Fast Track, page 1
Fast Track
A Super Short Superhero Romance
Book 4 of The Gemini Conflict
By
Jamie K. Schmidt
Table of Contents
Title Page
Fast Track (Super Short Super Hero Instalove Romantasy, #4)
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
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About the Author
Fast Track is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright @2023 by Jamie K. Schmidt.
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Prologue
Ten years ago, the Aethor Institute supplied super soldiers for shadow governments and private armies, but they couldn't create super soldiers out of nothing. They needed volunteers, but when the volunteer pool dried up, they had to find another way to get the raw material for their experiments.
They tried to hook people in on the promise of losing weight quickly. Drink this milkshake every day and watch the pounds fly off. They also put out marketing that their holistic method of healing was an alternative method to cure diseases like cancer and leukemia.
The volunteers lined up looking for an easy miracle. Some people were even put into the program against their will as a treatment for addiction.
At worst, the milkshake killed the test subjects—not right away. It was more of a slow death where healthy cells died. The components in the milkshake ruthlessly slaughtered the inefficient and substandard cells.
The perfect result for the Aethor Institute was when the components of the milkshake changed, mutated, adapted, and made stronger the existing cells that were already there.
We’re unlocking the human potential was what their slogan on the dark web said.
There were three variants made in the labs: Castor, Mercury, and Pollux. The Castors retained their humanity even as their bodies gained superpowers. The Mercury strain lost their humanity and became super soldiers without consciences. The Pollux variant were a combination of the two, leaning heavily toward aggression but not crossing the line of warlike rage that the Mercury variants were famous for.
The variants that were willing to use their newfound abilities to be mercenaries or bodyguards were paid very well for their service and their silence. The ones who just wanted to go home and live with their freakish mutations were locked up inside the Aethor Institute and continued to be experimented on.
But not every supernatural mercenary stayed in the job they were sent to. In some cases, governments fell, and the contract was over. Handlers got assassinated, and the supe was out of a job. In other cases, the supernatural being decided he wanted to be in charge, or perhaps she used her supernatural abilities to escape. Some went rogue. Some stayed hidden. And others banded together to form the Gemini Initiative.
Founded by the first escapees of the nefarious laboratory, the Gemini Initiative predated the fall of the Aethor Institute. It existed solely to rescue prisoners inside the Aethor Institute. But their secondary goal was to shut it down.
Ten years ago, however, the Mercury strain variants decided that they had waited long enough. In a military-style coup, they forced the Aethor Institute to destroy their labs and go on the run. Then the Mercury variants went on a bloodthirsty hunt, killing every last one of the Aethor scientists. It lasted many years, causing collateral damage to innocents when the two powers collided. In the end, they killed each other off.
But not all of the Mercury variants had participated in the raids against the Aethor Institute. Some of them had been busy with the Gemini Initiative’s goals. Some of them followed their own agendas and survived.
Now a new threat was on the horizon. Could some of the Aethor Institute scientists have survived the Mercury variants’ purge? If so, they might have spent the last ten years recruiting, regrouping, and rebuilding.
There was a secret base of operations somewhere in the waters off New Athens City that had been sending out giant robots to destroy buildings and wreak havoc in the city. They had even tried to kidnap a supe. The Gemini Initiative has put all its resources into finding the base before the next phase of whatever nefarious plan they had was initiated.
Chapter One
Keeley Arnold was on a mission. It was a one-woman mission, and unlike the inmates at the Gemini Initiative, she didn't report to anyone. It made things easier that way. As a Mercury variant, she was hated by the norms and the other supernatural humans that the Aethor Institute had created in their laboratories.
Keeley was an assassin. She killed norms or supes. It didn't matter to her as long as she got paid. She hadn’t always been like this. After things had settled down after the purge of the Aethor Institute, Keeley had thought she could go back to a normal life. But it had been hard to find someone who didn't mind that with a shake of her hand, her fingers became knives.
Mercury variants were a special breed. More often than not, they had extreme changes to their bodies as well as their DNA. They were the true freaks of nature, created with the purpose of causing shock, terror, and distraction. The joke had been on the Aethor Institute, however, when their nightmare creations decided they wanted to be treated like humans.
Out of all the other variants, only the Mercuries had the balls to rise up and destroy their oppressors. But they didn’t stop there. Their sole mission afterwards had been to track down the brains behind the operation. It had been a long, drawn-out, and bloody battle that had spanned the globe. The Mercury variants’ sole purpose for living had been to eradicate all traces of the Aethor Institute’s DNA-altering serum, their research, and especially their scientists in order that their horrid experiments could never be repeated.
Revenge was all they had left. Revenge was the only thing that would make their dead rest easy.
To this end, the Mercury variants fought until near extinction. But a few survived. A few hid like the Castor variants, either because they were sick of war or they needed to be away from norms. A few joined the Gemini Initiative so they could continue to monitor the world and provide martial support against any faction that wanted to destroy the supes. Others, like Keeley, made their own way in a world that hated them.
Keeley had thought she had been keeping a low profile. As an assassin, you wanted to be accessible but not easy to find. But a few days ago, she had been surfing in Hawaii, not on vacation but not working either, when she had wiped out on a rogue wave that came out of nowhere.
As she was treading water, two Mercury variants she'd never met before swam up from below her, flanking her on either side. If they had come to battle her, Keeley knew she didn’t have a shot of winning against them. They looked like they were half shark.
“We need your help,” one of them had said. He had very big teeth and soulless black eyes that mirrored her own freaked-out expression.
She’d been feeling very vulnerable in the middle of the water with the two of them, so she agreed. They told her the where and the when: today at the New Athens City docks. But who they wanted her to kill was a big order: a norm who could look at someone and tell if they were supernatural or not.
Keeley had thought they were nuts.
At the time, she’d agreed to it, because she didn’t want to risk being attacked and attracting real sharks. Once she got back on land, though, she had demanded more details and pieced together enough information to do her own research. The supe detector was named Zeller, and he was collecting supes to take to a company called Protogenus. It got better. Protogenus’ lab was out in the middle of the ocean somewhere.
“Why don't you kill him?" she had asked. They looked more than capable.
“We are under orders not to,” Pisc, one of the shark men, had said. On land, they hid their gills and deformed mouths with neck gaiters.
“Who do you take orders from?” Keeley had asked. None of the Mercury generals had survived the cleanup of the Aethor Institute’s personnel.
The other shark man, Ichth, had said, “The Gemini Institute.”
“Why are you working for them?” she had scoffed. They were bureaucrats who couldn’t go to the bathroom without a committee debate.
“When you look like us, you need all the allies you can get.”
Keeley set her jaw. She hated that the Mercury variants couldn’t ever live among the norms because of their mutations.
“Of course, you wouldn’t know anything about that. Would you?”
She could pass as human...most of the time. Flexing her hands, Keeley waved her fingers, and the flesh hardened, turning to metal blades.
“I bet that makes knitting impossible,” Pisc said.
She was impressed that he hadn’t even flinched. The first guy she had been with had been afraid that she would lose control during sex and slice his dick off. She told him that she hadn’t ever emasculated someone by accident, but for some reason, that hadn’t assured him.
Another flex of her hands, and her fingers returned.
“The Gemini Initiative likes using us for scare tactics and impact, but they don't trust us not to go off on a bloody killing spree because we are Mercury variants. They have a seer who periodically scans our brains. We can block her unless she asks us a direct question. When she asks us if we killed Zeller instead of bringing him in for questioning, we can say no,” Ichth had said.
“Why isn’t the Gemini Initiative removing the threat? If Zeller can do what you say he can...”
They had nodded.
“Then why is he still breathing?”
“Everything is questions, questions, questions with them. Except they never get any answers. The prisoners end up killing themselves before their minds can be sifted through. It's only a matter of time before the captured enemy finds a way to take us out along with them. All it takes is one tooth bomb instead of a poisoned one.”
That made sense. As did killing the supe detector instead of taking him prisoner. There was nothing in his brain that the seer couldn’t get somewhere else. Taking out an enemy that could mark you for a supernatural? That was a threat that had to be eliminated.
They had filled her in on what little they knew about Protogenus. It could be a new Aethor Institute or another similar threat. Pisc and Ichth had not been able to locate the underwater lair, but there was going to be a boat coming in to take the supes that Zeller had captured and bring them to the lab. There was only one problem: The Gemini Initiative was going to rescue the supes. And while Keeley was all on board for that, if they did rescue the supes, there wouldn’t be any reason for the boat to return to the hidden base.
“They could get lucky and get the location out of the mind of the sailors,” Keeley had mused.
Pisc and Ichth had disagreed. “Can’t risk it. If Protogenus knows they’re compromised, they could shut down and set up shop somewhere else.”
“After you kill Zeller," Ichth had said, “we want you to get captured.”
“Why would I want to do that?"
"Because while the Gemini Institute is busy saving the day, we’ll follow the boat back to the lab. And together, the three of us can shut down Protogenus just like we did the Aethor Institute,” Pisc had said.
Reckless. They would be outnumbered and outgunned, but that had never stopped a Mercury variant before.
“I'm in,” Keeley had said.
Chapter Two
As Dean Racer zoomed to deposit the two supes that he had rescued from Warehouse Fifty-One into the van that was waiting to take them safely to the Gemini Consulate, he saw two longshoremen carrying a tied-up woman into an office building. She was wrapped up in ropes and gagged, but she was kicking and screaming. Even though he should have dashed back to the warehouse to help his team recover more kidnapped supernaturals, he couldn’t let this woman fall through the cracks.
After he left the rescued supes with the Gemini Initiative agents, Dean powered up his super speed and hit the office door he’d seen them take the struggling woman through. The door smashed open off the hinges. But before he could stop himself, he sped directly into a net. Reversing directions, he hit more net. They had caught him.
Two men wearing gas masks hoisted a hose in his direction. When they turned it on, a thick white vapor froze him in place, and then the world turned black.
When he woke up, he was disoriented and confused. He was lying on a cold, hard surface, and he could hear the sound of waves crashing against something nearby. He tried to sit up, but he found that he couldn't move his arms or legs. That was when he realized that he was in a cage.
Dean looked around, trying to get his bearings. He saw that he was in the hold of a ship, and the sound he’d heard earlier was the ocean outside. As he lay there, Dean began to feel a sense of panic rising in his chest. He had to get out of there, and he had to rescue the woman. He tried to force his way out of the cage, but it was no use. The bars were too strong, and he was too weak.
Dean knew that he had to keep his wits about him if he was going to survive. He was no longer wearing his Gemini suit, but when he didn’t report back to the consulate, they would track him from the subdermal implants under his skin.
If his kidnappers were taking him to the underground lab, this was a good thing. He’d lead the Gemini Initiative right to the bastards who were behind the robots in New Athens City and the kidnappings. But Dean didn’t want to make it easy on Protogenus. He needed to figure out how to get out of the cage. Looking around, he saw that there was a door at the far end of the hold. He could see the outline of a figure standing in front of it.
Dean gritted his teeth and tried to stand up, but he stumbled and fell back down. He was weak and dizzy, but he couldn't give up. He had to keep fighting. As the figure approached the cage, Dean could see that it was the woman who had been wrapped up in ropes.
“So you’re awake,” she said. She was exquisite even with the bruise on her cheek and the ripped and dirty clothes that she was wearing.
“Who hurt you?” he gritted out. A pounding rage threatened to overtake him at the thought of her being abused.
“Which time?” she said bitterly. Kneeling by his cage, she pulled out a hair pin from the messy bun on the top of her head. She deftly picked the lock and swung the cage door open.
“How did you get free of the ropes?” he asked, taking hold of her hands and frowning at the abraded skin on her wrists.
Pulling away, she said, “It doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here. What’s your superpower?”
“Speed,” he said. “I’m Dean.”
“I’m Keeley,” she said.
“Why were you taken?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got nothing to help us escape. We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
Dean felt an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness toward Keeley. “It’s better if we don’t escape.”
“How can you say that?” She put her hands on her hips.
“Because I’m with the Gemini Initiative. They can track me. I’m going to lead every battle-trained supe right to Protogenus’ underwater laboratory.”
“What are you talking about?” She looked at him like he was crazy.
He wanted to hold her in his arms and kiss away her frown.
“You don’t have super speed too, do you?” Dean said. He was so attracted to her it was starting to distract him from his mission. “Are you a Pollux variant?”
“Yes, I’m a Pollux variant,” she said.
Could she be his mate?
“Are you fast?” he asked.
“I think the prisoners are free,” a voice said as boots thundered down the stairs.
“I hope you’re a Pollux variant,” Keeley said.
“Why?”
“Because we’re about to be in a fight.”
The door to the hold flung open, and a burly sailor with a taser strode in. Dean activated his super speed and rammed his shoulder into his stomach. He didn’t get a chance to turn the taser on Dean as he flew out the open door and reversed directions to land hard on his back.
Keeley jumped on top of the man. Dean saw a flash of something sharp, and then there was a lot of blood. He gaped at Keeley. Four knife blades poked out of her hands where fingers should have been.
“What...?” he stuttered.
“I’m not a Pollux strain variant,” she said calmly. She shook her hand, and the knives disappeared and became fingers. “I’m a Mercury.”
