Eve of Destruction (c) 
Chapter Three 
By Fiction Writer #13 
(nosex, sci-fi, paranormal, implied: M/g, incest, preteen, 
grandfather, granddaughter)

Dr. Reed spent the hour before his meeting with Malcolm sifting through 
a ton of paperwork that had piled up on his desk since the morning 
animal fiasco had begun.  He would have preferred pouring his time into 
the newly unlocked files on his computer.  He wanted to have a leg up 
on his subordinates when he finally did inform them of all he had just 
learned.

'It's real... all real.  Every stupid horror story I've ever heard.  It's all real.' 
He still couldn't wrap his mind around the whole startling truth of it.  It 
didn't feel right; it felt like some practical joke was being played on him.  
It felt like he was back in high school and the jocks were having one over 
on him.

'He could have at least told me something before now. Something so 
that the little show he put on didn't take me completely by surprise.'

Before he knew it the time had come for him to head down to Malcolm's 
labs, not too far from his own, but the new security checks would slow 
him down.  After calling an impromptu meeting between his project 
leaders to inform them of the security lock down and new protocols, he 
casually exited his lab.  What he wanted to do was run at a mad dash, 
kick in Mal's door, and demand to know what the fuck was going on, but 
that would have drawn too much attention.  So he walked.

Surprisingly, Mal had passed on the fact that Dr. Reed would be joining 
him, to all of the security officers now stationed on the route to his labs.  
A few flashes of his ID card, two palm scans, and one retinal scan, was 
all that was required of him as he made his way to Mal's office door.  He 
actually arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule and was going to wait 
outside side until the proper time, but since he found Mal's door open, he 
walked right in.

"Mal, I hope you don't mind me just coming in like this, but..." Allen 
stopped when he realized that he was speaking to an empty room.

Mal's office was as it always was, a perfect example of order.  
Everything was neatly stacked, filed, or shelved.  Even his waste basket 
looked orderly.  Allen gave a little chuckle; his office was the exact 
opposite of Mal's at the moment.

Pulling one of the two leather chairs out from Mal's desk, Allen took a 
seat and decided to wait for Mal to come back.  The time off his feet and 
away from the chaos of his own department would do wonders for his 
spirits.  He'd been working so hard to prove to everyone that he could be 
a Project Head that he had almost forgotten why he'd been drawn to 
Project Phoenix to begin with.

'The pursuit of knowledge without restriction or persecution, for the 
betterment and protection of the United States of America and, 
ultimately, the entire world.'

Allen knew that line by heart. It had been the first line of the charter 
Malcolm had presented to him on his graduation day from Harvard 
Medical School.  That day changed his life, and in a way, the young man 
who left that commencement ceremony was never seen again in the 
scientific community.

His disappearance went largely unnoticed.  Allen had no living family, at 
least none that he knew of.  His parents passed away in a plane crash 
just before he had gone off to school.  It was at the funeral that he first 
met Malcolm Whelan.

Mal had taken him aside and promised him that he would be taken care 
of, that his tuition to Harvard had already been paid in full, as well as any 
other required materials for his education.  When Allen had asked him 
who he was, Mal replied that he was simply a friend of his parents, and 
that he was keeping a promise that he made to them a long time ago.

Malcolm never gave any more details than that, and Allen hadn't 
pressed the issue any further.  Harvard had been Allen's dream school, 
but his parents had no way of paying his tuition.  Malcolm had stepped 
up and saved his dream from dying.

For that reason, when Mal brought up Project Phoenix and it's many 
sacrifices that had to be made, Allen had accepted without a second 
thought.  Malcolm may have been Allen's senior by only ten years, but to 
him Mal was the closest thing to a father that he had left.

Today wasn't the only time he had been shocked while working in the 
labs.  The first time he had been given a tour of the old facility he nearly 
fainted.  All he'd been told of Malcolm's project was that he was working 
on a study of human sexuality and bio-chemical releases during 
heightened stimulus.

It sounded very straightforward and basic on paper, but what Allen 
witnessed those first few days both sickened and excited him in ways he 
never thought possible.  It took the better part of a decade before Allen 
could honestly say that he had seen it all and was no longer fazed by 
Malcolm's experiments.

The stuff involving children still made his blood run cold, though.  He 
could take the incest, bestiality, sado/masochists, homo, bi, and hetero 
sex so long as it involved adults, but kids still didn't sit right with him.

The first time he witnessed an act of sexual union between an adult 
male and a female child he nearly broke through the observation room 
glass and beat the shit out of the man involved.  Mal had stopped him 
and took him aside to try and explain why it was necessary, but Allen 
had been in no mood to listen.  For two years Allen avoided all but the 
most basic of conversations with Mal, and rarely involved himself with 
anything in the lab that required documenting living experiments.

It was during that period that Allen had become interested in the MERI 
device.  MERI stood for Memory Erasure Recovery Implantation and 
was considered a failed project until Dr. Reed began to tinker around 
with it.  Now it was considered one of Project Phoenix's shining 
achievements.

No one was really sure who approached whom to talk first, but it wasn't 
long after the MERI device went online that Allen and Mal had put aside 
their differences.  Mal brought Allen in on his own little pet project, one 
Mal's father had begun years before but had been cut from the budget.  
Allen worked on that project up until last year when Malcolm declared 
that phase one was completed and shut down the old labs for good.

Even though Allen worked side by side with Mal for close to two decades 
on the RBC Factor, he still had no idea of what it actually was.  All he 
currently knew was that it involved genetic markers in DNA and an odd 
chemical that was released in the subject's blood stream during times of 
stress or heightened emotions.

Allen still had no clue as to what it all meant, but he was pretty sure he 
got a taste of it this morning when Mal's grand-daughter passed through 
a clear steel wall and then disappeared before his very eyes, not to 
mention how she seemed to be able to control those giant bugs.  Still, 
there was more to this story than Mal had told him, and now he wanted 
some answers.

Mal's office had three doors.  The first led back to the corridor down 
which Allen had just traveled.  The second led directly into Mal's labs, a 
sprawling maze of observation rooms, passageways, computer banks, 
specialized equipment, medical tables and labs, chemical analyzers, and 
more.  The third and final door led to Mal's living quarters on the base.  
Allen had never been invited back there, but he assumed that his own 
private space was identical in layout.

Much of the building had a cookie-cutter feel to it, it was part of its 
security system.  If you didn't know exactly where you were heading 
when you set out, you could easily get lost, since everything looked the 
same.  Some of the scientist jokingly referred to this design as the 
"suburban New Jersey style of disorientation", an ingenious way to keep 
residents of that state trapped within their own borders.  Having grown 
up in Voorhees New Jersey, Allen got the joke, but didn't think it was that 
funny.

Allen peered at his watch just as the minute hand moved to point at the 
Roman numeral for twelve.  As if on cue, the door to Mal's room slid 
open and little Eve came running out.

"Uncle Allen!  Uncle Allen!" The naked child jumped up into his lap and 
gave him a peck on his cheek. "Did I do good today?  Were ya scared?"

Reed smiled down at the little bundle of energy wiggling on his thigh.  
Eve had only been here a year but the eleven year old had stolen his 
heart. 

"Yes, sweet pea, I was really scared."

"It was lotsa fun!  Specially when everybody jumped!"

Allen giggled, "I was one of them!"

"I know!  I saw your eyes get real big like they was gonna pop out!" she 
beamed her beautiful smile at him.

At first Allen was uncomfortable around Eve, especially with her being 
nude all the time.  But as the months passed he grew to accept that she 
wanted to be this way.  She couldn't stand being restricted by clothing, 
and was comfortable with her just developing body.

"Could you always do those things, sweetie?" Allen asked as she 
nuzzled against his shoulder.

"Nuh-uh." She shook her head, sending her hair whipping back and 
forth. "Only since a few months ago.  Grampa took me to see some 
special teachers and they taught me real good.  Now I can do lotsa 
stuff."

"Really?" Allen moved his hand to her exposed tummy aiming for her 
belly button and began tickling her. "Like what?"

"Ha!  HA!  Stop It!  Stop It!  Ha!  Donnn... Don't tickle!  Me!  HA!  HEE!  
Stop... stop... stop... Hee!" She writhed and squirmed as his hand 
assaulted her most ticklish spots.  Even after he relented she still 
continued to giggle and squirm while trying to avoid his hand which she 
was convinced was going to attack again at any moment.

"Eve, are you bothering Dr. Reed?" Mal asked as he entered his office.

"Hee hee... no... No Grampa.  He's just... just tickling me again," she 
panted.

Mal stepped up to the two of them and plucked the little girl off of Allen's 
lap. "Why don't you go and show Uncle Allen all of your teddy bears?"

"Really?" Eve asked as her legs dangled in the air.

"Really." Mal set her down and gave Allen a wink and a small smile. "I'm 
sure he would love to meet them."

"I'd be honored." Allen stood up, brushing the wrinkles out of his khaki 
pants.  When his hand felt a wet spot where Eve had been sitting just 
moments before, he shook his head.  He knew that Mal and Eve had 
been sharing a bed since she had been brought here, but Mal had been 
pretty good at not throwing it up in Allen's face.  He'd remembered how 
Allen felt about such couplings and didn't want to do anything to 
jeopardize their friendship.

Now, with his hand sticky with Mal's cum and Eve's juices, Allen was 
surprised to find that it didn't bother him.  He simply wiped his hand dry 
on his other pant leg, smirked at Mal, and then followed as Eve led him 
by his hand into her and Mal's home.

On his way past his friend, Mal put a hand on his shoulder and spoke 
quietly, "We have a lot to talk about, but not here."

Allen nodded and was about to respond when Eve yanked on his hand.

"Come on, Uncle Allen!  I want to show you all of them!  Come on!  
Come on!" she ordered as she dragged him through the door way.

Allen didn't even get a chance to check out how Mal decorated his 
space.  Little Eve pulled him with such force that if he had stopped to 
look around, he was sure that he'd be yanked off of his feet.  After 
passing through a narrow hallway flanked on both sides with closed 
doors, he found himself standing in a room that could have been in any 
home in the United States in which a young girl lived.

Allen was taken aback by the surprising contrast of decor.  Passing from 
the starkness of the base into this candy colored bedroom made his 
head spin.  Flowers, butterflies, ponies, dolls, lace and frilly things, 
covered every inch from the pink carpet up to the rainbow adorned 
ceiling.  In the middle of the room sat a four poster bed draped with 
gauzy fabric and a multitude of pillows.  Amongst those pillows lounged 
a dozen or so teddy bears, each completely different from the other.

"Come and see!  Come and see!" Eve released her grip and dashed for 
the bed, pausing only to part the flimsy fabric before leaping upon her 
covers.

"You have a very pretty room, Eve." Allen complimented her sugary 
sweet abode as he moved to join her.  Before he had time to sink into 
the softness of her mattress she had thrust a dark brown bear into his 
arms.

"This one's named Roberto, and this one's..." a polar bear landed in his 
lap, "... named Rob, and this one's named..." a black bear, "... Bob, and 
this one's..." light brown, "... Robert, and this one's..." long fur and tan, 
"... Robbie... and Bobby... and Robinson... and Roberta... and Bobbi..."

"Didn't you already have one named that?" Allen asked, holding up the 
purple furred bear wearing a hat.

"No, this one's a girl bear.  Her name ends with an 'i'," she smiled, taking 
the pile of teddies away one at a time and putting them back from where 
she had plucked them.

Allen looked up to find Mal standing in the doorway with his arms folded 
across his chest.  Allen gave him a confused look and Mal came over 
and spoke. "We'll talk about that in a minute.  Eve, could you give Uncle 
Allen and me a moment alone, please?"

"Sure Grampa, I gotta take a shower anyway." Eve bounced off the bed 
and padded out of her room, closing the door behind her.

"Every single one." Mal shook his head. "Every damn one of 'em she 
names Rob or some derivative of it."

"How long has this been going on for?" Allen pointed at the pile of soft 
cuddly animals.

"Ever since Reynolds brought her the first one over a year ago.  At first I 
thought it was just a random coincidence so I didn't bother to react, but 
then the second one, the third, fourth... all of them for that matter."

"Does she remember?"

"I don't think so, she hasn't said anything to me, and she would have no 
reason to hide something like that from me.  I think it might just be an 
anomaly.  A little hiccup in the system maybe." Mal scratched his head.

"The MERI device was never meant to erase an entire lifetime of 
memories." Allen stood up and faced his friend. "It's possible that 
something might have eluded the process, but it doesn't seem like this 
will develop into a problem if it hasn't happened already."

"That was my prognosis as well.  In fact, I think it has actually helped her 
some."

"The nightmares?"

"Yeah.  She still wakes up every night, but at least the screaming has 
stopped."

"That's good.  I was afraid that maybe we had erased too much from her 
mind, and the nightmares were a side-effect of that."

"So long as she doesn't remember her old self, everything should 
continue to go smoothly.  Speaking of which, I'm sure you have a lot of 
questions, I can answer them now if you'd like?"

"What?  No magic rocks or mystery crystals?" Allen smirked.

"No, not in here.  I've placed wards against any unwanted eyes and ears 
in this room.  It's safe to talk freely." Mal smiled, ignoring the sarcasm in 
Allen's question.

Allen sat back down on the puffy bed, batting away the netting that 
wrapped around him. "Where should I begin?"

Mal pulled Eve's chair from her desk littered with various crafts and took 
a seat. "I'll tell you what, let me tell you what my father told me when first 
brought me into this mess."

Allen smiled to himself as Mal settled into a comfortable position on the 
much lower seat before him.  Mal still felt like a father figure to him, even 
after all these years, and now he was going to pass on a tale that his 
own father had once told to him.  Father to son.

"How about I start with some theoretical science that isn't a theory any 
longer?  That will make this easier for you to understand, I think.  At 
least it helped me, but I have to warn you, some of what I'm about to tell 
you is highly contested around here.  It's the reason the council doesn't 
see eye to eye with me, but it's the truth, and I owe you that much after 
everything you've done for me."

"At this point, Mal..." Allen shook his head, "I think I could use some 
truth."

"Good.  Here it goes, forgive me if I ramble a bit, it's been a while since 
I've had to explain everything.  You're familiar with the Big Bang, 
correct?"

"Boy, when you say the beginning you mean it," Allen chuckled. "Yeah, I 
know about it."

"Everything, the entire universe, was once compressed into a single 
point, a singularity.  Something happened and all of that energy was 
released, creating everything that we know.  The universe has been 
expanding outward from that point ever since.  What you may not know, 
is that the universe will some day reach a point where it will no longer 
continue to expand.  In fact, once the energy of the expansion becomes 
weaker than the force trying to draw it back, it will collapse in on itself 
and become a single point once again."

Allen chimed in, "Why wouldn't it just keep expanding?"

"Think of our reality like a balloon.  You blow air in and it expands, but 
once the latex stretches as far as it can go you only have two options.  
Continue adding air until it bursts, or release the air and let it deflate.  
That's what's going to happen with our universe, it is going to deflate."

"What's this force that's drawing us back?" Allen asked.

"Believe it or not, it's gravity."

"But, gravity is such a weak force.  How could it possibly overcome the 
velocity of the entire universe?"

"Good question.  That leads me to the next part of this tale.  The 
strength of gravity is directly proportional to the density of an object.  
More mass equals stronger gravity.  Now, imagine just how much mass 
our universe contains.  Imagine all of that mass squeezed down to a 
single point in space.  How much gravity do you think that would 
produce?"

Allen stroked his chin. "You're speaking of the time before the big bang 
again, aren't you?"

Mal nodded yes.

"In that case I would guess it would be an incredible amount of force, but 
with no universe around to affect, it wouldn't matter."

"Not to the single point universe..." Mal grinned, "... but to the expanding 
universe parallel to that one I would imagine it would be quite difficult to 
fight against."

Allen's head popped up. "A parallel universe?"

"Yes, like two sides of the same piece of paper.  Us on one side, them 
on the other.  When one side is expanding the other is contracting.  
Once one reaches a point where it can no longer fight the force of 
shared gravity, it collapses and the process is repeated.  We call it 
Universal Oscillation, or Cosmic Wobble as some of the physics guys 
like to joke.

"Okay, time for one of my great analogies," Mal grinned. "Back to the 
balloon again, only this time picture two balloons connected end to end 
with just enough air inside to fill one of them completely.  Squeeze 
balloon 'A' and the air fills balloon 'B', squeeze balloon 'B' and the air 
rushes into balloon 'A'.  That's the model we've been using to describe 
how they interact with one another, only of course they don't exist in the 
same space so it only works if you neglect everything you know about 
dimensions.

"We believe that the junction between the two balloons, er, Universes, is 
a super-massive black hole.  The biggest black hole ever imagined.  
Think about it.  Smack dab in the center of our Universe is the most 
powerful force known to man, just waiting for us to slow down so that it 
can suck us all back in."

Mal held out his two hands, one he clenched the other he opened. "Back 
and forth, over and over again.  Creation and destruction.  Birth and 
death.  It's almost like a beating heart." Mal closed his other hand while 
opening his fist before reversing his motions.

"It begs so many questions that we just don't have answers for yet.  If 
this black hole opens into another Universe, what about all of the other 
black holes?  Do they open into other planes?  Are they strong enough 
to bridge the gap?  The center of every galaxy, even our own, contains a 
super black hole.  Are they strong enough to affect some other reality? 
The more we learn, the more we need to learn.

"Okay, sorry about that tangent.  I just get so excited about all of the 
possibilities that I tend to jump around.  You should really hear this from 
someone in the Physics Department.  Then again, they'd just go off on a 
tangent about String Theory or bore you with the mathematics of it all, so 
you're probably better off hearing it from me and my balloons." Mal 
laughed and pumped his hands open and closed a few more times 
before continuing.

"The negative space around the balloons, we call that the Void.  It's 
literally nothing.  No time, no space, nothing at all.  A complete absence 
of everything.  Remember that, it will come up again later."

Allen nodded.

"Now, okay, um..." Malcolm looked excited as he shared his knowledge 
with Allen, like he had been waiting for this very moment for years with 
the eager anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve. "Think about the 
surface of the balloons as they expand.  The latex stretches so far that 
little holes actually appear and a minute amount of air escapes.  Our 
universe does the same thing.

"As we reach the point of critical expansion, tiny openings appear in the 
fabric of our reality.  These openings, or rifts as we call them, can allow 
objects from one universe to pass into the other.  We call these natural 
rifts, and for the most part they are stable and bypass the Void 
completely.  However, there are other ways to reach the other side.

"You remember that film, the one from this morning?  The German's 
didn't know it, but they managed to open one of these rifts.  These are 
called un-natural rifts and are highly unstable.  They come in two 
varieties, complete, which bypass the Void, and incomplete, which 
opens a way into the Void.  Unfortunately it was an incomplete rift that 
they opened, and it allowed something from the Void to pass through 
into our universe."

"Wait Mal," Allen interrupted. "You said the Void was the absence of 
everything.  If that's true, then how could something come out of it?"

Mal waved him off. "Sorry, I'm coming to that, but for now just ignore it.  
I'm about to get to the really interesting part of all of this." Mal rubbed his 
hands together like he was trying to wring the excitement out of them. 
"You're gonna love this." 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound of water spattering against steel echoed in the tiny bathroom.  
Steam filled the small space, fogging the mirror and obscuring the clear 
reflection in a mist of water droplets.  The shower stall was empty, but 
the room was not.

Eve sat on the floor, her body dripping with the remains of her very brief 
cleaning.  Her legs were crossed over themselves in the so called 
"Indian style" of sitting.  Her hands rested on her knees, her eyes closed, 
her breathing slow and steady.  She remained perfectly still in this 
position, save for one minor movement.  Her lips moved as near silent 
words passed between them.

"... alohar... elowyn... evectmon... solistus..."

The words continued as her eyes danced behind her closed lids.  A 
slight tremor ran through her body, the only sign that the spell she had 
worked earlier had successfully been activated.  Suddenly her head was 
filled with two additional voices, male voices.

The two men were in the middle of their conversation which they 
believed was private, but Eve had to know what they were talking about.  
She was sure they were talking about her, and her curiosity wouldn't 
allow her to just let them talk in secret.

The spell was easy enough to work.  Eve's teachers had praised her 
about her growing skills manipulating the Ether.  Her grandfather had left 
his cream inside of her, her juices had mixed with them, and then she 
had spilled them upon Allen's thigh.  All that was left to do was 
concentrate on the Ether, and say the words, and then she could listen 
in as if she were in the room with them.

'No secrets, Grampa," she thought to herself as she listened to his story, 
one that she had never heard before. "You promised.  No secrets."



Continued in Chapter Four....


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