Twelve years ago
“You’re not taking away my son,” the slender and dark-haired woman insisted. “You’re not taking him!”
Magnus Caledon stood quietly, watching Juliet, his wife of more than twelve years, cling onto their youngest son, Jared, while she knelt on the floor. Her face was tear-streaked, and so was her son’s. Jared was shaking out of fear and confusion, and his mother held onto him tighter than ever.
“Juliet, we must. He is an aberration-" Magnus began.
“He is our son!” she reasoned; her embrace was tighter this time. “Why are you doing this? You aren’t your father!”
Magnus’ eyes narrowed. “Of course, I’m not,” he told her. “But he could be of use to the expanded M.I.D.A.S program.”
“He’s just a boy,” she murmured, fresh tears trailing down her face.
There was something unreal about the whole situation. Juliet had denied it since the shifting had happened a day ago, but Magnus was not in the mood or the position to plainly ignore what had transpired.
“Let go of him, Juliet,” Magnus said in a near bleary voice.
She shook her head, embracing her third born. “Don’t do this to us. It’s not his fault!”
Don’t do this to us? Had she forgotten how the country had regained its military strength? Had she forgotten that tragic and nearly apocalyptic civil war? Their son, even if Jared was their flesh and blood, was destined for the program. He would be honed into a fine soldier -- if he survived the tests.
“Whose fault is it then?” Magnus asked her.
She trembled at his question. Whose fault was it? Hers? She had given birth to someone who was waiting to shift but who had turned out to be an animal in the end. “He’s just a boy.”
He’s just a boy, but then again, so were the many children that had been rounded up. They had to be controlled, unlike those previous werebeings that had rebelled by the thousands, plunging the country into unrest and, eventually, into war. It was something that the world had never predicted would happen, the evolution or eventual reemerging of a recessive gene.
“Come, Jared,” Magnus said in his deep and rich voice.
His third son looked up fearfully into his father’s eyes. He hesitated to say something, swallowing saliva in the process. He stammered. “F-father.”
“Come,” Magnus intoned once more.
Jared took a tentative step forward, but his mother’s hand shot out to grab his. “Stay with me; stay with mommy,” she implored to him.
Magnus calmly pressed a button on his table, and, in a few seconds, armed men stormed in i uniformly, all holding special rifles meant to maim any werebeing or human that intervened. Another man slipped in, wearing a white doctor’s coat.
Magnus nodded once, and two men approached his son.
“Stop!” Juliet screamed. “Let go of him!” She fought against the soldiers whose hands were holding onto her son’s arms. “Magnus, don’t!”
Someone else held onto her, and then she felt a sudden sharp prick on her arm. She looked up in horror to see a thin man with silvery spectacles and a warm smile.
Dr. Wallace nodded at her. “Sweet dreams, madam.”
She felt her grip on her son loosen, and her vision blurred. She lost her sense of hearing soon after, but she mumbled her son’s name. “Jared-" she cried out one last time before lapsing into unconsciousness.
Magnus took no step forward to aid his wife, but there was a team with Dr. Wallace who gently took her from the floor and laid her on a stretcher, ready to transport her to her quarters. He saw his third son who was now violently shaking.
Dr. Wallace readied something in his hand as he observed the little boy who was about to shift. Saliva began to drip involuntarily out of his mouth, and his normally light brown eyes turned into a russet color, gradually shifting into a blood red hue. He choked, dropping onto all fours, and the two soldiers that held onto the seven-year-old stepped back as Dr. Wallace took a step forward.
Fur began to appear on a microscopic scale at first, and then it started to cover his whole body. His limbs broke to accommodate his growing length and height. Dr. Wallace’s eyes widened as he smiled. Here was another werebeing to add to his roster of children, all ready for experimentation. He eyed the president, who showed no emotion whatsoever. He sighed, knowing full well he couldn’t let the child shift in the president’s office.
With a single aim, he shot at the child’s neck. The child growled and crumpled to the ground, reverting to his human form; his clothes and shoes were tattered from the partial shifting. That had been a strong cocktail of anesthetics to ensure the trip from the presidential White House to the laboratory was smooth. Two soldiers lifted the boy and placed him inside a stainless-steel cage, just like an animal. Dr. Wallace nodded at the soldiers, who quietly exited the room, heading for a chopper just adjacent to the president’s office.
It was the dead of night, and the entire complex was quiet. Dr. Wallace turned to face the second Caledon president he had served.
“Now that that’s settled,” Magnus began after a long period of silence, “there’s the matter of my other children.”
Dr. Wallace had been given explicit and undisclosed instructions to test the president’s other children, even his wife. The three other children were asleep. He was to extract DNA from them and bring it to the laboratory as well. An aide of the president’s, General Laxly, walked up beside Dr. Wallace.
“This way, doctor,” General Laxly beckoned. Dr. Wallace followed the general out of the office, heading for the kids’ bedrooms.
Magnus took a deep breath, his brows furrowing. He had done his best as a father and as a leader, had he not? Difficult decisions had to be made, and even family was not to be spared. He stared out at the expanse of the presidential house’s grounds, with guards posted every few meters from each other. They had to go soon, as they were bound to find out what had happened to his family.
He looked back at the expanse of his office, modeled after the vintage photos of the oval office that had been unearthed after years of turmoil. The previous presidents, before his grandfather had won by a landslide, had promised order and military might, something that hadn’t been achieved until the first Caledon was elected. From then on, his father had been groomed to take over his own father’s place, putting an end to elections and the chaos of voting. It had been no easy feat, but, with sheer force and wits, he had done the unthinkable, with the necessary sacrifices, of course.
Now, it was his turn. He saw the images of his father and his grandfather on a wall. They both had the same stern mouths and high cheekbones that ran prominently in the male side of the family. He had that look, too. He looked at the smaller portraits of his grandmother and mother on the walls, realizing that Juliet’s face was too kind to be placed beside theirs.
He had married Juliet fifteen years ago, and it had been the closest thing to love. He enjoyed looking at how beautiful and cultured she had been. She was also the daughter of a large private weapons manufacturing company, one that had previously supplied the Soviet States and some of those African Unions. It had been a perfect match of power and money. To top it off, she was a socialite with good bearing and education, a near-perfect first lady. Except, she was weak when it came to their children.
He shook his head. There was a weakness in everyone, even in him, but it came easily for him to protect his image as the country’s only capable leader. Only a Caledon could lead the country, and he hoped his eldest son, Magnus II, would do the same. The test results would be quick, and, in the morning, his other children would have forgotten about anything that had happened to their family.