Liam hated himself at this moment. He had prepared for more than this, to do more, but when she called him he always tried his best to work in her best interests. Even when they had initially met during their first day of university and he had kept on talking to her and the lecturer had noticed it had been him who had stood up and claimed responsibility.

  He hadn’t meant to take away her ability, her decision or choice to speak her own mind but he’d recognised a familiar vulnerability within her mixed with beauty and pure genius. When he’d seen her clutching a necklace made of some type of bone he’d seen her rip it off in one smooth motion and stuff it into her jean pocket.

  At that moment when her face had shown clear signs of anxiety and emotion he’d noticed that she stuck in her inside that pocket and squeezed. Exactly as he’d seen his older sister do before she’d left home to join up with NISRO, to escape their parents and find her own path far enough way in the space program they’d offered.

  He knew she was a self-harmer when they’d first met. The signs were fairly obvious when you saw them, sleeves covered up arms and neck despite the heat of the day. And he’d fallen in love with her at first sight, not something that he’d been expecting and certainly what both his parents had wanted for him. He’d been twenty years old to her eighteen and she was a pure breath of fresh water to all his senses. There was an innate quality to her, a type of sadness mixed with desire for something beyond the daily life.

  The fact that she didn’t even recognise him but she was familiar with key heads of industry made it even more surprising. He’d learnt about how her parents were ocean related scientists and she’d even been born on a boat on the middle of the oceans of Belphus. Never been formally schooled but had self-studied and learnt to swim before she could even walk and had top level scientists and business people alike as her mentors and makeshift uncles and aunts.

  In short she was brilliant and he was a spoilt young man from old money, old enough on Belphus that they could trace their lineage back enough years to make legends part of their actual family history. And she’d not fallen for him immediately either, not like he had. She’d been attracted to him in part for their commonalities, their passionate desire to change the world of Belphus and themselves to become more, to learn more.

  They’d even married after graduation. Her parents had refused to attend before there had been a massive storm accident and both of them had been lost. The wreckage of their research boat had been discovered but no bodies, not even a trace. Carissa had accepted it with a smile and the words that her parents had returned to the place they had truly loved.

  All of that and he had made a decision without her which had ruined their relationship, he’d pushed and taken her prototype research of a mixture of technology and biogenetics and adapted it towards control of the waters of Belphus. A fleet of machines which could regulate the temperature of the oceans. Even clean the pollution and plastics and repurpose them.

  Actually getting them widely used and funded had been the harder part, Liam had been forced to accept money from his family which had resulted in them taking entire control of the business project and then using their connections legalised ownership over massive regions of the world.

  Clean, carefully controlled and pollution free waters which were owned by the corporate world and through a series of legal hoops and umbrella companies ultimately the control of his family and leased out accordingly.

  He’d been protected of course, his family were so pleased with this contribution to their wealth and power that they’d manipulated media and public opinion enough that he was hailed as a new type of financial genius.

  Carissa on the other hand had been described as the true inventor of the product, the product of scientific research parents who had died a tragic death but had educated and produced a daughter who had talent and a taste for the finer things in life.

  His family had never wanted him to marry her and they’d shown their clear disapproval through their lack of interference when large swathes of the public, protest groups and even radical insane cultists had either turned against her or heralded her as a neophyte goddess of water.

  In the end she’d chosen to retreat from the public eye and Liam had been unable to help her aside from allocating her own portion of the massive profits generated. He’d lost her then, even though he’d supported her treatment and even when she’d been processing the loss of her parents he’d failed to support her when she actually needed him.

  A gruff voice called out to him as Liam stood outside in the rain, enough distance for him to be recognised by the security systems of Carissa’s home, aptly called Last Refuge but not enough to be a recognisable threat. Besides, the team that had taken him here had brought their own signal jammers and were under direct instructions from his family to keep him safe.

  They were inside a small group of camouflaged vehicles, all equipped with sufficiently advanced technology that they were imperceptible in the pouring rain and shielded from night vision and other heat detection. Inside them they blanked off the security systems monitoring the immediate area which had been activated in Last Refuge by Carissa.

  Old money and power had a way, and he’d been able to use what authority he had to convince them that his ex-wife, his once true love wasn’t going to hurt him or threaten him despite her isolation. Rain fell down his face and streamed with the tears from his eyes and he looked back and considered if he should have taken her at her impromptu offer.

  ‘Master Liam, you can stand there in the rain feeling sorry for yourself or you can come and check out what we can make out from the images we were able to take of...Miss Acqua. We’ve blurred all areas of relative nudity accordingly after running it through a full pattern recognition scan. One of our team members worked in genetics and hybrid technology as an early researcher back in CAMPIN before it all came crashing down. He’d like a word with you when you’re ready. Other specialists are reviewing the footage, psychological profile and any traces of her previous activity both personal and private. We have active eyes on the target but are taking no action without your express authorisation. All signs are the building is entirely uninhabited, we were unable to locate the construction blueprints. Sir.’ said the voice.

  Without turning his head Liam could picture the man. He’d done work for his family multiple times over the decades, the chances were that he’d even been the one who’d both supplied the twin encrypted security communication devices which only worked in pairs and the security systems in the building.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  If he said that he couldn’t locate the blueprints then Carissa had outsmarted him and used her own contractors employed through multiple shell companies or another method to keep her own privacy. The man was a mercenary, the owner and founder of one of the pre-eminent private military companies to grace the face of Belphus. When he was paid, he worked on the job for a client, and he stuck to his word. When the client stopped or the contract ended then he was available for hire once more, even if it was on the opposite side.

  Liam had met one of his two daughters once, the older one Mariko Zero, hadn’t smiled once at any of his jokes and kept a strict face the entire time. She’d reminded him of Carissa a little, dedicated to her work to the extreme. As far as Liam was aware of the man called The General was interested in experimental weapons technology. All else was of little else to him unless it offered profit or opportunity.

  The fact that he was being so respectful to Liam, despite the older man being in his early fifties at least, extremely fit for his age and toned, was a sign of the professional service he offered. The man never joked, never smiled but always waited and performed to full customer satisfaction.

  ‘I appreciate the work that the men and women at your command are doing on my behalf. Please don’t send any of them towards the building unless you have full control of the security systems and are sure that there are no biological or chemical weapons on standby. Even explosives could be a possibility, my wife...sorry, my ex-wife does nothing in half measures. All I need to know is the moment that she leaves the building, you do have people stationed in the coastal waters correct?’ said Liam as he allowed the continuous rain to wash over him.

  He’d spent enough time with Carissa to understood exactly why she chose this location to build herself a final home. Isolated, next to one of the coastal regions to the point of falling off a cliff and large enough so she could completely control it.

  There had been earlier scans of life but they had all ended. For all Liam knew, Carissa had been going through rounds of animal testing or worse in her own experiments. In the short space of time he’d seen her and she’d talked to him of her transformation and development of technology, his mind had processed the information rapidly.

  For her all genius, Carissa was simply building on the same prototype technology he’d seen her develop in the company they’d founded together. She had refined it and made it usable on the only test subject she wanted it to work on, herself.

  A cough from behind him and the water soaking into his clothing reminded him that he’d been standing in the pouring rain for at least five minutes. Perhaps more, lost in his own thoughts. Unless there was a clear threat to the life of the principle contractor than the older man called The General would follow through previously discussed and clarified objectives thoroughly.

  He’d delayed enough and he only wanted one mission objective fulfilled with a secondary one that he wasn’t keen on but he wanted done. The first was to save Carissa, even from herself. He’d find a place for her, even build her a community on a large swathe of privately owned ocean where she could live the life she wanted. If she truly wanted him to join her then he’d do it but under strictly controlled medical and scientifically sterile conditions.

  The sight of her nude body with the massive scar tissue running down from her chest by her breasts to her lower abdomen hadn’t sickened him for the physical impact. The fact that she’d clearly done it to herself using robotic pre-programmed surgery or other methods without concern for her own mental and physical health was what he was shocked by.

  I didn’t think when I spoke. I haven’t seen her for months and I mention her mental health, self-harm and then an invitation to the Park of Gaia. She wanted someone to talk with, she was lonely, she must have been extremely lonely. Trying to tell me about her achievements and I...I ignored it. You’re an idiot Liam. Truly. Fix it, make it right. Be with her again.

  ***

  The man called The General simply waited for his client to finish processing difficult emotions, he wasn’t overly interested in society gossip but he was aware of the value of information. Multiple members of his team both on and off site were providing him with present information and updates both through an earpiece and a visual implant inside his left eye. His fingers tapped along his augmented outfit and ignored the rain falling down as he stood near his command vehicle.

  He politely coughed to draw the attention of the man as one of the support members of his present team walked over in full waterproof gear holding an umbrella and placed a rapid moisture absorbing towel over the form of the young man called Liam.

  ‘Master Liam. We have visible footage and line of sight of her moving to what appears to be a viewing platform. She shows no signs of wanting to leap off the edge into the waters below but according to medical scans her heart-rate, adrenaline and cortisol levels are elevated. Yes, I have multiple teams in position to recover and provide emergency medical treatment and sedation off the waters beneath the viewing platform. She’s presently holding a….wait. We have a report of anomalous activity. No. Multiple reports, from a short time ago. Something has broken through reality but...no. Nothing on visuals. She has dropped the security phone on a box of what appears to be provisions, water and MREs inside the…..wait. Master Liam. The anomalous activity is increasing. She’s just hit the activation button on the viewing platform. This one has been modified to extend and drop, I’m betting on the fact she wants to drop it into the ocean. Sir, she is showing clear signs of physical discomfort. We can engage but only with your go-ahead. Sir? Sir?’ said The General as he watched the young man clutch his own head and drop to the floor.

  The support member of the team turned him to a recovery position and angled the umbrella to block the rain and removed the sodden rapid moisture absorption towel before three members of a medical team rushed forward.

  One of them raised a hand signal in the pouring rain as The General shook his head and spoke a simple command. As far as he was concerned this operation was presently finished as the earlier anomalous event had caused a blue explosion of water and the target called Carissa Acqua had apparently vanished from the face of Belphus.

  The reality was that his main contractor had been hit with a similar if minor effect of the same anomalous effect and had been knocked unconscious. The sudden disappearance of people from Belphus, even in public view had occurred enough that The General had established an immediate priority.

  He still needed to finish off one part of it. Even though there was no traces of military technology involved it simply mean that he lacked personal interest. Granted that the main contractor had paid fully for services rendered and just happened to be from one of the oldest and richest families in the history of Belphus he’d need emergency treatment and security measures put in place

  The second mission objective was to fully occupy the location known as Last Refuge, though he’d never seen it written or recorded in any form, locate all scientific records, personal belongings and research materials, even all genetic traces and secure it within a Level 4 Facility.

  ‘...Mariko. No, you don’t need to respond. I need you to open a direct line to the Deep Water Purification Facility and Low Tide Security. The first needs to open up one of their private recovery sites for an anamolous encounter treatment for a baseline human. The second needs to secure a premises and reinstall a perimeter while stopping the first from stealing everything or taking copies. All team members, the principle target is gone and the main contractor needs assistance. We’re done here. I want a full sweep done of the building but remember to be careful. I will not lose a single member due to carelessness. Move the main contractor carefully. General out.’