The X-Project

Callisto sets out to save just one man, and is instead partially responsible for the deaths of two.



Elagu Jayaseelam had never walked so far in his life. He'd been a moderately successful electronics engineer in Jaffna, and he cursed the impulse that had caused him to visit his aunt and her family in their farm outside of Tunnukai. When the reports of Indian troops landing in the north had first come in, they had initially cheered. After all, it had been the Indians in the eighties who had stopped the wholesale slaughter of the Tamils, and despite their later failures to force the Sinhalese to deal fairly with his people, many northern Tamils held high regard for the country to the north. After all, many of them had relatives in India, and he himself had gone to university there.

It wasn't until Chelva had come from the closest neighbouring village with the word that the Indian military was rounding up Tamils that they began to worry, and the news all but confirmed that the Indian military was there at Sinhalese request. Worse, the Tamils of the eastern province had joined in support with the government, disassociating themselves from the mutant attack on the Indian navel vessels by the Tamil Eelam.

He had been still a child during the last major flare up during the civil war, but he remembered the mass graves, the villages marched into the woods and shot down in rows. Auntie Indira had packed up her valuables and children, making a beeline directly for the Red Cross camp to the south, where she had his cousins inoculated. Stupidly, Elagu had decided to take a round about route, to see if he could make it into Mankulam where he had friends, and get some more information. He'd nearly been caught by a patrol just outside, and witnessed several Indian cargo planes landing at the airfield. There had been a red-skinned woman leading one of the patrols, and another in a strange uniform flying, actually flying, overhead and pointing to places which always held hiding Tamils. Elagu had only escaped because a large family had broke cover and ran close by him, and pursuers focused on them long enough for him to escape.

He could see the tops of the camp's fences from the gaps in the trees, and sighed in relief, knowing that civilization was at hand. It made him careless, and he didn't notice his mistake until he'd almost cleared the tree cover, walking past an Indian soldier who'd been leaning against a tree having a smoke. The oiled clack of the rifle froze Elagu.

"You shouldn't be here, young man." The soldier said, tapping him behind the ear with the barrel of the gun. Elagu stumbled forward, just to the edge of the clearing, and could see people through the chainlink of the fence, safe less than fifty metres away. It could have been leagues for all the good it did him. "Terrorists have been moving supplies and intelligence through the woods in this area for decades. Ways to blow up Indian sailors and little children. I guess that makes you a hostile."

He almost cried out - indeed a short, quiet cry did escape his throat before he realised how pointless it was - there was no one within earshot, and besides, he'd likely only alert any other guards in the area. It was to his considerable surprise, then, that he saw a head inside the camp turn his way. A young woman seemed almost to be looking straight at him - slim, impossibly pale, clearly an aid worker, not least from the fact that she looked to have some sort of tool in her hand. What she did next rather surprised him also - after a second's hesitation she stripped off something wrapped around her bare arm, a flash of red fluttering to the ground, and a moment later had stepped out of his vision, shielded behind a row of tents, and was, it seemed, gone.

Any further observations were replaced by blinding pain as the butt of the rifle was stroking across the back of his head. Elagu fell forward, groping blindly with his hands to try and stop his fall or lessen the impact. He sagged to his knees, fingers digging into the dirt, and his head resting against the bole of a tree in front of him.

The Indian soldier placed his boot on the small of the Tamil's back and forced him more forward and prone, settling the rifle stock against his shoulder. The young man hadn't started begging or pleading, as he'd seen others try, not recognizing the fact that his personal opinion didn't matter at all; orders were orders. Still, there was the issue of other Tamils being in the woods. Very few of them travelled alone, and no doubt this one had others waiting for him.

Simple enough to draw out, when you got down to it.

Two rifle cracks echoed in the woods, and carried lightly on the wind. A few birds lept into the air at the sound, and then resettled themselves on new perches. A few minutes later, the Indian soldier had resumed his own post, watching the camp through a gap in the tree, sure that they screened him from being spotted himself, and lit a cigarette, cutting the warm taste of a kill in his mouth; the mixture of horror and elation.

The screams coming from the grove where he'd left Elagu didn't carry far, but enough that any of his friends or family would hear and come to his aid. There was a part of him that regretted not being able to make the clean kill, especially since the young man had acted with courage. Being lung and gut shot, slowly dying in the dirt, was a horror to experience as your last minutes, but it would bring any others out of hiding. He could see both the young man and the camp from here. Flushing them out in either direction would win him a commendation. He blew out a plume of smoke and settled back to watch.




The shots echoed painfully loudly in Callisto's ears but not enough to cut out the following whimpers of pain. The sharp smell of the young man's blood found her and her face twisted into an expression of distaste as she fought the nausea welling up in her throat.

She moved silently through the trees, making no effort to conceal her movements - the man she approached was the only guard in the area, he and the poor bastard on the ground the only humans between here and the camp, and she was round behind him now. Her skin, burned and peeled and burned again more than once since she'd arrived, healing so quickly that sunblock seemed an entirely pointless expense, was prickling, and she could feel the proverbial cold sweat trickling between her shoulder blades to the small of her back, soaking through her tank.

She reached the grove first. The Tamil was slumped against a tree, his blood soaking a dark stain on the ground beneath him, making sounds of pain that seemed more animal than human, staring at her with wide, white eyes, barely registering her presence or indeed anything other than desperation and agony. She was sure then that he was going to die.

Nonetheless, she was at his side in a moment, crouched, assessing his size and weight - there was no question she'd be able to carry him easily but the question was how best to do so given his wounds. She knew where the guard was, but hedged her bets - surely he would only shoot her, and she could probably take a shot or two to the back and walk away.

She forgot, of course, what an easy target she looked. She forgot that she was slim, and pale, and female. She hadn't banked on what happened then.

The first shot kicked up dirt in front of her, obviously a warning as the soldier came through the bushes, rifle at ready. "You don't look like a Tamil, girl." He said, although his Punjabi could have been alien for all that Callisto could understand. It must be one of the workers at the Red Cross camp, coming out to interfere after being expressly told not to by the government. Shame.

A sudden thought took him. Kill the girl, paste a suicide note on the Tamil boy and leave a grenade sandwiched between them. The Tamil Eelam claim another innocent life through a terrorist attack, and the Red Cross suddenly has to make a decision to support those killing their people. This would be worth a major promotion, all but ruining the last support the northern Tamils had internationally.

He nestled the rifle closer to himself, targeting her. "Bad choices, girl. It's a shame you're going to be useful."

Callisto, still crouched on the ground by the Tamil, back to the guard, remained for a moment entirely still. Then there was a flash of movement, something glinted in the sun, and his hand exploded with pain where it lay on his rifle. Another shot went off, and the part of his brain not concentrating on his hand registered that the young woman had turned, and now had a gunshot wound in her right shoulder, which he supposed must have come from his own rifle, which had clattered to the ground at his feet.

She surveyed him balefully, her usually mild, pale eyes a piercing green in the bright sunlight, and spoke in what the soldier knew to be English, though her words were quick and her accent thick enough that he only made out three. Those three were enough, though: 'bastard', 'fucking', and 'kill you'.

He groped for his knife with his good hand, trying to rearm himself before this fiend was able to finish the job. There wasn't going to be an opportunity to call for the Imperial Guard supporting them. This creature must be of the same kind of form; human looking, but possessing great powers.

He rolled, trying to put some distance between them, and slashed in a wide arc with the knife, hoping to force her back, but she was bearing down on him now, almost his own height, and with a flip of her hand as he lashed out he felt the knife leave his grip and fly across the glade. He felt the impact of a savage backhand to his face, his head twisting quickly enough to cause whiplash, his mind still not quite keeping up with what was happening. The sensation harked back to his childhood in Bangalore when the bigger boys would pick on him, so much stronger and faster than he was, the year or two between them meaning the world in coordination and skill. Another blow came, a hook to his right jaw that caused a sickening crack. As he felt it slacken, blood flooding his mouth, some part of him registered that he'd 'hit' the wrong shoulder, that this... thing must be left-handed. The idea was strangely amusing.

He didn't even have enough sensation left to mouth a final prayer, his body collapsing into shock from the impact. This pale asura had shattered his will with his bones, and he stared blankly into the face of his own death.

The blows came quickly, then, one after the other - he felt ribs break, one of his legs, his brain dully registering the damage although the pain itself had long since reached its maximum. They stopped as suddenly as they'd started, however, and the woman stepped - almost staggered - backwards.

Callisto turned to stare at the man behind her, completely still, now, poised, her own breath held as she listened for his. She heard none, only the strangled, liquid gasps of the soldier behind her. One of his lungs was punctured.

Her face twisting into a mask of rage and disgust, she turned back swiftly, stooping to retrieve the rifle and pointing it at the Indian soldier's face, eyes blazing. His jaw hung slack, blood seeping with a few teeth from between his lips and onto the dirt. His breath wheezed in and out with considerable difficulty, his ribcage visibly caved. His leg had a break at the thigh, crushed by sudden impact.

The moment drew out for what seemed an impossibly long time. The last thing the soldier saw before his vision, and then his consciousness, disappeared in a heavy, cold, red and black blanket, was the pale demon dropping the gun, hand raising to cover her face, and turning away.