Alpha City

Episode I

Alpha City


Episode One:


The Birth of Project: Recall








    The sun was no more than a fading blotch of orange and red hanging in the dim cloudless sky like a thick dab of mix-colored paint. Streaks of pinks and purples ran in twisting, meandering rivulets over the blurred horizon like an endless lavender river entrapping the grey lifeless world below. It was an odd scene, despite its beauty. The towering rundown buildings of Old Alpha City stood in stark contrast against the breathless sunset that seemed to engulf the entire world in a single film of bliss.


    But Alpha City was anything but blissful. In fact, one look at the ruins of the abandoned sector of the city (Old City), and you could see that the little town was a habitué for habitual unexplained disaster. Old City had been abandoned for almost twenty-five years. Miles and miles of faded yellow caution tape marked the obvious boundary between New City and Old City. Trains stood frozen to their tracks. Numerous vehicles sat motionless and deserted in the middle of the worn streets of Old City, many with their doors still ajar from the moment of their abandonment. The windows of the vehicles resembled those of the abandoned buildings - a thick layer of dirt and grime coated the glass of those that weren’t broken. Random trees and overgrown weeds sprouted up through the middle of sidewalks and the roads themselves, some of the larger trees even cradled vehicles in their branches like some exotic amusement park attraction from the jungles of Hell. An immense amount of junk littered the ground of Old City, things normally not seen in the streets of a city, household items, furniture, tables, dressers, beds and mattresses, lamps and lamp stands, teddy bears, blankets, cook wear, clothes, old televisions sets and radios. A thick, almost palpable feeling of hopelessness and despair filled the air of Old City like a toxic smog clinging to the surface of anything and everything. Clearly, time had taken its toll on Old City, but the strangest thing about the abandoned sector was the fact that after its desertion, it seemed no one attempted to repopulate the area, restore the area or even, at the very least, clean up. It was as if the residents of New City, less than half a mile from the borders of Old City were afraid of that section of town.


    Of course, the people of Alpha City weren’t just afraid of the Old City, they were terrified. You didn’t have to live in Alpha City to see that no one fucked with the Old City, that shit was abandoned for a reason, though; no two people could give you the same reason. Everyone just knew that strange shit happened there. No one crossed the yellow caution tape for any reason, that is, except for the two boys moving down Jefferson Avenue towards Old City, marching as if to their own victory music sounding off in their heads. Despite their obvious jovial attitudes, the two boys marched in silence. The pair of boys stepped over the yellow caution tape as if it weren’t even there and passed up the many rugged signs warning them of the danger that would certainly await the pair of them in Old City. However, the pair of boys were anything but fazed by the foreboding signs or the obvious stench of death and the feeling of imminent danger hanging thick in the air. In fact, the two boys were the ones responsible for placing the signs there to begin with. They had done so on Father’s orders in hopes that it would discourage anyone from New City or from out of town from curiously wandering into Old City. The tales of the Little Hooded Demons were still a sort of urban legend in New City and Father wanted to keep it that way.


    The pair of boys turned right on a broad road intersecting Jefferson Avenue. Parkway Avenue led them through a few miles of downtown Old Alpha City before taking them to Brookway Road where they turned right again down the long and narrow Rose Lane. A long row of school buses, parked single file, front to back lined both sides of the road like giant yellow walls of metal and glass leading to three large buildings: Old Alpha City Middle School. Headquarters of the Father Corporation, home to two-hundred or so boys and girls between the ages of ten and fifteen; Father’s Children (or the little hooded demons as they were known in the urban legends of New City). Though they were just kids, they were anything but innocent. Father’s Children knew things, things that other kids their age couldn’t possibly begin to grasp, things that even many fully grown military-minded men didn’t know. They knew how to kill, and kill quickly, efficiently, and without emotion. They knew how to get the answers they needed, how to size up their targets and take them down without hesitation. They knew how to follow orders, the only thing they didn’t know how to do was question those orders, Father made sure of this. They were everything Father wanted them to be and just one of the major reasons that no one fucked with Old City and lived to gloat about it.


    The boys approached the large metal doors of the school building. A young girl with long blonde pigtails apathetically lounged on the small flight of steps with her back against the wall. She was reading what appeared to be a copy of the Alpha City Tribune from years ago. When the pair of boys approached she promptly dropped her copy of the paper as she stood, brushed the bit of dirt that had accumulated on the backside of her blue overalls, and crossed her arms. She frowned and her eyebrows furrowed over a pair of blue eyes glazed over in fury.


    “Tommy! Oni! Where the hell have you two been! Why aren’t the both of you in assembly!” She shrieked. The pair of boys turned to each other briefly. It was the black haired kid, Oni, who eventually spoke up.


    “We were on assignment.” He said simply. The girl turned sharply from the blonde haired boy, Tommy, to face Oni; she met his gaze, and his emerald green eyes seemed to burrow right through her.


    “And Abby,” Tommy began, “it would be in your best interest not to hassle us any further, Father’s expecting us.” Tommy’s words were precise and professional, his demeanor read: zero bullshit and one look at the seemingly empty stare of his cold icy blue eyes and you could see that the little fuck meant business.


      “Oh yeah?” She raised an eyebrow, not in suspicion, like she would have if the pair of boys standing impatiently before her had been anyone else. The look wasn’t suspicion, but curiosity. What in the hell did Father want with these two? The only times Father spoke with the children was over the intercom, over the phone or through text messages and sometimes at assembly and that was only to give orders, but even then none of the children had ever seen Father’s face. His voice was the only thing they could associate him with, they didn’t even know his name. He was simply Father to the children. Basically, Father never requested a personal audience with any of the children, not even with his favorites, so to discover that Father wanted to meet with Tommy and Oni privately did more than just confuse Abby, it infuriated her. It would infuriate anyone.


    The expression on Abby’s face was a mix of displeasure and disarrangement. A mocking smirk gradually played across Oni’s face, irritation and impatience on the face of Tommy as he withdrew something from the back pocket of his cargo shorts. It was small and metallic. Tommy held it out in front of Abby’s face with both hands like it was something fragile and precious. Abby’s eyes doubled in size. Instinctively, she reached for the treasure, but Tommy quickly pulled it away, shooting her a look of revulsion as he did. The look on Abby’s face had changed. She was still jealous, no doubt, perhaps even more so than before but the confusion was gone, replaced by a look of understanding. She stepped out of the way as Tommy pocketed the metal chip and pushed through the heavy doors into Father’s Headquarters.


    Four barren black stone walls, a leaky low ceiling, and a cold rough carpet lacking floor made up the small dark waiting room. The place was empty save for the single row of six metal folding chairs positioned at the center of the room facing a single door opposite the pair of doors Tommy and Oni had just entered. Four of these chairs were occupied by a pair of girls and a pair of boys who all turned to face the new arrivals as they entered. Tommy and Oni recognized the faces immediately, who wouldn’t? They were Father’s favorites, the best of the bunch, the crème of the crop; the Elites. A look of sudden excitement broke out over Oni’s face, but the look soon disappeared as he turned to face his friend, seeing that Tommy failed to show the same obvious enthusiasm that he did. In fact, Oni saw that the look on Tommy face was flat out disappointment; there was agitation too, but Tommy was always agitated so that didn’t count, at least not in Oni’s eyes.


    “What’s wrong?” Oni whispered.


    “Those fucking pricks!” Tommy hissed, still glaring at the four other children who had already lost interest in the two newcomers. “So much for our private meeting with Father.” He said. Oni shrugged.


    “So what? We’re still meeting with Father aren’t we, and how often does that happen? Besides, we should consider ourselves lucky that we were called in with the Elites.” Oni grinned widely. Tommy rolled his eyes.


    “One word,” he said, “douches.”


    “Whatever, dude.” Oni concluded as they seated themselves in the two unoccupied chairs at the end of the row. There was silence for a brief moment as they all avoided eye contact; Tommy was counting silently to himself. One, two… Oni suddenly broke the silence, turning sharply to the girl with long flowing black hair seated on his left. Tommy smiled. 


    “I’m Oni.” He burst, extending a hand, a humongous grin fixed to his face. But the girl only sneered, crossed her arms and looked from Oni to his outstretched hand, and then back at Oni with repulsion, she seemed insulted.


    “And I’m not going touch that.” She spat, pointing to Oni’s hand as if it were something contaminated. Oni looked taken aback but not quite offended; he only shrugged and offered the same handshake to the girl that sat next to the one that had just shot him down, a pale brunette with large very geeky wire framed glasses that seemed way too big for her face. At the site of Oni’s hand approaching, she quickly scooted her chair back as if his hand might spontaneously begin strangling her. Oni seemed irritated and Tommy slouched in his seat as he nodded as if to say: I told you so. But Oni wasn’t giving up; he stood and made his way over to the frizzy red haired pudgy freckled faced kid seated second to last on the left end of the row. Oni extended his hand, and though the kid refused to touch his hand as well, he did, at least manage to tell Oni to fuck off. Oni didn’t even bother with the last kid, sporting the trademark emo look with the single lick of inky black hair hanging in front of his face obscuring his left eye. He had a look on his face that Oni recognized quite easily, the look that read: touch me and I’ll kick your ass, shit bag. Tommy was chuckling.


    “Like I said, douches.” Oni had finally given up.


    “Ok, so none of you want to be my friend, I get it, but do any of you assholes at least have a name?” Oni could hear the rustic hinges of a wooden door behind him groan with life, but before he could turn around a voice so deep it almost seemed fake, (and maybe it was) boomed from behind him.


    “I assure you, Onias, that their names are of no concern to you.” Father’s voice was so deep that his very words seemed to shake the walls around them. Father stood tall, though his face was hidden deep in the dark hood of his long black robes. Oni wheeled around quickly, perhaps, too quickly, his legs felt weak, he was suddenly paralyzed. Sure, he’d heard Father’s voice plenty of times before but it was nothing like hearing him here, up close, and he addressed him personally. Oni was melting. “Take your seat, child.” Father motioned towards the abandoned seat and Oni obeyed. All six pairs of eyes were glued to the tall robed man standing in the threshold of the open door. No one spoke, no one dared move. Oni’s left ass cheek itched, just a little, but Oni didn’t scratch it, he didn’t even fully process it because he was still mystified by the fact that Father had spoken his name, his full name.


    The man surveyed the six faces of the children staring up at him in complete admiration, giving him their undivided attention. He was a God to them, and he couldn’t help but bask in the attention. He adored the children, because the loyalty of a child was more genuine than anything else and it was for that reason that he used kids; their innocence made them pure and their ignorance made them honest. They never questioned orders, they only followed them and they only did what they knew how to do. In Father’s eyes, children were simply mounds of clay waiting to be molded and he had exactly two-hundred and thirteen mounds of clay at his disposal. Of course, these six were mounds of clay with promise, the strongest, smartest, and most dependable of the two-hundred and thirteen children. With the help of Father’s newest development they would become the perfect weapons for his army. 


    “First things first,” Father began, “Thomas, Onias, I understand the two of you have something for me?”


    Oni shivered in his seat with excitement. He had spoken his name again. Tommy, suddenly realizing he was being addressed by Father, quickly jumped from his seat, withdrew the metallic chip from his back pocket and dashed towards the tall man all in seemingly one swift motion. The man studied the metal chip in the boys shaking fingers for just a minute, the dry bit of blood on the back side of the chip confirmed both the validity of the chip and the fact that Tommy and Oni had done what they needed to do to obtain it. He rubbed away some of the dry blood and read the imprint: 001. Father could have hugged the boy, wanted to hug the boy, but refrained from doing so as to not show favoritism among his favorites, which would only confuse and anger them. Yet the man was elated, to say the least. The Alpha Chip had finally been found. Sure, a number of the others had surfaced in the past, 010, 101, 005, but none of those chips were the Alpha Chip and there were over three-hundred chips out there, not just in Alpha City, but all over the state and probably all over the country by now. What made the Alpha Chip different from the others was that it was the only one that, when Father made them long ago, he installed a tracking system. This meant, that instead of conducting over three-hundred plus facial age progression analysis tests on people Father suspected might be carrying a chip, then locating them, abducting them and finally, slicing every bit of them open until they find what they’re looking for as they had been doing up until this point, Father could now simply plug the Alpha Chip into the Database and pinpoint the exact locations of the other chips. In short, the Alpha Chip would eliminate the guessing game and save him lots and lots of time, and it was all thanks to Tommy and Oni. None of the children realized how big this was.


    Father didn’t say anything for a long time; he just stared at the chip in silence, fumbling the thing around in his fingers. When he finally did speak, his words were shaky with a notable hint of excitement.


    “Very well. Thomas, Onias, your courage and commitment to the Family have not gone unnoticed. Your diligence and hard work have earned you the status of First Elites among your peers.”


    The other four children in the room gasped as if they had each just been socked in the guts and then slapped in the face; their faces unitarily frozen in that classic drop jaw stare of shock and stupidity. Tommy and Oni turned to each other in utter disbelief. Oni wrapped his arms around Tommy, whom normally would have immediately shoved him off or even popped his friend in the eye for even touching him, but at the moment Tommy didn’t give a shit; the two of them had just been promoted for fuck’s sake. No, not just promoted, the rank of First Elite meant you had high command; the four other children in the room were only Second Elites which meant Tommy and Oni were now above them, above everyone.


    ‘There will be time for celebration later.” Father was saying. “But for now you should all know that the birth of Project: Recall is underway. Naturally, I’ve selected the six of you to head this operation; I trust none of you should fail me. Your orders are simple. I will route you the locations of the other chips and you will retrieve the chips by any means necessary. However, you are each going to be stationed undercover somewhere in New City for the entirety of this project. I trust you know how to blend in with the locals?” Each of them nodded. “Any questions?” The six of them shook their heads. “And before I forget, I have something for each of you. It should make the task at hand a bit…easier.” Father produced a small metal briefcase from within the large pockets of his robes. “The new serum is still a work in progress; it should only be used at the time I specify.” Father was saying as he unclasped the tiny closures of the briefcase and opened it to reveal six small bottles of transparent fluid and six small dangerous looking syringes held in place by a soft spongy material. “I’ve tailored this new serum to individually fit each of your DNA structures. You will find this new serum most…intoxicating, I assure you.” He handed the items to the six children one at a time then headed for the door. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to share the good news with the Family.” and with that, Father quickly dipped out of the room shutting the door behind him. As soon as Father left the room, the four Second Elite children, with a notable haste, stood and made their way for the two doors behind them.


    “One second.” said Oni as everyone froze, the four turned slowly with their jaws clinched in a poor attempt to both conceal and control their rage. He cleared his throat and began in a very mocking sort of way. “To exercise the first power of my new position, I would like a proper introduction from each of my subordinates. I want your name and three other things I may not know about you.” His smile was wide and taunting. The four stared at Oni as if to say: seriously?


    “Knock it off, Oni.” Tommy intervened before any of them could embarrass themselves. Oni sank as Tommy turned his attention to the four Second Elites. “Seeing as you guys will be reporting to us on this assignment, we will need your names, though.”  They were reluctant to speak with Tommy.


    The pudgy freckled faced kid with very untidy frizzy red hair was the first to speak. “The name’s Charley and that’s Koda.” He tossed his head in the direction of the emo looking kid lingering near the door with a sense of urgency in his eyes.


    “So what’s the deal, he can’t speak for himself or what?” Oni fired rudely and Charley shot him a look of pure disgust.


    “Actually no, he’s mute, you asshole!” And they both pushed through the doors and out of the room.


    “Relax will ya.” Tommy hissed at Oni as Charley and Koda left. Oni shrugged.


    “How the hell was I supposed to know?”


    “The fact that he didn’t say anything didn’t give it away?” Tommy suggested.


    “Shut up, you didn’t know either.”


    “Yeah, but I wasn’t the one asking questions, now was I.”


    “Er-erm.” The girl with the long flowing black hair was trying to get the attention of the two idiots arguing among themselves and these two shit for brains were her superiors? The girl could almost puke at the prospect.


    “I’m sorry,” Tommy had just noticing the girl standing impatiently a good distance away from the two, “and you are?” She leered at him for a second.


    “Sasha.” she said simply and turned for the doors, dragging the other girl with the large wire framed glasses out with her.


    “I’m Tabitha.” she managed to shout before the large doors slammed shut.


    Tommy had a boner, not quite a raging hard on, just a boner. When he noticed Oni glaring at him it quickly went soft.


    “So what you’re trying to make friends now? Whatever happened to the douche thing?”


    “Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’re still douches.” Tommy corrected. “It’s just, if we rub it in their faces all the time they’ll hate us.”


    “They already hate us.” Oni reminded him.


    “True, but eventually they’ll come around.”


    “I don’t know about that,” Oni said, “but I do know you manage to squeeze the fun outta just about everything we do.”


    “I do not…ok maybe a little, but it’s only because I love you.” he jeered.


    “Queer.” Oni joked as he threw open the heavy doors and dashed outside laughing madly as Tommy gave chase.


    Tommy and Oni played for now, for tomorrow it would be back to business as usual. Project: Recall was officially in effect and the first phase: Operation: Repo was underway.