Genesis_The Dogs of War Prequel Read online

  Genesis

  J.M. Madden

  Copyright © 2018 by J.M. Madden

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by Luz at TheBookCoverDesigner.com

  Editing by MegEdits

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  I have to acknowledge my buddy Donna McDonald first. I don’t even remember what exactly we were talking about in our Panera that day, but somehow you told me about this plant that shamans used in the jungle called Ayahuasca. My mind went crazy with possibilities! It’s been a long time coming, but thank you for that!

  Meg, as always, my own personal Wonder Woman. Excellent work!

  Siobhan and Sandie, you ladies are such giving souls. I loved your feedback. This book would not be as good as it is without it. Thank you!

  I started writing the Lost and Found series way back in 2010. But I didn’t start publishing it until 2012 because I didn’t know how people would respond to heroes that weren’t perfect.

  Publishing the series was the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s brought me more satisfaction than I ever expected, and I know for a fact that it has helped some readers heal from their own real-life issues.

  Aiden has been a secondary character in several books, but I always had a plan for him. I knew where he belonged. It just took me a while to get him where he needed to be.

  I hope you enjoy Aiden’s story.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Also by J.M. Madden

  About the Author

  Afterword

  Chapter One

  If he could have opened his eyes, he would have but there was something obscuring his vision. He tried to lift his right hand but it was so heavy. Probably because he was laying on his side, curled as tightly as he could to try to conserve body heat. Even in the Brazilian jungle it was possible to be cold and hypothermic, especially if your torturers had thrown you into your cage naked after being soaked in a cesspool for hours. If he’d had more energy Aiden would have tried to do something to conserve his body heat but it was all he could do to stay conscious.

  It was up to him to stay healthy, he was told. He had the ability to heal himself of the infection eating its way through him.

  He heard noises outside but couldn’t see what it was. He didn’t know that he would even look if he could. Their ‘training regimen’ didn’t change much. At least it hadn’t over the past several weeks. It seemed like the further the program progressed the harder they tried to kill the remaining trainees.

  Wulfe’s turn was up next. The assholes were consistent, that way at least. As the trainees had fallen the circle had tightened. It used to be Calhoun, Fox and Fournier between him and Wulfe. The Frenchman, Fournier, had been a Commando Marine, the French version of a Navy SEAL. Supposedly they had one of the most difficult training regiments in the NATO Special Forces. It was ironic he had died first because he was supposed to have been the example to follow.

  He’d died from an overdose of the Ayahuasca serum, given to him by the technicians on Dr. Shu’s orders.

  If Aiden could have laughed when it happened, he would have. The fucking idiots had killed their ideal soldier.

  Calhoun, the Canadian, hadn’t lasted much longer than Fournier; they died within days of each other. Aiden wasn’t sure when Fox died, he’d just been out of the rotation one day. A few days later a body bag had been evacced out of the bush by helicopter. That was one of the conditions the countries participating in the study had insisted on. If their ‘delegates’ were compromised, they were given the body after the post-mortem so that they could take their own samples. Aiden wondered how much was actually left over by the time the powers that be were done chopping the men up. It was sickening what they did to them. All of the men in the camp had earned their place here by serving their individual countries to the best of their ability. They were the elite of the elite. And they were being killed off like dogs in the pound.

  Wulfe would be gone for a few hours or so, then taken back to his cage to recover and be monitored. There would be another seven guys to cycle through before it would be Aiden’s turn again. So, about a week and a half to recover from yesterday’s training.

  God, did he even have it in him to keep going?

  He’d been here almost four months now. Damn. It had been spring when he’d left California, traveling to Washington for a meeting with representatives of a dozen other special forces groups. There had been Navy SEALs like himself, Airborne, Green Berets and an international assortment of other badasses. It had been an impressive display of talent. Too bad half of them were dead now.

  The week slogged on. He was completely out of it for a couple of days. He remembered blinking his eyes open to see Wulfe being dragged back to his cage. He hung limp between two guards who struggled to manage the German’s bulky frame, his feet leaving lines in the dirt. Normally the sight of the big man so compromised would have depressed the fuck out of him, but he just didn’t have the energy for it.

  The third day after ‘treatment’, Aiden could tell his body was beginning to rally. When he sat up in the corner of his cage the world spun briefly, then steadied.

  The camp was quiet this early in the morning. Armed guards did their rounds and chatted, sharing cigarettes behind the officers’ shacks. The heat was almost manageable now, but he knew within just a couple of hours it would be sweltering again.

  Looking at the front of the cage he saw the oat cake that had been left for his dinner. The insects had eaten a chunk but he brushed them away and took a bite, chewing slowly. Bland as always, but he needed the nutrients in the damn thing. It was supposedly juiced with all kinds of vitamins, like a granola bar on steroids. It just didn’t taste as good. Dr. Shu had come up with the recipe, claiming that it had everything a body needed. He reached out and rattled the canteen. There might be a swig or two of water. Maybe he should save it for the heat of the day. It was his fault for not having it at the door within easy reach of the guards so that they could refill it. If the guards had to do any more work than the bare minimum, it didn’t get done.

  Screw it. He took a couple more small bites of the oat cake then a big swallow of water to wash it down. There was another sip in the bottom for later if he needed it.

  At eight o’clock, the guards he called Smoke, for his relentless addiction to cheap tobacco, and Buck for his lack of dental care, ‘escorted’ Fontana to the training facility. Aiden noticed the Navy SEAL actually seemed almost eager to go. As if he felt Aiden’s eyes on him Fontana looked up and gave him a wink, then disappeared into the concrete med center where they conducted the experiments.

  For some reason that wink put him on edge. Was Fontana going to do something crazy and suicidal? Or was he just trying to make the best of a terrible situation?

  Aiden rested for a little while— he wasn’t sure how long— then rallied his energy to get up. He rolled to his knees and used the bars on his left to brace himself as he tried to stand. The floor of the cage was a smooth piece of iron, painted with a texturizing material to keep their feet from slipping in the damp humidity. Thighs quivering more than they had in a long time, he forced himself to straighten. Then, shaking out his limbs, he moved to the pipe set in the floor, his ‘bathroom’,
and did his business. He’d gotten used to the humiliation of living like an animal.

  The accommodations for the participants left much to be desired. They were prisoners. Period. At first, they had been housed in the barracks along with the guards, but as the testing became more harsh and detrimental to their health, the men had begun to question the validity of the Spartan Project. When the first participant died, then another, and another within a couple of days, the rest had refused to continue. They’d staged a bit of a rebellion, though they were too ingrained with the military structure to do much beyond refusing to participate. That night, the guards had been quietly moved out and the rest of the men in the barracks had been drugged. Aiden assumed they’d used the ventilation system to deliver some type of airborne sedative. The next morning they’d all woken up in cages, seven feet by ten feet. And the Brazilian Army had moved in to keep control. Apparently, the eggheads in charge didn’t believe that their own security personnel were able to maintain order.

  That had been a wake-up call for all of them. They had been participants in the Spartan Project, ‘delegates’ from many countries. Now, according to one of the assistants, they were considered ‘antagonistic subjects’. Aiden had been royally pissed, but not really surprised. With the amount of clandestine activity he’d seen in the camp escalating— fences going up and more guards and mercenaries being moved in— he’d had a feeling their freedom, maybe their lives, were about to be forfeit.

  When he’d signed up for the study he’d been assured that the facility would be state of the art. And it was, to a certain extent. Aiden had been impressed when they’d first gotten here. The research buildings were equipped with every technological and medical device they could possibly need, in spite of the difficulty of getting it to the middle of the Brazilian jungle. The governments participating in the trial had all contributed a huge amount of seed money, so they had plenty of play dough. It was just too bad none of the dough was actually being spent on the care of the men.

  And while the doctors working on the project all seemed to be top-notch, the man leading the project, Dr. Edgar Shu, was a Nobel Prize winning doctor. He was world-renowned for his work with pediatric cancer. With the backing of the Silverstone Collaborative, a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company, he’d developed immunotherapies for half a dozen lethal diseases, saving thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people. He appeared to the world to be a benevolent, dedicated doctor always striving for optimal health for the world’s population. But that population didn’t see him when the maniacal light lit his eyes at an unexpected test result, or when he had a new, radical idea for a test for one of his subjects. All of the normal constraints a doctor would work under— FDA or NIH guidelines, organizational rules, Hippocratic Oath, the Geneva Convention— had flown out the window when they’d left the country. Brazil didn’t care what he did to his subjects, as long as they were paid their hush money.

  If Aiden had to listen to one more of the man’s rambling, disjointed explanations on why his work was so important to the world, because they needed soldiers that would be able to survive anything when the next war came, he would throw himself on the end of a guard’s weapon and ask to be shot. It was irritating in the extreme listening to the man explain away all of their pain and agony with a bucket of bullshit, ‘You’re helping to guarantee a better life for our world’s most important citizens.’

  Aiden took that to mean that the Collaborative would not be producing whatever they created for the general population. No, it would be for the few that could afford to purchase it. There was no way the Collaborative was doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Yes, their company founder Damon Wilkes appeared to be a philanthropist, but they’d had to make money somewhere for the company to be as big as it was. His collaboration with the governments in the Spartan Project hinted at widespread corruption. The government considered the men equipment anyway, no better than shovels, used to get a job done. There was always someone willing to benefit or profit from their use. Or abuse.

  Leaning into the far corner of the cage he craned his neck to try to see Wulfe. The big German lay curled on his side, bones poking out of his naked hips. They’d all lost weight but Wulfe seemed leaner than the rest, or maybe he just looked that way because of his size. Focusing his thoughts and energy, he gave a mental shout. Wulfe!

  Wulfe didn’t jerk but his dark head lolled till he blinked up at the ceiling. Yes.

  Aiden tried not to grin or do anything the cameras mounted in each corner of the cage would catch. Hey buddy. I was worried about you.

  I also worried. But I think I will be better soon. This sickness was not so bad.

  Though they hadn’t spoken much when they’d been in the barracks, Aiden could still hear Wulfe’s German accent strongly in his mind. Yes, I agree. Are we getting stronger or was this an easier test?

  He could just barely see Wulfe blink at the question. Not sure. Maybe both.

  When he’d first heard about the trial, he’d laughed to himself. The thought that a jungle plant could make them extraordinarily strong was pretty outrageous. But if the government was willing to spend money on it they must have something to back up their claims. The only thing shown to the subjects was a single video of an indigenous Amazon shaman running through the treetops. At first nothing had seemed off, then the camera zoomed back and they had the scope of the distances he was leaping, and the size of the trees he climbed. The brown skinned man had seemed like a real life Tarzan on steroids.

  But that two minute clip had apparently just been the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Shu had told them of other instances when Ayahuasca users had shown amazing strength and dexterity, as well as off the charts mental growth. The fervid light that shone in his eyes was enough to make Aiden wonder if it was all true.

  It had been after a particularly brutal ‘test’ that Wulfe had gone through when they’d first made the mental connection. They’d known everything they said, every look, was monitored, so Aiden had bitten his tongue and watched as they’d carried the limp form of his friend past.

  Aiden had been cursing the government and the doctors in his head, screaming inside his skin, when another voice had penetrated.

  Quiet, please, American.

  Aiden had reeled back from the bars, wondering what the hell he’d just heard. What?

  You heard me. You blame government and doctors, but you volunteered, yes? Now we deal with consequences.

  Wulfe?

  Yes! Now be quiet while I try to fix.

  He’d been stunned into silence. Even now, weeks later, he was always surprised when he received a response to his mental call. And even more disbelieving that they could carry on an actual conversation.

  Aiden had quieted his mind, though his thoughts had raced. That incident had happened several weeks ago, and they had been talking ever since. As their energy would allow anyway. It was taxing at first, but as they became more competent at it their strength grew, like any other muscle.

  Aiden thought the doctors had expected a purely physical response to the serum they were using on the group, and to an extent they received that. The men were able to fight off diseases, but they certainly didn’t have the ability to swing through the trees or anything. At least, not that they knew of. The subjects hadn’t been let out of their cells for anything other than the walk to the med center since their attempted mutiny in the barracks.

  They did not inform the doctors about the stunning mental development, though. The testing would have undoubtedly intensified. He and Wulfe, the only two able to communicate this way so far, would probably have forfeited their lives.

  Fontana had been the next they’d heard. One day when they’d been ‘escorting’ the Navy SEAL back to his cage Aiden had tried to contact him. The man had looked up in surprise, then glanced at the guards on either side of him. When his gaze had connected with Aiden, he’d given him a small nod.

  Proximity definitely seemed to play a part in the communicat
ion. Wulfe’s cage sat only about twenty yards away. Fontana had only been about five yards away as he’d walked back toward his cage. As he was able, Aiden began sending thoughts to the returning men. Some he connected with- others he did not.

  Most, he didn’t.

  But he could see the hope in the men’s expressions when they neared his cage. Aiden cautioned them to play it safe and to keep this part of their…evolution… a secret. They were all smart men and agreed. But every day that passed their expressions asked what they were going to do to get out of the situation.

  The problem was, were they willing to go AWOL? Technically, they were all still part of their respective military units, but the fact that they were being held against their will and the parameters of the exercise had shifted didn’t really change anything. If they walked away under their own power, the Collaborative and their hired mercenaries would be after them. Aiden had no doubt that if those behind Spartan feared exposure, they would eliminate the threats.

  The men themselves.

  If word got out that a shadowy government organization was murdering innocent military test subjects, there would be an international uproar. But even in that best case scenario, their lives would still be forfeit. They would continue to live in a fishbowl, under constant scrutiny to see what effects Shu’s testing had on their bodies and minds.

  So, they bided their time.

  Then one day, something changed.

  Aiden and Wulfe were recovering from their most recent trial, an exploration of electrical burns that left them riddled with seeping blisters. In spite of the jungle temperature he was racked with cold chills. It took all of his concentration not to slip into a blissful coma, oblivious to anything going on around him. Some inner sense told him that if he gave into the waiting dark he wouldn’t see the light again.