I had woken up in the middle of the afternoon to a knock at my door, I sat up and stretched yawning as my limbs and joints popped. I looked at the door, I wanted just a few moments of no human interaction and silence.
"Dr.Taylor?" The voice asked, firm and steady.
"Colonel Blackwood I presume?" I asked, standing up and opening the door.
A man stood there in full tac gear, he stood firm with grease stains up to his elbows. His arms were scarred and mangled, his face was set in stone giving away no emotional cues while his eyes were fierce enough that they gave away all the hatred that tainted his soul. He was the perfect man for my job, at least he looked the part.
"I'm heading to the shooting range, meet me there in 5 minutes," he began to walk away, his hands behind his back. "Oh, and don't be late. I'm not one to tolerate tardiness."
I watched as he walked away, that was all he had said in a rather brief introduction. At least he was punctual, I looked in the mirror and fixed my clothes and threw my lab coat on making my way towards the range. My shoes audible on the floor as I walked towards the military side of the base, I had walked out mere seconds after The Colonel left but I hadn't seen him once on the way.
I got to a glass sliding door, I reached into my lab coat and swiped my keycard on the panel to the left of the door. The door slid open, hitting me in the face with the smell of gun powder and ammonia. The air was thick enough to swim through, The Colonel stood at the furthest stall with an M4A1 in hand.
"Good, you're early. Punctual is good, but it's not enough," Blackwood said, setting his gun down and turning to me.
"I'm not here too impress you, Colonel. I'm here to see what you wanted of me, and why it had to be a range of all places," I answered, going over to the range stall he was at.
"I saw how you reacted to gunfire, it stunned you. I can't have you freezing like that on me, I do not intend to have the man I'm supposed to protect get mauled to death because they can't handle firearms," Blackwood stated, handing me a gun.
I took the pistol, the weight shifted my hand down slightly as I examined it. I recognized it as a 1911, but that's where my knowledge on this weapon ended. I aimed it down range and squeezed the trigger. The noise I had only heard faintly, didn't ring in my ears once more.
The gun didn't even fire, I pulled back the slide back to confirm the gun was loaded. The brass shell was already in the chamber, ready to be fired at a moment's notice. "Your gun seems to be broken, Colonel," I looked up at him.
"It works better if you turn the safety off," Blackwood rubbed the bridge of his nose, pointing at the safety.
"Oh! Right! Sorry my degree is in biology and chemistry," i turned the safety off and aimed down range and the paper target.
I steadied my hands and took a deep breath, the things they do in all those war movies, and pressed my finger down. The gun fired and nearly leapt from my hand into the air, it took all my will to keep it restrained. I had hit a target, but not the target. I had actually hit the target set up in the next stall over, Blackwood let out an audible sigh holding his hand out for the gun.
As I handed the gun to him, he took up his stance and fired twice in quick succession with no difficulty. The gun barely moved up or around, his wrists forced the firearm into submission.
"Again. Imagine the target is something coming towards you," He ordered, setting the gun down.
I nodded and picked the gun up, I copied his stance and looked at the target. I imagined the horrific thing in the testing room, I forced every bit of strength to my wrists and fired twice. The gun stayed put, but my shots had missed vital kill shots.
"Better, I say you're about ready for your own. Remember, gravity makes bullets drop that means the further you are the more you need to raise the gun. Other than that, good job, you have some new subjects waiting for you by the way. I wanted to get your training session out of the way first, I'll get you something from the armory and meet you there," Blackwood said with a smile, taking his gun back and holstering it at his hip.
"Yes sir, see you in five?" I asked, ready to run for my life.
Blackwood nodded firmly, I turned on my heels and ran towards the research wing as fast as I could. I took the corner a little too fast and almost hit the wall, nearing my little research post. I stood at the door and composed myself, deep breaths and fixing my clothes. I walked into the room to see my two assistants filing a group of eight subjects in, their files left for me on my desk. I picked up each one to find them sealed at the edge, I broke the seal carefully and read through them methodically checking every detail.
Every individual was a different walk of life with different health, age, and habits. I was now in the final prep stages, but one thing I noticed was that four of the acquired subjects were AB Negative while the rest were AB Positive. The Army wanted to make sure it was an immuno response as I had said and not just an ongoing issue, I sighed and sat back reading through the master file they gave me.
"Doctor," Ward called out as the door opened.
"Shouldn't you be somewhere else? Like not on base," I asked not looking up from my file.
"Not yet, I'm here to watch your next test. I want to see if you're coming to your senses," Ward said coldly.
"I hope not, this weapon will be the future of all warfare. A way to end war without a trigger pulled, just a threat and the defeaning silence of the graveyards we will fill," Blackwood answered, sitting on my left hand side. The Colonel handed me a pistol, a black box slide with a handle. "Glock 17, a good starter pistol for self defense."
I nodded and placed it in my coat pocket, looking at the room infront of me with all of my new subjects. I pressed the button turning on the intercom, "Ladies and Gentlemen, those with AB Negative blood type please move to the right side of the room. You'll hereby be referred to as Group A, wait for further instructions. The rest will be called Group B, grab one of the four gas masks on the table and move to the left side of the room. The test will commence shortly," I stated calmly, taking my finger off of the intercom button. Experiment 26 was coming to the end of its testing phase.