Project Alation [Completed]

Connell

When Project Alation was first described to me, I laughed and told the scientists to fuck off. They did, but approached me again a month later with a better explanation.

Guerrilla warfare, they explained, was too unpredictable for them to effectively use the many Aircraft at the ARMY's disposal, especially with the growing availability and decreasing production costs of NNBs.

A NNB is a barrier made out of a thin layer of an electromagnetically suspended non-Newtonian fluid - hence Non-Newtonian Barrier. This type of barrier is unique in that it is completely invisible to the naked eye, durable, and effective against low-mass and fast-traveling projectiles and attacks. Most notably, bullets. Some guns still work - high-caliber sniper rifles and tanks - but most firearms are now rendered useless by this layer of personal protection. It brought about a revival of 'medieval' fighting techniques and weaponry, every soldier now trained in how to handle a short-sword in close-quarters combat. Because of NNBs, any air support would need to come from a medium-to-close combat fighter, a skill too complex to be implemented successfully with machines.

The scientists had data from four different projects - most of which were dying because of a lack of funding - so they put it all together and pitched the bundle to the ARMY. The alteration and destruction of memories to destroy any unfavorable ties or emotional connections. The enhancement of physical abilities to allow humans to grow stronger, react quicker, and resist more. The manipulation of DNA to keep these enhancements from fading away or backfiring on the subject. The rapid development of wings on a human subject to create an air-based fighter.

They combined all four together to create this project, and they wanted me to be the first to receive all of the benefits. They chose me to be the first Alation.

I accepted.

Planning for my future as an Alation, I began working up a positive rapport with the others in my training squad. I was going to need support, people I could trust. Others to pick off the enemies I couldn't take, and troops to act on the intelligence I could gather. I judged them primarily based on loyalty, followed by whatever skills they brought to the table.

As new skills and abilities came to light, I re-organized and re-ranked my fellow trainees accordingly. Some jumped higher up in my mental scale - finding the weapons that best suited them as they increased their overall skill - while others' positions fell - new fears and incompetencies revealing themselves. These jumps were small, and any trainee that moved more than five positions upwards I looked into closely.

I had been in the middle of a mental re-evaluation when a commotion caught my attention, and I drew closer to see what had captured the excitement of the rest of my squad. Two chakrams - metal rings with four cutting blades attached around the outside, the disc having a diameter of about a forearm - flew through the air in arching and slicing paths, moving so fast that they nearly blurred just before an attack on one of the four training dummies getting beat up. Usually a close combat weapon, I looked closely at the twin weapons, quickly realizing that there were wires attached to the rings, allowing the user to control and recall them, giving him a largely increased radius of attack.

The trainee jumped, twisting and spinning mid-air to bring his weapons around in a powerful, horizontal arch, slicing the heads clean off of the four training dummies with his blunt weapons before landing and smoothly recalling the discs, catching them without cutting himself. My jaw dropped when I realized who it was, a boy I had - apparently - grossly underestimated.

It had taken me the rest of the day to re-evaluate, but when I realized that he leapt up over twenty positions, I kept a very close eye on Gabriel.

He had been near the bottom of my list, above only two others. Quiet, unassuming, and gentle, he didn't seem to possess a determined bone in his body until he picked up those chakrams. He started opening up after that, revealing proficiencies in almost every weapon available, as well as skills in lock-picking and mechanical tinkering. He modified and updated his wire system for his chakrams, using the extra miscellaneous pieces and mechanical baubles from whenever the learning regimen had us disassemble and re-assemble a certain piece of equipment or a weapon.