Chapter 4: The Brother’s Code

Liam

A cold draft rolled over my skin. Central air—it was almost refreshing. It stirred me awake, where I realized I was in an office, laying topless on a couch with a clean pair of khaki trousers on. It was then I remembered I’d torched the clothes I’d been wearing, right before a woman snuck up behind me and injected me with sleepy juice.

Right, it was all coming together…

Those suppressed memories tunneled in, and I didn’t fight it. I needed to accept what the hell was going on; with me, and with everything else around me. From the time I blew up that research facility, to whatever this circus show was.

I had been close to rekindling again, and nearly took that creepy spider girl out with me. Just like when I’d went nuclear to escape my whitewashed prison, taking all of those demented lab monkeys to hell. Except this time, I was put down.

My breath hallowed from just thinking about that poison again…

I didn’t want to trigger myself, so I reverted to closing those gates. That was enough reminiscing for one day, finally sitting myself up on the couch, scratching the back of my head further confused. This place smelled like fresh mahogany wood and pine, the large executive desk on my left clean of clutter. But in the middle of it sat one manila file, something telling me to get up and look at it.

Normally I wasn’t a nosy body, but these circumstances had me asking over a million questions. That woman who had knocked me out used something similar to that of those scientists back in the facility. It was the only thing, besides the special nerve agents, that was able to tame me. So, how the hell did she have it?

Did I find myself back to the enemy?

Was Dracier Bio-Tech the same people who’d held me captive for years?

I couldn’t silence the questions bombarding my head. I needed to know, my fingers grazing the file that had my name on the tab—Liam Chago. Codename… Warhead.

“Ah, you’re awake.” I gasped, jerking my eyes behind me to a woman on the door lever. “Earlier than I expected, actually.”

She pivoted her waist to close the door behind her, the blond bun over her pressed business power suit making me think of donuts. I couldn’t help it, I was hungry, for both answers and food, my lips hanging ajar behind her until she addressed me again, “Liam Chago, welcome.” Her voice was clean, forward, and professional, the tall slender woman no older than forty turning over to look at me with her sharp square glasses.

I was getting a cut-throat personality from her, hidden behind a generic smile, and I couldn’t move an inch. She was screaming red flags, but I had no choice but to hear what she had to say. Her presence made my back straighten out and my mood serious, and when she gestured her hand for me to sit across her desk, I rejected the offer. She chuckled under her breath, clearly offended, passing me when she took her seat. I gave her a hostile glance before I snapped my eyes away and turned to her office, the vastness of her imperial throne closing me in.

“My apologies for the clutter,” she lied, unless we were talking about two different rooms. “It’s been a long twenty-four hours.”

“What time is it?” The first thing I asked her didn’t seem so out of place, a follow up to her statement I was genuinely curious about.

“It’s nearing noon,” she said simply. “You’ve been out for almost a day. Don’t worry. I am here to answer all of your questions. But first, why don’t you make yourself comfortable?” she suggested, pouring me a cup of coffee from the tray cornering her desk. “Black?”

“No thanks,” I rejected, recalling how she’d so easily knocked me out earlier.

“Are you sure? You haven’t had anything to drink or eat since—”

“Are you working for Dracier Bio-Tech?” I asked, ignoring her statement. The business lady adjusted the glasses over her blue almond-shaped eyes while she reeled herself back in her desk, pushing her steaming cup of coffee in the side. On her right, she pulled out the manila file, her eyes still glued on me. “What if I told you that I was?”

“Then I’d have to ask myself if you’d like to repeat history,” I said, the dark threat outside of my usual demeanor.

She chuckled to herself. “Well, I see you remember that much. And I guess it’s a good thing that I’m not working for Dracier Bio-Tech,” she said calmly. “My name is Pamela Zuchek, overseer and liaison for The Brother’s Code.”

“The Brother’s Code?” I asked, arching a brow.

She nodded, gesturing her hand for me to sit across from her for a second time. She had to have noticed how tense and uninviting I was, my body still pent up with rage. I initially fought the offer again before finally caving in, realizing she wouldn’t press further until I cooperated with her hospitality.

“Mr. Chago, before we continue here, I’d like to instill a level of trust between us,” she said, quickly changing the topic as she leaned over her desk, her hands folded over that file. “It is imperative that we understand each other, and the relationship we are to create in this friendly environment.”

“That’s an interesting way to start a conversation with someone you’d just abducted,” I countered.

“Well, that’s an interesting way of saying the word saved,” she bit back.

“I’d like to hear how you managed that.”

“And I am more than eager to tell you,” she followed. “A few hours ago, over fifty cities nationwide had been struck with a bio-chemical bomb simultaneously. You don’t need me to relay the effects of this bomb, but I’d like for you to understand the properties of this bio-genetic agent. It contains a formula that mutates victim cells, creating… distasteful results. While the majority of those affected died by inhaling its fumes, some responded differently, and by differently, their cells were… enhanced.”

“Enhanced how?”

“The makeup of those affected cells vary from person to person. But for lack of a better term, victims were turned into super humans.”

My hands clenched the armrest of my seat, her statement making me weary. I was starting to remember what had happened, playing the haunting event from Watch Square in my head.

“Super enhanced cells, creating super humans. I bet you’re asking yourself how did Dracier Bio-Tech come up with the technology to do that. Well, this file we created has most of the answers, and is the very basis to what we strive for today—the protection of mankind.” She lifted that file between her fingers, giving me a dark and eerie look. “Liam Chago. Codename: Warhead.”

My chest tanked, feeling my heart rate starting to rise again.

“Don’t worry, you cannot go nuclear here. Not after that last dose of—”

I leaped, right off my seat pent up with rage. I knew it—she had lied to me! She was working for Dracier, the same crooks who’d been experimenting on me! I reached over the desk with the intention of choking her out, but her eyes flickered, and then a wall shot right up to intercept me. A force field sprung up out of nowhere, protecting her from my attack. It was a clear glowing blue wall that managed to absorb my punch, ricocheting my force right back to me.

“What happened to that level of trust, Warhead?”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t take you down right now!” I fumed. “You’re working with Dracier!”

“Like I said, Warhead, The Brother’s Code is all for the protection of mankind.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“It’s your supe name, something you’ll see as being important very soon.”

I didn’t want to believe her. She was still reeking red flags! But she knew something about me, about all of this, and I had to listen.

“I’d like to continue clarifying things to you in a civil manner, if you’d allow me.”

My chest deflated, and my shoulders loosened up. After a couple of seconds, I took my seat again, trying to calm myself down.

“Great,” she smiled, the first genuine smile I’d seen on her since. “Like I said, this file of your time with Sigma-RE holds the answer to the changes America is experiencing today.”

“What is Sigma-RE?”

“The name of the facility that was holding you for years, for research. Dracier Bio-Tech is simply a cover up; they are essentially one in the same. But, this file of you only exists because years ago, we’d been skeptical about their research, and years ago, we’d paid the price for putting our noses where they didn’t belong. The Bureau of Counterterrorism is a government anti-terrorist organization, and we caught wind of a potential threat in our own home. So like any competent agency, we went looking for answers, something to confirm the rumors and the gossip. At first, we thought the leak was intentional, until our employees went missing, those who got too close to the truth practically wiped off the face of the earth. No trails, no connections—gone, just like that. Bits and pieces were collected, but at a very high price. We expected Sigma-RE had to have torched everything and moved to another location to cover their tracks, and in their move, we discovered a hidden gem beneath all of that useless coal—you. That’s when all the pieces started making sense, and we created your profile. Immediately after, someone inside tried pushing this to the media, which in hindsight, wasn’t the best way to inform people of Sigma-RE’s illegal operation. A rookie mistake from an employee who got too paranoid. The department working on this case decided thereafter to branch off for the safety of the bureau, and in this, we created The Brother’s Code, a specialized team set to handle intraterrestrial terrorist affairs.”

My eyes went wide. “What? Intraterrestrial? Are you saying that I am a—”

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“It’s a pretty good assumption. The studies Sigma-RE were working on revealed alien genetic coding in your DNA. And with years of research, they found a way to spread this coding sourced from your cells, to the population at large. Hence, the hysteria that you witnessed yesterday.”

“So Sigma-RE nuked cities with bio-bombs that’d turned everyone into me?”

“I wouldn’t express it in those exact words, but… yes. People who have super powers like you.”

I froze.

“People who contain mutated cells that would allow them super human feats, and super human capabilities. The range is practically limitless. Everyone is made up of different genetic coding, so the possibilities cannot be predicted, only observed. And we at TBC had prepared ourselves for this daring possibility. If we couldn’t find out where they were hiding to stop this from happening, we could at the very least protect the people who were affected. Which is why you are here, as well as over a handful of others in Serva: a safe house and training facility for super heroes.”

I couldn’t listen anymore—my mind was getting crowded. I shot up off my seat, this time walking away from her. Shit, my head was heavy from all of this information, and I had a bad feeling that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

“I understand that all of this is very… troubling, and difficult to accept. But, while we at The Brother’s Code would like to do everything in our power to protect humanity, we cannot do it alone. We need the help of supes to fight against other supes.”

I turned my head to her. “You mean, the ones that Sigma so blindly created?”

She nodded. “A few civilians were killed in the blast. Others wounded, some captured by our facility for protection and stability, and a scarce few unaccounted for. We must treat them as high-leveled threats, terrorists of society while America tries to recover from this attack. If these victims fled the scene, there is a chance that Sigma-RE got to them. And we have to assume that they have no control over their new found powers.”

“But why?” I asked, pivoting my body to her. “Why would they do all of this?”

“Sigma-RE believed there to be an even bigger threat, one from out of this world. The details to this are scarce, and the source for this assumption hasn’t been discovered yet. But we could only imagine that this threat directly correlates to you, and your sudden appearance on earth. Truthfully, I was hoping you could fill in the pieces for us.”

“I have no fucking clue.” I grunted. “I was just the lab rat they were torturing, trying to recondition and break to no end!” I clenched my fist. “The day I escaped… I remember telling myself that a quick death was too good for them! I should have kept them alive and beat some answers from those good for nothing bastards!”

“Warhead,” she whispered softly as she got off her seat with my file, the force field above her desk dispersing. “No, Liam…” she cooed, her gentle steps coming my way. “I want you to feel safe here. I understand where you’re coming from, I truly do. While this file of yours limits me into seeing the full scope of things, I could only imagine the suffering that facility had caused you. And I want to give you a chance to make things right. To fight back.” She handed me the folder, her head hovering over my arm while her fingers slipped my file open. “Total transparency. I want you to see this not only as a home of training, but a home of healing. And we can’t achieve that unless we trust each other. So, whatever we know about you, we will share it with you, and vice versa. Fair?”

I could tell she was trying to get on my good side, opening the pages to notes and further scribble my mind stuffed all at the same time. I was overeager to learn about my history, but I was scared about reliving the past. I shuffled through, my eyes skimming the text, nothing new popping up that I hadn’t already collected back at the facility. Until I flipped to the third page, where the notes of my upbringing made my eyes grow wide.

Shit, I’d only been seven…

Everything wasn’t there, but most of it was. A little boy, at the tender age of seven, walking into a hospital, showing inhuman signs; a visit to the ER that changed his life forever. My parents had been fed lies, they told them I had a mysterious disease, thinking that I’d come back with a cure. Johanna, Lander, they had no idea, where these notes later mentioned Sigma-RE having to tie loose ends…

Wait, had they… offed my parents?

I was speechless… I wanted names: Benjamin Bowser, Michael Richardson, and… Nikkita Nowak; three demons clocking into work every day to make sure they had made my life a living hell. But what about everyone else? I had killed those three already; I wanted the names of the others. Of those dirty crooks who’d murdered my parents!

I shuffled through more notes about the experiments; I’d been there for those. I didn’t need to be reminded, until I bumped into someone I couldn’t remember, a tutor named D-ENK-7.

What kind of name was that?

I would have remembered a tutor back in the lab. Then again, the days had seemed to merge into each other, where I’d even made some shit up to deal with the stress of it all. At some point, I couldn’t tell between fact and fiction, so this notion of someone tutoring an alien was news to me.

I wished there was a picture of her to jump my memory. I couldn’t understand why my mind would suppress someone like her. Unless she was a nightmare to be around, but judging by these notes, she wanted to teach me how to read, and write—it even said here that she insisted I had some type of education. The reason for it bold in black letters: reduce chances of mental deterioration.

Either way, it sounded like she cared for me and not those bastards running the lab.

The more I flipped through the pages, the more eager I got, hoping to find more notes. But nothing. I wanted an origin story, and I suddenly felt foolish for thinking that they’d have one. Pamela’s info was incomplete, and she was hoping that I’d fill in the gaps for her.

“As you can see, we are still limited in what we know about you and Sigma-RE. Our mission is to find out more, and in turn, we can do more for these students we are to teach.”

“Are you admitting that you may have been way over your head with this plan?”

She snickered, reeling herself back from over my shoulder. “Not exactly. If this home is equipped to handle you, then I’m sure it can handle deviations of you.”

“That’s a wild assumption with no scientific evidence.”

“That may be so, but we have to start somewhere. How else would we learn?”

“Is that how you took me out? With your untested variant of Kato-evo3?”

She sharpened her eyes on me. “You’re indestructible, Liam. I made a fair call that if it backfired, you wouldn’t be killed in the process.”

“Another possibility is the serum not working at all. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

“The serum may have been untested, but it is a replica of the actual Kato-evo3.”

“The real stuff doesn’t make me pass out.”

She smiled. “I’ve added my own touches to the recipe. For safety reasons. After all, that special nerve agent isn’t something that we have in stock.”

I gave her a smirk, turning my front to her. “I gotta give you points for creativity.”

“I’d rather points of confirmation,” she followed. “Such as, how’d you find yourself on Earth.”

“My memories don’t let me see that far back.”

“I need you to remember everything you can, Liam.”

“I can’t.”

“Are you sure you’re not suppressing them on purpose?”

“I was, but now… I’m not. I can’t remember anything past a certain point.”

“And what point is that?”

I squinted my eyes and looked at her cross. “Listen, I’m not trying to be difficult with you on purpose.”

“I am well aware, but I feel that you may be unintentionally keeping the truth from the both of us because you’re afraid of triggering detonation. Trust me, Liam, you cannot heat up your core. The half-life on that serum is in our favor. So please, help me see the full picture.”

“Look,” I started, handing her my file back before crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ve sat here and listened to everything you had to say, from start to finish. And I get that you and your company are trying to make things right, or at least, keep things organized. While I’m all for the protection of humanity and getting this shit-show tamed, I’m also not in the business of being a superhero. As you’ve already noticed, I am unstable. I already blew up once, I can do it again. I have no control over it. And I’m not ready to put lives on the line and act counterintuitive. By keeping me here, you’d only be holding everyone back.”

“With training, you can do good with your powers, Liam. All you have to do is trust yourself, and stop making your horrid past your weakness.”

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