Nemesis walked down the shady promenade on her way
to class. She always loved walking down the Greek Promenade
because of the festive motif of colors all of the benches and lamp
posts had. They each represented a different sorority or fraternity ad
of course was the epitome of the individual organization's pride.
"I am going to join one of these some day or
another club," she thought as she walked on and came upon the campus
library. Nemesis made a mental note to stop there and check out some information
for her botany project.
About ten minutes later, she finally reached the
English and Foreign Languages Building where her Japanese class had already
started. She was lucky to get into the class since a language class like
Japanese was so rare and few, especially at a predominately black school.
And now she was late for class.
Nemesis crept into class inconspicuously as possible
and sat down.
"I am glad that you could finally join us, Veritas-san,"
the instructor scolded in Japanese.
"Gomen nasai, Fujimora Sensei," Nemesis
apologized as she stood and bowed deeply.
"I'm sure you're sorry," Mr. Fujimora said
in English. "Apologies are not going to defend your grade come finals."
"Hai, Sensei," she replied lowly as she sat
down and opened her book. "This is going to be long day."
About a couple of hours later, Nemesis walked
into one of her professor's office and sat down in the chair in front of
his desk.
"Late again?" he asked as he looked up from the
pile of papers on his desk.
"Yes," she answered as she opened her notebook.
"Here's my rough draft for my autobiography," she said as she handed him
the paper.
"Interesting," he commented as he wrinkled his nose.
"What's wrong, Mr. Amici?"
"Nothing," he answered as he began to chuckle. "It's
just that you have that you were born in June..."
"So?" she asked trying to find the humor in the
situation.
"It's just that you put that you were born in in
1998," he replied as he let go.
Nemesis narrowed her green eyes. "Now that's
embarrassing," she thought as she watched him laugh. "It's a
rough draft," was all she commented. Then she cleared her throat. "So what
do you have for me?"
Mr. Amici composed himself and put her paper in
his stack. "Your last paper, congrats on your A."
"Thanks," she said as she took the graded paper
then stood. "See you in class."
"Bye, and don't forget this," he replied as he threw
her a small pocket game.
"My puppy! I've been looking for him. Thank you."
"See ya', Nemesis," he called as he went back to
work.
"The man is bugged," she thought as she smiled.
She put her gigapet in her pocket and walked toward the university commons.
As she came upon the Greek Promenade, she sat down under a tree parallel
to it and started to play with her gigapet. She put on her headphones and
plugged them into the port at the bottom.
"Welcome, Ninjana," an electronic voice said in
time to the puppy's mouth movements. "Go to the library. In the reference
section, desk 3 you will find your assignment.
Nemesis took her headphones off and fed her dog
a biscuit. As she stood, she heard a soft rumbling sound as the programming
message erased its self. "Enhanced hearing can be a good thing,"
she thought as she looked around. "Well I had to go to the library."
She walked into the library and went to the
reference section, there were only two people in there. Nemesis made a
selection from the shelf while she checked to see if anyone was watching,
then sat down at desk three. She began reading up on caffeine's and its
effects on the body for her botany project.
Nonchalantly, she picked up the little pencil/ paper
holder and removed the piece of paper from under it. She slipped it into
her pants pocket and continued reading on when a hand touched her shoulder.
She quickly grabbed the hand stood up and flipped the person over her body.
"Damn, Girl!" the young man exclaimed as he tried
to sit up in pain. "If I knew you were a Power Ranger, I wouldn't have
tried to come over here and talk to you."
Nemesis's ears reddened in embarrassment. "Sorry,"
she apologized as she tried to help him up.
He waved her away and stood to his feet, then dusted
himself off. "Yo Shorty, what do I have to do besides flip for you to get
your number."
"I hate being called 'shorty,'" she groaned
inwardly.
"Can I have your number?" he asked again sensing
he offended her.
Nemesis smiled. "He's cute. I almost killed him.
But he's cute. I better keep an eye on him just in case." She picked
up a piece of paper and scribbled her name and number on it.
"Nemesis Veritas," he read. "The goddess of retribution
and the latin word for truth. That's pretty phat."
"My parents were comedians," she answered as she
looked at him strangely.
"I'm an international business major," he commented
as he read her look. "A brother can be educated you know."
"I'm sorry....I didn't mean to...."
"You can make it up to me by going to the Cafe with
me to eat dinner."
"I don't know..."
"My name? Kyoto Sutton. My dad was in the Navy."
Nemesis closed her book and picked up her backpack.
"Finally, someone who understands."
"Ninja to Ninjana," Andy called softly into his mouth
piece. "Confirm location, over."
"Mother load."
"Prodigious, the kids are playing. I'm going to
join them. I'll keep you posted."
"Affirmative," she replied. "Andy, can handle
those guards easily, but without him I am going to have to be more cautious."
Nemesis flipped opened an air vent in the
ceiling, jumped into it, and closed it after her. As she crawled
through the vent, carefully she heard the object of her attention at the
moment shuffling around in her office down the way. She came upon the vent
above her office after a few minutes and looked through it. "Annika
Iverson, prepare....to meet your maker." she thought as she opened
the vent.
"Come in, Dr. Kendal," Annika said as a tall black
woman came in wearing a lab coat covering of her suit.
"Group three's initial mutation was a success,"
Dr. Kendal reported as she came to the desk.
"Excellent," Annika replied. "Please sit down."
"We successfully upgraded the metabolism of the
lab mice. We'll be testing to see how the mice react over time."
"How long before we can start on humans?"
"Two maybe three years," she answered.
"You have six months."
Dr. Kendal looked at her in shock. "There's
no way we could do that even if we worked in there round the clock. Group
III is the first group to survive the initial mutations, we don't even
know if they'll survive much less a human,"
"Oh, a human can be genetically altered."
"But..."
"The technology exists. Figure it out!" Annika replied.
"Now get some sleep, you have a long six months ahead of you."
Dr. Kendal stood and looked up at the ceiling as
though she were asking "why me?" then left.
Above Nemesis gasped softly. "She looks like
me...she's not that old...could she be..." Nemesis shook the thoughts
from her mind. She had a job to do.
Nemesis opened the vent and lowered herself by her
legs. She grabbed Annika by the head in such a way that she could not scream
and held her in a lock so that she could not get out of it. "Who was that
woman?"
Annika scratched at Nemesis and she squeezed tighter.
"Dr. Rachel Kendal," she mumbled.
"How old is she?"
"Thirty-six."
"Does she have any children?"
"I don't know, she doesn't...talk about her...person...al...
life."
"What is the purpose of your genetic research?"
Nemesis asked.
"Lemme...go!"
"Answer me!" Nemesis commanded as she squeezed harder.
She could hear Annika's heart slowing from her choking her. "Do you want
to die?"
Annika's eyes widened and she shook her head slightly
in fear and lack of mobility. "To create...the perfect...weapon with....genetics...and
bio...cybertech," she answered struggling with every word. "Wha...are
you...going to do...to me?"
"This," Nemesis answered as she twisted her head
in a counter-clockwise direction then settled her back into the chair.
"Mother load has been dumped. I'm on my way to the rendezvous point, Ninja."
"So am I, the children have gone to bed."
"Genetics and biocybertech. That's me and all
the other agents. Dr. Kendal's old enough to be...I need some answers."