Actions

Work Header

The Arch Project

Chapter Text

Lance tapped his fingers on the arm rest nervously as he eyed the door. He was early, ten minutes, but it had been over half an hour since he was supposed to go inside his bosses office. Not even his boss, it was his bosses, bosses, boss. Or something way up the chain anyways. Lance was so nervous he could not concentrate on anything. He also could not stop tapping his fingers on the wooden arm rest. Really nice wooden arm rest now that he thought about it, but then this was the CEO's office he was in. Or rather, the CEO's waiting room. The receptionist was sighing now and then and throwing Lance a dirty look for tap, tap, tapping his fingers on the probably teak arm rests and playing on her phone.

She had curly blonde hair and pretty purple eyes -Lance suspected contacts though, her pupils were oddly non-fluctuating- pale skin and a rounder face. She looked taller than Lance, and the name plaque on her desk -this place was so fancy the secretary got her own gold plated name plaque- read 'Nyma Sørensen'. She was the kind of woman that Lance would be flirting with openly under normal circumstances, she was drop dead gorgeous. These were not normal circumstances though.

Lance was the youngest student to graduate with a full PhD in his class, at only twenty two. He had done it with full honours, and a job offer with the most well respected company on the planet, Galra and Associated Co., or GAC for short. GAC had a wide variety of things the company was involved in, from pharmaceuticals offered at extremely competitive pricing, to green energy sector work, to dozens of charities. Lance's mother had nearly died of pride when he told her that he had been asked to come to them. An alert pinged from Nyma's computer and she sighed and looked at Lance, popping the gum she was chewing as she pressed a button to open the door into President Zarkon's office.

“He'll see you now,” She said, her tone bored. Nyma's voice was pretty too. If he still had his job and was wrong that he was being fired for some colossal mistake he had been unaware of, maybe he would come back and ask her on a date. Lance was pretty good looking, most women said yes to a date with him. One date, at least. Not usually two.

Lance stood up, fighting the urge to vomit and walked into the office, his hands shaking lightly in nervousness. Zarkon sat in his chair, facing the door, and he glanced up when Lance walked inside. The man was strikingly tall and off putting with how muscular he was, but is greying black hair was combed neatly back. Zarkon gave a smile that unsettled Lance somewhat, his grey eyes piercing. Lance felt like those eyes could see right into his mind and soul, but he sat down stiffly anyways, noting that his own blue suite and white collared shirt were much cheaper than Zarkon's black and white pinstriped suite.

“Lance McLain, I take it. You're what, twenty-five?” He asked, his voice deep, stern, and reminiscent of the kind of father who was to be avoided at all costs when angered. It sent a shiver down Lance's spine and he nodded.

“Y-yes sir. Twenty two, sir,” Lance was almost afraid of correcting Zarkon about his age, but he knew he probably should. To his surprise, Zarkon gave a smile, and Lance got the impression it was meant to be warm, perhaps even meant to calm Lance, but all it did was frighten him more. For all the good GAC did, Zarkon was a truly terrifying man to be in the presence of.

“Twenty two. Even better. You've been with us for one year now, and I must admit, your work has, how shall I put it? Caught my attention. All in a good way, of course. I have an offer for you Lance. You have already proven yourself to be a remarkable researcher and as having a brilliant mind. You are one of the most promising young researchers we have ever recruited and I feel your talents could be better used if applied... elsewhere.” Zarkon's tone made Lance curious, despite his fear.

“Elsewhere sir? If it's not out of line, what better use could I be then assisting with the research in the astrophysics department?” Lance asked. He enjoyed his work right now, even if he mostly helped other researchers with their material.

“Do you know about the crash that happened in Roswell, New Mexico, a century ago now?” Zarkon asked calmly as he stood up, walking towards one of the windows of his office. There were three, all behind the desk and lined up together, going from the floor to the ceiling and showing off the brilliant blue sky outside. The building they were in was taller than anything else, the top of the next highest just barely visible from this floor.

“Well, yes sir, everyone knows about that sir,” Lance said, managing a small, hopefully mirthful smile. It was hard to do so, with one's heart racing and one's imagination beginning to fly away on him.

“Yes, I suppose they do. The official story of course is that it was a weather balloon. The conspiracy story is that it was an alien space ship, extra terrestrial,” Zarkon said as he looked outside the window. Lance found it difficult to watch his boss with the light sillouetting him like this, but he felt growing excitement at that.

“And, I suppose the true story is closer to the conspiracy story, is that what you mean to tell me sir?” He asked now, hoping he was not overly excited in his tone, even if he was very excited.

“I suppose it is. It is easier if you see yourself of course. I wish to place you in the Arch Project. It is of course, a top secret project. You can speak of it to no one outside of clearance level ten.” He said.

“I thought clearance only went to level six sir?” Lance raised an eyebrow as he asked, though he dropped it quickly when Zarkon turned around, an amused smile playing at his lips.

“Yes. You did. Do you want to be on the project? You do gain a pay raise of course, added benefits, full dental and healthcare naturally. And there are er, other benefits, shall we say?” He said, but Lance wanted more details on those benefits.

“Such as?” He asked, hoping he was not taken as rude or anything.

“Your mother. Her immigration status would be, shall we say, expedited. Your father is also quite ill I hear? His treatment could be dramatically improved. Of course this project, if successful, could do far more too. Imagine, if you will, where all that ails us as a human, were no longer an issue. The common cold, flu's, measles, mumps, ebola, cancer, every disease you can think of, eradicated. And the greatest limit of all, death. This project could teach us how to escape our mortal constraints. Great minds, such as your own, could work and create, and astound us all for centuries. Imagine the progress humanity might make,” Zarkon said. His words spoke of wonders, of good, of things Lance had dreamed of making possible one day while he was in university. But his tone still frightened Lance, and the look in Zarkon's eye was one of greed.

“I'll do it,” He said. The good had to outweigh anything else. And besides, his curiosity was overwhelming him. Aliens probably, it had to be aliens.

“Good. I look forward to hearing about your research in the Arch project, Lance McClain. You may go now, if you wish. Report to basement laboratory twelve tomorrow morning.” Zarkon instructed.

“I though there were only four basement labs?” Lance asked curiously as Zarkon smiled.

“Yes. You did. Your pass card will let you access it.” Zarkon said as he sat back down at his desk finally. Lance swallowed and stood up, walking towards the door, though he paused when Zarkon spoke again. “And Lance? I expect great things from you. Do not disappoint me, as the others have.”

Nyma Sørensen was still at her desk when Lance exited the office, and she glanced up from her phone, her blond curls bouncing and shifting as she moved. She was still popping her bubble gum, though now with a small grin on her pink lips as she watched Lance with more interest now.

“No yelling~, so you got promoted huh?” She asked, her tone suddenly more cheerful than bored by his existence. Not getting fired probably improved his chances with her.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” Lance agreed. It left him feeling bold too and he sauntered over to lean lightly on her desk, putting on his trade mark flirtatious grin. “Don't suppose you would want to help me celebrate that? Like, tonight?” He asked. Nyma giggled a little at that, fluttering her long eyelashes at him. Up close, Lance could tell she really was wearing contacts for the purple eyes.

“That sounds good~, you can pick me up in front of the building at six~,” she said cheerfully and Lance grinned, winked at her, and left. He would be back at five of course, he had a date with a hot blonde now on top of his promotion.

 

Lance yawned and sipped his coffee as he arrived in to work the following morning. The date had been... well, abysmal. Nyma was giggly, pretty, and stroked Lance's ego, but just a little too much. She told him almost nothing about herself, and Lance had a sinking feeling she was only into him because he had been promoted. He got the sense she was more interested in the figure on his paycheck then in him.

He went into one of the basement lab elevators, the buttons read only four. 'B1, B2, B3, B4', pretty white little letters and numbers with the braille accompaniment beside them. A key card pass was required for each one and a couple of others swiped and pressed their buttons. Lance was not entirely sure what to do here, but he swiped anyways. The swipe card blinked a yellow light once but nothing more happened. A yellow light? The others had a green flash when they swiped theirs.

The first two got off at level two. The third at level three. Then it continued down. The red '4' flashed in the box, then '5', '6', '7', there really were other labs. That was a little disconcerting to learn, but he shook it off and when the red '12' displayed the ding sounded, and the doors opened. Lance stepped out after taking a breath, and looked around.

The lab he stepped into was huge, much larger than he had expected. Certainly larger than one of the upper level labs he had worked in before, and probably larger than some of the higher up basement labs. Every manner of machine and testing equipment was here and he chugged the rest of his coffee down quickly before walking through the security check and swiping his card again to go through, still looking around curiously.

“You must be new here,” A voice said, feminine, and Lance jumped a little. He looked ahead again, for the source of the voice and found it in a woman he did not recognize The woman was medium height, with white hair, older. She had a very stern face that told Lance that she did not put up with any kind of nonsense.

“Uh, yes. I was assigned here yesterday, today is my first day,” Lance said with a nervous smile.

“Of course. Come with me. Welcome to the Arch Project. My name is Haggar, I'm sure President Zarkon at least filled you in on the classified nature of our work here?” She asked. Haggar's voice was terse, and made Lance instinctively straighten his posture and want to call her ma'am.

“Yes. No one under clearance level ten,” Lance said with a nod. Haggar nodded once in return and scowled before turning to walk and motioned him to follow. Lance fell into step behind her obediently.

“On July seventh, 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico there was a crash in the desert. The official story is a weather balloon. And the conspiracy theorist story is that it was an extraterrestrial ship, aliens from another world, who crash landed. The truth is more complicated. We do not know what it is that crashed to earth that day, but we know whatever it is, it is alive, and hasn't woken up since it landed here on earth.” Haggar spoke tersely, as if all of this were well known fact.

Lance, quite frankly, was excited to be hearing all of this. His friend Katie was a huge conspiracy nut, believed in the UFO version of events. Lance wished he could tell her about all that he was about to learn, tell her he was working on the Roswell Incident of all things now.

“Wait, wasn't uh, whatever it was that crashed at Area 51?” Lance asked, feeling stupid when she glared at him.

“Yes, originally it was. We have a... contract, if you will, with the military. We're studying it on their behalf, as we have greater research capacity here then they do. Area 51 tests airplanes now. The official story is actually true for once. Here we are. As I said, we don't know what crashed. It looks, well, it looks human enough, but whatever it is, can't be.” She said, pressing in a code on a special tank.

The lid opened and Lance took an automatic step backwards, startled. 'Looks human' was an understatement. He looked totally human to Lance. The man was suspended in a light blue liquid, several nodes atached to measure vital signs. His heart beat, and breathing were quite normal looking, though Lance noted there was no indication of brain waves. He had black hair that floated around his head in a strange, dark halo. His eyes were closed and he was quite naked in the fluid.

“Bit of a startle hm? He's been like this since the crash. His vitals are all stable, despite never receiving nutrients. It would appear he has no need for food or water, nor even oxygen. He has been unconscious since the crash, brain dead from what the original files say. This was what they found in the middle of the crater. Our job is to determine where he came from and what he is. In the mean time we have learned some... interesting things,” Haggar said as she pulled out a syringe. It was remarkably long on the needle, and Lance saw why.

“Don't we um, take him out sometimes to run blood tests?” Lance asked as she inserted the needle through a special port in the side of the tube, getting him right in a vein. The port, Lance noticed, was positioned so it could be done with ease, assuming this man did not move, which Lance was surprised to see he did not when the needle pierced his skin.

“Nope. All tests are run with him inside the chamber. We take him out and his temperature rises to a dangerous level. Watch...” She said, smirking a little and pulling the depressor to draw the being's blood out. Lance stared, his jaw hanging a little in awe. Silver. Not red, but silver fluid, thicker than human blood, filled the syringe. She removed it then and Lance was amazed to see a single trace of the silvery blood twirl upwards into the bluish liquid. The spot on his arm vanished quickly though.

“Why is it silver?” He asked, wanting to know everything he could about this.

“We're not sure. What we do know though, is that this creature's blood, whatever it is, has immensely powerful healing properties. Every virus and bacteria we've introduced to it has been rendered inactive. When we introduced it to cancer cells, his blood killed all of the cancerous cells and no normal ones. We're not sure yet what the full scope of those properties are though, nor do we know the side effects yet. We're testing mice right now, you see. Want to see if we can use it as a cure-all for medicine. We could cure anything with a pill if we could replicate whatever it is in his blood that's doing it, but see for yourself, a drop under a microscope...”

Lance listened intently while Haggar spoke and prepared a slide for him and when he looked he understood. There were no cells in this beings blood. That was, assuming this silver fluid actually was blood, and not some other substance.

“Are we sure it's blood? I mean, no known life forms can have cell-less blood right? What about a hair sample? Skin sample? A swabbing from inside his cheek?” Lance asked as he pulled away.

“Can't get the skin or cheek. Fluid he's in would corrupt the samples anyways, blood is the only thing we can get from him. Tried removing hair. Didn't work. He was found in the crater with a few things. A knife, strange clothing, and him. The clothing and knife are over here. Metallurgy tests show no element found on earth or in the known universe, which of course is not much information to go on. We're calling it Tenebrium for the dark colours on it.” She said as she led him over to a couple of cases.

The knife was dark, but not black. It caught the light strangely and there was a rune of some kind on it, near the hilt of the dagger. It shone in a cool bluish purple. Lance had never seen anything like it, and he would be quick to call it alien.

“His clothing doesn't appear to be much in the way of special. Seems to be normal silk, but no one's really paid attention to it since the fifties. One hundred years ago, he crashed. In that time he hasn't eaten, drunk, aged, nor woken. We've done some tests, here, you can see, but we can't get very good images off the x-rays or the MRI. We did notice a strange mark on his back, looks like he was burned. We suspect it might be from atmospheric entry, though he should have been disintegrated from that...” Haggar rambled on and Lance nodded absentmindedly, tuning her out.

The fabric was not normal silk, no way. Looking at it, it looked like it was made from light itself. Lance wondered if he could remove just a small piece off it, to study it. He wondered if he could get permission to take the strange being out of the tank.

“Is there a specific task you want me focused on or am I free to study whatever I'd like? Do we have a name for uh, that guy?” Lance asked. He was already itching to get to work. There wasn't much point in working on the blood right now, it seemed a lot of study was already being done there. The knife held some promise, but Lance was curious too about the clothing he had been found in.

“Well, you're free more or less to do what you want to. If you're working on research started by another, take direction from them though. We're calling him a lot of different things, so I suppose it depends what you like. Officially he's named 'Extrarius' but unofficially I've heard him called everything from 'Martian' to 'Angel' to 'Johnathan',” Haggar said with a shrug of her shoulders. It was such a casual movement for such a stern, stiff woman that Lance was genuinely surprised when she did not simply break in two.

“Any rules?” He asked.

“Nothing can be destroyed or cut up. And you can't remove Extrarius. Other then that, test whatever you like, however you like,” She said. Lance gave a nod to that and decided to start with looking at what had already been done. That way he could see what still needed doing, and choose what he wanted to focus on.