Chapter Twelve: Ghost Rising

The Ghost project was the test to see how a team in the field could function in the acquisition of external technologies and target elimination, but first they'd need the full team.

The first name on his list was his medical specialist, and he figured it would be easier to get him first.

Specializing in Medical research, Brendan Zsky, codenamed "Scalpel", hadn't been spoken to in over a year, but he still submitted his research and resource requests, so he was considered active.

In the three years he'd been a member of the Bureau, he'd resided at the very top of the school, in a tower the students thought long abandoned, and for good reason.

With dozens of breakthroughs to his name that were used worldwide, his personal research was considered the closest to the 'mad scientist' side of the spectrum than anyone else on Ronin's team. He was trying to find a way to bring the dead back to life, though he hadn't had anything even resembling success.

Rumor had it he'd continuously failed to bring a corpse back, but he'd somehow managed to capture the soul of one of his victims, keeping it within the living world by some means he'd refused to report.

Silas pressed the call for the elevator and they waited in silence as the bell rang, slowly counting down the floors to theirs.

As the elevator got closer, Ronin asked, "Did you leave him a message to be ready for us?"

Silas nodded and said, "Yes, but there was no response."

The doors opened slowly, and they entered, and Silas checked the elevator for traps and monitoring equipment.

There were no traps, but there was a microscopic microphone near the top of the elevator, Scalpel's way of keeping track of who he would be dealing with.

Ronin tapped in a long string of numbers into the elevator floors and a previously invisible number appeared at the very top of the list.

Selecting it, the elevator began slowly climbing up to the pinnacle of the school.

This elevator moved noticeably slower than the other elevators in the building, and Ronin figured that Scalpel must have changed its travel speed so he could adjust calculations while his next subject arrived.

A female voice spoke from all around them, hidden speakers projecting the quiet voice, "Good afternoon, Director Ronin."

Ronin looked at Silas and said, "Hello...voice. Who would you be?

"My name is Scalpel, you're on your way to 'collect' me under the pretense of being moved to a new team, I believe," the voice said.

Ronin responded and said, "Collect is a poor way of describing it. You didn't report in this morning, I'm on my way to get you and find out why."

Scalpel responded quietly, "My most recent experiment was...very successful. It tired me out much more than I initially calculated."

"What experiment is that, Scalpel?" Silas asked, curious.

"I changed my appearance and then I changed my gender," Scalpel responded matter-of-factly.

Ronin's eyes opened, impressed, as he said, "How did you manage that? Were you doing surgery on yourself?"

"I don't dabble in such meager efforts, and you'll do well to remember that," she responded darkly.

The voice went silent and the elevator sped up, now moving almost double the speed of the other elevators.

The door soon opened to a hallway that turned into a spiral staircase, and Ronin and Silas began their ascent.

At the top, a large door slid open to let them in and they were greeted by a massive machine that seemed to be built directly into the wall, not entirely impossible considering that the entire school was made of metal programmed to be manipulable by people with the appropriate security access.

A thin woman walked out from behind a corner of the machine, her soft features and black hair belying the hard and critical eyes they sheltered.

She spoke, her voice much quieter in person and said, "I altered my appearance for simple security reasons. We may be doing some terrible things in the name of "progress" and the last thing I need is people hunting me down for revenge."

Ronin raised an eyebrow and said, "That seems fair...and the gender change?"

Scalpel smiled wide and said, "I changed my gender because I could. This device alters you on a genomic scale, rendering surgery obsolete. It's still in the testing phases and I simply NEEDED to do a test before I left with you on your little "mission"."

Opening her coat to show a wide variety of tools hidden within, she said, "No matter, I'll be fine to attend to you and your team."

She pulled an injector from among the tools and stabbed it into her neck and said, "This is a dose of adrenaline heavily treated and manipulated with Aether to make it function more slowly, it'll keep me moving during today's mission."

Silas cringed and said, "That seems extreme."

Scalpel finished her injection and said, "It's extremely pleasurable. The feeling of your body slowly building to a manic energy levels, all while trying to fight for sleep, it's a contradiction of near indescribable joy. Maybe you should try it before you speak against it, Silas."

Shaking her head, Silas responded, "No thanks, I drink for that kind of a rush."

Getting annoyed with the vices of his team members, Ronin motioned with his hand and said, "If you're ready, Scalpel, we have to go get our weapons specialists."

Scalpel nodded and the trio began the downward spiral to the elevator in silence.

Half an hour later, they were at the door of their ballistics expert.

Knocking loudly, Ronin said, "Trigger has a bit of a problem with...paranoia. Some of the other Directors said that he's unstable, but his weapons designs are some of the best you can find in the Bureau."

The door opened and Trigger stood in the doorway, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and he said, "So you're the new watchdog huh?"

Silas responded, "He's the new Director, yes."

Trigger narrowed his eyes at her and started to shut the door on them, when Ronin stuck his foot in the open space, stopping the door from shutting.

Without skipping a beat, Trigger pulled a gun up through the doorway and pointed it at Ronin, who flicked his wrist upward, knocking Trigger's gun hand perfectly vertical and the shot hit the ceiling.

Before the bullet could even ricochet back at them off the metal, Ronin pushed the door open and struck Trigger six times in the chest, knocking him backward.

Ronin walked in and stepped on his hand until he let go of the gun and he said, "Satisfied?"

Silas and Scalpel looked at each other in confusion as Trigger smirked and said, "How'd you know?"

"If you wanted us dead, you'd have shot as soon as you opened the door. I'm fast, but I'm sure you know that even I'd have a problem dodging a bullet at point blank range," Ronin said emotionlessly.

Extending his hand to Trigger, Ronin said, "My name's Ronin."

Looking from Ronin's hand to his face, he reached up with his free hand and took it as he said, "Well met, Ronin. Well met."

Pulling Trigger up, Ronin said, "You're the best of the best, I'd expect nothing less from our ballistics expert. Don't shoot at me again though."

Walking to his backroom, Trigger said, "I'll keep that in mind."

Ronin picked up the gun and emptied the clip, unsurprised to find that it was loaded with rubber bullets.

As he changed, Trigger said, "I'm paranoid, not crazy. I kill a Director, even I'd have a price on my head."

Walking to one of Trigger's tables, Ronin saw bullets that looked more like cylinders than normal bullets and he said, "What are these?"

Walking out of the backroom, pulling on his shirt, Trigger said, "They're sub-zero bullets."

Lifting one up, Ronin raised an eyebrow and Trigger took it from him.

Tapping the top of the bullet, marked with a picture of a snowflake, he said, "When these babies hit a target with enough force, they collapse, not penetrate. The process of collapsing sets off a small chemical change in the Aether inside of them, forcing the Aether to rapidly convert to a gas that has freezing properties. I haven't been able to get the process narrowed down completely though, so right now they only freeze the point of contact instead of a wider area."

Impressed, Ronin took the bullet back and put it in his pocket and said, "I'll take a look at this later and tell you if I can figure out what's going wrong."

Trigger shrugged and said, "If you can figure it out, be my guest. Normally I wouldn't let ANYONE take my tech, but you've made quite the name for yourself, Director. Your work with that hack Jessup's electro cannon was poetry. We'd all assumed it was impossible, but you got it working within a week."

Ronin smiled at that and said, "It's a pleasure to get praise from someone like yourself."

Silas rolled her eyes and looked at Scalpel and said, "Let's get going, they're going to start making out if we don't get moving."

Laughing demurely, Scalpel walked back toward the elevator with Silas close behind.

As Ronin followed behind, he got a notification that his melee expert had arrived at Marcus's office. He responded that they were on their way and he said, "Alright everyone, let's head down."

The elevator ride down to Marcus's office was cramped, designed to hold no more than three people, the extra person made the ride almost unbearable, but they made it down without incident.

They walked down the hall and Marcus's door opened, revealing the other six members of Ronin's new team.

"Line up," he said quietly.

As they lined up, he organized his list and read off their names and specializations.

"Silas, Data manipulation

Scalpel, Medical Research

Trigger, Ballistics

Sellius, Melee Weaponry

Delta, Computer Data Manipulation.

It's a pleasure to meet all of you. Today we're facing our first group as a mission. We're going to be hunting something to prove our combat capabilities."

Delta spoke up, her voice quiet and meek, "What are we hunting?"

Sending the data to all of their V.U.I.s, Ronin said, "We're hunting a massive lizard that breathes fire. It's been attacking a town about ten miles from here, we're going to put a stop to that."

Trigger laughed and said, "I've never killed a dragon before."

Ronin shook his head and said, "There haven't been any reports of 'dragons' yet, and I think you'll find there isn't one at work here. This is a Lizard type Deviant that's developed fire breath due to its diet. We're estimating that its size was its original deviation and its breath capabilities come from its diet of Aether altered animals."

Sighing, Trigger responded, "Well that sounds boring."

Marcus rolled his eyes from behind his desk and said, "Delta, you can set up here and monitor everything from a distance Make sure to get their vitals up and prioritize tracking them and researching possible weaknesses."

Ronin tapped his V.U.I. and everyone's systems received basic vitals readouts for each of them, visible in the corner of their eyesight.

"So far, this lizard hasn't been reported to be any stronger or more protected than a lizard of its size should be. No additional defensive capabilities, and only the fire breathing to worry about beyond biting and physical attacks," Delta said from her desk, the information now pulled up and news and reports scrolling by rapidly on her display.

Ronin waved his hand and said, "Let's go, everyone."