Categories > Books > Harry Potter > War
"Don't you think you're rushing things a bit with this kid?" Asked a concerned Omar Al'Lahem. Omar was a man in his mid forties, he had been in the Iraqi army before being recruited by Miller for his skills, Miller who picked only the best of the best, no matter where they came from or who they were.
Miller looked at the genius tactician, the man wasn't physically intimidating by any means, but by god did he know how to win battles. "Remember how you told me one time that the best way to break in a recruit was to rush him into the thick of things as fast as possible? Then let him brood over things, get accustomed to the new environment, to the punishment, and then back off and really start training, shock therapy is what you called it."
"By Allah this is not the same thing! This is no ordinary man here, there are no percentages, most probable outcomes. His mind is fragile, it is hurt, and you must let him recover, we cannot possibly lose him. With normal men we know what we are dealing with, we know what to expect from them, its text book material in pretty much every nation."
"On the contrary it is the same thing." Miller interrupted. "First of all we must make sure that he can stand up to the rigorous training we have set up before him, if he cannot pass this then he is unqualified, if he breaks now then there is no way that he will be able to cope sufficiently later on. Secondly we must never hold things from him, he must know from the beginning that he is part of the team, by showing him around like this we prove that fact to him. By allowing that Basilisk out we prove to him that we trust him, and with all this as a solid foundation he will co-operate with us completely, he will trust us in his training, and there we will mold him, and he will allow us to do so willingly. Now he is resting, thinking over what he has seen, we have given him clearance to everything and he is using it." Miller read off a list from the computer screen at his desk. "Weapons research, combat training, navigation, tactical data. All of it is open to him, even his snake is now sleeping in the same room as him."
Omar didn't bother pushing the subject further. "So when does his training actually begin?"
"In a couple days we'll start the physical aspects, we'll build him up to be the toughest mother fucker there is. Then we'll start spending more and more time in combat training, once he gets a handle on that we'll bring in logistics and strategy until we get the complete package. This is by no means a text book case." Miller gave a quick run down.
"When do you plan on doing the enhancements?"
"We'll give him the Nanites in a few weeks and let them get started, at that point his diet will be extremely protein and fiber rich, naturally allowing the Nanites to start working on enhancing him. No operations, no pain, bioengineering at its finest." Miller said with a smile.
"Yes but how safe are the Nanites?" This is the one thing that still bothered Omar, he loved technology, he loved this place, but tampering with the human body in a cellular level was something else altogether.
"Fifteen years ago I was the first human test subject, or rather my eyes were, you would laugh at the kinds of glasses that I used to wear in my youth, now I have twenty five, twenty five vision." The concept and test have been around for much longer, it is perfectly safe, just very expensive, and that is why it is not available to the general public.
Omar's cell phone vibrated. "Excuse me one moment."
"Yes, ok I'll be down there in a moment, thank you."
He turned back to Miller. "The combat simulator is ready for a run through. Take care Miller."
"You too Omar, good luck."
*
Three months later
"How are you feeling Sarge?" Asked Doctor Amanda Flowers, head of the bioengineering division and Sarge's personal doctor.
"Great." Sarge replied sitting on the bunk in front of her.
"Anything out of the ordinary?"
"Nope."
"No unexpected pains, vision blurriness, dehydration, exceptional fatigue, head aches, cramps?"
"Nope not at all, the Nanites are doing their job." Sarge declared cheerfully.
Amanda Flowers had devoted her entire life to bioengineering, more specifically the Nanites, and to see all her long years of hard work paying off in such a dramatic way was really exceptional. She had met Sarge almost three months ago, back then he was pretty well built but nothing exceptional, but now...after three long months of physical training and Nanite induction he was really something else. The first thing that the Nanites had done was make his bones denser and tougher. Then they went to work on his muscles, integrating a sort of artificial mesh in with his natural muscle and then allowing it all to grow and fuse together so that it was all biological and natural to his body, but far superior to anything that nature could ever hope to produce. The muscle itself was indistinguishable from any normal human's muscle from outside appearance; it was all on the cellular level that it could be distinguished. Comparing on a one to one mass ratio Sarge's muscles could output twice as much power and go on for twice as long, it a medical marvel. His eyes were enhanced, they now equaled that of a hawk, his sense of smell, hearing, all of it far better then any other humans could naturally be. Even his lung and heart were more efficient, all in all he was super human in every respect. A small part of her wished that she was younger, so that she could thoroughly test him...
"Well then I would say you're ready for the next step." She congratulated him.
"Thank you, so what do I do now?"
"Weapons and combat training. But don't worry you'll still be in here a few hours each day and I'll be watching you like a hawk."
"Ok, so where do I go?"
"Doctor Clarkson, weapons division, he should be waiting for you." She instructed.
"Okay see you later then."
The weapons division was at the other end of the hive so Sarge took off at a quick pace. Bessy was at his side as they made their way over, no one really minded her anymore, she was just like a pet, a very odd one, but a pet nonetheless.
"So you get to play with guns now, how nice, you've been waiting for a while."
"That I have, I hope they let me use the BFG today, I haven't even touched it yet."
"As long as you don't point it at me I'll be happy."
They made the rest of the journey in silence, Bessy was slightly nervous, she just hoped that they would start him off with something easy. They did the opposite of what she hoped for.
"Nice to see you Sarge, come in come in." Doctor Paul Clarkson greeted him wearing a ballistics vest.
"Thank you, its great to see you too Doctor." Sarge said marveling at all the weapons, unfortunately the BFG was not on its stand.
"Now then I thought I'd give you a good taste of everything, just to see what you like, what you don't like, what we could perhaps focus on, you know." Doctor Clarkson said leading him through a few corridors. "It would be best if Bessy did not come in with us, just for her safety." He suggested when they arrived at a door labeled FIRING RANGE.
"I'll be in the cave if you need me." She slithered off silently.
"After you." Clarkson invite Sarge to step forward.
The door hissed open and Sarge walked through, some of the most powerful toys known to man greeted him.
"Wow." He was utterly speechless.
"Shall we get started?" Doctor Clarkson asked stepping up to the first station. "Allow me to present to you the BFG."
Sarge walked over and picked up the large mat black Y shaped gun, hefting it in his hands and getting a feel for the powerful weapon.
"The main rule is that whenever you have your finger on the trigger the business end of the gun must be pointed at a target down the range." Clarkson's voice told Sarge that this was a rule not to be disobeyed. "Take two deep breaths, exhale and fire when ready."
Taking two deep breaths to steady his breathing Sarge looked down the end of the gun, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. Nothing.
"Rule one when preparing to fire a gun. Make sure the safety is off, or with the BFG's case that the gun is on." Clarkson instructed.
"How do I turn it on?" Sarge asked a little embarrassed.
"Put your index finger on the little pad just above the trigger."
Sarge did so and the weapon whined as it powered up and charged its first shot. "Identification confirmed. Sarge."
Exhaling calmly once again Sarge looked down the middle of the gun and squeezed the trigger. A bright blue ball of plasma erupted out of the BFG with a low whine, igniting the air itself as it streaked towards a human dummy. Upon impact it engulfed the dummy, leaving nothing but a smoldering stick of wood on which the dummy had stood.
"Four seconds recharge time, thirty charges per cell. When you need to reload press this button, twist forward, pull it out and insert a new cell, which is this cylinder right here." Clarkson demonstrated.
"That is fucking awesome."
"You like it?"
"Hell ya I like it."
"Good, because we can only outfit your squad with one, and I hoped that it would be you."
"Damn I love this thing." Sarge took another fun filled shot to prove his point, obliterating yet another dummy.
He took another few shots before they continued on to the next station.
"AKX Assault rifle. We based your standard assault rifle off the AK-47 Extremely powerful, durable and versatile, you can do anything you want to it and it will keep on firing. Fires depleted uranium rounds with your choice of three different dips, anti armor, anti-personnel and standard. The miniature chainsaw at the end is for when things get up close and personal and it has a built in Kill-Cam at the top here." Clarkson went over the basics of the weapon.
As with the BFG Sarge put his finger over the small pad. "Identification confirmed. Sarge." He also noticed it had a few settings, single, burst, full. The single setting unsurprisingly fired one bullet, the burst three and then the full unloaded the clip entirely. After going through a couple clips he found the weapon to be just as described, the single shot was very good for accuracy, the burst kept most of the accuracy but with more damage, and the full auto didn't have the best accuracy if you just kept your finger squeezed, but with some work he was sure that it could be quite accurate.
Going on further there was a very shotgun, flamethrower, missile launcher, tri-barreled mini gun, a very sophisticated sniper rifle that could fire almost any sort of bullet, along with some high-powered pistols, and various grenades. The last thing on the menu was what Clarkson called the sentinel.
"The Sentinel, is a deployable turret, in essence it's your assault rifle on a tripod fitted with a motion sensor and one replaceable six hundred round clip. You can set it to virtually any scanning arc and motion distance. To fold it out you simply pull this lever like so and it pops out." Clarkson demonstrated, pulling a lever at the top of the folded Sentinel. A tripod popped out from below and it sat at around waist level.
A small LCD screen lit up. "If you don't give it instruction within ten seconds it just goes to a default setting of a ninety degree arc." He waited ten seconds at which point the screen faded to what must have been almost black to Clarkson but easily readable to Sarge. "Now check this out." He fingered a couple buttons on the wall beside them and the target up ahead began to move back and forth. It took the Sentinel about a half second to lock on and fire on full auto, recoil dampeners allowed it to fire with perfect accuracy, blowing the dummy away in mere seconds.
"Nifty, is it the only one or are there others?" Sarge asked admiring the simple yet very useful machine.
"We have about a hundred of them so go nuts if you want. Any active ones that you or your squad deploy will come up on your helmets HUD, and if need be it has a self-destruct option that packs quite a punch. Omar Al'Lahem absolutely loves the things, says they're absolutely brilliant for all types of things, so we started up a little production line for them. Speaking of which if you see the guy tell him he owes me the two hundred from our bet."
Sarge laughed. "Will do sir."
"Don't sir me, just call me Clarkson, I'm like you, a one name man." He chuckled.
"You said something about a HUD on my helmet?"
"Oh that, you'll be given body armor, light but tough as hell, made of a platinum fiber composite. Has its own power supply for your helmet, life support that kind of stuff, we're still putting the finishing touches on it so you'll have to wait a bit."
"Sounds amazing, is there anything else you could show me?"
"Not really, I can show how some if it is made if you'd like, fascinating really."
They were interrupted by Miller joining them. "Sarge, Doctor Clarkson." He greeted them nodding.
"Hello."
"Sir."
"May I interrupt?" He asked politely.
"Go ahead, we've finished up with all the toys anyway."
"I can tell." Miller said looking around the smoldering range. Turning his attention to Sarge he asked. "Would you like a sniper on your team?"
"Of course."
"Ok then, get changed into civies, I'll meet you on the flight deck."
"I'll see you later Doctor Clarkson." They shook hands good-bye and Sarge was off to his room.
"How's it look?" Miller asked.
"Very good, he has a keen eye and an exceptionally good aim, Flowers told me the Nanites would enhance any skills or talents that he already has, so I'm not surprised at all. He showed some real talent with the BFG, didn't like the mini-gun or launcher, said they didn't fit him, all in all he'll probably pick the AKX and BFG as his weapons" Clarkson reported.
"Very good, do you have a sniper rifle ready for transport by any chance?"
"Ya over there, in the case marked ASR-1." Clarkson pointed over to a part of the armory where cases were stacked along a wall below a number of weapons.
"Thanks a lot, take care Doctor."
"You too."
Miller left the range, picking up the black case marked ASR-1 along the way. Fifteen minutes later he met Sarge at the flight deck. "Ready to go?"
"Yep. Bessy went out for a dip, said she wanted some fish, I put up a notice so it should all be good." Notices were sent out to everyone's palm pilot fifteen minutes before any testing was done outside, it made sure that things like diving and underwater plasma testing didn't go on at the same time.
"You know how to use the sniper rifle?"
"I didn't test it out fully but mostly I do, shouldn't be that much different compensating for long ranges."
"Then we're good to go." He said going up the jet's ramp. "We're set." He told the pilot once they got inside.
"Gotcha, just finalizing clearance and co-ordinates. Plotniv, three fifty k north of Moscow correct?"
"Correct."
The jet took off vertically, powered up its main engines and took off towards Russia at mach six, where one man was about to become the third member of a special joint UN military group that was unrivaled anywhere in the world, and whose existence was mere speculation to most of the top politicians in the world.
Miller looked at the genius tactician, the man wasn't physically intimidating by any means, but by god did he know how to win battles. "Remember how you told me one time that the best way to break in a recruit was to rush him into the thick of things as fast as possible? Then let him brood over things, get accustomed to the new environment, to the punishment, and then back off and really start training, shock therapy is what you called it."
"By Allah this is not the same thing! This is no ordinary man here, there are no percentages, most probable outcomes. His mind is fragile, it is hurt, and you must let him recover, we cannot possibly lose him. With normal men we know what we are dealing with, we know what to expect from them, its text book material in pretty much every nation."
"On the contrary it is the same thing." Miller interrupted. "First of all we must make sure that he can stand up to the rigorous training we have set up before him, if he cannot pass this then he is unqualified, if he breaks now then there is no way that he will be able to cope sufficiently later on. Secondly we must never hold things from him, he must know from the beginning that he is part of the team, by showing him around like this we prove that fact to him. By allowing that Basilisk out we prove to him that we trust him, and with all this as a solid foundation he will co-operate with us completely, he will trust us in his training, and there we will mold him, and he will allow us to do so willingly. Now he is resting, thinking over what he has seen, we have given him clearance to everything and he is using it." Miller read off a list from the computer screen at his desk. "Weapons research, combat training, navigation, tactical data. All of it is open to him, even his snake is now sleeping in the same room as him."
Omar didn't bother pushing the subject further. "So when does his training actually begin?"
"In a couple days we'll start the physical aspects, we'll build him up to be the toughest mother fucker there is. Then we'll start spending more and more time in combat training, once he gets a handle on that we'll bring in logistics and strategy until we get the complete package. This is by no means a text book case." Miller gave a quick run down.
"When do you plan on doing the enhancements?"
"We'll give him the Nanites in a few weeks and let them get started, at that point his diet will be extremely protein and fiber rich, naturally allowing the Nanites to start working on enhancing him. No operations, no pain, bioengineering at its finest." Miller said with a smile.
"Yes but how safe are the Nanites?" This is the one thing that still bothered Omar, he loved technology, he loved this place, but tampering with the human body in a cellular level was something else altogether.
"Fifteen years ago I was the first human test subject, or rather my eyes were, you would laugh at the kinds of glasses that I used to wear in my youth, now I have twenty five, twenty five vision." The concept and test have been around for much longer, it is perfectly safe, just very expensive, and that is why it is not available to the general public.
Omar's cell phone vibrated. "Excuse me one moment."
"Yes, ok I'll be down there in a moment, thank you."
He turned back to Miller. "The combat simulator is ready for a run through. Take care Miller."
"You too Omar, good luck."
*
Three months later
"How are you feeling Sarge?" Asked Doctor Amanda Flowers, head of the bioengineering division and Sarge's personal doctor.
"Great." Sarge replied sitting on the bunk in front of her.
"Anything out of the ordinary?"
"Nope."
"No unexpected pains, vision blurriness, dehydration, exceptional fatigue, head aches, cramps?"
"Nope not at all, the Nanites are doing their job." Sarge declared cheerfully.
Amanda Flowers had devoted her entire life to bioengineering, more specifically the Nanites, and to see all her long years of hard work paying off in such a dramatic way was really exceptional. She had met Sarge almost three months ago, back then he was pretty well built but nothing exceptional, but now...after three long months of physical training and Nanite induction he was really something else. The first thing that the Nanites had done was make his bones denser and tougher. Then they went to work on his muscles, integrating a sort of artificial mesh in with his natural muscle and then allowing it all to grow and fuse together so that it was all biological and natural to his body, but far superior to anything that nature could ever hope to produce. The muscle itself was indistinguishable from any normal human's muscle from outside appearance; it was all on the cellular level that it could be distinguished. Comparing on a one to one mass ratio Sarge's muscles could output twice as much power and go on for twice as long, it a medical marvel. His eyes were enhanced, they now equaled that of a hawk, his sense of smell, hearing, all of it far better then any other humans could naturally be. Even his lung and heart were more efficient, all in all he was super human in every respect. A small part of her wished that she was younger, so that she could thoroughly test him...
"Well then I would say you're ready for the next step." She congratulated him.
"Thank you, so what do I do now?"
"Weapons and combat training. But don't worry you'll still be in here a few hours each day and I'll be watching you like a hawk."
"Ok, so where do I go?"
"Doctor Clarkson, weapons division, he should be waiting for you." She instructed.
"Okay see you later then."
The weapons division was at the other end of the hive so Sarge took off at a quick pace. Bessy was at his side as they made their way over, no one really minded her anymore, she was just like a pet, a very odd one, but a pet nonetheless.
"So you get to play with guns now, how nice, you've been waiting for a while."
"That I have, I hope they let me use the BFG today, I haven't even touched it yet."
"As long as you don't point it at me I'll be happy."
They made the rest of the journey in silence, Bessy was slightly nervous, she just hoped that they would start him off with something easy. They did the opposite of what she hoped for.
"Nice to see you Sarge, come in come in." Doctor Paul Clarkson greeted him wearing a ballistics vest.
"Thank you, its great to see you too Doctor." Sarge said marveling at all the weapons, unfortunately the BFG was not on its stand.
"Now then I thought I'd give you a good taste of everything, just to see what you like, what you don't like, what we could perhaps focus on, you know." Doctor Clarkson said leading him through a few corridors. "It would be best if Bessy did not come in with us, just for her safety." He suggested when they arrived at a door labeled FIRING RANGE.
"I'll be in the cave if you need me." She slithered off silently.
"After you." Clarkson invite Sarge to step forward.
The door hissed open and Sarge walked through, some of the most powerful toys known to man greeted him.
"Wow." He was utterly speechless.
"Shall we get started?" Doctor Clarkson asked stepping up to the first station. "Allow me to present to you the BFG."
Sarge walked over and picked up the large mat black Y shaped gun, hefting it in his hands and getting a feel for the powerful weapon.
"The main rule is that whenever you have your finger on the trigger the business end of the gun must be pointed at a target down the range." Clarkson's voice told Sarge that this was a rule not to be disobeyed. "Take two deep breaths, exhale and fire when ready."
Taking two deep breaths to steady his breathing Sarge looked down the end of the gun, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. Nothing.
"Rule one when preparing to fire a gun. Make sure the safety is off, or with the BFG's case that the gun is on." Clarkson instructed.
"How do I turn it on?" Sarge asked a little embarrassed.
"Put your index finger on the little pad just above the trigger."
Sarge did so and the weapon whined as it powered up and charged its first shot. "Identification confirmed. Sarge."
Exhaling calmly once again Sarge looked down the middle of the gun and squeezed the trigger. A bright blue ball of plasma erupted out of the BFG with a low whine, igniting the air itself as it streaked towards a human dummy. Upon impact it engulfed the dummy, leaving nothing but a smoldering stick of wood on which the dummy had stood.
"Four seconds recharge time, thirty charges per cell. When you need to reload press this button, twist forward, pull it out and insert a new cell, which is this cylinder right here." Clarkson demonstrated.
"That is fucking awesome."
"You like it?"
"Hell ya I like it."
"Good, because we can only outfit your squad with one, and I hoped that it would be you."
"Damn I love this thing." Sarge took another fun filled shot to prove his point, obliterating yet another dummy.
He took another few shots before they continued on to the next station.
"AKX Assault rifle. We based your standard assault rifle off the AK-47 Extremely powerful, durable and versatile, you can do anything you want to it and it will keep on firing. Fires depleted uranium rounds with your choice of three different dips, anti armor, anti-personnel and standard. The miniature chainsaw at the end is for when things get up close and personal and it has a built in Kill-Cam at the top here." Clarkson went over the basics of the weapon.
As with the BFG Sarge put his finger over the small pad. "Identification confirmed. Sarge." He also noticed it had a few settings, single, burst, full. The single setting unsurprisingly fired one bullet, the burst three and then the full unloaded the clip entirely. After going through a couple clips he found the weapon to be just as described, the single shot was very good for accuracy, the burst kept most of the accuracy but with more damage, and the full auto didn't have the best accuracy if you just kept your finger squeezed, but with some work he was sure that it could be quite accurate.
Going on further there was a very shotgun, flamethrower, missile launcher, tri-barreled mini gun, a very sophisticated sniper rifle that could fire almost any sort of bullet, along with some high-powered pistols, and various grenades. The last thing on the menu was what Clarkson called the sentinel.
"The Sentinel, is a deployable turret, in essence it's your assault rifle on a tripod fitted with a motion sensor and one replaceable six hundred round clip. You can set it to virtually any scanning arc and motion distance. To fold it out you simply pull this lever like so and it pops out." Clarkson demonstrated, pulling a lever at the top of the folded Sentinel. A tripod popped out from below and it sat at around waist level.
A small LCD screen lit up. "If you don't give it instruction within ten seconds it just goes to a default setting of a ninety degree arc." He waited ten seconds at which point the screen faded to what must have been almost black to Clarkson but easily readable to Sarge. "Now check this out." He fingered a couple buttons on the wall beside them and the target up ahead began to move back and forth. It took the Sentinel about a half second to lock on and fire on full auto, recoil dampeners allowed it to fire with perfect accuracy, blowing the dummy away in mere seconds.
"Nifty, is it the only one or are there others?" Sarge asked admiring the simple yet very useful machine.
"We have about a hundred of them so go nuts if you want. Any active ones that you or your squad deploy will come up on your helmets HUD, and if need be it has a self-destruct option that packs quite a punch. Omar Al'Lahem absolutely loves the things, says they're absolutely brilliant for all types of things, so we started up a little production line for them. Speaking of which if you see the guy tell him he owes me the two hundred from our bet."
Sarge laughed. "Will do sir."
"Don't sir me, just call me Clarkson, I'm like you, a one name man." He chuckled.
"You said something about a HUD on my helmet?"
"Oh that, you'll be given body armor, light but tough as hell, made of a platinum fiber composite. Has its own power supply for your helmet, life support that kind of stuff, we're still putting the finishing touches on it so you'll have to wait a bit."
"Sounds amazing, is there anything else you could show me?"
"Not really, I can show how some if it is made if you'd like, fascinating really."
They were interrupted by Miller joining them. "Sarge, Doctor Clarkson." He greeted them nodding.
"Hello."
"Sir."
"May I interrupt?" He asked politely.
"Go ahead, we've finished up with all the toys anyway."
"I can tell." Miller said looking around the smoldering range. Turning his attention to Sarge he asked. "Would you like a sniper on your team?"
"Of course."
"Ok then, get changed into civies, I'll meet you on the flight deck."
"I'll see you later Doctor Clarkson." They shook hands good-bye and Sarge was off to his room.
"How's it look?" Miller asked.
"Very good, he has a keen eye and an exceptionally good aim, Flowers told me the Nanites would enhance any skills or talents that he already has, so I'm not surprised at all. He showed some real talent with the BFG, didn't like the mini-gun or launcher, said they didn't fit him, all in all he'll probably pick the AKX and BFG as his weapons" Clarkson reported.
"Very good, do you have a sniper rifle ready for transport by any chance?"
"Ya over there, in the case marked ASR-1." Clarkson pointed over to a part of the armory where cases were stacked along a wall below a number of weapons.
"Thanks a lot, take care Doctor."
"You too."
Miller left the range, picking up the black case marked ASR-1 along the way. Fifteen minutes later he met Sarge at the flight deck. "Ready to go?"
"Yep. Bessy went out for a dip, said she wanted some fish, I put up a notice so it should all be good." Notices were sent out to everyone's palm pilot fifteen minutes before any testing was done outside, it made sure that things like diving and underwater plasma testing didn't go on at the same time.
"You know how to use the sniper rifle?"
"I didn't test it out fully but mostly I do, shouldn't be that much different compensating for long ranges."
"Then we're good to go." He said going up the jet's ramp. "We're set." He told the pilot once they got inside.
"Gotcha, just finalizing clearance and co-ordinates. Plotniv, three fifty k north of Moscow correct?"
"Correct."
The jet took off vertically, powered up its main engines and took off towards Russia at mach six, where one man was about to become the third member of a special joint UN military group that was unrivaled anywhere in the world, and whose existence was mere speculation to most of the top politicians in the world.
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