One More Chance

“This time, theoretically, these subjects should be much more efficient than their predecessors.” the other scientist said. “But the Director wanted these subjects to lack the capability of feeling emotions. Permanently removing them is impossible.”

“Why?” Richard interrupted.

“Oh, Richard! Sorry, I didn’t come to welcome you.” Mr Kawasaki said.

“No worries.”

Richard had been in contact with Mr Kawasaki on a daily basis ever since the Director gave up on experimenting with Richard. In a sense, Mr Kawasaki had saved his life. In another sense, he was also involved in trying to take Richard’s life away. Richard had mixed feelings towards him, but in the back of his head, he knew that Mr Kawasaki was a good man.

But since Richard’s comrades were no longer alive, the only man who he knew well in the CIA was Mr Kawasaki, the head scientist of the research and development wing of the CIA.

“The answer is brain plasticity. The brain has the ability to repair damaged cells. In infants, the regenerative ability is much higher, so we have inactivated it by adding chemicals. But these chemicals will wear off in 15-20 years and by the time these kids hit puberty or become adults; they might regain their capability to feel emotions.” Mr Kawasaki explained.

The smile on Richard’s face faded, as he looked at the infants with eyes of guilt.

“So these kids here right now don’t have the capability to feel emotions?” Richard asked.

“Yes, that is exactly right.”

Richard placed his palm on the glass chamber, “This is sad. This is blatant human experimentation. These kids won’t get to live normally like other children. How will they enjoy life if they can’t feel emotions?”

Mr Kawasaki’s face saddened and he looked downcast. “There’s nothing we can do about it. These are the Director’s orders.”

“If only they had experimented on me. Maybe then, these kids wouldn’t have to live like this...” Richard said with a grim expression on his face.

“No, don’t blame yourself. The experiment would have ended in failure. You would have died and these kids would have been born anyway. What’s done is done. We just need to make sure that these sacrifices don’t go in vain.”

The Director walked into the room. He peered into the glass chamber and smiled.

“Well said, Mr Kawasaki! These kids will be the key to the future of humanity’s progress. Mankind will not stagnate anymore!” the Director exclaimed. “Look at ‘Subject 005’, he will be an instrumental part of the revolution!

“Progress for Humanity at the stake of these kids’ lives? I don’t think this is fair. Unlike me, they weren’t even given a choice, before being dragged into this pit of darkness.” Richard said as rage seemed to swell up within him.

“If the whole world benefits at the stake of a few lives, then it’s the best deal there is!” the Director said.

“You are making a deal with the devil. It will come to bite you in the back.” Richard warned.

“Haha, nonsense. If anything, I’m the one raising these devils. At the cost of these subjects’ lives, the world will progress immensely. People will begin to change, the world will begin to change. Change is inevitable. If I’m not the one who does this, then someone else will do these experiments.” the Director said and then looked towards the five infants in the glass chamber. “Don’t blame me for using your life like this, blame your cruel fate.”

Suddenly gunshots were heard in the distance. The sirens blared as they heard screams everywhere.

“What’s going on!” Mr Kawasaki shouted.

“Tsk, already?” the Director muttered.

The scientists began panicking.

“What happened?” Mr Kawasaki stopped one of the scientists who was running away from the epicentre of the gunshots and asked.

“The Russians have infiltrated the base. They have been firing indiscriminately everywhere!” the scientist shouted as he ran for his life.

“Tsk, they have come to steal the subjects. I was well aware that they’d known about the experiments for quite a while now. But I didn’t think they would make a move this fast.” the Director said.

“What do we do now, sir?” Mr Kawasaki asked, waiting for orders.

“Richard, the safety of these subjects is our top priority. Yet if you cannot guarantee their safety due to these sudden circumstances, then you must kill these subjects before they fall into the enemy’s hands.” the Director ordered.

“Roger!” Richard said as he immediately took the glass chamber and opened it.

“There are some empty safety pods over there from the other experiments. Place the subjects in them.” Mr Kawasaki said.

Richard nodded as he took the infants out of the glass chamber and placed them one by one into separate safety pods.

The safety pod was a simple device, similar to an incubator. It allowed the organism inside to survive for a few weeks, thus protecting them from the outside conditions.

“I knew they would attack one day so I had kept an escape route ready. There is a helicopter at the end of this corridor. Take the helicopter and fly far away from here.” the Director commanded.

Richard Brown and Mr Kawasaki grabbed the safety pods containing the subjects and ran towards the helicopter.

Three shots were fired. The Director fell to his knees, holding his chest which was now profusely bleeding. The Russians had finally located the ‘Subjects’ and were very close.

“Richard! Fast!” Mr Kawasaki shouted.

Richard placed the pods inside the helicopter and sat in the cockpit.

“TAKING OFF!” he shouted as the rotor blades of the helicopter began whirring.

The helicopter lifted itself up, leaving the ground. The Russians reached the launch pad and stared at the helicopter as it began to fly away. They began firing at the helicopter which was now a few meters above sea level.

Most bullets deflected off the armour but few of them managed to pierce through.

“Shit, they must have hit the fuel tank.” Mr Kawasaki shouted as he noticed the sudden drop in the fuel levels.

“Roger that!” Richard swerved the helicopter to the right and increased the altitude. The helicopter flew above the clouds, escaping the rain of bullets. They succeeded in avoiding the imminent danger of the sudden Russian infiltration. But the Russians didn’t let go so easily. They were following them in their own helicopter.

A few hours had passed by and the weather had just gotten worse. Since the fuel was running low, the helicopter lowered its altitude.

“We will be crash landing in a few hours. Haha, we are in the middle of the Pacific ocean.” Richard joked. “They have been following us for quite a while now. Extremely persistent guys...”

“What do we do now? It’s just a matter of time until they catch up and capture us. We can’t allow them to take the ‘Subjects’.” Mr Kawasaki said.

“Yeah, we can’t escape any further. We are cornered. It’s over.” Richard said as his eyes filled with despair. “I need to kill the ‘subjects’.”

He walked up to the safety pod and took out ‘Subject 005’, holding the infant in his arms. He grabbed his knife from his pocket and placed it next to the baby’s neck.

“Are you really gonna do it?” Mr Kawasaki asked. “You might have done actions in the past that you regret even now. But do you want to continue committing more crimes that you would regret later on?”

Richard’s hand trembled. The knife pierced the skin of the baby’s neck and blood began to drip down the blade. The baby shifted around, reacting to the pain but it didn’t cry. The baby couldn’t cry.

“ARE YOU REALLY GONNA DO IT?” Mr Kawasaki shouted, repeating his question.

Richard couldn’t handle it anymore. His grip loosened as he dropped the knife.

“What do you want me to do, huh? We need to kill these babies. THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE!” Richard shouted.

“You think that there is no other choice because you have already given up! Even if God was against us, we wouldn’t lose until we gave up.” Mr Kawasaki shouted back at him.

“Okay then, why don’t you give me a solution here? You haven’t given up on these infants right?” Richard asked.

Mr Kawasaki couldn’t reply to Richard’s question. He remained silent and looked away as a sorrowful expression enveloped his face.

A missile whizzed past the helicopter, hitting the water and exploding. Mr Kawasaki’s eyes were fixed on the explosion in the water.

The weather was rough. It began to rain heavily and the winds were strong enough to shake the helicopter. The ocean was agitated by the strong aerial currents. The storm had begun.

“Shit, they are already here!” Richard shouted as he took control of the helicopter again. He desperately flipped the switches on the control board, but nothing seemed to help. “I can’t even speed up! We don’t have much fuel left! Kawasaki, if you don’t have a solution, I shall kill these subjects with my very own hands. You don’t want to get your hands dirty, right?”

“I got it.” Mr Kawasaki muttered as his gaze remained fixed on the missile’s explosion in the ocean.

“Got what?”

“A way to save these children!”

“Fast, tell me!”

“We fake our own deaths. Crash the helicopter into the water. When the Russians see the explosion, they’ll assume that we’ve died. These safety pods can handle the explosion.”

“Are you stupid? These subjects will be lost forever in the sea. They might just get captured by the Russians or they might die of starvation in the middle of the ocean.” Richard shouted.

“It’s very unlikely that the Russians will be able to find them in such harsh weather conditions. These ocean currents will take these safety pods as far away as possible. We are still near Guam. Hopefully, the US Coast Guard will find them for us. Letting them starve to death is a better choice than killing them right here.”

“Tsk fine then...let the final operation commence.” Richard muttered.

A missile hit the rotor blades of the helicopter and exploded. The helicopter began to lose altitude rapidly. Richard and Mr Kawasaki grabbed their life jackets and jumped out of the helicopter. The helicopter along with the safety pods containing the ‘Subjects’ crashed into the depths of the ocean and exploded, causing black smoke to rise everywhere into the air.

Even amidst such stormy weather, with such high-speed gusts of wind, the fire from the explosion remained afloat on the water. The Russian helicopter took off and went above the clouds.

“They decided to destroy the subjects rather than retrieve them?” Mr Kawasaki asked as his life jacket was helping him stay afloat on the ocean.

“Probably...” Richard replied.

The ocean currents were very strong. The high tides would have probably pushed the safety pods to some faraway place, unknown to both the CIA as well as the Russians, or they might have gotten lost in the depths of the ocean forever.

The location of the subjects was never found since then.

Richard and Mr Kawasaki were eventually saved by the US Coast Guard a few hours after the incident. After such a failure, the CIA changed its strategy, to focus on weapon development rather than increasing the efficiency of its killing machines.

----

Around two decades later, Agent Richard Brown was promoted and was stationed at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department as an undercover cop for the CIA. Janice Brown, a female agent with blonde hair who he had met in the New York Police Department was a fellow undercover cop for the CIA and was currently his assistant in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

She was also his loving wife. They had been married for over ten years now.

----

A few hours after the car accident, Janice walked up to her husband. “What happened to you? You seemed very different when you were talking to that boy who was hit by our car.”

Richard Brown smirked, “Oh, you noticed? We’ve known each other for a very long time. He was very small at that time, he probably doesn’t remember me. He’s the only mission that I failed to accomplish. And now, it looks like God has given me another chance.”