The helicopter cut through the air. The jet-black paint matched the kevlar uniforms of the soldiers seated inside. A woman in her forties in a grey-suit scrolled through a data log on a sleek tablet.
"Dr Splice. Until now he'd shaken off our trace. Now he's back. HQ have zeroed in on unusual frequencies broadcast from an abandoned US army training outpost in the forest. Omni-Man is en route." Dr Molay briefed the response team.
"Our target is a possible escaped hybrid from his lab. Secure alive if possible. The distress call was made by a civillian from a satellite phone. Prepare to give emergency medical treatment to anyone who's still alive."
The members of the response team nodded. Guns half the length of their body were slung across their chests. Grey masks covered their faces entirely. On the inside, neural interfaces projected data and analysed threats as they emerged.
"Remnants of a flare spotted. Tree cover too dense to drop, initiating cables." The pilot's voice broadcast through the chopper.
Machinery whirred on the helicopter's belly and cables shot out. The response team rose in uniform and stepped out of the airborne vehicle without fear. Magnets in the ropes connected to their gloves and they slid down rapidly.
They hit the ground. Immediately the systems in their helmets shifted from passive to active, urgently scanning the area for the hybrid creature they'd been tasked to kill.
The response team's boots crunched against the earth, they stepped forwards and shielded the large group of underage civillians with their bodies. The subtle humming of their weapons grew louder.
The huge guns frightened the children. Their nervous expressions tugged at the teacher's heart and she raised her hands non-threateningly and stepped away from the child she'd been comforting, "It's-it's okay, it's dead!"
Her voice was broadcast from the audio feeds of the response team to the tablet in Dr Molay's hands. An earpiece projected the sound clearly over the whirring blades of the chopper as it circled and scouted for a secure location to land.
Dr Molay's brows furrowed. The visual feed from the response team's helmets showed a dozen or so teenagers in matching clothes and a young woman, likely a teacher. They were unimportant. The corpse on the ground with the park ranger uniform was more significant.
A runaway experiment from Dr Splice's labatory, even a crudely fashioned one out in the woods, wasn't something that could be killed without serious firepower. None of the civillians had a gun and the small knives some of them clutched were only capable of whittling a stick to toast marshmallows.
The soldier's weapons spun to one side. The bushes just beyond the small clearing rustled. The response team prepared to engage the enemy.
Alex emerged from the trees. His hands were raised peacefully above his head. He was splattered head to toe in black-tinged blood. The smell of decay was sickening. Shards of bone and torn apart organs were interspersed in his brown hair.
The processing systems in the response teams' helmets chimed in unison. Without question they slowly advanced, their stances were low and their weapons hummed. Two stayed behind to secure the civillian group, the rest headed into the bushes.
Dr Molay's earpiece crackled and a soldier's voice poured into her ear, "It's dead. Multiple bullet wounds and serious blunt force trauma."
The helicopter touched down gently on the earth. Dr Molay stepped out and walked unhurriedly towards the location of the response team. Despite her calmness, her left hand subconsiously moved to feel for the gun at her hip.
The threat had been handled. The GDA soldiers switched from combative to support. Analytical devices emerged from their pockets and they began scanning the hybrid's corpse. The data was transmitted like eveything else to Dr Molay's tablet.
The two soldiers stationed with the civillian group drew out first aid kits, "Is anyone injured?"
"My-my ankle hurts." A child said weakly.
The other children voiced their own injuries. They'd encountered the beast on the trail and ran through the trees to arrive at the clearing. Their arms and faces were cut by the branches.
The GDA soldier cracked open a vial of irrigation solution to apply to the face of the child who'd spoken first. A cut ran dangerously close to his eye. The adrenaline in the child's body was still muting the pain, he didn't seem aware of the nearly two inch long wound.
The child suddenly raised his hands and grabbed the soldier's arm, stopping him from pouring out the solution, "But-but his arm!"
The other children looked to the man who'd saved them and nodded rapidly, their young voices urged the soldiers to treat him first.
Alex didn't particularly like the attention he was suddenly recieving. He'd always preferred to be out of the limelight. He unwrapped the towel he'd tied around his arm and pulled up his sleeve. Without the towel exerting pressure on the wound, the puncture marks from the hybrid's teeth began to bleed.
His torso had several gashes from the creature's claws as well. The scratches ranged from superficial to half an inch deep.
One soldier advanced to Alex. He spoke in a calm but authoritative, "I'm going to take off your jacket to look at your wounds."
A sharp blade emerged from the soldier's wrist. He cut through the civillian's coat easily. Neatly cut pieces of fabric fell to the floor. The soldier then tugged at Alex's shirt, pulling it away from the skin and cutting it away from his body as well.
The stares of the teenage girls in the class heated up. The washboard abs and defined muscles of the stranger who'd saved them looked like those they saw on actors in movies and rom-coms. Some of the boys looked down at their own scrawny and hairless chests and felt envious.
The class teacher blinked repeatedly. She looked at the man who'd saved her and her students a little more closely. Alex's gradual weight loss plan had finished months ago. The composition of his body was almost entirely muscle, the pockets of fat stored for energy-release were hidden deeper beneath the skin.
Alex had always been handsome. Not devestatingly so, but always pleasant to look at. He'd had a girlfriend for a few months in high school and recieved love letters when he played for the school football team.
The thought of using his powers to alter his facial features had always disgusted him. The reduction in fat throughout his body sharpened his jawline and slimmed down his face a little. That was a natural process he could've achieved through diet and exercise. He'd simply used his powers to do the hard work for him.
Alex's jawline was sharp. Short messy brown fell across his forehead. His deep mahogany eyes screamed self-assurance.
Scenarios of the hero saving the damsel in distress flashed through the teacher's mind. She quietly checked her reflection in her phone, pouting slightly when she noticed the dirt in her hair and on her cheeks. She was an adult, she knew that rom-coms where make believe, but that didn't prevent her mind from wandering to what could be.
Alex was completely unware of the numerous fantasies he was starring in. He was focused on the liquids the soldiers were pouring onto his wounds. The GDA used technology that the public had never seen, the fast-acting haemostatic agent shown to them in Dr Molay's video opened Alex's eyes to the titanic resources the international agency had at their disposal.
The soldier handed Alex a small crystalline tablet, "Eat. I'm going to apply a drug that'll speed up your body's healing. You've got plenty of wounds, but you're in good shape and blood loss is within range. The tablet's condensed glucose, it'll provide the tissue-repair accelerant the energy it needs."
Alex swallowed the tablet without hesitation. The soldier nodded and uncorked a vial of red liquid. It stung painfully as it came into contact with Alex's skin.
Too late Alex realised that he'd forgotten to change his facial expressions to those of someone experiencing simultanous healing and cauterisation. Months of practice with his powers had raised his pain tolerance to a level no weaker than that of a special-forces agent.
The GDA soldier's helmet scanned Alex's impassive expression. For an instant the system flagged up the unnatural behaviour. Then the AI calculated the possible levels of adrenaline in the civillian's system and deemed improved pain tolerance within statistical possibility. The flags within the system lowered, the AI's gargantuan processing engine left behind no logs they'd ever existed.
The wound beds of the puncture marks on his arms squirmed like living things. The flesh began to granulate immediately. Alex eagerly used his powers to record the sensations and capture the hundreds of complex biological processes taking place in the tissue.
The wounds healed visibly with every passing second. The sugary tablet in Alex's mouth had dissolved the second it hit his tongue. He could percieve the incredible surge in his blood sugar levels rapidly levelling off as the medicine worked.
Alex forced himself to not smile. His harvest from the GDA's technology was immense. With enough practice he'd be able to apply the principles behind the rapid healing agent to another human being.
He'd had nightmares about recieving calls to say his parents had been hospitalised in the aftermath of a villain's attack. The fast-acting healing agent promised a future where he could heal freely repair acute injuries to his loved ones.
The GDA had carefully thought out and extensively tested the efficacy and safety of the medicine, now he benefitted from their work.
The unique crystalline structure of the pill was also an incredible discovery. It's efficiency at storing energy per microgram was leagues above his own modified fat deposits.
"Alert us if you experience any sudden pain or difficulty breathing." The soldier informed him.
The children still required treatment. The soldier nodded to Alex and turned to bandage a child's scratched arm.
The class's teacher, Taylor took a deep breath. She straightened her back and walked over to Alex, "Thank you- or saving us. The ranger, he tried but-"
The sentence trailed off. Her eyes flicked to the dead body. The soldiers had covered it with a white sheet.
Alex looked up from the fascinating recovery taking place on his arms and chest. He met the teacher's gaze and smiled kindly, "I only came because I heard your voice. You saved your own life too, and the kids."
Taylor sighed heavily and let her head tilt back. She stared up at the blue skies, "My mum always said I had a big voice."
Alex laughed and nodded, "Best kind."
The cheerful and friendly attitude of the stranger who'd saved her made the knots in Taylor's chest relax. She looked back to Alex and asked curiously, "What were you doing, out here?"
Alex smiled and ran a hand through his hair. He paused for a second when he noticed his palm came out stained red.
"Same as you really, hiking." The blood didn't bother him. He'd bled hundreds of times while practicing with his powers, the distinctive colour was so familiar that it was gradually becoming his favourite colour.
Taylor nodded and then laughed, "I've watched you shoot that-that thing, but I don't know your name."
Alex glanced back to the forest. The fight between man and beast had ended under the cover of the broad redwoods. He was glad that the foliage and branches had blocked the children from seeing him smash the beast's skull over and over. For all the medicines and diseases he could name and the incredible things his powers could do, he knew that between those trees he'd lost himself in the violence.
The right kind of pressure could tear away the civility in a person's heart. Modern society revolved around laws and rules. When the veil of stability was lifted, something great and primal was laid bare.
The memories of what had taken place just out of sight were pushed to the back of his mind. He smiled, "I'm Alex."
There was something about Alex's smile that made Taylor's toes curl, "Taylor!"
Her lips had moved without her brain telling them to. The word had come out loud and passionate. She screamed inside and forced herself to move past it.
Taylor started to speak, hoping that Alex hadn"I'm not even a teacher, not really. I'm a student, at the university. Their actual teacher's on the minibus, her stomach was acting up and she didn't want to get off, but the kids were so keen so-."
Her face changed suddenly, "Oh god I'm going to be in so much trouble. This was only a placement for a week. Shit-shit-shit!"
Alex looked at the ground and smiled. There was nothing funny about Taylor's worries, but he found her cursing exceptionally cute.
"Can't exactly predict you're gonna be attacked by a zombie-wolf-thing." He said. He turned his head to the GDA agents providing first aid to the children.
His gaze lingered on the huge guns holstered on the backs of the GDA agents, "And I don't think the school will give you a hard time, not after those guys have spoken to them."
The GDA's reputation was flawless. Civillians injured or killed in villain attacks recieved the best quality of medical treatment, including stays in hidden GDA medical facilities and generous renumeration.
Every few weeks a news channel would run a headline of an executive in a smart-suit beind dragged off by GDA agents and fined or imprisoned for attempting to dock the pay of an injured worker.
The GDA wanted their image to be perfect. An organization that spanned the entire globe and superceded every government got what it wanted.
Taylor followed Alex's gaze to the agent's gun. She took a long breath out and nodded, "Yeah, they don't seem like the type you argue with."
The conversation lulled. Alex cleared his throat and broke it, "So, you're at the university of Michigan?"
Taylor smiled, Alex had been the one to keep the conversation going, that was good, "Yeah, first year of my teaching degree. Three more to go!"
Alex smiled, an emotion he couldn't place bubbled up in his chest, "Teaching, nice, I could never. Kids can-"
A cold and clipped voice interrupted, "On behalf of the GDA I would like to apologise for the emotional and physical trauma you have sustained. A pick-up vehicle is on its way, you will be transported to your homes and our teams will be in touch to offer support."
Alex recognised the woman immediately. Dr Molay.
The senior GDA agent addressed the children seperately. She informed them that a team would explain to their parents what had happened.
She paused for a moment before adding in an unchanged cold tone, "You are not to publicise this incident on social media. You may tell your parents only. Your phone activity will be monitored until an appropriate time to ensure that confidentiality is upheld."
The children listened with wide-eyes. The authority in Dr Molay's tone made them listen and nod obediently.
The senior agent glanced at the white sheet covering the dead body. Then she looked to the two civillian adults on the scene.
The tablet in her hand buzzed and flashed. The colours on the screen suggested urgency. Dr Molay ignored it momentarily and stared at the male civillian. Her mind worked rapidly.
"Hello again, student."