adjusted the cuffs of his shirt as his left the room, he had a lot of work to finish doing, and no one it seemed, to help him with it. That was fine, Frederick worked well alone. Better actually.
The shifter he’d been trying to woo to their side had disappeared sometime over the course of the night, and who knew what that meant. So far in his pursuit of his goals he’d found that none of the supernatural creatures he’d encountered had very much self-control or common sense. The wolf could have caught some random scent in the night and be chasing it down, like a dog catching the scent of a rabbit. He couldn’t blame the poor beast, it was probably built into his nature.
But this particular beast was going to have to learn that if they planned to work together then he needed to tone down his baser instincts and concentrate on the task at hand.
It was difficult, Frederick knew first hand, how much harder it must be for a lesser creature to concentrate. How they ever accomplished anything was amazing considering he was having to force himself to focus as well. His new found obsession with Ola was taking his time away from his plans. And he had a lot of plans, all of them having to be juggled while not dropping any of them. He kept wondering if all creature felt this way, this ridiculous need that seemed to be growing inside him to take this woman and… nest with her. Build a home and a family and a life. It had to be one of his own baser instincts, one he’d never encountered before, but it was so strong it seemed to be diverting him from focusing on the bigger picture.
And his bigger picture was actually huge. Very few people could claim a larger goal, they just sort of scuttled through life doing the bare minimum needed to get by. And what he had was the largest goal possible, and he had to try to achieve it while under the close scrutiny of the Council. Making it seem like his only purpose in life was their purpose. They thought they controlled him, when in fact they had simply been his means to an end. A group of powerful men were a great tool to have in ones back pocket. A security clearance here, a name dropped there, an introduction to the right person, it had all combined to get Frederick to where he was now.
He had a little scientist, tucked safely away in a box, who was going to change everything. Frederick could almost remember how life had been before he’d been genetically altered, but it was a bit of a blur. He remembered the overwhelming need to grasp at something. Power, respect, something. It was probably what led to him agreeing to be a test subject in such a risky trial.
They probably wouldn’t have let him into the test group if they’d known how much it would cost them in the end. But how could they have known, really, that a scrawny homeless kid would be the only test subject to survive the modifications and then go on to forcefully take over the operation? Surely, they would have chosen differently.
Sometimes he still had that powerless scrawny kid’s dreams. Being hungry and scared, getting a beating for being in the wrong part of town, the rush that came from stealing something that you needed, the thing that would get you by until the next day. These dreams were always crystal clear in a way that his memories weren’t. There were never any details about his life, or about how he’d gotten there, but the feelings were always vibrant.
It was strange, now it was the opposite. Now, he could remember everything that had happened since he woke up after the modifications began, but up until Ola, he hadn’t felt very much. He had been pleasantly numb. And what was happening now wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but it was… different. Maybe that was why his mind was dredging up questions like, why had he been on the street, where was his family, who had he been before what he was now? It was all so very distracting.
Questions that had never given him any trouble before now nagged at him. His thoughts, which had always been laser focused, now meandered. To Ola, to his past, to who the person was who had been born in this body and did he still exist; or had Frederick replaced him somehow? Thoughts that had never even occurred to him before, like how it would feel to watch Ola grow large and round with his child. If he had her changed genetically like he had been, would their child be normal or superior, like them. And if he did have her modified, would she be a different person, like Frederick seemed to be, or had that only occurred because he’d been so young. He wasn’t even sure how old he was. If he had to guess he’d say early to mid-thirties just based on his timeline. He’d stayed with the scientist for at least a decade and then it had taken him a while to cultivate the connections that led him to his seat on the council. He might even be older, though he didn’t look it.
There were lots of things to ponder that hadn’t been there before. He supposed he should get a personal assistant to keep himself on task. He’d never felt the need to have one before because he’d always stayed on task, never forgot anything, and didn’t need someone following him around and knowing things that only he needed to know. Knowledge was power and he wanted to keep all of the power to himself.
One of his men could probably serve as an assistant, they were already modified, to a lesser extent than himself, but they still had greater mental aptness than a regular human. Yes, that’s what he would do, turn one of his men into a personal assistant to keep him on task. He’d never thought to ask any of the men he’d had modified if they felt like the same person they’d been before. Maybe he was overlooking something he should be paying attention to.
But it would have to wait. He needed to clear his mind. He was so close to reaching his goals, he couldn’t let them slip away now. Let along just because he seemed to be falling in love, as ridiculous as that was. His facility was about too perfect a solution for ridding themselves of all the unnatural creatures, and when they did he could reveal himself to the Council and wrest control from the few remaining humans on it.
Yes, he had a lot to do. He was on the cusp of recreating the human race in his image and turning the world’s power structure on its ear. All he had to do was destroy everything and rebuild it just the way he wanted it.
A world where men would be rebuilt in his image. He liked the sound of that.