(Hi, author here! Some quick notes before we kick off the third chapter of this series.
First, all characters are 18 and above wherever applicable. This series contains elements of futa and gay sex, among several others. If that's not your thing, I totally understand - there are many, many stories here, some which may cater to your tastes better.
Second, on a personal note, I would like to dedicate this chapter to Mise.
Lastly, thank you for the feedback - it's most welcome! And now, back to the mayhem.)
If you asked deliberately obscure members of the government, dug deep enough in its sordid past, and had a few midnight meetings of dubious nature, you might have heard of the name Dr. Dirk Lanschtein. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Dr. Lanschtein disappeared from academia nearly nine years ago, having made exactly one publication in a scientific journal that was promptly dustbinned from the public eye. "Examining Inchoate Societies: Analysis of Xenoterrestial Bacterium Collectives from Low-Orbit Crash Sites" was quite throughly forgotten by the scientific community that no one questioned how it efficently disappeared.
The truth, however, was that Dr. Lanschtein found himself in a conundrum after publishing his work. It seemed that several agents belonging to interested parties within hush-hush members of certain agencies had taken an interest in him that was borderline unhealthy. Words like MKULTRA and "national security" were bandied around in conversation, followed by proof of generous recompense for his silence and future cooperation. The result was hardly a surprise to anyone who knew the good Doctor: conveniently unattached, he had resigned his teaching job in a matter of weeks, moved out of his town, and vanished completely.
It would be left unsaid that certain measures were put into play to ensure that Dr. Lanschtein was obscured beyond belief - measures that could not only scandalize the public if they were paraded in popular media, but topple entire governments in shame. As for Dirk, he found himself working for a vast conspiracy that crossed borders, nationalities, and politics.
Its name was Project Scarlet Aurora.
*
"Goddamned coffee machine."
Dirk grumbled as he awkwardly fumbled for his keycard. One of the drawbacks of being involved in a government conspiracy was that he was at said government's beck-and-call nearly twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. So the weekend of fishing and cold beer that he had laboriously been planning for the past month had gone up in smoke when his pager flashed that early morning.
After a cuss-laden breakfast and shower, he hastily dressed and drove himself to the inconspicuous office building in the city's center. To make matters worse, the coffee machine in the pantry had finally expired in a cloud of barely-burnt electronics, the elevator was late, and the source of the page that had summoned him had come from the last person he wanted to talk to - General Armstrong's secretary.
He paused to check his appearance in the hallway. His graying hair was, as usual, barely unkempt. A plain shirt was under his lab coat, paired with faded trousers and his second-best pair of boots (the best pair awaiting his presence on the fishing boat). His sour expression completed his barely-fit ensemble - the image of a scientist who had spent his years in joyless politicking, having drowned his regrets in taxpayer-paid whiskey.
After a moment, he waved his keycard at the console and made his way past the unsmiling soldiers guarding Armstrong's door. Behind the soulless government-issue monoblock table, bitch-crone extraordinaire Alice Walder was typing on her computer yet another report from the dozens of files laying open on her desk. Dr. Lanschtein had to politely cough before she looked up at him with utter disdain. After a moment, she pressed a button underneath the desk and spoke into a nearby microphone. "General, the Doc's here."
"'Bout damn time. Send him in." came the reply over the speaker. Before she could answer, Lanschtein was already in motion towards the General's door. The less he saw of Alice, the better his day would be.
*
"Ah, Doctor Lanschtein. So glad you could come. Grab a seat, we were just about to get started."
Like his secretary's domain, General Armstrong's office was minimalist to the point of fastidiousness. On one wall was a small gray filing cabinet filled with various documents printed on special paper - should burning them become necessary, all the General had to do was pull a cord behind them and they would emerge as ashes. On the other, a white board with various notes scribbled on them in less-than-neat handwriting took up most of the space. The General's desk was just as soullessly empty of character as his subordinate - the kind of thing that one could find across any generic government project. The only item of any real distinction was the slightly burnt American flag that hung behind the desk. The general claimed that it was a relic from his service in the field, but rarely elaborated past that.
Lanschtein cautiously examined the well-beaten chair before settling itself in. For a government conspiracy, their furniture was quite decrepit, but they kept shrugging it off whenever he brought it up. He realized that the General had said "we", but they were the only people in the room. "Uh, who would the we be, General?"
But Armstrong just waved his wrinkled hand, as if it was a sufficient explanation on its own. "So, Doctor. We've come across some rather, ah, troubling information." He tossed a folder to Lanschtein and continued. "It seems that there's an invasion by uninvited guests in the American heartland already underway."
Lanschtein could only stare at the General. "That's ... shouldn't we be telling the President already? Mobilizing military forces?" Uninvited guests meant that they weren't in the Roswell or Tunguska records - that meant new alien races, probably from outside the solar system itself!
"Well, we can't. See," Armstrong leaned forward, "we'd have to tell the President and Congress at some point that Scarlet Aurora actually exists. Which means all of our little projects will be subject to all sorts of inquiries from people who want to have their little piece of the action, if you get mah drift." The general's smile was quite unpleasant to see. "And then all the voters are going to demand their congressman to burn the ones they don't find particularly pleasing. I'm guessing subprojects 131A and 263B would be the first on the chopping block. You'd have to say buh-bye to your team's hard work."
The doctor was frozen in horror. "T-They can't do that! Those are lifesaving initiatives! Surely there must be-"
"Now ca'm down, Doctor. I wasn't saying that we stay quiet." Armstrong leaned back and swiveled his chair away from Lanschtein. "I need you to use the information in that file to make something that can detect those damn aliens and kill them for good, all quiet-like. And I'll need you to do it fast, before other people decide to press a big red button. Once you have that data, we can send it out through the usual channels and let them have all the credit."
Lanschtein reread the file. "I can't - two weeks?! That's not enough time!"
"Afraid that's all the time we got." Armstrong stood and stretched his back. Lanschtein knew better than to press the matter, so he stood as well and made sure all the papers were in the folder before muttering a quick goodbye. As the door closed, the man in blue set his teacup down and gazed at the general from his corner of the room.
"He. Is. Curi. Ous. Make. Ing."
"Yeah, well, he's a decent enough egghead." The general sat and looked sourly at his unremarkable guest. "Ah don't suppose your employers could do something for us a little more substantial??"
