2 days later, James walks casually, as he scans his card to enter a filing room. He passes the security guard, as he looks at the labyrinth of physical files, and sighs. He walks casually. As he looks thru draw labels. Until... he finds it. But he walks past, opening a different filing cabinet. Reading a unrelated file for... too many boring minutes. Then moves to a different one. Doing the same. Until finally, reading case file 17B12XC. As he reads... he frowns. Its... sparse. Too sparse. It's a investigation into... a pattern of kidnappings, started in 1996, ended... 1997. He frowns, reading the date. He notices... basically... all the data is gone, the file immensely thin. With only the front page left, a list of names. He works to memorize them. Then... moves to another file cabinet, reading. Then another... until he leaves the room.
James soon arrives home, as he looks into the names. As he looks over them online. He frowns... Ally Miller, Jason Todd. Lexon Vance. All... gone. They were CIA operatives, disappeared suddenly 1997, all data... just vanishes. No funerals, just... gone. He looks into families... same... thing. Gone. Data scrubbed. As if they did not exist. Nothing online shows they exist after 1997, before, full lives. He looks thru more names on the list of investigators... he frowns. Some of these pepole were... pretty big names! He frowns, as he sees one, Arther Lex... wanted? A fugitive framed for manslaughter of a gang, once a CIA investigator. Reportedly ran from trial? Missing sense 1997.
James types on the V chat "I got the file, read it... researched." V replies "You saw then? How doomed you were." There is a quite, as James can't help but have his hands shake. "What... is the Evotorium? What do they do?" He asks. Minutes pass with no reply, until "The Evotorium. They are evil. True evil. Worse then hitler. They have been active sense the 1970s. Spreading, growing. They are a parasite on the world. Digging there way into every organization on the planet. Why? Its stupid really. For horrors. True horrors." James frowns annoyed "Horrors? Yet you never tell them to me! What are they doing! Why are they kidnaping people!" There is a pause in V's reply. Before "I will just send you a file we stole from them then. Read it. You will understand." As a attachment pdf appears. He clicks, as a popup appears "You may only read this file within the V chat application, for secrecy. Continue?" He clicks yes. The PDF is dry, with only a well formatted log of information.
"Product Source: M, 14, David Miller; Production Stage 1:..." As he reads production stage 1, he frowns greater, and greater. Biological diagrams of the human form, showing areas for fat to be moved via something called NS, areas for hormonal shifts to occur, and the end goal of preparing the body for stage 2, as it lists "Production Stage 1 Status: Complete, 9 days, 11 hours." Under... a image of a man laying in a cell, with a red light covering the padded walls. As he lay, shivering in the photo, with weird sacs on his body. He shivers, hands shaking, as he reads on, Production stage 2... as diagrams of... legs merging, organs shifting are shown, eventually, a diagram of lung shifts, and biological diagrams cloud the screen. He scrolls faster until "Production Stage 2 Status: Complete, 11 days, 2 hours." With a picture... of a literal female mermaid in a tank is show. His hands shake, "What... is this?" He scrolls further, as various information comes out. Some redacted by black bars. Details of buyers, this costing 280$, them selling this mermaid for 328k. His hands shake... as soon he reads "Stage 3: Unnecessary. Buyer will break in." Under that "Goal: Sexual Product with the appearance of a mermaid, incapable of speech, dependency on water to breath." He... closes the document. He is unmoving.
He breaths harder, and harder. As the horrifically biological images flash thru his mind. The memory of that Evotorium Biotech Initiative he read about comes to mind. He threw it away because it was too old, and unrelated detail. He is quite. Before typing "How? Why? Why do..." He deletes, rewrites "How are they able to do this? This is sci-fi shit!" There is a quite. Before "We don't know, all we know is that they can, with a substance called NS." There is a silence... then V sends another message "This is what occurs to all they disappear. Entire gangs, families. Either put into regular human trafficking, or a unlucky few... brought to there facilities. The process is slow thou, and there... 'products' are rare. Very rare. Too keep the price high, and secrecy controlled. They keep themselves myths, there failures myths. Why have you heard of the Loch Ness Monster but never seen it? Because they killed them. Bigfoot? Seen once, killed. At least, that's what we think. There is much we don't know, but... we could use someone like you if you are willing to risk your life, and body to help us bring them down. Even if you still think this is fake, real pepole are going missing, and the V-network keeps you safe. If you agree, we would welcome you to the team."
Its quite, as James sits... not responding. Before V types "But i would understand if you say no. You have a life to live. A job to keep. And the risks... are big. I know a reporter who got too close to one of the buyers, and due to that disappeared... only for a few months later, the mob boss to gain a new pet bird, he tortured every day. Its... not perfectly safe, we need to take risks, but... we want one thing... this disgusting thing to die." He does not respond for a long time. Before writing "I need time." As he closes his laptop, walks to his bedroom, and lays on the bed. He breaths hard, unmoving. As he shivers, and begins to cry. He rolls over, and grabs his wife picture, balling. "I am sorry... i am sorry... please... please... oh god..."