Close to the Marx

Entry 14

Daily Log

21 Krishna

I was beginning to wonder about a lot of things as these boys stood in my office. There was one thing I realized though. If there was something about this super soldier program that involved this parasite, why would they do it to a couple of low ranked girls and that one low ranked boy.

“They were expendable,” I sighed when I realized why they had done it.

“Sir?” William said.

“I was trying to figure out why would they use these kids,” I said.

“I think we should check the rest of the Mounted Division,” Vinnie said suddenly.

I thought about what he said for a moment.

I remember even when I was a kid that my old man did not like how many people thought that the Mounted Division should be weeded out and eliminated all-together. I had no doubt that maybe it was due to my old man and generals like Reynold Redd that the damn division even existed anymore.

“Who is the General over the mounted division?” I asked mostly to myself.

I tapped on the console on my desk and popped up a picture of an unlikely person.

I stared at it for a while before I looked up at Eugene.

“Is he your old man?” I asked Eugene after looking at the man in the picture.

He looked just like Eugene, scrawny, scraggly looking but still seemed well-kept despite that. The man had brown hair, where Eugene had the trademark red hair of all the Redds.

“Yes sir, General Oswald Orange,” Eugene said.

“Your mom kept her name because of her father no doubt,” I said, and Eugene nodded.

I read a bit about General Orange and learned a few things worth mentioning. He was a botanist to start, also an Entomologist. I c****d my eyebrows at that. I looked over at Eugene.

“Your old man studied insects?” I asked.

I found that highly convenient considering the Colonel’s affliction giving her f*****g butterfly wings. Eugene looked around as if he was trying to figure out if he could say something or not.

“Spill it,” I said.

“My father had a butterfly farm,” Eugene said.

“Butterfly farm!?” I said surprised about that but then I realized. “Wait…what the hell is a butterfly farm?”

“Well he was a botanist and an entomologist,” Eugene said.

“I can see that,” I said looking back at the projection.

“One of the most helpful insects when it comes to helping pollenate are butterflies.” Eugene said. I scrolled through different articles that read things like:

“General Orange’s amazing garden,”

“The ‘Orange Field’ being considered for planetary landmark.”

“General Orange wins Golordian Science award for Excellence for his Orange Field.”

“Why not bees?” Vinnie asked suddenly.

“My mom is allergic to bees.” Eugene said.

“The Orange Field, wins top accolades.” I saw one report say.

“So, he was using butterflies to create this garden?” I asked

“Yes sir, since before I was born, he was working on this garden,” Eugene said.

“Wait a minute,” I said.

I suddenly realized something. How would the Colonel and General Orange have met? I typed in the history of the Colonel and eventually saw about 10 years ago she was also…

“Your mom was also part of the Mounted Division!?” I asked.

“That’s how she knew Cassie, and Samantha,” Eugene said.

I scrolled down through the Colonel’s history and eventually saw a picture of her dog tags. Like the other ones that the boys had brought me there was a symbol of Rho on one side along with:

Captain Rossa Linda Maria Redd

Mounted Division

Subject # 3100

Then a series of 0’s and 1’s that translated to:

“Behold the fairy, she who will sprout wings of change and beauty unmatched.’ again it was by Avatar Avadhut the 19th Avatar of Lord Shiva whatever the hell that meant. And it said Era 485,000 whatever the f**k that meant.

 I looked up at the boys.

“So, there are 5 people from the Mounted Division to develop the Sigmosis Plague.” I said c*****g my eyebrow.  “That is a bit of a stretch.”

“We thought so too,” Eugene said, and William nodded.

I decided to look at the rest of the Mounted Division to see if any other file was redacted. However, when I was doing this, I was making sure that I was covering my tracks quite well. I was putting up proxies and algorithms as I went to make sure if anyone was trying to follow me they would think they were following regular computer code. I had learned how to hack systems when I was probably 7 so doing that s**t was easy for me.

“What are you doing?” Vinnie asked.

“Putting up security measures behind me as I look for this thing, I am sure the damn thing is booby trapped. The General might have been looking into this before he got killed.” I said.

I saw that the Mounted Division had a total of 4500 members, that was a bit more than I thought they had but probably less then any other that I knew about. I looked up the crew list.

It started with a name I wasn’t expecting to see.

Chief Petty Office

Alexis Silver

Mounted Division

Subject # 0001

Yet again there was a series of 0’s and 1’s that translated to:

“From this vessel comes salvation, do not destroy this vessel for without it comes true destruction of all you hold dear.” again it was by Avatar Avadhut the 19th Avatar of Lord Shiva.

A picture of a very young-looking soldier popped up she looked way young. Younger looking that that Michelle girl who was working in Heather’s office. I looked through her file like the others it was heavily redacted. Only a few lines were not redacted. One that said.

The vessel will awaken when she is most needed.

“Alexis Silver?” I asked wondering if she was related to Captain Alexander Silver in some way shape or form. I noted that down and kept going down the list. Each one of the members of the “mounted division,” had a subject # to them. Each one had some weird phrase attached to them from Avatar Avadhut.

The more I kept going through the crew list the more I was getting increasingly worried.

One for one.

All the members of the Mounted division had this in common.

They all had a Rho symbol on their dog tags.

They all had a subject # attached to their names.

They all had a strange quote from the Avatar Avadhut.

There were some very weird quotes like:

“Behold the b***h, she who will bare witness to a new age of pups.”

And

“From thy loins commeth the seed of the new age of pups.”

And

“Behold the Sow, she who shall milk the upcoming world.”

What in the s**t were these quotes?

I eventually got to a name that just read FAILURE in big bold letters.

I c****d my head looking at that.

I opened this thing called FAILURE and was shocked when I saw the face of a much younger looking Heather looking back at me. But this picture was of Heather when she was way younger. It looked like when she was used supposedly to cure the Sigmosis Plague.

Heather Fuscia

Subject# 0616

Mounted Division

Then a series of 0’s and 1’s

“Failure can only come to those who are unworthy of my gift,” Avatar Avadhut.

“Heather was in this thing too?” Vinnie asked.

“And they called her a failure?” I said c*****g my eyebrow.

“That would make sense if the plague was given to everyone who was part of the Mounted Division, and it didn’t take with her, but she would have been too young for that at the time.” William said, and I nodded.

“How old would she have been like 12?” Vinnie asked.

I felt weird looking for her age, but I had to. So, I looked her up. She was actually older than I thought at 37 (why do I always have a thing for older women she was nearly 12 years older than I was) but this was when she was a kid, and supposedly it was 10 years ago…wait maybe we just found out about it 10 years ago. Maybe it flapped 10 years ago but, it had happened much earlier than that.

I thought about that for a moment.

“Your sister is 20 years older than you?” I asked William.

“Yes, Sir,” William said.

“So that would put her in her forties?” I asked.

“Would have sir,” William said.

“Would?” I asked.

“She’s dead,” William said.

Man, this thing has a habit of beeping just when it gets to the juicy parts! Well you know the drill.