Diamonds in the Dark

𝓓.𝓲.𝓽.𝓓 ▰Chapter 32▰

▰DALE'S POV▰

What I find in the DNA of the Zenith Alphas is not something I expected nor wanted to find. Ace and Jose stand guard to make sure none of them wakeup while I'm running all the diagnostics on them. They know something is up but they don't ask – letting me concentrate on the task at hand.

However, the stats are irrevocably... understated.

And bad news.

For us.

There is nothing wrong with Wade, Irving, Micha and Terrell. Aside from some alterations – improvements, tweaks and modifications... all within their gene code. The catastrophe of the first apocalypse outlawed experimentation with DNA inserts ever again – aside from the illegality of DynaPrism creating us – a squad of ULTIMATES/ULTIMA beings.

The Zenith names are printed in their altered DNA.

Wade Zenith, Irving Zenith, Micha Zenith, Terrell Zenith.

That wasn't a good sign – it was a tagging system – one I thought of a long time ago, but I never wrote it down.

Their genes are altered by a chemical I created, a mod of S.P.A.N.K.Y dust, decades ago. This was the problem. No one knew about my equations or ideas or experiments. I never tested the stuff – I just created it, within my mind, knowing the consequences.

It was never to be used. It was never to be written down. They were daydreams at most.

Quite literally, no one knew these equations.

And only I knew these modification procedures – things that have never been practiced before.

There lay my answer.

Only one being on the entire planet, besides myself, had my brain code and my memories... and my daydreams.

Kane, my 100% synthetic robotic clone, the leader of REIGN and totalitarian President of Avalon. I was flesh, bone and blood – no part of me was metal. That was where Kane and I were different.

The Zenith Alphas... now, they weren't robots – but the kill switch was certainly new into their systems. That was the only thing mechanically inserted into their brains. A volt surge that cut their consciousness off – something I had never thought of, but Kane certainly did, attaching it to their brain stems.

It's easy to remove, so I make small incisions and I take them out so Kane can't control them.

I'm helping men I despise, but more than that, I don't like this new development – because the plot of these Zeniths wasn't a small unknown anymore – it was unthinkably large, beyond what a human being would do – and more on the level of city wide experimentation.

Now, I don't want these soldiers in my lab. Not for too long anyway. There was a danger in keeping them too close – because I wasn't meant to know of these mods. I would have never bothered to experiment on the Zeniths – I would have killed them straight up first chance I got if it wasn't for Ariel's assessment.

"Get ready to throw them out of here," I murmur to Ace and Jose – and they lean up off the walls, confused.

"Boss –? You already done?" Jose questions me.

"Just do what I say," I glance up to both of them, "They're waking up soon... I want them out of here, preferably sooner rather than later. I'll explain why after."

"But they were trying to poison the city earlier today," Jose comes over to me, grabbing my shoulder, "Are you losing your nerve, Dale... are you okay? We can handle them in close proximity."