Fighting Terrorism with Terror

Fighting Terrorism with Terror

Chapter 1: Government-funded Spin Doctors and Old Knights

Hannibal arrived at the Trident Clinic. The calendar date was his birthday on July 21, 1952. Hannibal had just turned thirty-five years of age on that day, and he needed to get his annual physical exam. Hannibal already knew that he was in great shape, still feeling young. Hannibal’s army training and discipline were still fresh in his life.

Hannibal held a job as a shift supervisor for the U.S. Postal System. Hannibal used his doctor’s appointment as an excuse to get a day-off for his birthday. Hannibal’s union contract required annual, routine physical check-ups with his family doctor, which provided the perfect excuse for a fun day. Hannibal pretended with his boss to procrastinate to get the examination done today. Hannibal wanted to tell his wife later that the doctor had given him a clean bill of health. Hannibal wanted to say to her that he had the stamina for whatever would come next. She did not need more stamina.

However, on this fateful day Hannibal was led to believe that the office administrators confused his paperwork after he checked-in. Somehow there was a mistake, or so it seemed. Someone switched Hannibal with another patient when filing paperwork, but the act may or may not have been an accident. The clinic confused Hannibal for a patient that was scheduled for a cryogenic science experiment in the newly commissioned Area-51 facility of New Mexico City, New Mexico. Nothing important happens merely by chance. Hannibal was destined for something greater than being a mere postal worker. On this day Hannibal became what seemed to be a gineau pig for science.

Backflash

The Korean war had just ended, and Hannibal ended his second tour of duty with the Army. Hannibal was a highly decorated captain of an alpha team, a special operations unit. His full name is Hannibal Smith. His time of service in the Army assured a good job placement in the civilian population. Hannibal returned home and used his army status to obtain the position of shift supervisor of the Detroit Postal Service. His income allowed him to afford a house and family. Hannibal found his wife stateside immediately after returning to civilian life.

Hannibal wanted to move on, to make new memories and forget the horrors of war. Hannibal knew that, if he did not get it together fast in his personal life, some other war and secret from his past would eventually bring him back to professional soldiering. If Hannibal did not make an effort to grow old and feeble, the government would likely recruit him again for the specific set of skills that he used so successfully in two wars. Hannibal was very good at special operations. This was the plan, and, in Hannibals favorite words, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Returning to the present

Hannibal asked why the doctor poked him a general anesthetic, which was actually a powerful sedative. The doctor reacted with a funny facial expression while Hannibal complained. Hannibal quickly nodded to sleep, unaware that he would not make his birthday party at home. Before Hannibal finished celebrating his thirty-fifth birthday, he was cryogenically frozen and shipped to a top-secret government building in New Mexico.

Hannibal awoke with a half-dozen people in laboratory coats crowding what appeared to be Hannibal on a tip-board, spin-table with restraints. ”Uh, doctors,” Hannibal barely asked in a groggy, sleepy way , “where am I? I need to be at an important social gathering tonight. Is there any way to expedite this physical examination?”

The doctors looked at each other mumbling. The lead doctor fidgetted, bobbed his head a few times while looking around, gulped, and after a long inhale and exhale, finally spoke up, “We are very, very sorry to tell you this, Mr. Smith, Uh, Hannibal, uh sir, but there was a mistake in filing your paperwork. We did not catch the mistake until it was too late. You did not see a doctor in 1952 when you visited for your routine, annual physical.”

Hannibal paused in a surprised way, then the thought kicked-in. “Who, exactly, did I visit, and who are you?” ....no answer....Hannibal clenched his teeth and fists, and curled his toes. Hannibal’s skin turned pale white. Skin hairs bristled and adrenaline washed through. In moments Hannibal returned to normal. After recovering composure, with a polite-but-angry, forced smile Hannibal asked “Okay, yes....I get it. You mixed me with another patient in the building and drugged me to sleep. I hope that you did not perform any surgery on me.” Dramatic pause. Still no reaction, 0nly silence. ”Well, doc-what’s-your-name, I am not getting younger. What happened?”

The lead scientist stuttered,“We understand your reaction. Just call me doc for now. Please stay calm while I explain. What happened to you and when it happened are complicated. Currently, the year is 2019, June 7 of 2019, and you are about to become a 102-year-old man. My collegues here are all fellow scientists. Yes, there was a mix-up with another experimental subject in the clinic, but we did not perform any kind of surgery to remove anything from your body. Instead, we successully froze your body cryogenically and stored you in a vault for the last sixty-seven years.”

Shaking my head with clenched teeth, angrily interrupting....“Stop right there, please, stop....STOP talking. Let me try to process this information calmly.” After a period of silence, I replied,“I lost you at 2019. Unless this is some cruel birthday prank, then how do you expect me to believe what you are saying to me? Did you say, ‘froze’? Come on, this is a joke, right? Did my wife put you up to do this? HaAA, Ha, Ha! Very funny. Where is she?”

“If you would let me finish, Hannibal.” the scientist snapped, “I am far, far from finished. The world is a much different place now, as are you also a very much different (pause) person. I will make you a believer, if you would permit me to explain.”

“You ARE being serious?” Hannibal reacted. “You poked me with a sedative and it never occurred that I was the wrong person to be your test subject? Doctors, I need a cigar. Can anyone here get me a cigar?”

The doc nods to an attendant, “Please fetch this man a cigar.”

Hannibal continues,”Doc, do you expect me to believe that sixty-seven years passed and you could not discern quickly within one day that you were messing with a nonconsenting civilian? Your explanation better be stellar good. How could you possibly motivate me against my will to comply with this story?”

The doc turns away with his head bowed to the floor, ”We could not afford to unfreeze you immediately after we discovered our mistake, then a bureacrat from our covert government agency ordered us to continue with our experiment. All our other test subjects died immediately in our top-secret, government-funded experiment. Since you were the only successful test subject to survive our procedure, albeit accidentally, we decided to pay-off your wife for her silence and continue to use you. Since you never had children, and sixty-seven years have passed, your wife and all your kin are currently deceased. No one except the present company knows that you are here.”

Hannibal’s mouth dropped to the ground. Hannibal already knew that these scientists had restrained him on the ....what is this contraption? Somehow, Hannibal felt that there was still more information to follow. Hannibal sensed his past from the wars catching up.

Hannibal, ”Doc, did you say a bureacrat from your secret, government agency?” Hannibal listened while staring at the floor. Hannibal asked himself, “why am I staring down at the floor? Why do I feel like I my head, arms, and shoulders are hanging?”

The lead scientist then continued,”Yes, and you may already know him from your initial Army training. We could have revived you two months ago, but somebody dropped your cryogenic chamber as we were moving it to our laboratory to unfreeze you. The impact cracked your frozen mouth and nose. After we thawed you, we surgically repaired your entire face as best that we could, applying all the techniques of modern plastic surgery. We gave you the stunning, handsome look of a modern actor who played in a recent movie called, ‘Batman Returns’. However, we could not entirely repair the full extend of the facial damage. The nerve endings near your epithelial cells inside your mouth and nose cannot be reattached properly, causing severe pain when you breathe without the mask. We needed to give you a special face mask to wear over your mouth and nose that prevents painful hyperventillation. Who knows, it may come in handy in a viral pandemic. However, you should still manage to smoke a cigar without the mask.”

At this point, these words from the scientist no longer mattered to Hannibal. Hannibal’s life flashed before His eyes. Hannibal’s wife was gone. Hannibal’s friends were gone. Hannibal’s job...gone! All Hannibal’s years as a decorated, highly-skilled, special forces captain in the Army.....gone! Something deep inside broke, crushed by the faint, echoing words of the mad, Trident scientist. Deep inside Hannibal knew that his old trainers in the Army were involved in his current delemna.

Yet, somehow during the scientist’s droning ramble Hannibal mustered the strength to fish for more information, “Okay, doc, let me roll a little with what you are saying. I did not make it through two wars by sulking about the mess that others put me into. I volunteered for both wars because I love my country, and I knew that I would be a good soldier. I served faithfully. Now, it seems, I am being dragged into another conflict. So, please indulge me: While I was being fixed by you after thawing, did it ever occur that further improvements could be made with my body? All your rambling is boring me to the point that I wish I could rip my ears off, just to see what improvements that you could make to my hearing ability. I think that a longer, fatter, and harder penis as a 102-year-old man would really help me to cope as a newly, unmarried man in this brave, new world. I would not want the darkness to be my only ally.” Hannibal still had his sense of humor. Hannibal lost everything but still knew how to get a laugh.

The scientist chuckled with his reply, “it is funny that you should ask. Yes, we did give you an....improved.... penis also. You see, your face was not the only thing that was smashed by the person who dropped you. However, you can take great consolation that we gave you the best penis that the U.S. government can buy. It cost the U.S. government $6 million.”

“I was trying to lighten-up, doc,” Hannibal said. “Your story is getting better and better as you pitch it. Are you actually being serious again? Please do NOT spare me any more details. Let me have the full monty. How much more ...improvement... to my body did you cause?” Secretly thinking ....and THEN persuade me NOT TO KILL you when these restraints come off? Resume talking...“By the way, doc, why am I staring down at the floor? What is this contraption that you restrained me with?”

The doc, ”If it is any more consolation to you, the person who broke his leg under your cryogenic chamber also became a test subject of ours as punishment, but you then became our prime candidate for another cybernetic experiment. We consider your face as collateral damage compared to how we improved the rest of you.”

Hannibal, ”Doc! You are killing me with suspense. What else did you do to me?”

Doc, ”We also need to make a quick disclaimer. We understand that you may be feeling very angry at us at the moment. Until we are sure that you are willing to cooperate with our experiment and accept your fate, we will keep you under sedation and observation. If we cannot succeed in gaining your trust and cooperation, then we will take our data and find a way discreetly to part company with you. We have the full power of the U.S. government to deny any secret experiments with any American citizen.”

I sarcastically started to rant, “Sure thing, doc, just drop me off in the middle of a busy city at any time, day or night, and abandon me there like nothing ever happened. I am sure that I will face my day on a busy city street soon, but on my terms. Do you want someone with my talents to make the general public think about government abductions and crazy, futuristic experiments on an unsuspecting U.S. citizen? People are more likely to think that I partook of an alien conspiracy or that I am some astonaut who missed his landing target after re-entry. You would have more luck recruiting me as a spy, as some sort of super agent, or a highly skilled, super soldier. I hope that you have a plan for improving my body with secret, super weaponry. I love it when a plan comes together.”

“So....” the doc continued, “the impact of your fall completely severed the bottom half of your body from your upper half around your waistline. The fall broke you into three pieces, unlike Humpty Dumpty. However, this accident gave us the opportunity to hybridize several projects that we have been developing for the last thirty years. We decided to graft your body’s upper half with a model of a cybernetic horse in our laboratory, thus giving you a centaur appearance. Here is a mirror for you to use.” He placed the full length mirror against the wall across the room.

Hannibal looked as the horse-version of something that words failed to describe until, later, a cute, female attendant affectionately told Hannibal about a movie character named Darth Vader (without the cape). Either Hannibal was dreaming about birthday sex while frozen or someone gave him the genes for Godzilla’s dick! (if lizard’s were mammals)

Hannibal hung there catatonic in his full, resplendid, hard glory. Didn’t horses only have four legs? Hannibal’s heart fluttered at first with agony and anger, then tears rolled down his face. Hannibal could not decide if the tears were joyful or sad, but the lightbulb in his head later started to shine with ideas. Did the Kentucky Derby still exist? How much money does a hybrid cop/horse make? Has American football become a professional sport yet? Can centaurs to play football? Maybe Hannibal could play another professional sport at the same time, like Polo, Foxhunting, become a cowboy, perform at rodeos? Hannibal could become a travelling vaudville act or headline a Broadway or Las Vegas production. Somehow, becoming a porn star did not seem....fair....to his co-stars.

Hannibal, ”Doc, what is your real name? I keep thinking how pathetic it sounds to call you, doc, each time I ask you questions. I think that you deserve some respect after all your hard work.”

Doc, “Dr. Phil is acceptable.” The attendant finally arrives with a cigar and lighter.

Hannibal, “Okay, I think that I like doc better. I have three more questions. First, why a horse’s body?”

Doc, “Unless you want me to call you something inappropriately flattering, then stick with Dr. Phil. As for our choice of body design, you have asked a very good question. There are four animals on the Earth that have huge penises: There is the elephant, the whale, the giraffe, and the horse. We wanted a supersoldier that could move with speed, power, and agility while operating weaponry with precision and skill. We also wanted to enhance your physical size and stamina while maintaining humaniod shape. We believed that a horse’s appearance, especially with horns, struck more fear into the hearts of an enemy combatant than, say, a bat, giraffe, elephant, or fish that floundered out of the water. Lizards do not have the dick size of any mammal, or we would have chosen the aligator. We want you to engage an army, not only a small group, of enemy combatants. The penis size is our way of saying that we speak softly but carry a deadly huge stick of mass destruction. Your skin is made of a adamantium alloy that is indestructable, heat, pressure, and water resistant. In essence, Trident does not like getting dicked-around by anyone, and we want to send a message to the world about what happens when we swing our dicks. We use big dicks and we can not lie. No brother on my team can deny. When a man walks in with a six pack waist and a long thing in her face, she gets sprung. She wants to pull up tough ’cuz she notices that the dick is stuffed inside the jeans he’s wearing. She’s hooked and she can’t stop staring.... ”

Hannibal, “Doc who-mixes-a-lot, you are making me feel awkward. What did you do with the rest of my thawed body? Did you attach it to a supercomputer brain with robot arms? You did all this to me, but why couldn’t you reunite me with my original body? Why can’t you re-attach my torso whenever you guys stop playing so I can live a normal life? I am feeling like a comic book character minus the cape and spandex.”

.....long pause.....Doc, “Get some rest, Hannibal. You are going to need it.”

Hannibal,“For what?”

Doc, “For your training. We are funded by the Knights Templar. Do you remember your sacred oath during your initial training as a knight in our secret society? If you want your body back, then you have to earn it, Sir Mixed-up. The Knight’s Templar employs your enhanced services. We automatically recruited you for another tour of duty.