Chapter 30
Hudson closed the thin file detailing Project V. Jamming his lips into a hard line, he faced the two men across the conference table in the Pentagon conference room.
Admiral Edgar looked him in the eye. “What do you think, Dr. Langley?”
Hudson unclenched his teeth. “You asked me here to consider a groundbreaking opportunity, but all you’ve offered are high-level details. I deserve to know everything you’ve left out, considering Project V is the suspected reason my privacy was infiltrated.”
“Agreed.” The admiral pressed a button in the center of the table. A projector screen rolled down from the ceiling at the end of the room as the door opened.
An Army major walked in. Without a word, he leaned forward and fixed Hudson with a level stare. “You’re the one who saved Commander Daviani’s life.”
Hudson’s pulse kicked so hard it jarred his bones. “Yes, sir. Do you know where he is?”
“Of course I do. I’m Project VIPER’s director and Daviani is our first recruit.”
Edgar pressed another button on the console. A black fanged snake, its head and tail meeting to form a circle inlaid in a triangle, filled the white screen. The words “Project VIPER” cut across the center.
“VIPER stands for Veterans Integration Placement and Experimental Recovery program. We’re taking special forces amputees who lost their limbs while serving, outfitting them with bionic weaponized prosthetics, and training them to be the nation’s future generation of super soldiers.
That future starts with Commander Daviani. ”
Silence descended as Edgar toyed with his mustache. The director, Thompson according to his uniform, rubbed his bald head. Hudson waited for them to laugh and say, “Just kidding. We’re not making super soldiers. That’s impossible.”
They didn’t.
Edgar pushed a glass of water toward him. “You okay, son?”
“Yes, sir. Just…”
Thompson took a seat across from Hudson. “As of a week ago, Commander Daviani has two arms.” He slid a tablet across the table.
Hudson didn’t bother trying to remain calm and professional as he watched a video unfold. “Holy shit.”
Chris sat on an exam table. A female doctor in a white lab coat examined the prosthesis attached to his shoulder. The white bandages covering the attachment site stood out in stark contrast to the shiny metallic arm.
Hudson stared open-jawed as Chris raised his new limb to his face and touched a nearly healed wound on his forehead. The seamless harmony between man and machine shouldn’t have been possible, yet it was.
Hudson blinked against the burn behind his eyes. He couldn’t mask the emotion in his voice, though. “You really turned him into a—”
“Super soldier.”
Staring back at the tablet, Hudson searched for traces of the haunted man he’d left in that hospital bed a week ago. He couldn’t find a single shred.
Rising from his seat, he turned his back to the room and stepped away. As he braced his palms on a sideboard, he pulled in a breath.
Held it.
Let it out nice and slow.
He repeated the calming ritual until the torment he’d been carrying transformed into not just hope, but a living purpose deep in his marrow he hadn’t felt in a long time.
The drive to serve, to heal, to change lives that was ingrained in his DNA couldn’t be ignored.
He turned back to the group. “Tell me more about Project VIPER.”
Thompson outlined the future of the program. “There’s still a lot of trials to pass before we’re mission ready, and we wouldn’t ask for a binding commitment until that happens, but we’re confident we’ll be fully operational in a year.”
Just thinking about the adrenaline rush of serving with a team of bionic super soldiers lit Hudson up. But the future he saw with the little thief who made the mansion feel like home again didn’t lessen his excitement. It collided head-on with the possibility of never coming home to her.
Thompson set his hands on the table and leaned toward Hudson. “What do you say, Langley? Are you ready to go down in the history books with Project VIPER?”