Reanimated Intelligence

Prologue Pt.1 - 52 Years Ago

Sulley strutted down the corridor, his reflection shining off of the marble walls, his M16 assault rifle primed and ready to face any last ditch defense, a devlish smirk on his face, he knew they were winning.

"This exercise has been too easy, it's just this last room beyond the door and we're done!"

"Don't get cocky Sulley," cautioned Vasquez, a steady frown carved across his dark brow. "you know they'll always throw something unexpected into the mix, we've only had one squad to deal with so far. Something bad is beyond that door."

Sulley acknowledged this, he knew Vasquez was right.

"Ok, standard dual formation, flash the room and blitz it?" suggested Vasquez.

Sulley nodded.

Positioned at the door he primed a frag and was about to latch it to the handle, they had to blow the lock to access the room and achieve their objective. Just as he was putting the grenade into position he felt a wisp of air from beyond the thick steel, the door was unlocked! He stashed the grenade and signalled for Vasquez to move up.

"Ready?"

3-2-1...

"FLASH OUT!"

There was a terrifyingly blinding explosion as the flash bang went off, a second later Sulley and Vasquez burst beyond the door diving immediately in opposite directions to lay down the best possible cover fire for each other!

"Hold!" shouted Vasquez! "The room's empty!"

Sulley looked up, a confused look on his stubbled face "What?!" he wasn't convinced. This, their final exercise at their Longmoor base before shipping to black ops and they're being given an easy ride? Something doesn't add up!

"Lock the door we don't want any unwanted guests, then clear down the room." Vasquez had given the order, Sulley was happy to be given freedom to roam. He could follow orders but was unhappy playing second fiddle to someone with only six months more experience than he.

There were papers, documents spread everywhere, something had been packed in a hurry. There was nobody left for the two man team to face, this must be a different kind test.

There must be a clue.

Vasquez was across the room searching a strong, silver filing cabinet, it was full of yellowed papers the same as the rest of the room was covered in. Personnel records.

"Hutch, Stephens, Hooper, these are all men from my boot camp!" stated Vasquez.

Sulley recognised the names, he had paired with all of them on previous dual training exercises while being prepped for black ops.

Sulley made his way over to another large cabinet, he opened it, only one drawer had any contents and it wasn't even half filled.

"More personnel by the looks of it, Jake Robins, Lucy Tomkins, Steven Parker!"

Vasquez registered the names. "Lucy Tomkins?" He took the file from Sulley. "She's nothing to do with the military, she's part of bio-research over in Washington according to the file. What's she doing over here with us?"

"2 MINUTES REMAINING!"

"What the hell was that?!" Sulley had never had a countdown on his previous exercises, this was definitely different.

Sulley's stomach tied itself into a knot, he had 2 minutes left of his Marine training and unless he could find what was required he wouldn't make black ops, something he'd worked towards for the last 3 years!

"Vas, hurry! There has to be something here!"

They each rushed, needing to skim what must have been over 100 files. Nothing"

"Black ops specialist, bio-researcher, explosives expert, biological distribution specialist! Who are these people and what does this whole thing have to do with them!?"

"90 SECONDS REMAINING!"

Sulley registered it first, "The voice! It's computer generated it must be coming from the laptop on the workbench!"

Vasquez dashed from one side of the vault-like room to the other, they had to access the laptop, it was the key! He slipped on the papers he had discarded earlier but managed to maintain his footing, he reached the small silver notebook and activated it.

The screen saver disappeared.

78, 77, 76, 75, 74...

It was ticking.

"What the hell is going on Vasquez?!"

There was hesitation in his voice, his forehead had clammed up, sweat dripping down and saturating his trimmed black beard "It's...it's a bomb. It's on a timer, we have..."

"1 MINUTE REMAINING!"

"Sulley get over here, we need to disarm it now!"

"Vas it's not gonna be real, it's an exercise! I'm no bloody bomb tech!"

"We need this to get black ops, TRY!"

BANG

Sulley and Vasquez reeled around M16's at the ready, the door they had come through no more than 5 minutes earlier blew open in a rage of fire! People were pouring in! Was this the true exercise?! Were Sulley and Vasquez supposed to hold these men off and allow the bomb to detonate?!

"Mirrors edge!" yelled the first newcomer! "Get out of the way, bomb squad!"

"What?" Sulley and Vasquez both said in unison, dropping their heavy weapons to their sides, terror on their faces.

Mirrors edge was the code-word. The one phrase that should anyone utter it the exercise is immediately terminated.

The bomb wasn't an exercise, it was real.

"30 SECONDS REMAINING!"

Three new men pushed towards the laptop, they were in bio suits. "Leave now, you need to get out of here, you need to get to safe distance, get a suit on!"

Sulley didn't need telling twice, he spun on his heel and he sprinted, he sprinted like he never knew he could! Within 10 seconds he had passed their previous 2 exercise rooms, full of bullet-riddled, machine driven corpses and was in the safe room they had occupied at the start of the routine, here he found a bio suit, left by the bomb team. He hurriedly put it on, he couldn't reach the zipper at the back, he was panicking, beads of sweat dripping down his brow to the tip of his nose, he struggled more and more and he caught the zipper...

BOOM

A wave of heat made it's way through the bunker.

The United States Marine Corp, had just detonated a biological weapon within 50 miles of London, England.