The First Horseman (Spy Thriller-Area 51)

Chapter 1

1

What is the scariest word in the English language? I can tell you...

It's they.

If a person has a problem with a government or corporation in these times, it's always, 'they  this and they that .' Millions in society string along happily blaming the nameless, not knowing who the hell is causing their problems or why. When someone says, 'they' and doesn't know who, that is the height of terror. Such a lack of awareness is a breeding ground for bondage.

Until yesterday I was an abomination, a stain upon the earth and I didn't even know it. I'm not like that anymore. I've been given my conscience back. Up until recently I didn't really think for myself, or have a moral compass for that matter, but thanks to one man, I do again. Where does one begin though, with a story like mine?

The first memory that hit me was awakening on a steel table. Florescent lights blinding from above, a Scientist with what sounded like a German accent spoke of my anatomy while others hovered around me. "His fingertips, did they take to the transfer?" The German asked another scientist adorned in a white coat. The German was the elder of the two with balding white hair and a white mustache. The younger scientist ran a device emitting a red light over my hands. "Beautifully, they took beautifully." He responded.

I knew I had been under the affects of something they had labelled as, 'the compliance serum.' Although I was beginning to remember the experiences of days past, they all still seemed so foreign to me. In my subconscious though, I knew experiences like it had happened to me before, many times. I didn't fight them through their procedures, though this time I felt different and I wanted to.

I awoke later in a room without windows on a steel framed bed. It was mounted into a thick brick wall and a chain on either side secured it. Sitting up in the bed I turned to a thick Plexiglas wall with holes drilled into it. It looked like I was in a prison cell really. There was an unbreakable steel mirror, a sink and toilet of the same stainless-steel design.

Every fifteen minutes the German sounding scientist from earlier would stand at the thick Plexiglas wall of the cell where a door should have been but wasn't. Then he would ask me the same question:

"Who are you?"

Then he'd walk away slowly hunched over by the hardships of time on his old frame and go back down a grey brick hallway. Florescent flickering tube lights would guide him until he disappeared for another fifteen minutes. Finally, the third time he came back is when I had an answer for him...

"I'm an operative one of the ones they call a Horsemen, but my real name, I think it's Michael isn't it?"

"Yes! Yes, it is." The old scientist said looking somewhat pleased with my discovery.

The fog inside my mind was lifting. I was their operative. A soldier created to sway the balance of power wherever they chose. They told me I was a masterpiece. The German scientist – Dr. Von-Kleist who I came to know well in those underground labs it turns out, would be the closest thing I had to a friend in years. A sad existence indeed, but I didn't realize how sad until yesterday.

Flashbacks and even realizations began to surface in my mind. Ones that seemed almost dreamlike. I remember when I was younger, in my mid-twenties, I was put through a painful process. First, they gave me a shot that I later understood was called the compliance serum, it altered my mind immediately. At the time I didn't know what it was, but its sole purpose was to eliminate my conscience and turn me into a pliable puppet. I would be a more efficient killer if I had no thoughts of remorse and followed their every command. Then, when the effects would take permanent hold of me. They would test me. Sitting me in a room with a Virtual reality headset on. Placing me in a virtual world that I would be hard pressed to distinguish from reality. They would drug me to see how I would react to scenarios in this virtual world testing my loyalty, combat efficiency and abilities.