Assignment Yggdrasil

James Dubey Christopher

Description

Originally published by Chipmunkapublishing, and now thoroughly revised, Assignment Yggdrasil is a groundbreaking novel about how far governments can go in the fight against bioterrorism. Set during the presidency of George W. Bush and the height of the War on Terror, the United States Department of Defense has secretly garnered intelligence confirming that, within a decade, groups intent on mass murder will possess bioweaponry capable of annihilating either the USA...or the entire human species. A special operation, Assignment Yggdrasil, has begun in an attempt to avert the so-called 'Ragnarok,' doomsday. Although they appear human, subjects have been genetically converted from human to transhuman, given immunity to all biological pathogens known to infect humans, as well as special abilities from other species. Only the new species, the transhuman, is predicted to survive the bioterrorist Ragnarok. The government has staked its bets on these transhumans, hoping they will rebuild American democracy in the resulting chaos. Yet the government is performing this transhumanism covertly, infecting thousands of citizens with the virus through their food, drink, and medicine. Some test subjects have died unwittingly under experimentation and the government is hiding everything. An equally furtive resistance has formed, led by various radical groups who dispute the bioethics of the operation. In a precarious showdown with the government, the rebels question whether the removal of humanity is really a gift and if the end justifies the means.

Sujets

• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 10 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783331055
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
ASSIGNMENT YGGDRASIL
by
Christopher James Dubey



Publisher Information
Published in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of the authors to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
Copyright © 2013 Christopher James Dubey
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.



Preface
The proper pronunciation for Yggdrasil is “ ig -dr uh -sil.” In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is the supernatural ash tree that connects worlds.



Chapter 1
Friday, April 14, 2006
6:32 p.m.
Tisiphone revved her Lamborghini Murcielago through the urban labyrinth of Levinox, California. With the volume high, she synchronized her lips with the indulgent music she was playing on the CD player. She grabbed the rearview mirror for an instant to blow herself a kiss.
She powered the Murcielago through the alleys of Levinox. The headlights hunted the road signs, while the engine growled with her eagerness. Through the windshield, she saw a dragonfly blow away in the automobile’s turbulence.
At last, she sighted the neon lights and sleek, bare skin of Club Vodka. She slowed the engine to a rumble in the vacant spot marked Playgirl . Her bronze hands removed a cluster of condoms from the case under the passenger seat, and stuffed them into the pouch of her crimson purse.
“What’s cooking?” she asked, stepping out of the car and eyeing Tosovic, the chiseled bouncer. “Besides me?”
“Wish I could dine on some of that,” he said, directing his piercing, aquamarine eyes at her burly body. “The boys are waiting. Got your ticket?”
“Like always,” she said, flashing a condom and then placing it back in her purse.
“Go get ‘em, girl,” he said.
Treading down the red pavement in her black platform boots, she flexed her robust muscles and salivated with anticipation. The dazzling lights of the nightclub cast firefly glows over her sinuous body, hugged by a fuchsia, halterneck dress. As she walked up to the bar, a dozen rotating chairs shifted to face her direction. Suitors eyed their deity with glazed eyes.
No words were necessary. She knew what they were thinking. Eleven men would go home tonight to their dissatisfactory lovers...or their empty beds. One man would not go home.
Tisiphone’s large, cobalt eyes studied the men. Some old, some new. A thirty-something white bodybuilder, in black, leather pants. A college yuppie with moussed hair, in an Abercrombie & Fitch shirt. A bearded, tanned man with Oakley sunglasses, whom she recalled was an aging psychotherapist. A thirty-something chief executive from one of the elite businesses down on Azoren Avenue. A heavy, pasty computer geek out on vacation from Silicon Valley, and saturated in cologne. Like a snake picking a target to strike, her squinting eyes now scanned these twelve waiting torsos.
Lights and shadows rippled over her stunning physique. Neurotransmitters fired through synapses, to a mainframe calculating every possibility. Her eyes narrowed and then widened. A new image appeared on her retina: a russet tank top bearing the phrase Most Likely to Conquer the Conqueror .
“You,” she said, promenading into the area of a slowly moving spotlight, which illuminated her face as the techno thrummed to a resounding climax.
The man with the tank top, shaggy of chin, with swirling, umber brown hair, stood. “Hello, Tisiphone,” he said. “Our time has come.”
* * *
The songstress on the disc sustained her hunt for lewd indulgence, while Tisiphone synchronized her lips and drove. She swung the car left and right, accelerating and decelerating. The Murcielago had amazing power and control over the road, just like the Spanish bull after which it acquired its name. She relished the feel of her dampening fingers sliding over the sleek steering wheel.
“You don’t see obstacles, do you?” he asked. “You only see challenges.”
“What are obstacles?” she said. She turned down the volume.
The man smiled. “Guess I’ll be your prisoner tonight,” he said.
She licked her lips, but then tensed her forehead. “Where did you get that shirt?” she asked.
“Oh, this,” he said, clutching at his tank top. “Custom-made. Only for you.”
Just then, the tires squealed as the car flexed around another tight corner. The man flew back in his seat, the smile erased from his cocky face. Tisiphone’s face remained stern.
“Did you go to Wesleyan University?” she asked.
He chuckled slowly and quietly. “No, I’ve no affiliation with the university,” he said, with a returning grin. “I studied somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Olympus.”
Tisiphone was unusually quiet for the rest of the ride after that. She studied the man’s bone structure, chest structure, and what she could discern of his phallic structure, all from the corner of her eye, as she navigated the Lamborghini in and out of the shadows of Levinox. As the tires grasped the nicks and crannies of the road, so, too, her eyes grasped for the nicks and crannies of her strange passenger’s face and mind, out of the corner of her vision, in the reflection in the rearview mirror, in the portraits being archived in her psyche. Finally, she pulled into the parking lot of the silvery Park Hyatt Levinox. The engine murmured into silence.
“Here’s our pad, Sugar,” she said, sliding open the scissor doors of the automobile and crashing one boot after another next to the nearby puddles by the side of the car.
The man grinned from behind her through the rearview mirror.
The clouds swirled in the overcast twilight, shading most of its weak light. She locked the car and strutted in brisk strides to the hotel entrance. Her companion merely followed.
“Bachelorette Pad,” said Tisiphone, tossing her Hyatt Aether Passport onto the desk of the attendant. “First class. Full dining service.”
“Of course,” said the buttoned attendant, imputing the information into the computer. “Right this way,” he said, standing up and escorting them to the gold and marble elevator doors.
When the attendant had left them, in the cavernous room of plush, velvet sheets and silk, zebra pillows, Tisiphone motioned to him from beneath the dappled glow of the skylights. “I’m ready,” she said.
He came to her slowly, stalking forward in rippled movements like a tiger investigating a fellow predator.
“You know,” she began, “you can’t conquer the Conqueror until she’s conquered the world first.”
“I know, Tisiphone,” he said. “But the Class of 2000 voted you alone Most Likely to Conquer the World.”
She squinted. “Who gave you the yearbook? Or are you just a stalker?”
He laughed and glanced at a Japanese crane imprinted into the rug. “I’m no stalker - I’m a scientist. And you are the object of my study.”
“What shall I call you, then, Mr. Scientist?” she asked.
“Call me Jonah,” he said. “I’ve come to be swallowed whole.”
She sprung around and onto him, pinning him down to the bed. The coils lashed back and forth from the impact. Her tongue dove into the void that was his mouth.
“Well,” he said, when she finally gave him reprieve, “I think I’m gonna really like this.”
* * *
Several hours later, a suntanned hand swept through the velvet sheets, scouting for a warm body. Instead, it reached a pillow, and crumpled it like an origami crane.
Tisiphone mumbled in her sleep, not yet fully awake, until an eiderdown feather flew up one nostril, making her sneeze. Her eyelids opened; her eyes stared at the mass of feathers over the mattress.
“What?” she asked herself, staring at the mass of feathers that had once been the pillow. It seemed that, somehow, she had shredded the pillow in her sleep.
She got up, washed her face, put on and adjusted her bra. Gazing into the golden bedroom mirror, she smiled at herself and then clenched her teeth.
Another face appeared behind hers.
She yelled and punched forward by instinct, smashing the mirror. She yelled, surprised by the force of the blow.
“I didn’t know your strength was increasing this quickly,” said Jonah, as she turned to face him.
“I didn’t know men still walked after a night with me,” said Tisiphone, giving a look at his briefs.
“Oh, succubus, but I’m not just a man. I’m a scientist. Assignment Yggdrasil.”
A smile formed at the sides of Tisiphone’s lips. “And what is Assignment Yggdrasil?”
“Assignment Yggdrasil is the special military operation that will save humankind. Hey, don’t you smirk at me, Ms. Most Likely to Conquer the World. We’ve come a long - ”
“What?” Tisiphone said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve had many suitors in this life. They all claim to be something, but they tend to tell magnificent lies to try to impress me. So, I’ll listen to your stories, but don’t expect my belief.”
Jonah replied, “The scientists who studied Myna weren’t so dubious. But I don’t have to explain that to you. You were there when the authorities informed you of her unnatural death, in the unfortunate year of 1988, when investigators concluded that she took her life in the bathtub with a hairdryer, of all things - ”
His words were suddenly choked by the vise grip of a hand locking his esophagus down to the floor. “What did you say about my mother?”
His limbs flailed. She released her grip just enough for him to breathe.
“Haaah