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Chapter 1
I keep having these dreams, these flashes of events that seemingly happened. This explosion of a casino, the brutal beating of a monstrous cat, and this blue jay with a saxophone. I have these occasional visions of looking into a mirror, but I don’t see what everyone else says. I see, a man, a handsome man who wears suits. Nothing like the men here surrounding me as they wear lab coats all the time. There is another guy here who appears often in my visions, he’s missing half his skin and he floats around.
“Is it ready? Can I come and check it out?” I hear his shrill voice call into this room. I open my eyes and see I’m still floating in my green liquid. The cat in the lab coat tells the floating one he can come in. I lock eyes with the floating one, who I guess they call Daemian, and he seems displeased with me. “Boys, why is there a fox girl floating in this tube?” He asks not trying to hide his anger and disappointment.
“It’s for project double life just like we talked about.” answers the cat they call Cyrus, “I mean, she is exactly like Wolfgang in every way. The only difference is she is a woman.” Wolfgang? Is he the handsome man in my memories?
The lizard man they called Brusk presses a button and it drains my water. I feel the water drain fast and I try to press against the tank to keep myself up. My feet touch the bottom of the tank and I notice I am standing. I feel the oxygen in my mask stop flowing and Cyrus talks into my tank. He says it’s time I step out, shower, and get dressed. I am a little afraid to leave my tank. I was here for a while and prefer to stick in the places I am familiar with.
“Relax, we’re gonna take real good care of you. Just come on out and learn more about yourself.” Learn more about myself? That raises a great question now, who even am I? I slowly ease out and reach out to touch the hand of Cyrus and he encourages me to keep coming out. I start to walk and it feels weird to move for the first time. I approach Daemian, still naked, and he looks me up and down trying to make sense of me.
“So you’re positive we have our own MI7s finest agent?” He asks yet again as if the answer is to change this time. Both the scientist nod their heads. He scoffs and says to take me to the showers and he wanders off. As he leaves he mumbles something about wanting a replica, not a knock off. What’s his issue against me? I don’t even know this guy and he hates me apparently.
As Cyrus takes me to the shower he starts to talk to me. He talks about that wolf guy from earlier, saying I was made to be a clone of him and mentioned I was made with his blood. The blood is apparently important with his experiments like the Blue Blood Purrbloods. I don’t really understand a thing he is saying, but go along with it anyway as I wanna just get dressed as I’m starting to get cold. My nose tingles, I smell the air around me and it’s very chemical heavy. It begins to burn my nostrils and I look around and see all the computers and tech around me. All these computers with pictures of people and things I don’t know. Some mention this Project Double Life that was mentioned earlier, but I don’t know what’s going on and I am too scared to ask.
Finally, I get to clean myself and get on some clothes. Cyrus leads me into the showers and tells me if I need help to yell out. I get in and see the handle pointing straight up, on the left it’s red and on the right it’s blue. I turn to the left and water shoots out above me and I wanna scream, but instead I don’t because it feels amazing. The heat on my skin that gets this green water off of me makes me not want to leave. I run the water over my hair, down my back, over my tail and all my private areas. After the bliss I had with the red side, I try the blue side and suddenly shocked by the cold water flow. I quickly shift the handle to the middle and stop the water. I start to feel the heat leave my body and I become cold and dripping wet once more.
“All done?” Cyrus yells into the room and I step out of the showers to meet with the scientists. Cyrus puts a towel over me and we walk through the lab again, I look around and on a screen I see a border collie girl. She was in my memories, his memories, so she must be someone of high importance. I try to remember her name and I blurt out “Brenda”. Brusk stares at me and asks if I finally decided to talk. I start to talk again and realize I have a voice and it doesn’t sound like anything from my memories.
I blow it off and start to ask the men what my name is. Neither answer, so I ask again and insist I wanna know who I am. They continue to ignore me and toss me into the back room that is surrounded with clothes everywhere. I look around for a suit thinking maybe I can dress like my memories, but sadly all the suits were too big for me. I found this really pretty purple dress I wanted to wear and after picking it out I was dragged by a robot hand and taken through a conveyor belt where I was dried off from my shower and I was dressed by these robot hands. I felt... Good, like I was my own person now and hoping the boys will tell me what I wanna know. I look around the wardrobes some more, I see a table full of products and a mirror attached to it. I have to take a look at myself, get to know me, maybe dig deeper into my memories.
I sat down in front of the mirror and see nothing like my memories show me. I wasn’t a wolf man, I was a fox-like human. As I stare into the mirror my image begins to morph, my human face becomes hairy and my mouth becomes more dog like. My red eyes turn to a shade of brown and I watch as my dress begins to change to a suit. I feel like my mind is trying to tell me something, like maybe I am Wolfgang or something, but that is impossible as I know I’m not him.
Cyrus walks in and grabs my shoulder, gently, and says he has some information to share with me. He pulls out a folder of papers and on top is a plastic ID card with a name printed on it. I picked up the card and checked the information. It had a name that isn’t in my memories anywhere, however the number on the card is. ID-714-21-1414, its familiar to ID-714-14-1408 which was Wolfgang’s ID number. Cyrus told me these are my papers and I will be taken to training now.
My brain is starting to process everything and some of my combat skills are coming in. I get into the VR training room and I ready myself for what is to come. I see the white room around me shift into a city, one that is dark and dank. I slowly walk down the sidewalk and I am attacked by a band of thugs. One reaches for me and I quickly punch him in the mouth and then kick him in the gut. Another guy come from behind and grabs my shoulder. So I snatch him and swing him downwards into the thug I was working on a second ago. Another one attempts a sneak attack with a knife, but I quickly snatch it and kick him in the groin. I knew this fight better than anything else. I crack my knuckles waiting for more, but the simulation around me ends and the scientists say that I did great. Now it was time I went to the shooting range to get gun practice.
On the way there I start to remember when he defeated Komodo Dragovitch. Although he had initially failed to prevent resurrection, that didn’t keep him from quitting although he really wanted to. He learned about a thing called ‘inner focus’ which he has used in other fights. I try to channel my inner focus, but it seems like I am not capable as I haven’t learned it. When we get to the range I am handed my first weapon which looks similar to Wolfgang’s 9MM. I was told to attempt to hit the targets, blast anything that’s not KGB. I cock my gun and signal to let me at em and the boys smile as they pull a lever. Some wooden standees raise and I ready my aim, blasting Wolfgang standees and others like R and H. Komodo Dragovitch popped up and while my brain said to shoot, I refused my body from doing so. After it dropped 2 more popped up of Nikolai and General Drake they slowly moved and went in front of a standee of Ms Poundsterling. I managed to nail her between the eyes and avoid hitting anyone in the KGB as per my instructions.
“Wait until Daemian hears about this. She’s scored a perfect on all her training, I think we will have to incorporate it as her code name.” Said Cyrus. I looked at him a little confused, but blew it off to ask more about my memories. “You said I was made with Wolfgang’s blood, right?” I ask hoping to get a response.
“Yes, you were made with the blood of Wolfgang, some supernova serum, and some dna we had laying around.” replied Cyrus. This made me more curious and I had to press further. “Where’s Wolfgang? Can I see him? Why do I have his memories just from his blood? Am I just a knock off?” I felt I rattled off about ninety-nine questions as my head started hurting and I wanted to cry. Cyrus comforts me and explains some of my questions as clear as he could.
“As far as his location and whereabouts, that isn’t something I can really tell you. He’s alive, but he works for the rivals. As far as a knock off, I’d say you’re a more complete version. Your skills are impeccable and I don’t think he can ever stand up to you. As for the memory issue, that’s because of the Purrblood creation process. Brusk, would you like to take over?”
“Naturally,” replied Brusk with a huge grin, “so blood is what helps give us all vitality and believe it or not it holds a lot of data. Back before Day Z, we did blue blood experiments which made us create clones with other peoples powers. For instance, we could make another Cyrus but instead of a huge brain he could have fire powers. The blood took his life, knowledge, and skills and transferred them over to you. Although this blood was taken back from his first mission, the Supernova Serum was able to link you guys due to the serum and Aloof Elixir in his system. It’s kind of like Cyrus before he became a Purrblood, his other counterpart existed and they shared memories. Although that was experimental and it was more like a memory bleed.”
I heard enough and wanted to get out of here and maybe find him on my own, but as I went to the door Daemian showed up and he was still scolding me hard. “Move it store brand.” he snarled as he shoved past me to the scientists. They tell Daemian that I am perfect and show them my skills in action. Daemian becomes rather impressed and he tells me he has been humbled. In an effort to make it up to me he would send me on my first mission today, but what surprised me was when he called me ‘Perfect Barke’. Perfect... Barke.
“Tonight is a benefit dinner, one that we need someone on the inside for. The way I figure it, we can toss you to the wolves to get what we want. You’re my perfect agent after all, so you’d be perfect for the mission. Go in, collect data, return to me. Nikolai will be here soon to take you to the dinner since its a ways away. Don’t let me down or I’ll return you to where you once came.” Gee whiz he sure likes me now.
Daemian floats away and takes Brusk with him. Cyrus sees me and comes over to chat a bit. He asks me what I know now, if all the memories are starting to flood back. I tell him everything from beating Silverscratch, to even Wolfgang’s shower routine where he takes a hot one then a cold one. He recalls me recognizing Brenda and I mentioned she was one that stuck out to me. For some reason, Brenda doesn’t feel like she told Wolfgang everything. When I saw her picture my brain started to run wild, thoughts about seeing her at the bar, thoughts about meeting her daughter, and this voice telling me there was more than she let on. Maybe one day I could get a chance to meet her and see what Wolfgang saw.
Nikolai appeared, I knew it was him because he’s a jolly guy and usually makes his presence felt. He spotted me and walked over, he knelt before me, grabbed my hand and gently kissed it. We lock eyes and he says to me “You must be Joanna Barke?” Your guess is as good as mine, comrade. I nod and he stands up. He asks Cyrus if I have been caught up with everything and apparently I was then asked me if I was ready. I nod and we head out to the plane to go to the benefit dinner, after takeoff I feel tired and rest my head.
I start to dream about the dinner and I have a moment seeing what looks like Wolfgang. I start to head towards him, but a group of men take him off to a private room. What if that was my only chance? I start to attempt to find him when gunfire breaks out in the dining hall and when I turn around Wolfgang is standing there. His 9MM is pointed at my head and he says into his watch, “Taking care of the clone now R.” BANG I wake up and realize it was just a terrible nightmare. I ask the stewardess for a towel and some water, she said right away and storms off. I replay the ending over and over in my head, wondering if I have some kind of prophetic dream. I want to tell Nikolai about it, but he seems distracted and puffing his cigar. Besides, how will I know if he would even believe me to begin with?
Shortly after we finally land and I am nervous to get off the plane. I want to stay behind and be turned into goo as that sounds better than being shot. Nikolai assured me I was gonna be safe and reached for my hand. He said he wouldn’t leave my side if it helped me stay even more safe while we’re there. I take his hand and we head out the plane, we walk to the door together and the guard asks for our names. Obviously, I am not on his list so I think I am safe to head back to the plane. Something stopped me from moving though and it was a simple five words, “Is she your plus one?” Nikolai lies and the guard says he’s a ‘Lucky guy’ and lets us into the dinner.
The place is crowded and I see tons of people all around us, then I feel Nikolai let my hand go as he runs to a bar in the corner. Great... I feel someone bump into me and apologize. The voice was none other than the man I was looking for. I tried to chase him down and I ended up tripping and taking him down with me. I get up and apologize at least a thousand times, but he gets up and dusts himself off. Turning around we lock eyes and he’s exactly like my mind had been telling me. He laughs and says there was no need to apologize, then offers me to join me at his table. I try to hide my excitement and nod my head as we get into line to get our meals.