02 - Spearhead

William, Luci, and Owen came to in a stark white room. Their heads were swimming and they had no idea where they were. They were seated in phlebotomy chairs, each of them were connected to IV bags. Groggily they looked around.  The room was a drug lab and there was only one other person in the room with them. The man was in a technician’s chair, and when he saw them starting to stir, he wheeled himself over.  The man had a small goatee and shoulder length hair, he wore a lab coat and looked to be about 40 years old. His name was Dr. Aaronson.

Dr. Aaronson was beside himself with happiness that the three were still alive.  He told them that he fully expected them to be vegetables because of the high dosage of C-1011 they had been exposed to.  Not even the lab rats have ever been exposed to that much of the chemical so he had feared for the worst.  According to the doctor they had been unconscious for almost three and a half hours.

William, Luci, and Owen couldn’t remember anything from the last few hours, there was no recollection of anything out of the ordinary, but somehow, something had gone terrible wrong for them to be here without any memory of what had happened.  They were full of questions even though their heads were still swimming.  They rattled off their questions each talking over the others. Where are they? What happened? Why are they connected to these IV bags? And, in Owen’s case, who were William and Luci?

Aaronson tried to soothe them and urged them to take it slow.  He tried to explain; the facility was in lockdown and the Aaronson had personally pulled the three of them from the cleanroom just outside the Cooler, which was nickname given to the underground chemical storage vault. Aaronson had pulled them out after they were exposed to the chemical. Beyond that, Aaronson couldn't answer too many other questions.

He explained that there had been some sort of sabotage that put the entire compound into lockdown and that all of the data concerning his research on C-1011 had been wiped from the servers.  There was no internet, no cell signals, and no way to make contact with the outside.  All the doors inside the compound were locked, no one had been able to get in or leave. As a result, it has been difficult for him to get around or communicate so he didn't fully understand the extent of damage that had been done.

Luci attempted to investigate the situation from surveillance video and records within the security system via Aaronson's tablet, but she search turned up little useful information. When the facility went into lockdown everything on the security system went black.  Based on footage before the lockdown there had been nothing out of the ordinary happening with Luci or William’s schedules.  Likewise, Owen had been back for his post-op memory testing and the feed cut out in the middle of his tests.  There was no way to tell what had happened in the black besides first hand personal experience.

Aaronson explained that he believed that the three of them had intimate knowledge of what had happened, but due to their exposure to C-1011, they could not recall what had happened.  He said that the only way that they could learn what had happened to them was to reconsolidate their memories just like the clinical tests that Owen had just recently been through.

The three were quite distressed.  William and Luci had never experienced anything like this before, but Owen had, and the memory of his clinical test was still fresh in his mind.  Dr. Aaronson and Owen explained how the clinical tests were conducted and how patients experienced memory loss while taking C-1011 and had reconsolidate their memories afterwards.  In Owen’s case, his memory had came back quickly, or so he had thought.  As Owen recounted his memory of his operation to Luci and William the doctor stopped him.  Owen had believed he had traveled to Mexico and rescued two Spearhead operatives, but Aaronson revealed that that was not entirely true.

The purpose of Owen’s clinical trial was actually to determine if memory reconsolidation was corruptible.  During the operation, Owen was never under the impression that he was in Mexico or that there were actual hostages; he knew it was an exercise.  However, C-1011 erases the subject’s short term memory.  After the operation he forgot all of what had happened.  During debriefing, Owen he was given a falsified account of the action. Then Aaronson checked back up on him during memory reconsolidation to see if his mind could determine what had truly taken place.  In the end, Owen couldn’t decipher between fact and fiction.  During reconsolidation, his mind filled in the blanks using the false info from debriefing and accepted that as the truth.

William, Luci, and most especially Owen, were shocked to learn the effects of C-1011.  They were facing the prospect of reconsolidating their own recent memories and now they couldn’t be sure of the integrity of the process.

Aaronson explained that memory reconsolidation began by using memory triggers to stimulate the brain and try to wake up the misplaced memories.  The three wanted to know what happened right when the lockdown happened, but Aaronson had nothing to work with in terms of a common memory trigger between the three of them before the lockdown.  According to the security footage they weren’t together when the lockdown went into effect. The only thing Aaronson was confident that they had in common was that they had all been in the cleanroom outside the Cooler because that was where he found them.  Therefore, Aaronson determined to start with that memory.

Before he triggered their memories Dr. Aaronson gave them all a beta blocker. He explained that the beta blocker would help dampened down the traumatic aspect of the memory and allow them to recall it more clearly without causing additional stress on their already taxed brains.  Aaronson told them it was perfectly safe. He even gave himself a shot of the beta blocker first, telling them that it was helping him to deal with the anxiety too.

The trigger the doctor choose was a training video for standard cleanroom procedure. As the three watched the video their brains began to latch onto shared remembrances of their predicament, and just like that, they were back in the cleanroom, reliving their memory it as if it was happening again.

They were in their same clothes that they wore presently in the drug lab.  Owen was the only one armed, Luci had an ear piece comm.  They were entering into the Cooler with a sense of urgency.

A voice on the ear piece made a brief transmission saying, “He's headed for the pressure reduction valve, stay quiet”. She recognized the voice on the ear piece as friendly.

The three proceeded into the space which was expansive. The ceiling was about 30 feet high and the entire space was filled with large white pill shaped storage tanks. The tanks stood on short stilts and were about 10 feet in diameter and 20 feet tall.  The tanks formed long rows that extended the full length and width of the immense space.  The tanks were all piped in sequence with one another and pipes criss-crossed the rows high up near the ceiling.

The space was dimly lit and visibility was less than 50 feet. The Cooler was rectangular in shape and they entered into it on its short side.  The rows of tanks dominated the space but they could see the side walls; the back wall however was buried in darkness.

Before long they heard the clink and rattling of a chain somewhere near the back of the Cooler.  Cautiously they proceeded down the rows in the room until a figure darted across one of the rows about 30 feet in front of them. The three split up, Luci and William going to investigate where the individual had darted across from, and Owen with the gun, giving chase to the individual who darted across their path.

When William and Luci arrived at the place where the figure had darted from they found that the spot had a good vantage over a gate leading to a chain link cage along the back wall of the room.  The gate was open, and a chain hung limp with a cut lock.

Owen quietly stalked the figure for a couple rows.  The figure lead him laterally across the room until he stopped and cupped his hand up by his ear piece. Owen crept closer in an attempt to hear what was being said but all he could hear was the end of the transmission, “I'm going after him.”

Luci and William where passing through the chain link gate at the back of the room when the ear piece squawked again, “The valve is already open, I’m close to him though.  I’m going after him.”

From within the chain link cage William and Luci traced the tangled network of pipes towards the center of the wall, all the while noticing a hissing noise that was growing louder and louder. At the center of the tangle of pipes was a bunch of unions and valves all which were hissing angrily. They had no more than a few seconds to stare in wonder at the hissing pipes before yellow warning indicator lights began to light up, one by one, over the dozen or so valves in front of them. They were too late, the system was over-pressurized and becoming unstable.  Just then, a burst of gunfire rang out not far from them and the two of them decided to get out of the cage.

Meanwhile, Owen watched as the shadowed figure broke from his hiding spot and gave chase after the unseen saboteur. Owen quickly and cautiously kept pace with their shadowed friend.  Their friend wasted little time pulling a pistol and firing at his enemy. Three shots were fired from a pistol, then silence for a second or two, finally a single loud shot rang out. Owen took cover.

William and Luci had already begun their escape, they were running back towards the gate when the ear piece spoke again. Their friend said that he was hit but that “he was okay,” he told them to get out of there.

The hissing sound seem to be following Luci and William as they ran from the chain link cage and back down the rows towards the cleanroom. William was out in front until a tank next to him made a strange noise.

The tanks around William were being ripped open by the mounting pressure.  As they were overloaded they burst and sent rivets flying. At first William thought he was being shot, but he soon realized that the sound was in fact the sound of rivets blowing out and ricocheting around the room. Just then, a tank right in front of him blew out and spewed C-1011 directly into William’s unsuspecting face.

The smell of the chemical was sweet, like vanilla extract, but the taste was bitter. The shock of the blast sent him reeling back and tumbling to the floor. The tank continue to gush the chemical and when Luci arrived she saw William flailing on the ground covered in a cloud of the sickly sweet smelling chemical.

She selflessly drove into the cloud and wrestled William’s body free.  Then the two got to their feet and continued their way towards the cleanroom as more tanks burst and saturated the air in the Cooler with the chemical.

Sensing the danger from the gun fire and the destabilizing tanks, Owen abandoned his pursuit of the shadowed figure.  To be safe, Owen put some distance between himself and the gunshots and then made his way back to the cleanroom.  The tanks near him were beginning to rupture as well and he recognized the smell of the C-1011 filling the room.

As William and Luci were about halfway back to the cleanroom the ear piece came alive one last time. “I'm hit but I'm okay, there's a switch for a large exhaust vent near me... I'm going to get to it, you need to get out of here... just get out!” That was the last that they heard from him.

Owen was the first one back to the cleanroom, by then the air in the Cooler was thick with the chemical.  Wasting no time he engaged the sanitation cycle on a keypad next to the door. The cleanroom doors opened and a timer begin counting down.  Owen nervously waited and hoped for his companions to appear in time.

With just seconds left on the timer William and Luci rounded the corner of the last storage tank and were sprinted towards the door.  Owen did his best to hold back the doors but they were too strong. William crashed into Owen forcing the both of them into the clean room and tumbling to the floor.  Luci slipped her body through the closing doors but her leg caught just as the doors shut. She twisted her ankle at an unnatural angle and pulled her foot through the vice of the door. Panting on the floor, she popped her ankle back into place.  Then the sanitation system above spewed its cleansing shower over them and they passed out.