This is a story I wrote some time ago... quite dead in the water... I post it here because I want it off my computer...

 

 

It had been so long... Almost too long...

 

Samuel liesurly walked up to the window of his office, which overlooked the entire city... His city... Ut hadn't been easy, but he had pushed, plundered, lied, cheated and killed to get where he was today. It had almost worked. Almost.

 

 

From inside of the Sixtieth story of the Kain Building, Samuel surveyed the city of Crystal Falls. He had started the economic boom here, moving slowly corperate offices, managing outsorcing, transfers and buyouts. Over the last thirty years he had absorbed over three thousand companies, thier subsiduaries and all supporting buisnesses. At the center of it all was Kain Enterprises, a small management company that revolved arouund purchasing failing companies and making them turn a profit.

 

 

But the real side of his sucess was much more sinister. Kain Enterprises world face was that of a deeper, darker company... AZION Military Supply. Within the confines of his small, three room corperate building for the first five years he supported sales of some of the most complex military machinery known to man, as well as bought, bribed or... pursuaded Military and goverment officers across the board.

 

 

But that had come crashing to a halt last saturday. For years there had been claims that the International Human Rights violator AZION and Kain Enterprises were linked somehow, and this had gotten the curiosity of a specific journalist. The had followed him for most of his career in one way or another... he was almost sure of it.

 

 

Samuel took a long draw out of his cigar and let it slowly trail out past his lips. There was far too much to think about now... this had gotten out of control to the extreme. The problem was not that this was just a pain in his side... it was that she had found something. There was a accident with one of the shippers, and the cargo truck had crashed. He had still not yet recieved a report from company investigators, but he had gotten enough information to piece togethor what had happened. Unwitingly, the thorn had saved the victim from more pain then could be imagined.

 

 

 

There had been some sort of animal or something... the vehicle had swerved to miss and hit the ditch. The driver tried to recover and ended up flipping the rig, shredding the metal on the cargo container and spewing the contence of it across the road. What happened next was of pure coincidence, Even fate was not that cruel.

 

 

The "thorn" had been traveling home from some form of assignment and came acropss the wreckage... from the drivers reports, she fouunnd the case before they could do anything. It was a fiarly large, metal container with the letters AZION splayed across it in bold red. Almost impossible to miss. The container had wheels, and, probably suspecting that she had the scoop of the century, she made off with the case.

 

 

In any event, it didn't matter. The subject was probably dead already. The case was closed as soon as his "personell" tracked her down. And again, that was only a matter of time.

 

 

However, if she got smart...

 

 

Considering his options carefully, samuel returned to his chair and turned around to face his large, mahogany desk. With a push of a button, a thin, filmlike screen formed up from the desk in the face of a woman.

 

 

"How may I be of service, sir?"

 

 

Samuel took a moment to survey her. She had long, black hair that hung straight across one eye, giving her a bit of a mysterious look. She had a thin, angular face, with all of her fatures pronouunced... not all togethor unplesant to see. Across her right breast, just above the bottom of the screen were the letters AZION in Gold and red lettering. Just peaking out from under the hair covering her left ear was the nub of a microphone.

"I have been informed of a situation. The subject, AZ 1513, has escaped custody. There was a accident, and the canister is unaccouunted for. I have heard no responce from the bravo team. What is the status of this investigation?"

 

 

A genuine look of shock crossed her face "Sir, bravo team is missing! What investigation? Sir..."

 

 

"I figured as much. There has been a breakdown in communication. I thought bravo team was supposed to take care of these things 'before' they happened. I ask again, what is the status?"

 

 

The woman on the screen turned away and tapped on a unseen keyboard for a moment. Samuel took this time to sity back and take a drawl on his cigar. Inside, he knew this was not the operators fault... but it always was good to get the rage out, before it festered.

 

 

"The investigation is pending, sir."

 

 

"Pending?! Pending! That's all you can tell me?! I want a report on what happened, and I bloody well want it yesterday!! Make it happen!" He screamed, jabbing a button. The female on the screen flickered off, replaced by another. This was of a slightly younger woman, with straight brown hair and rimless gasses. "You really should try and vent your anger other ways, sir. All that screaming isn't good for you."

 

 

"You heard that?" Samuel said, slightly scared for his own security.

 

 

"No, but when you scream the pictures outide your office shake. It's slightly unnerving. I just wanted to tell you that Mivera from AZION is here... she has something for you."

 

 

"Send her in. I'm also going to need contingency."

 

 

"Oh dear... that bad?"

 

 

"Just send her in please."

 

The door at the far end of the office opened, revealing a tall thin woman with black, elbow length hair and a pair of half rimmed glasses. This was Mivera, one of his Agents from AZION. She had been brought up by the company, and had known no other master. On her right breast was a small, crystal card with the holographic immage of her face and embossed behind it with AZION. Something inside her was worried. She didn't yet know what was in store for her...

 

 

If she had, she probably wouldn't have got up.

 

*_*_*_*_*

 

TIME: 14:47:28, Wendsday, 24 October

LOCATION: Wandering Falls, 3 Miles east of Crystal Falls

 

Corpral Henery J. SMith Didn't like this situation. There was nothing wrong with it, it just seemed... too easy.

 

 

The AZION Delta Team ahd found the cargo with little problem. It was about a five minute hike away from the wreckage of the truck, lying on it's side in the middle of a field. All the latches were closed, and other then a simple dent in the side, it appeared in tact.

 

 

With a few, simple motions of one hand, the cargo was surouunded on all sides by soldiers. For the first time since he could remember, Henery hesitated. They had never had to do a level five recovery before... this was dangerous. With a hand motion, he sent all the troops to ready, thier weapons on live. If anything went wrong...

 

 

Carefully, Henery inched up to the cask. The locks still appeared to be active... a bit of a relief. With te moves of someone who had rehearsed a million times, Henery punched in his security code... and waited.

 

 

Presure was released from the cask, and in a instant Henery saw the problem. Unfortunatly, it was too late. From the ground, appearing to spew from the dent in the side was a mass of green algie like tendrils, wrapping themselves around Henry's ankles and pulling him down to the ground. He could feel the skin on his legs disolving and falling appart. From around him, henery could hear the screams of suprise and fear comming from his men. Mustering the last of his strength, he typed in a message into his data pad.

"Too late..."

 

*_*_*_*_*

 

"Mivera, I want you to tell me EXACTLY what the status of project AZ 102 is."

 

 

"Sir, we are running at 95% efficency with four samples in retroactive programming and two samples in transition."

 

 

"Do you know the status of the cargo, Mivera?" Samuel asked as he turned his back to her and looked out the window.

 

 

"In transit, Sir?"

 

 

"There's a very specific word we use in this buisness for this sort of incident. The word is misappropriated. The definition, and i'm pretty sure you understand this, is LOST, coming from the greek term for... I don't know, screwed. The problem is is that there is a misapropriated unstable organism out there that IS NOT IN OUR CONTROLL. I wanted you here so that you can explain to me what the HELL it's going to do next, because, and i think I'm going out on a limb here, but if we dont do something WE will soon be... Misappropriated."

 

 

He took a minute to let it sink in. "So, what now?"

 

 

"W-well, we could trace it's cycle..."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"The modual was designed around a bit of a AI,,, what it does is finds a creature it thinks is efficient, and in effect 'doppelgangs' it with whatever it can find, leaving the husk of it's last host behind. Every husk is comparitive to a step in evolution.