"Evening everyone", I said looking into the camera on the dash, "Josh here and as you can probably tell by now, this isn't the Civic", I smiled, "no this is so much better. This is my new, Factory fresh with an amazing five whole miles on the odometer, 1992 Toyota Supra 2.0 GT Twin Turbocharged. I recently acquired this vehicle as an amazing late birthday present from a friend of mine. Under the hood we have that engine you never knew Toyota made in the form of a eleven hundred and twenty horsepower 1 GJZ-V12 with two ridiculous 57mm Twin Turbochargers hanging like a pair of nuts off the back of the car and two, HKS 55mm Centrifugal superchargers up front good for 40 pounds of boost if I decide I'm feeling suicidal . Fully built motor, forged rods, heads, cams valves. All the power that monster up front is making is split between all four wheels via a custom six speed manual transmission and to reign it in we have 15 inch calipers at all four corners with 7 pistons upfront and three piston in the rear."

I smiled again.

"And I haven't driven it yet so your gonna catch my natural reactions to everything", I smiled as I stuck the key in the ignition. I put the car in neutral and gave the key a turn, waking the 12 Cylinder monster and vibrating the entire car.

"Hehehe", I laughed, "this should be fun. Also before we start, the car in front of me is my Dad's 1997 240SX with a 1000 crank horsepower R34 Skyline engine that was custom built by the same guy who got me the Supra. So throughout the video I'll try and see if we can keep up with him."

"Too bad I'm stuck here with you", Nina smiled, "otherwise I'd get my Corvette and smoke both of you."

"Sure you would", I said idling the Supra out of the hanger, stopping beside my Dad.

"You wanna lead or should I?", I asked.

"You should because I don't know the area", Dad answered.

I nodded and started up the trail. At the entrance, Conner and the guards were gathered around a fire with drinks and it sounded like they were talking shit. I wasn't sure which of the two cars caught their attention, but either way it was less than a second before Conner was up and unlocked the gate.

"Out for a drive with ya old man huh?", he asked.

"Yep", I said, "I miss hooning in his 240 so much. Now he's got it back and it's better than he ever could have done himself, all thanks to Sam."

"I hear ya brother", Conner said, "I'll leave a key to the gate in the booth so you can let yourself in when ya get back."

We bumped fists and I drove my Supra as slowly as I could to the paved road. Turning on the blinker, my Dad did the same. I waited until a Camaro blew by us in the opposite direction before turning onto the road, smirking as I gave the pedal a light press.

"Let's see what a 1000 horsepower all wheel drive Supra can do!", I grinned and put the pedal to the floor.

All four corners spun for a brief second before the front end cleared at least a foot and the car rocketed forward, the RPM hitting the redline of 12,000 so quickly I almost couldn't avoid banging the limiter. I watched the Tach jump down from 12 back to three, when the turbos kicked on. Let me tell ya, After tonight the Civic was getting an upgrade. The front end cleared the ground by at least five inches with the second gear shift, the RPM was at 6500 and the speedometer was reading at 130 miles an hour, IN SECOND GEAR! The clutch was amazing, the shifter was right on point and the way the superchargers drowned out everything around me was almost too good.

"So much POWER!", I screamed as I shifted into third gear at 155 miles an hour, "AHHHHH!!!"

By fourth gear my sides were hurting because I couldn't stop laughing. I was nearing 180 miles an hour and still accelerating so quickly I thought I might be in first. The way the V12 upfront was trying to drown out the whining superchargers sent chills of joy up my spine while the thought of the turbos building up god knows how much boost in the rear, quietly waiting to slap me and Nina in the face with it. By the time I hit fifth gear the Supra was screaming at over 7500 RPM and darting down the baked asphalt at over 200 miles an hour and it still had a gear left. At the threshold of 8000, all hell broke lose as the Turbos kicked on. I had heard of boost per gear, the higher you go, the stronger the boost comes on and I can most assuredly say the Supra? Yeah it had that. And it had a nasty case of it. I felt like I was going to experience whiplash with the way the car shot forward, away from my Dad's 240 that had been trying desperately to keep up. That's when I unearthed the most Holy of Holy Performance, also known as Sixth Gear. It was like the world around me had slowed down when I saw the tach.

"288.8 Miles an hour."

I felt my heart skip a beat. I'd broken the 280 mile an hour mark in the car that had made me love cars, it was a dream come true. Though admittedly, I always hopped that I would brake that barrier on Sunset Peninsula Raceway. Even at this speed, My Dad was still able to keep up, so I figured he was probably doing around 277. I didn't know exactly what Sam had done to these cars that allowed us to enter Veyron SS territory with Manual transmissions as opposed to a nine speed automatic, but fuck I'm not complaining.

"Dad", I called beginning to apply the brakes, 'we gotta slow down here."

"Your accelerating too damn fast son", Dad said, "I can't keep up."

"I'm not gonna tell you how fast I was going", I laughed, "but holy shit, the Toyota Supra is here to tell me that the Civic will never feel fast again."

I turned into the gateway where Venom's private road slash dragstrip was and unlocked it. Coming to a stop and motioned my Dad to come up beside me. When they stopped, I could see the look on my Dad's face was like a that of a little kid on Christmas morning. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the same way.

"Let's see a NASCAR driver do that!", I laughed.

"Let's see anyone do that", my Dad laughed, "son I think your buddy lied to us about the power were putting to the road. I was up in Bugatti Veyron SS territory."

"You too huh?", I asked, "hey Dad, let's do a Mile drag."

My Dad smiled, "you sure, you'll lose in that....Toyota."

"Care to put that Money in your mouth?", I asked.

"Do you really have to ask?", My Dad asked rolling up the window.

Nina picked up the CB and started counting down.

"3, 2, 1", she said, 'GO!"

I slammed the car into first and matted it. The Supra's front end lifted off the ground for a split second before the weight of the V12 forced it back down. The Superchargers on both our cars screamed for dominance as we both got second gear. I could tell the way my Dad's car sounded through the shift that he was getting less power down that I was, but his 240 weighed less than my Supra and seemed to have more grip in the rear where as the Supra was more grippy in the front, where 50% of the 1,120 horses that were getting to the ground where going. Gears 2-4 had us deadlocked. Gear five allowed me to pull ahead, but when we both hit Sixth gear that was when hell came to Earth in the form of a Red 240. My Dad's 240 cleared a full 4 feet as the engine torqued the rear wheels so hard I could see the blurry driveline in my rear view. Even with all that torque getting to the wheels, even able to stand almost on end, the Supra was just too powerful for the ill fated Skyline GTR in a 240 costume to catch. I won the Drag with about 50 yards between myself and my Dad. That's not to say the wolf in sheep's clothing was easy to lose.

"That was too much fun Dad", I laughed as I downshifted, "and you said you were done with Nissan."

My Dad just laughed, "just couldn't let go of the old 240 could you?"

"Not really", I said as I slowed to a stop, "I still...."

I was cut off as my issue phone rang. When I looked at it, it was Green.

"Hello?", I asked.

"Ace", he said, "It's the Professor."

"What's up?", I asked.

"A lot actually", he said, "Mako finished going through those drives and the two you guys pulled out of the Dome are awake and talking. I think you need to come on back. Morningstar called a meeting."

"On my way", I said.

I hung up my phone, "we gotta go back to base Dad, Professor Green just called and said there was something serious up."

My Dad simply slid back into his 240 and started back the way we had come. When we got back, I parked the Supra next to the Civic and made a note in my head to add a second turbo before I headed for the broad room taking my assigned seat next to Nina and Mercury. Everyone was here, even the mechanics. Not good, this had to be insane if even the mechanics were here. The two Creatures were sitting on their haunches in the only clear spot, which was at our end of the table. They both had been neatly patched up, looked like they'd had baths and seemed in much better shape than they had been.

"What's going on boss?", Jayden asked.

Morningstar, for the first time since I'd been in this room, sat down, normally he remained standing.

"So much that I don't even know where to begin", Morningstar said, "what we've learned about Blackriver in the past 2 hours has raised more questions than answers."

"Start from the beginning", I said, "one piece at a time."

"Okay", Morningstar said, "professor?"

"The drives Mako and Luke got into were a gold mine", Green stated, "we know Black River is currently focusing their money and man power on three projects, X-01, X-02 and X-03. Our friend Void and his sister Navi here, are the results of the gene compound Black River hired me to stabilize all those years ago, which turned out to be the focus of the X-01 Project, was to create a hybrid of various animals that was expendable. Kill one they send twenty more just like it. However, that doesn't explain the clear differences in their DNA, compared to the final version."

"What do you mean?", I asked.

"The final Version, X-01 1.9.5", Green began, "has almost nothing in common beside that they use the same DNA, a hybrid of a black rat and iguana, as a starting point. Take a really good look at void and Navi, then compare them to this picture."

Green opened a small folder and handed me a picture of the creature we'd fought on the hill. When I compared them side by side, I didn't have to be a genius to notice that Void and his sister were missing the armor plates, spikes and four piece jaw of the final variant of X-01.

"Your right Prof", I said, "there's not much resemblance"

"There's no resemblance", Green said, "at all. In fact, I ran Void and his Sister's DNA through a reference program that compared the two, gene by gene, looking for anything that matched, what I found was very interesting. Their DNA has branched in a completely different direction in every possible way. Void and his sister, when fully grown, could be as big as a black bear as well as stronger, faster and much much smarter than X-01 1.9.5."

"That makes zero sense", I said, "I used to write about DNA mixing all the time, so explain this, when trying to develop a super solider, why would you arrive at a final product that was over all bigger, but suffered in strength, speed, stamina and intelligence?"

"The reasoning behind that is actually straight forward", Green said, "to answer you Ace, I'll ask you, your in World War two and can chose between a Russian T-72, or a German Tiger, which do you take?"

"I take the T-72 because they were faster and lighter than the Tiger and rode on 5 speed transmissions as opposed to the German's 4, which means I get better fuel economy and can go for longer distance."

"Exactly", Green said, "now if we stay with this analogy, Void and Navi are what we'll call Tiger Mk4's, faster, lighter, harder hitting and much more perserverant than X-01 1.9.5, however, where they suffer is that Black River could only produce 4, their parents, and them. X-01 1.9.5 , according to the data, can be grown in batches of 16, implanted via a cheap chip in their brains with everything they need to know and turned loose on Black River's enemies with a single objective."

"Eat and kill", Void sighed.

"Black River doesn't seem to want Version 0.5.1 Alpha" of X-01", Green said, 'which is what Navi and Void are. They punch out Version 1.9.5 in every way, but they take a while to grow and you can't dump nine or ten of them out of a plane and watch the carnage unfold. According to the logs of Black River's lead researcher, Void and Navi's Mother and Father showed much more concern with tactics and stealth combat than charging in head on and mauling anything that got in their way. Black River apparently didn't like the fact that their creations had free will, so they put them down on a, quite literal, firing squad. The files say they took four hours to succumb to the flames."

"Holy shit", I sighed as wave of...pity, empathy, whichever it was called, for Void and Navi washed over me. I looked at Void, who looked like he was ashamed of what he was, in all honesty his sister was as well. It was disgusting what Black River was doing.

"Did", Nina began, "you guys know?"

"They forced us to watch", Navi said, "they told us we would be in the same place if we didn't do exactly as ordered."

"And judging by the condition we found you in", I began, "I'm assuming you didn't?"

"No", Void said, 'we did, they started cutting us apart and running all kinds of tests to see how much we could take and what they could use to make a better version of us that would be 100% loyal and carry out any order given without question."

"In other words they want mindless drones that they can make cheap, equip cheap and replace cheap", I sighed, "that pisses me off."

"So with this out of the way", Morningstar said, "this brings us to Project X-02 Reborn."

"Where the fuck have I heard that before?", I asked.

"I wouldn't know", Green said, "but it seems that Reborn is a sort of Bio-Mechanical project that uses dead bodies as starting platforms, then replaces parts of the brain, spine and nervous systems to artificially reanimate the body with full intelligence, memories and motor skills, according to the logs at least."

I gritted my teeth, "that's fucking nightmare material! Creating your soldiers is one thing, but digging up graves and cutting apart dead bodies to force them to fight for you!?"

"But it gets so much better", Green said sarcastically, "it would seem Black River is capable of this across three species, humans, dogs and X-01 Version 1.9.3, but not 1.9.4 or 5. The logs said that there are currently 801 active Reborn units in service, 631 humans, 150 dogs and 20 X-01 1.9.3s, while they can get another 700 human, 200 dogs and 10 X-01 Reborn units combat ready within 10 hours."

"Where the fuck are all these bodies coming from?", I asked.

"That's a question I couldn't answer from the logs", Green said, "if I were a Black River Mercenary in charge of recovering corpses, I would be much more inclined to go find a Taliban or Al-Queda hideout and produce them myself, however, given the logs say Reborn units have full memory, and seeing as how I didn't see any evidence of modification done other than neurological, this leaves me with the impression that draftees into X-02 are young, relatively intact and died of diseases or things such as internal hemorrhaging and not caused by Black River."

"That leaves us with a rather wide selection of fresh meat", I sighed, "I'd say mostly crime victims, people who lost the fight with cancer. It seems like all they need is an intact brain and nervous system. How close am I?"

"Pretty damn close", Green said, 'the only two systems it seems they need is nervous and respiratory, everything else gets replaced."

"That must be why those guys at the dome were stinking so bad", Mako said, "they were Reborn, that also explains the suits."

"They were wearing suits?", Morningstar said.

"Yeah", Nina said, "looked like an exo skeleton with armor that simply snapped on over it."

"It could be a climate controlled suit to keep them from rotting", Green said, "it would probably employ liquid nitrogen in the same way you kids do, but I could be mistaken."

I turned to void, "do you guys know anything?"

He shook his head, "no, they kept me under a knife or in the tank. I was usually in too much pain to think straight."

I paused, "I'm sorry for the way I acted in the dome Void, had I known what was really going on, what your situation was, I would have been much quicker to rescue you."

"Don't worry about it Ace", Void sighed, "it's been almost two years since they killed Mom and Dad and left me to take care of Navi on my own. I wasn't exactly doing a good job and what older brother can't protect his sister?"

"I know how you feel", I said, "believe me I do. My crazy sister wants to be a Navy Seal. I keep telling her it's a bad idea but she doesn't listen to me."

'Anyway", Morningstar said, "Mako ran into a problem when hacking the encryption to Project X-03."

'What would that be?", I asked.

"It was programmed to auto delete if someone got through", Mako said, "only thing I could recover was that a convoy will be moving through the Russian mountains soon."

"What's in it?", I asked.

"I don't know", Mako said, "but it must be important."

"Then I want it", I said.

"Me too", Mercury said.

"Glad you boys feel that way", Morningstar said, "I'm sending you to Russia to recover the contents of that convoy, feel free to take souvenirs."

"I wanna go with you", Void said, "I'm combat proficient, I can help."

"Void", Green said, 'we discussed this. Not until the device is ready."

"What device?", I asked.

"Oh", Green said, ", Void and Navi require a large amount of pure nitrogen in their blood to operate efficiently. I came up with a special filter that can take the Nitrogen out of the air and diffuse it through their skin, but it's not ready yet."

"Mako", I said, 'when is the convoy due to move?"

"Four days", Mako said.

"Can you finish their machine in two?", I asked looking at Green.

"Easy", Green said.

"Then it's decided", I said.