The Runners: Chapter 15
Chapter 15
On a glorious day of April 2170, the research team gathered in the living room on the first floor, anticipating the arrival of Dr. Chandler. They sat in groups of threes and fours engaged in small chit chats.
“What is your plan once we leave this lab? I mean, what, are you going to spend your money on?” short haired mechanical engineer, Rebecca Lebedev asked her colleague and the same regional man by heritage, Ivan Kozlov.
“I haven’t been home for almost seven years. I would love to just dig into my mother’s home cooked meatloaf. But, I will definitely splurge on a Ferrari that I have been eyeing on for years—. Hmm…” Salivating at the thought of taking a big bite into that juicy meatloaf, Ivan responded with great anticipation that his dream would come true very shortly.
“What about you? What is your plan?” Ivan asked looking over to Rebecca,
“Rest!” she shouted. “Since I joined this project, I have been logging the actual hours that I have been sleeping in each day. I mean, really slept. Based on the data, my average per day of sleep was three hours. I don’t know how I survived this long. I’m just happy to see that we have accomplished what we had set out to do!”
“I know what you mean! I can definitely relate to that!” Cindy chimed in.
“After all, we, women must have our beauty sleeps.” Kimberly Lee, the only biomedical engineer of the group added. Then, everyone laughed raising glasses filled with soda waters. The room was filled with the era’s geniuses. But, the conversations indicated that they were just simple ordinary people with dreams like any other men and women.
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A large flying vehicle swerved and touched down on the landing pad that was constructed on the roof of the research facility. The silver colored aerodynamically shaped elliptical helicopter saucer, with its front and back stretched bit longer than its sides, landed quietly. It had giant letters ‘B3D-T’ prominently written on its sides. Dark blue windshield covered the top third of the air craft, providing clear view out from the inside of the vehicle while securing complete privacy from outside in. Two wings rose from the top of the saucer out to the sides of the body and bent backwards stretching out beyond the length of the saucer as it came down. There were four propulsion units attached at the end as well as on the surface under the wings at the point of the bend.
The door of the vehicle slowly opened and stairs appeared from the left side of the vehicle. Six security guards in full combat gear first came to view in two rows forming a rectangular formation. Behind them, Dr. Chandler walked to take a position in the middle of the guards. Then, in almost synchronized steps they exited the vehicle and walked towards the entrance of the building, which led directly into the elevator. As they walked in, they were greeted by Dr. Jonathan Mercy, the lead researcher.
“Dr. Chandler, welcome and I hope that you have enjoyed your flight, sir?”
“Jonathan, it got delayed a little. I wanted to visit right away, but, business matters held me back. I trust the team is doing well?” Showing genuine delight for being here, Chandler shook Jonathan’s hand firmly.
“The team’s downstairs waiting for you sir! All a bit exhausted, but are in great form…”
A bit surprised to see fully armed guards surrounding Dr. Chandler, Jonathan gave quick nervous look towards all six men. But then, his eagerness to deliver the historical achievement and a live demo to the CEO brought him back to his usual subordinate demeanor. “Please watch your step, sir. The floor is slightly uneven.”
As the elevator approached the living room floor, the scientists in the room brought their conversations to halt, stood up from their seats and hovered around the elevator door. The firsts to step out of the elevator were the two guards who moved to stand at either sides of the elevator, followed by Dr. Chandler and Dr. Mercy. The other four guards trailed behind them, watching every move the young group of scientists made in the room. The scientists were ready to burst into scream, welcoming Dr. Chandler, but upon seeing the guards, they thought it would be better to remain subdued.
“Dr. Chandler, welcome sir!” was all the greetings they were able to verbalize.
“Fellow scientists and innovators, thank you for the welcome. But mostly, for all the hard work that you have put into this project. I understand that I will be presented with a demonstration of your scientific feat! I am excited to witness the technological breakthrough that you have all worked so vigorously to achieve. Today, I’m here to witness the product of your sacrifices and commitments!”
There is great truth to Chandler’s comments. He waited ten years since he took over as the chairman and could not bear losing billions more. He needed this project to make his dream of being at the helm of a new global financial empire and beyond that to come to fruition. His sincerity, however, was met nervously by the scientific team as the presence of the armed guards were overbearing. Sensing this, he switched his comments to explain the security’s presence.
“While you were located in this facility for the past few years, there have been security incidences involving many corporations. Top corporate heads around the world including Samsung and Google have been the targets of abduction by pirates ransoming for money. As a precaution, B3D-T board has voted to provide armed security details on my behalf. So, these men are a product of that discussion. Please, relax and do not be nervous. I don’t particularly enjoy having guns around me either, but it is for the best interest of the company.” This was a credible explanation as there indeed have been increased criminal activities against the heads of the many global corporations as far as the scientists knew it from the news.
Chandler’s explanation put the geniuses at ease as the group began to warm up to the idea of the security personnel. Jonathan offered Dr. Chandler a drink of soda to clench his thirst. And, every member of the research team approached Dr. Chandler and shook his hands with more ease.
“I am Darren Johnson, Dr. Chandler. Glad to see you again sir!”
“Yes, Darren. I heard about your work on the algorithm, great job young man!”
“Thank you. It was the result of a collaborative work of the entire team, sir.”
“Of course Darren…, of course… I wouldn’t have put together this team unless I had strong faith in everyone’s capabilities. Humility is another characteristic I looked for when I recruited the team members.” Dr. Chandler put on a sly smile and looked at the direction of Jonathan.
“Shall we move to the demo room Dr. Chandler?” Taking a cue from his boss, he guided the CEO and looked at his team members to signal everyone to move down.
“Sounds good!” said the CEO as he complied. Then, Chandler turned to Darren and whispered to him, “Walk with me” and Darren, Jonathan and Dr. Chandler walked in the middle, surrounded by the guards, taking the lead and all others followed behind, as they headed in the direction of the elevator that would take them down to the laboratory.
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The laboratory environment has already been prepped for the demonstration. Taking seats in the control room were Darren, Jonathan, and Dr. Chandler along with two of the four guards who stood directly behind the two scientists. Cindy and Hector were inside the holographic room standing off to the right side with their eyes covered with dark visors. They were dressed in full winter clothing with parka jackets, gloves, boots, and ski pants. To the unfamiliar, it appeared as if they were ready for serious ski trips. The rest of the team members stayed outside in the lounging area either sitting or standing up around the round table by the kitchen. Intensely looking up at one of the many monitors that were strategically hung from the ceiling, no one wished to miss the events that would soon take place in the dark room.
Darren took the control of the demonstration. He presented in great detail, every step or task that he was about to perform for the benefit of the big boss. After all, this was the biggest moment for Darren in his young career. Prior to arriving, Dr. Chandler had read every word in the report provided to him with respect to the live demonstration. He was familiar with how the system worked and was able to process the information that Darren was going over with respect to the procedure. After having to have heard Darren, Chandler felt that his understanding of how the system worked as he had analyzed earlier was, in fact, reaffirmed to be correct.
“Activating power” and Darren motioned his fingers at a 3D virtual control system that hovered in the air. He moved both his hands to turn knobs to set various elements at the right frequencies or at correct intensities. He adjusted the power levels and engaged ‘Bio-electro-DB’ to the dark room. With loud ‘buzzing’ sound, a large surge of power was felt as bright lights began flashing inside the dark room.
Few moments later, the snow capped Mt. Blanc Chamonix appeared in the far distant background, filling the landscape. Snow began to fall on the trees that appeared from nowhere as Cindy and Hector became busy trying to catch the falling snow flakes. Everyone in the room shouted, “Yeah, yeah!” Banging on the table and pumping their fists in the air as the demonstration seemed to be going glitch free.
The snow began to pile up in the chamber. After several minutes, the falling snow had created a small, but beautiful wonderland that people anywhere else in the world couldn’t even imagine to exist in recent years. With one final test yet to go, everyone was at the frenzy of jubilation and couldn’t control their excitement.
“We are, now, going to end the program, but please, keep your eyes on that acorn right here.” Darren pointed a single baby acorn that was hanging on one of the three trees inside the chamber. Darren caused the acorn to fall from the tree and it sat on the floor. Cindy found it buried in the snow and picked it up. Then, she put the acorn in both of her hands and held it tightly.
“Program terminated!” A voice came over the PA system. The chamber went dark for a brief moment. The door of the chamber slowly opened to reveal the room’s darkness. With everyone’s excitement building, Cindy and Hector walked out, side by side, fully dressed in their winter gears. A gust of cold air and mist preceded their exit. The door shut behind them and everyone’s eyes rested, focusing on Cindy’s tightly closed hands, as the entire room remained silent with anticipation. This was the moment that everyone was working for. Success, recognition, the greatest milestone of being the first ones to make the improbable technological advancement, and the future riches of every member of the team depended on what would be in Cindy’s hands.
Tension rose in the control room and in the lounge area when Cindy kissed her hands then, blew a breath of air into the enclosed hands. She couldn’t feel whether the acorn was in her hands or not as her gloves interfered with her sense of touch. She could not feel the weight of the small object as light as a baby acorn, either. Then, she slowly lowered her hands and brought them to her chest high. She stretched out both arms forward while keeping her hands closed tightly. Then, ever so slowly, she began un-wrapping her hands, little by little, revealing the miraculous object.
When they were opened half way, Hector who was standing next to Cindy saw the exposed acorn first and screamed in exhilaration.
“IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE!” And he jumped up and down from where he stood. He grabbed Cindy by her waist and picked her up high and began spinning in place. Cindy, quickly holding the acorn in the fingers of her right hand, raised her arm up high, showing the focus of the experiment to everyone. By now, everyone was hugging, shaking hands, and high fiving each other as they believed that their hard work was about to come to a successful conclusion.
At this time, Dr. Chandler inconspicuously stood up. Then, he gave a quick nod to the guards who were now, standing on either side of him. The guard on the right sent an unnoticeably quick hand signal to the four armed security men, who were down in the lounge. In a rush of less than a split of a second later, the guards opened fire onto the unsuspecting young scientists below who were still in the middle of animated celebration.
One by one, the young scientists began to fall like dead weights. There was no resistance or any type of efforts by them to soften their falls. However, in the state of shock, Darren and Jonathan saw the young victims falling to the ground like feathers and leaves being blown in gentle spring breeze.
Ivan, who was holding Rebecca, saw the two men discharge their guns as he was hugging Rebecca out of joy. Reflexively, he picked up Rebecca and showed his back to the guns, shielding his colleague and love interest from the indiscriminate bullets, which were bombarding into their direction. He arched his back as the shots penetrated his torso. However, he refused to release Rebecca from his hold. Finally, he fell forward on top of her and stopped breathing.
Rebecca was horrified. She tried to move and run, but the weight of a dead man on top of her was too much to do anything. She panicked and started to breathe hard. She turned her head to the left and she saw her other colleagues fall one after another like the dry leaves falling off of a tree in late fall. It all looked surreal to her.
Cindy and Hector ran to the other side of the dark room, ducking lower to the ground. A bullet penetrated Hector’s femur and caused him to fall. He couldn’t stand up as the bullet had shattered the bone. He tried to crawl, putting one arm and elbow up in front then crossing over with the other arm. Trail of blood stains followed his slow movement, leading the killers easily to him.
One researcher ran towards the kitchen area, but he was shot from the control room above by one of the two guards. Holding his chest and gasping for air, he fell on to his knees then dropped his head to the floor. His hands still clung tightly to his chest, the floor where he laid motionless turned crimson red. There was havoc in the lounge room as Darren and Jonathan were witnessing the massacre in sheer terror.
“W-h-y, why, are you doing this?” With all his might, Jonathan protested. But, a guard standing behind him smacked him on the back of his head with the shaft of his gun. Jonathan fell on to the control desk, blood gushing out from his head. Puddle of blood formed on the desk and on to the floor as it slowly spread covering the legs of Jonathan’s chair.
Darren just sat there shaking in horror. A guard below slowly chased Hector. On his way, he heard Rebecca’s silent panting. He stopped and stood over Rebecca, who was shielded underneath by Ivan’s body. The guard pointed his weapon, set it to high impact mode, aimed it directly on the back of Ivan and fired three shots. The bullets penetrated thru Ivan’s body and lodged into Rebecca’s chest. She spit out blood from her mouth. Her eyes turned red as she stopped panting with her head weakly resting on the side of Ivan’s left ear.
Hector stopped moving, turned his head around to look up at the guard. Then, in a final act of defiance, he slowly raised his right hand and gave the middle finger to the guard and in Dr. Chandler’s direction. The guard kicked Hector over to his back and pointed a gun to his chest. ‘Bang’, a single shot was fired, killing Hector instantly. Blood gushed out of his chest as if water in a balloon was being squeezed out. The same blood splashed all over the uniform and on to the visors of the murderer.
By this time, Cindy had managed to crawl her way to the back of the dark room, but there was no place to run to. The lab was completely sealed as the only place out of the area was to use the elevator. Cindy knew that it was a lost cause in running for her life any longer. She sat on the floor leaning her back against the dark room. She put her legs together and brought her knees to her chin. Placing her head on top of her knees, she buried her head in both of her arms.
Then, she cried quietly, tears coming down her cheeks and hitting the floor. “Why? Why?” All the while, the images of her colleagues falling to the floor flashed by in her head in series of slow freeze frames. She shook violently in a sitting fetal position. “Why? Why?” Then, she heard heavy footsteps approaching toward her. Afraid to look up, she sat there in that position for what seemed to be an eternity. The guard positioned the end of the gun barrel to the top of her head. Looking straight into Cindy’s head, the guard squeezed the trigger, firing the gun as she took her last breath.
Up in the control room, Dr. Chandler looked at the bloody massacre taking place in the main lounge. All eighteen scientists have met their violent ends. The CEO didn’t like the killings. However, he knew that it was the only way he could control the technology for his own agenda and to satisfy his greed and hunger for power.
By now, Darren had his head plopped down to the control desk, afraid to open his eyes. He placed his hands on the back of his head with all ten fingers inter locked. His forearms encapsulated his head, his elbows touching the top of the control desk. He was shaking uncontrollably.
“Dr. Johnson!” Chandler began speaking in a calm and assuring voice. “I have been watching you work. You are brilliant! What I tried to do for the past ten years, you’ve done it in three years. I can use your skills in my new operation. Now, do you value your life?”
Darren heard Dr. Chandler’s sharp voice in the midst of all the chaos. At the same time, his head was violently pulled up by the guard, standing behind him, forcing Darren to look into the CEO’s terrifying eyes. Darren was in terror and was shaking uncontrollably. No words came out of Darren’s mouth. He moved his eyes towards where Jonathan was sitting at. There, he found his colleague and former manager lifeless in his chair while his head was resting on the top of the control desk. He looked at the CEO, then immediately looked down onto the floor not able to maintain his eye contact for long.
“I…, I’ll do anything you say, Dr. Chandler…”
Darren chose to save his life by selling his soul to the evil CEO, not knowing what would be asked of him. It wasn’t important to him what he had to do for Chandler. The only thing that Darren was focused on, at this time, was prolonging his life. He felt extreme shame towards his colleagues who were brutally murdered. But, he was not about to let go of this lifeline that has been just thrown at him.
“Good. You are a smart man as I had believed.”
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After a while, Darren was able to recompose himself. Still in shock, but no longer as scared as before since it was revealed to him that he would live through this, Darren followed Dr. Chandler out of the laboratory like a pet dog on a leash. On the way to the elevator, he saw two guards busy at installing some black devices with red and green lights flashing in the nuclear reactor room. All eight men took the elevator up to the roof top and proceeded to the helipad where Dr. Chandler’s aircraft was waiting.
The guards waited at the bottom of the plane as Dr. Chandler walked up the stairs followed by Darren. When the two men disappeared into the plane, the guards turned around to walk up the steps to enter the vehicle. Then, in a flash, another guard, who seemed to be the most trusted one by Dr. Chandler, fired six shots from inside the plane. Instantly, the bullets penetrating each man’s visors, all six men fell flat on to the floor of the roof. Then, the man turned and gave piercing look into Darren’s eyes through his dark glasses.
In utter terror, Darren witnessed the massacre of his colleagues and could not fathom the length at which Chandler would go to fulfill his dream, whatever, his twisted dream maybe. And, Darren knew that he would be part of Chandler’s empire as long as he stayed useful to Chandler.
The plane levitated up several stories above the roof top. Then, the forward propulsion kicked in, sending the vehicle in a quick ascension into the clouds at 50 degree angle. About thirty seconds into the flight, a large explosion was heard from below, behind the plane. A gigantic flash of light was visible from the back of the plane. The nuclear reactor that ran the entire laboratory facility had exploded. Black cloud of mushroom bellowed up and the thundering sounds of explosion from the ground sent shock waves in all directions. From the energy of the explosion, Darren felt the aircraft swaying left and right until the pilot had managed to take back the control.
The scene of the massacre, where the brutal murders of the intelligent young men and women took place would forever be buried deep underground below the shadow of the mushroom clouds, in the desolate desert. No one would ever know what existed here. Dr. Chandler made sure of it lest anyone would discover his deeds.
The CEO would hide any trace that this research ever took place. He became the only person who could control the technology, refine it, and use it in the way that will satisfy his greed for money and power. He never had the intention of keeping his promise to award ownership of his new enterprise to those trusting, naive young men and women.
This was how the brightest minds of the era, young, ambitious, and creative scientists met their untimely demises. They all believed in the technology that they were creating would be put into a noble cause. How wrong they were and how wrong they were to trust Dr. Chandler.
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Three years later, Dr. Chandler created a company called, Vector Travel Technology and assumed its chairman’s position. He knew that he would monopolize the travel industry having mastered this technology. VTT prospered as the desire of the people to experience the natural grandeur and beauty of the past Earth grew endlessly. With the damages done to the world by past wars and global warming, virtual reality would be the only feasible solution to satisfy that demand.
Chandler was a visionary in that sense. The company grew exponentially since the founding and he had established VTT travel agencies in several locations around the world. People came in droves to experience the technology rather, the past beauty of the Earth.
Chandler wasn’t satisfied with money alone. He craved for wielding unbounded power and control. He began to put into motion the ultimate plan that he had concocted when he took over his father’s operation. He was after the keys to unlock the ‘Pandora Box’ that his late father had entrusted him with. And, with the intelligence gathered and smuggled out from the UN when he was a researcher there, Chandler knew that he would reveal the secrets someday. Finally, he had all the means to accomplish his diabolic vision.
Using virtual bio-data persistency technology, Chandler began a clandestine smuggling operation from his own VTT agencies to generate the keys that would open the Pandora Box. Soon, his VTT operation would not only generate enormous riches but, also, it would become the clandestine laboratory that would move him step closer to his ultimate desire, to be at the helm of the world. His dream of wielding unlimited power and control over the world became one step closer.