The man known to some as Feldmarschal woke up from his violent slumber greeted with sharp waves of pain and nausea. His head felt like it had been split open. Reaching up with his left hand, he felt the clotted gash above his ear. His red hair and tightly-trimmed beard on the left side of this face were matted with dried blood.
Slowly, he opened his eyes to see where he was, but the world around him was dark as pitch. No features were discernible. Closing his eyes again, he tried to use his other senses to investigate his environment.
He was lying on a cold, rough surface, probably concrete; he could feel its chill seep into his bones. His clothes were missing, only his underwear remained. A quick check told him it was his regular pair. He had half expected to be wearing a g-string, considering. It wouldn’t have been the first time. The thought made him smile; the smile cracked the matted blood and the effort made him nauseous again.
The air was still and soundless, save for an occasional drip-drop that echoed somewhere in the distance. Slowly, slowly Feld got to his knees and knelt there a moment. Once the initial nausea passed, he opened his eyes again and tried to get his bearings, but the sense of vertigo in all that darkness was too much to bear and Feld dropped down to all fours. Eyes closed against the darkness, he tried to figure out where the drip-drop was coming from. Picking a direction, he began to crawl, slowly, toward its perceived source and give his mind time to solve this particular puzzle.
Where the frell was he? Could this be a sensory deprivation chamber of some type? Doubtful, unless it was designed to merely impair and not isolate one’s senses. He was in some kind of artificial structure; the level, flat floor was proof enough of that. The floor was also definitely concrete, so possibly a low-tech structure, possibly industrial? The damp chill of the floor could also mean a terrestrial structure built on solid ground. But solid ground where?
He briefly considered a Spirit Walk to gain some sense of his surroundings. In the parallel dream world, he would be able to bypass the physical limitations of this one, and his own current physical limitations, and perhaps gain enough intel to figure out the full situation. Where was he? Why was he here? Who was behind this? Are they still here? As quickly as the idea came to him, it was just as quickly dismissed. In the Spirit Walk, his physical form would be too vulnerable. There was also the fact that he’d never tried to Spirit Walk after a head injury.
If only he had his FeldComm, his custom communications and information device. Its Galactic Positioning Transceiver would be able to tell him where he was. At least which star system anyway. Any clue at all would help tremendously. Wherever it was, at least the FeldComm wasn’t lost for good. He knew that much. Solara had thrown it aside before they …, the thought made him smile again, this time without nausea. He could almost sense her pheromone signature, like a scent that registers without an actual smell. For her, the sense was peaches bathed in honey with a tang of lemon ginger. Sweetness with a bite that one, with a few nibbles along the way for good measure. He smiled again.
The Feldmarschal’s Pheromone Signature was a by-product of his involvement in the final year of the Nova Terran Genome War, the first large-scale war on any of the human-colonized planets which showcased the widespread use of genetic modification among the combatants.
While genetic modification had been known for decades prior, it was always performed in utero and its use was subject to a healthy regimen of regulations. For example, all modifications were performed to prevent the passing of genetic diseases from mother to fetus, or the passing of genetic damage caused by the types of accidents or exposure that interstellar travel and/or its enabling technologies can produce. While the recipients of such damage would still be affected by it, in utero modification would ensure that the damage was mitigated, if not removed entirely, from their offspring.
Scientists, and their pharmaceutical syndicate employers however, had been trying to develop accelerated genetic evolution (AGE) technologies as a way to repair genetic damage or cure genetic diseases directly. Instead of applying such genetic modification solely in utero to help their offspring, AGE would allow genetic mutation through accelerated evolution within the subject. If possible, it could open up the door to all sorts of curative capabilities, as well as advance other more recreational opportunities. The beneficial effects of such technology could be felt for years to come.
That said, it should not have come as a surprise that military and clandestine services among various levels of government were also interested in these developments as a way to gain an edge over any and all adversaries. And so, the opening salvo of the technology’s genesis did not occur in peacetime via free market dynamics. Instead, the Genome War on Nova Terra erupted with a governmental decapitation operation undertaken by a cohort which eventually became known as the Gray Women, women who had been subjected to an AGE-enabled mutation developed and deployed by the Dasheen, one of the tribal clans of Nova Terra. Known as Chameleon Skin, the mutation gave each of them near invisibility in whatever surroundings they found themselves in. These women, and it was only women due to the technical details of the modification, would be used as assassins throughout the war. It was a near perfect weapon used repeatedly in the early years of the war to great effect.
Countermeasures to any weapon are always discovered, however, especially in wartime and especially once the details of AGE technology proliferated among the combatants. To counteract Chameleon Skin, the Pheromone Sense mutation was developed, a genetic modification which allowed the subject to register pheromones in the air as a scent, especially useful once it was discovered that Chameleon Skin corrupted the subject’s pheromone production. With this discovery, a cadre of guardsmen were given this modification and successful assassinations by the Gray Women diminished over time, though never eliminated.
Once the Feldmarschal came of age, he volunteered for the Pheromone Sense modification and became highly adept in not only detecting the presence of Gray Women, but in hunting them down. Some would later say that he was born for the role.
Continuing forward on hands and knees, the drip-drop sounds were getting louder and the echoes a bit softer, so things were improving a bit. Opening his eyes, the Feldmarschal looked ahead and saw a faint, vertical line of light. “Thank the hairy photon!”, he said to himself, thinking of his friend, moif. I wonder what she would’ve done in my situation. Probably contact the hive-mind and blast a big-ass hole in whatever structure this is. Unfortunately, neither she nor any of the other Barscapers were here to help.
Slowly gaining his feet, Feld decided to make a run for the light. Or at least a shuffling walk. The light was obviously some ways away, but his hands and knees were killing him and time was passing too quickly. He needed to know where he was.
As he shambled his way forward, enough bits and pieces of his memories came back and allowed him to reconstruct his whereabouts over the last few days. He remembered being with Solara in her hot tub, of course. From there, the jump over to Proteus VI in Needle, his interplanetary stealth shuttle. He was supposed to meet a diplomatic envoy from that planet to discuss doing some covert intelligence work for the government in power; it was the type of work he’d become quite adept at. They were going to meet among the fleshpots and tralkshops in Dinara City, the location to be determined upon arrival by coded mark. The last thing Feld remembered was walking the streets of Dinara City overcome with hundreds of pheromone signatures from a dozen different species. Flowery scents mixing with fruits and musks and darker ones like sweat, tears and dank earth.
As the distant line of light grew thicker and higher, as Feld’s world of black pitch transformed to muted charcoal by the increasing light, as the echoing drip-drop became louder and louder still, Feld at last remembered the signature he had sensed right before his vision had exploded into a shower of sparks, stars and burning embers. It was a mixture of burning flesh, fresh blood and decay. It was the type of scent he’d been repulsed by countless times, a scent he’d eventually use to feed his vengeance, a scent he’d go to any lengths to hunt in the closing days of the war and after. It was more than mere corruption.
It was the scent of assassination.