Program: Superhuman *ON HOLD*

Chapter 10: Program: Superhuman

To the right, there were stairs descending into a more open space that had the same metal covering. Two women ascended the stairs. One, I recognized to be Gale. The other, though, I guessed was the "Timber," Forge was talking about earlier. But I did not expect her to look that.

Timber was tall with a slender, yet muscular build. Her eyes were large and brownish amber, with slits for pupils. Her hair was auburn and curly, falling past her shoulders. She wore yoga pants, and a black tank top.

But that's when things got weird.

Her skin was tan, but tinted dark red. The nails on her fingers were long and sharp, the color of black. They looked strong, too, as if claws. Her ears were even stranger; they looked like a fox's. They were large and pointed, with reddish orange fur lining the entire backside of them. And then finally the creepiest part: she had a tail. It was bushy, and the color of a dark reddish orange. A little bit of black fur dotted around it, but at the tip, it was completely white. It wound her left leg.

"Willow, Arden, meet Timber Anne Grace," Uncle Forge said as he made his way to the swivel chair.

Both Gale and Timber had reached the top of the stairs. Timber crossed her arms over her chest and gazed at my brother and me critically.

"Uncle Forge..." I said after he had sat down. I gazed at him, trying to hide the fear and confusion I felt. "What the heck is going on?"

"It's a really long story," Gale said, grabbing two chairs by the one of the walls and sitting them in front of Uncle Forge. "You probably want to sit down."

I looked back to Arden, who was gazing around the place with wide eyes. He hadn't said a thing since entering the building and it was starting to worry me. When he looked back to me, he shrugged. With a deep breath, I did as Gale suggested and seated myself in front of Uncle Forge. Arden did the same. Macy hopped on top of the small desk area below the computer on the left side. Timber did the same thing on the right side, but curled up like a cat instead, gazing at my brother and me with narrowed eyes. Caspar took a place next to her, crossing his arms and leaning against the desk. Gale stood behind us.

"Can we please just get to the explaining part now?" I asked impatiently.

Uncle Forge nodded, resting his hands on his knees. "You two must be pretty confused."

I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms. "That doesn't even begin to cover it."

"When Caspar said you saw him inside the fire, we figured you would recognize him," he began.

"So he is the Silhouette," I said, gazing at the other man.

He shrugged. "Guilty."

"How...?" I asked, gazing back to my uncle.

"Well... if you want the whole answer, I'll have to start at the beginning. Get comfortable. This might take a while.

"It was a while ago, probably over twenty-five years. The government started a project they called Program: Superhuman. They kidnapped dozens of people and experimented on them. Several people died in the early stages, but as they continued, the scientists came upon more and more ways to give ordinary people powers. The goal was for them to create a team of superhumans controlled by the government that could beat the criminals normal human beings never could.

"PS, they were called for short. They mainly kidnapped orphans, but still took adults when they wanted to. As years went by, the organization became more and more secretive, up to the point where only a few selective people in power in the government knew about it. Not even the president was informed. But, when we received a new one, he somehow learned of PS. The program was finally shut down. In an effort to let the kidnapped people have a normal life, without a scarred past, he had the peoples' memories erased, as well as their powers suppressed. The first few attempts caused unfortunate deaths, but afterwards, the memory-erasing project was a success, as was the power suppression. The people that went through these processes were set free.