Gestalt - Origins
#1 of Gestalt
Ton was in two minds about everything. His first mind was busily searching the room looking for a way to get across the war-torn chamber without being torn to pieces by gunfire. He took in the office desks and furniture, much of which was badly damaged, the materials too weak and flimsy to resist weapons fire. The remains of a potted plant sprayed across the ground, the stem crushed in several places by the tread of heavy boots. He was dimly aware of almost a dozen men scattered around the room, but he was too concerned with survival to pay them any heed.
Thankfully, Ton's Second Mind had that covered. The Second Mind picked every man out in intense detail: grey and black urban camouflage uniforms; matt black combat helms and body armour; UP-44b SMGs, loaded with 10mm armour piercing rounds based on the damage they were doing to the room. The Second Mind took all this in and more, calculating their positions, directions and probable fields of fire in a heartbeat. All this information was fed into the First Mind instantly, granting Ton and absolute awareness of his surroundings, bordering on the clairvoyant.
"Red!" Ton barked out, flinging himself behind the one piece of cover he could find that was able to absorb weapons fire. Bullets spanked off the pillar, sending tile fragments whirling away and slowly gutting the supports. "A little suppresing fire would be nice right now!"
Across the room, Red was crouched inside a doorway. She wore a bodyglove that shimmered like oil, but her head and tail were completely exposed, revealing her soft, cream coloured fur and the shock of bright red hair that was her namesake. She glanced up toward Ton, their gazes meeting for just an instant. That alone was all they needed; they were genetically engineered to be perfect warriors, and the two had been 'born' together. Their bond was more than comradery, closer than any amount of training could ever create.
They broke cover as one, Rin's weapon blazing on full auto as they moved. For the Gestalt the fight took place in slow motion, their augmentations allowing them to temporarily heighten their senses to supernatural levels. Her opening burst tore down two of the human soldiers, forcing the rest to re-evaluate their position. It was a fatal mistake; the momentary hesitation allowed Ton to cross the room, hurling titanium darts as he went. Laced with deadly poison, three men were struck by the weapons and fell dead within seconds. A fourth and fith died soon after, throats opened by the kiss of Ton's combat knife. The survivors tried to retreat and redraw a bead on their foe, but Red had them in her sights and gunned them down with contemptuous ease.
"This is Spade calling Diamond. Come in Diamond." The voice crackled over the team radio. Ton ignored it, recovering his darts and carefully sniffing the edges. The feline assassin giving a soft purr of satisfaction as he examined his kills, tail swishing idly behind him. A part of him was aware that what he'd done was terrible, but it was a small part; most of him saw the bloody carnage in a distant, unreal fashion, as if it were some sort of virtual reality game and the corpses would desynchronise in a few moments. As this thought drifted through his First Mind, the Second Mind idly calculated how much experience he'd have earned.
Seeing Ton daydreaming, Red decided to handle the call. "This is Heart. Diamond and I ran into a little more opposition than we thought. Any word on the mark yet?" The mark in question was a megalomaniac business executive; a director of a genetic research company who had decided to breed himself a private army. His creations were pretty good, but he'd only had time to create thirty before the Gestalt had been deployed to stop him. Now the remains of his super-soldier program were scattered across the countryside of Aquitaine.
"Oh we found him alright; turns out he had a few more of his pets than we thought. Club took a bad wound but he'll live. We've got the mark in lockdown and have called an extraction on Point Sigma. Get there as soon as you can."
Time was up. Red and Ton headed out of the building as quickly as possible, ignoring the occasional terrified worker who had not found anywhere to hide when the carnage began. In total, the two of them had left almost sixty people dead in their wake, storming the lab complex head on with little regard for stealth or subtlety. Naturally, their rash tactic was a distraction, but it was one that had taken a heavy toll on the private army. They walked in silence to the rendezvous point, arriving just as their VToL ride drifted down out of the sky. Two other Gestalt, a reptie and an avian dressed in the same oily bodygloves as they were, hauled a sobbing human aboard and jumped in after him. As soon as Ton and Rin climbed aboard the craft's engines roared into life, fighting for height and pulling clear of French airspace and turning for home.
Home was far from homely. The Gestalt lived in a circular complex of dull-grey walls and hard metal surfaces. There was a constant background noise of footsteps, comm chatter and weapons fire, all of which was muffled but never quite muted by the heavy doors sealing off each sector. Ton and Red lived in Cell B, and it was about as comfortable as the name suggested. Two military issue cots took up most of the space in the room, though someone had gone to the trouble of providing high quality mattresses. a single wardrobe contained their civilian clothes, and was barely even half full. There were two L-shaped desks, one in each corner, piled with a random mish-mash of professional and personal items. There was an ensuite bathroom, which itself was no less spartan. It was not a place to live in; it was a place to go when there was nowhere else to go. Originally, the room had been Red's alone, with the second bed to be filled with another female Gestalt applicant. However, as time went on and the bonds began to form, Ton simply moved in of his own accord. He wasn't the only one; within a week half the Gestalt sleeping arrangements had been rearranged so that close friends could share cells or rivals could put as much distance between themselves as possible. The breach in regulations escallated even further inside Cell G, home of a pair of lapin Gestalt whose domicile always carried the lingering smell of sex.
The two felines lay on their beds, not really tired but seeking to sleep just out of routine. There were no lights on in the room and only a dim illumination made it through the fanlight, but Ton and Red had excellent night vision and so the darkness did not stop them casting glances at one another. It was a simple act, but it gave them both comfort; the occasional shared smile, a little raising of the hand, a word half-mouthed but never spoken aloud. They were still young, though their enhanced physiology hid the fact, and they took comfort in the child-like crush they had on one another. After a while, Red leaned out of her bed and reached a hand across the room toward Ton, who returned the gesture. The cell was small enough that they could grasp each other's hand, and the warm, firm grip of their hands filled both of them with a contented warmth. Eventually they drifted off, dreaming of one another while the world carried on outside their door.
When morning came it brought with it a palpable tension. Ton and Rin dressed quickly and headed out of the cell. Immediately their enhanced hearing picked up the distant whine of the general alarm and they rushed for the control room, meeting other members of the Gestalt team on the way. In the control room itself, a chamber dominated by a massive display on the wall showing a map of the world, humans and Gestalt alike were frantically trying to make sense of the information that was coming in piecemeal.
"What's going on?" Red asked, drawing the attention of their leader, Leo. He was the first of the Gestalt, created in the form of a great lion. Seven feet tall and heavy-set, his imposing form was sharp contrast to his kind, considerate nature.
"We aren't sure yet, but we think World War Three just started." The lion pointed toward the world map by way of explanation. Each nation was lit up there, marking the edges of their territories, but over that was another layer, marking the approximate boundaries of the current political alliances. America and its allies were a deep, threatening red, the alliance of Russia and China midnight black and the fragile coalitions of Western, Eastern and Central Europe and their supporting nations were fragmented across the globe, picked out in blue, green and yellow respectively.
With a wide sweep of his arm, Leo explained the growing situation. "As of two hours ago, the USA armed its nuclear stockpile. Naturally, almost every other nation responded in kind. Now we've had reports that American forces have landed in East Asia. At first we thought we'd be seeing another Vietnam, but it turns out they attacked and destroyed a classified installation owned by the Russians and are moving inland."
"What was the installation?" Ton asked.
Leo shrugged. "We don't know; it's classified."
The trio were joined by another Gestalt, this one an avian with bright yellow feathers and the general appearance and demanour of a budgie. He cheeped nervously as he walked. "Aha! Ton, Rin, good! Good that you're here!" He toyed with his collar anxiously. "This is the big one I know it. Whatever comes next, it's going to be really, really bad."
Red carefully scanned the map herself before acquiring one of the terminals to try to get a better idea of what was happening. "I don't think we should be preaching the end times just yet, Chobi. After all, the world didn't end when the Chinese invaded California."
"True," Chobi conceeded, "but the government's really on edge; I just heard they're accellerating Phase Two."
That revelation turned heads. The current Gestalt were powerful, but producing them took a long time they were always few in number. Phase Two was a plan proposed to combine the superior abilities of the Gestalt, who had thus far proven more than a match for conventional super-soldiers, with the latter's ease of production. In essence, the Gestalt were to be cloned en masse to provide the next generation of soldiers.
Ton scoffed the announcement. "Too little, too late; it'd still take years to get an army, and by then we'll all be dead from nuclear winter."
"Actually, Agent Grey, we have an army all ready to go." This new voice was of MacDouglas, the base commander. He was Human, as were the rest of the base staff, but it didn't require the Gestalt's augmented senses to tell his escorts were not. Dressed in standard British Army uniforms that had been modified to account for their altered physique, half a dozen feline warriors marched with their general as an honour guard. One look at their faces made Ton's lips curl back in disgust.
"You... you cloned us? Without permission?" His eyes scanned across each of the men, none of whom were identical to himself or each other, but all were clearly of his genetic stock; they shared his grey fur, grey eyes and dark hair. When one spoke, his voice even had the same purring edge that Ton's own voice had.
The general seemed confused by Ton's reaction. "We don't need your permission, Agent Grey. You are servants of this nation, and moreover you are property of the GESP. We are free to do with our creations as we see fit."
A heavy silenced followed, and MacDouglas was smart enough to realise that his statement had been badly worded. Seeing Leo open his mouth to speak the general quickly cut in, "alright, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. However, the fact is our nation needs these soldiers. We are eternally greatful for all the First Generation has done for us, but the simply truth of the matter is you are too few. We aren't just dealing with rogue elements or third-world nations anymore; we could have a fully developed nation like Germany, Spain or even the Russians invading us at any moment! We need enough military might to take on any nation that threatens us!"
Leo shook his head sadly. "You should have told us. We deserved that much. Just how many of these... Second Generation are there?"
"Two regiments and counting," the human replied, seeing immediately the news was not particularly well received. "I'm sorry, I really am, but I just did what I had to. We all knew this day was coming..."
Ton and Red exchanged a glance, and as one headed for the door. Nobody objected as they left. "Ton, whatever happens..." Red hesitated, unwilling to say what was on her mind. A gentle arm around her shoulder told her she didn't have to.
"I will always be here for you." Ton said, leaning Red against himself. Instinctively, she knelt down to listen to his heartbeat. "I promise you, Red, that I will never, ever let you go."