoe shape with high, steep mountains made it so air flew through it like a wind tunnel. Summers were always cool, even though the island was well into the tropics. A perfect location for a family vacation, if but for the fact that Erebos Island was a totally unknown entity as far as its keepers were concerned. For them, what happened on Erebos Island, stayed on Erebos Island.


* * * *

Dr. Daniel Van Hortz walked through the clean, painfully-white halls of the medical west wing with his head buried in another collection of data charts. The latest tests had proved satisfactory in most cases, but once again, to Van Hortz’s dismay, 97% of the test subjects had ended up being dismissed. But then, the young doctor thought, that’s what one was to suppose when dealing with such chemical agents as Atropine or even the regular levels of radiation most subjects received upon arrival.

Van Hortz passed a pair of security guards who allowed him to pass unhindered. He’d been working at the Erebos Island Research Institute for nearly ten years now. Almost as soon as he’d graduated with his doctorate and 4th masters degree from Manhausen University in Andarus a representative of the institute had appeared and offered him the job, saying that he would be able to experiment and postulate to any extreme Van Hortz desired, to experiment in fields that other, less enlightened men would think immoral.

Van Hortz passed through a thick wooden door and into a room filled with lockers. He opened one up and pulled out a bright, yellow hazmat suit. He had to take off his white coat, which always irritated him, to put it on. The helmet locked on with a smooth snap and hiss. Van Hortz walked over to a door on the far wall. A key pad sat beside the handle. Carefully, with his now sausage-sized fingers, Van Hortz pushed in his security clearance code. The lock opened and he stepped into a clear white room with nothing in it except another door.

As soon as he closed the door around him cleaning agents and fresh air was pumped into the room from hidden vents all around. A mechanical pod moved across his body, small sensors scanning for anything that the detoxifying systems might have missed. After a very boring five minutes it was apparently satisfied and he was allowed to go through the next door and into the room beyond.

Two other similarly clad figures were already inside. One turned and revealed Dr. Karen Strauss’ face, her signifying blue spectacles glaring through her hazmat helmet.

“You’re late Daniel,” Dr. Strauss said.

“Yes, I had to look over the latest data from the last test. Heinz was having trouble with the printer again.”

Van Hortz stepped over next to the other hazmat-clad person. A pale face with glowing green eyes turned to him. Van Hortz was afraid of many things, but those eyes scared him more than anything he’d ever known. They were, in no unreal terms, completely and utterly soulless.

“Herr Kanzel,” gulped Van Hortz. “It’s so good of you to visit us.” A mirthless smile crossed over the face before quickly disappearing just as fast.

“We are always interested in the research here, Herr Doctor,” Kanzel’s lilting, smooth voice said. “I wanted to check up on your progress.”

“Ah! O-of course. I know how much our benefactors from Wolfhausen are expecting from us here at the Erebus Institute,” Van Hortz mumbled. He turned to a clear panel wall that had a clear view of a containment room beyond. Van Hortz set his hands to his controls and turned away from those terrible eyes. “Shall we show you our latest subject test?”

“Do so, please,” Kanzel ordered. The ‘please’ being a mere pleasantry as far as Kanzel was concerned.

“As you can see,” Van Hortz pointed to a man that lay in a fetal position in the middle of the containment room beyond, naked and entirely hairless, “Subject A-113 is the last surviving subject of the previous radiation test. The subject’s body was recorded to have been subjected to…” Van Hortz went on, adding in how 100 rads of alpha radiation had been induced.

“-and the subject showed surprising resistance to Atropine and Isoniazid. When given the antidote however we were forced to give the Subject more than three times the normal dosage to stave off the major after-effects,” finished Van Hortz.

“And today?” asked Kanzel.

“Today, we’re pumping a new gaseous agent that we’ve developed from methanol. Our sensors will be monitoring heart reaction, lung reaction, and other vital body functions,” Strauss reported.

“Then lets begin,” said Kanzel, his eyes settling on the naked figure separated by a thick, clear pane of glass with a cold expectancy.


* * * *

“-broadcasting to Imperial High Command, I repeat, this is Johannes Meckler of the Internal Security Bureau. I have infiltrated a hidden island institute run by the notorious organization known as Wolfhausen as ordered. However I have been-,” static erupts and the broadcast ends.

Colonel Hans Meckler put his head in his hands as the Internal Security Bureau agent in front of him turned the tape recorder off. His son, his one and only son, had gone off on an assignment and…it didn’t bear thinking. Hans Meckler looked up at the agent in front of him.

“What can I do?”

“Well Colonel, as a member of the Waffen SV, you are capable of tapping resources that we at ISB are unfortunately not able to touch. We’ve been tracking the trail of Wolfhausen for the past twenty years without success. Your son was the first agent ever to confirm the possible location of one of their hideouts,” the agent said. “We need extra fire power to go in and capture the goblins.”

“Goblins?”

“Sorry,” the agent smiled. “It’s a misnomer we at ISB use for ‘bad guys,’ though we’ve called them worse.”

“Whatever it takes,” declared Hans Meckler, “I will see you get it.”

“Good Colonel, very good,” smiled the ISB agent.


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