Part 2: Project BlaqNite

	"I've been authorized by fleet command to inform Marks of the
situation. I'm sorry Captain Jose, but you will have to leave."

	Jose shot her a look. "Are you seriously telling me that I have to
get out of my own office?"

	"Orders are orders, Captain." replied Jarvis.

	Jose clenched his fist tightly, then relaxed it again. "Fine."

	After his departure, Preston and Marks sat in the chairs in front of
Jose's desk. Jarvis took the big chair behind it for herself. "Okay Marks,
what you are about to hear is one of the Exofleet's most closely guarded
secrets. It is not to be shared with anyone - regardless of rank - without
the proper authorization. Is that clear?"

	"Yes ma'am." said Marks.

	"A couple of years ago, Exofleet command authorized a top secret
experiment on Mars. Its purpose was to create soldiers with 'special'
properties. It was codenamed Project BlaqNite. The project's focus was to
create a form of biological camouflage. Laymen would say they were trying to
create invisible soldiers. There were twenty-seven test subjects used. As of
today, there are only four left alive. Two of them are standing in this
room."

	Marks' mouth hung open. "You mean you are, were..."

	"A human guinea pig? Yes. The project was approved by Exofleet, but
they were not told everything. They believed that test subjects would be
obtained through a voluntary basis. Though true in six cases, most were
selected and abducted."

	"Selected?" asked Marks.

	"New recruits that had promise, new officers that showed the same, or
people that just wouldn't be missed."

	Marks seemed a bit dumbfounded by the revelation. "Invisibility?
How?"

	"Its kind of hard to explain." offered Preston.

	"Try." demanded Marks.

	Jarvis motioned to Preston. "I'll field this one. I've been
practicing the explanation." She shifted her attention back to Marks.
"BlaqNite is the result of an experimental process that involves both
radiation, drug, and gene therapy. The key to the process was a serum tagged
with particles of Dark Matter." Marks began to interrupt but Jarvis cut him
off. "I have no idea where they got it from, and to be honest, I don't fully
understand how the serum, radiation, implanted genes, and drugs were all
supposed to work together. I do know that it worked, not all that well, but
it worked."

	"What do you mean by 'not all that well'?" asked Marks.

	"In almost all cases, it only worked partially. Someone could turn
invisible, but at least one part of them could still be seen. Also, the power
could only be used in low-light conditions. Then there were other unforeseen
'side-effects'."

	"Two questions." stated Marks.

	"Go ahead." replied Jarvis.

	"One, were there any complete successes?"

	"Just one." said Preston. "Me."

	"And the second question?" prodded Jarvis.

	"Side-effects?" Jarvis took in a deep breath then let it out.

	"Like I said, it involved the use of both radiation and drugs. It had
a tendency to affect the mind."

	"How?" asked Marks.

	Preston decided to field the question. "When I first gained the
BlaqNite ability, I wasn't always aware of it. The drugs in my system had
created a sort of split personality disorder. At night, I was aware of having
the ability and could use it selectively. But once the day came, I'd forget
everything I did that night and that I even possessed the ability. A year
after my first manifestation, I was taken to fleet medical. They did
everything they could for me. They obliterated the lasting effects of the
drugs I was on and got me to a good shrink."

	"So that split personality thing is history?" asked Marks.

	"Yes. It took a few months, but I'm better now. I was one of the
lucky ones."

	"What did it do to you, Jarvis?"

	She stared at Marks a moment, pondering whether she should bother to
answer. "I started seeing things. Cute and fuzzy things at first, then they
got meaner and uglier."

	"One last question on this then we can move on to our murderer."
stated Marks.

	"Shoot." said Preston.

	"If this project was an effort to create essentially a biological
version of a pirate cloaking device, why can't it work in the daylight? I
mean, is it useless in the presence of electric light too?"

	Jarvis drummed her fingers on Jose's desk. "Technically the ability
can be used at anytime, regardless of the light level. It is just the most
efficient in low-light conditions. Borrowing from you earlier analogy, using
BlaqNite is much like using a cloaking device. The particles of Dark Matter
inside the subject create a field that refracts and shunts light. But it also
causes a significant loss in body density. Not to the point of being a ghost,
mind you. Just enough so that light waves - or particles, if you prefer to
think of light that way - can be channeled in between the molecules of a
subjectís body. Most light waves are shunted directly through the subject.
The remainder are bent around them. Now a cloaked pirate ship functions with
a slight difference. It does not alter density or shunt light, it simply
bends light around the ship."

	"And without the reflection of light the ship cannot be seen. Yes, I
understand. But you still haven't answered the question." pointed out Marks.

	"I'm getting there." replied Jarvis. "Recall your academy chemistry
for a moment. What happens when a solid absorbs too much energy?"

	"It melts." answered Marks.

	"And if it still keeps absorbing?" asked Jarvis.

	"It vaporizes." replied Marks.

	"Now recall the term for substances that skip the liquid phase and
jump directly to the gaseous phase."

	"Sublimation." said Marks. His eyes went wide. "You mean to tell me
that you guys will evaporate if hit with too much sun?"

	"Essentially, yes. Though BlaqNite shunts and bends light, it doesn't
protect us from any excess energy we pick up during the process. We absorb a
relatively tiny bit - in the form of heat - from each light wave that we
shunt. Multiply that quantity of heat by a few dozen billion and combine it
with our low density and you're looking at a serious problem. Cloaked ships
have a normal density and heat shielding, we don't."

	"That's a pretty good reason to only use it at night." concluded
Marks.

	"You don't need to tell us that." added Preston.

	Marks digested the information for a bit, then continued. "Okay, I
think I have a handle on this. Now let's talk about our murderer."

* * *

	"Lt. Hiatt?" Amy removed herself from the tangled innards of the
generator she was working on.

	"Yes?" Dr. Rhodes stood before her, which was unusual because she
rarely came down to main engineering.

	"I was wondering if you've seen Corporal Preston. There's still the
matter of that physical and I've been trying to get a hold of him all day."

	"That makes two of us." mumbled Amy.

	"What was that?" asked Rhodes.

	"Haven't seen him. What makes you think I would have?"

	Rhodes shrugged, "I tried everywhere else."

	Amy tossed the wrench she was holding into a nearby tool box and
picked up a welder. "Let me finish this up and I'll give you a hand looking
for him."

	Rhodes pointed to a nearby exit. "I'll be over there when you're
ready, Lieutenant."

* * *

	"His name is Andrew Slade." began Jarvis. "Before Project BlaqNite,
he was a convicted murderer. After Project BlaqNite, he was completely
psychotic and still a murderer."

	"And they chose to experiment on this guy?" asked a disbelieving
Marks.

	"I'd guess that they didn't expect him to survive, and would the
solar system really miss another murderer?" pointed out Preston.

	"No, it would not." conceded Marks.

	"So to everyone's surprise, Slade not only survived the initial
experiments, but until Preston came along, he was the most successful test
subject."

	"Is that why he's killing the rest of you? Because he's still sore
about being upstaged?" asked Marks.

	"I think it goes deeper than that." noted Preston. "I remember him
as being in constant competition with the rest of us. He wanted to prove he
was the best. That he was their ultimate weapon. And he did. The project
heads promised him a future, but unlike the rest of us I think he actually
believed it."

	"So what happened?" demanded Marks.

	"The secret got blown." stated Jarvis. "Exofleet command somehow
found out what was going on and decided to end the experiments. Three of the
project leaders went away and eventually died in prison. The project's lead
scientist went missing and we still don't know where he is. The twelve of us
that survived were shipped off to Exofleet medical in an attempt to
'minimize the damages'. Eleven of us would eventually return to active
service and some semblance of a normal life. Slade was beyond help. They
locked him away in a brightly lit cell and threw away the key. From his point
of view, he had been denied a new chance at life while the rest of us got our
shot."

	"I knew up to this point." stated Preston. "Now tell me how and when
he got out."

	Jarvis shrugged. "We don't know for sure. We do know that he was
tucked away right up until the beginning of the Neosapian War. We also know
that the prison he was held in was destroyed during the initial Neo invasion.
And now we know he's alive so it stands to reason he survived the destruction
of the prison."

	"Wait a minute." said Marks. "You have no proof he's alive, first
off. And second, if he escaped then, why did he wait so long to get even?"

	"In regards to the first part, the facts fit the crime. Plus, its
what my gut tells me." answered Jarvis. "In regards to the second part, he
was on Earth after the Neos took over. It would have taken a lot of time and
more than a bit of effort to get to us."

	"Okay, say you're right. Now what?" posed Marks.

	"I have a security team of six men outside. They'll stay here with
Preston and keep him safe. You and I will find the last target, Lance
Corporal Daniel Michaels. Once we have Michaels, he'll come to us."

	Preston didn't like the sound of it, not one bit. "Problem, Robert?"

	"Sounds too neat, Slade will anticipate it."

	Marks threw his hands in the air in disgust. "The guy is a nut job.
Who's to say what he is thinking?"

	Preston eyed him. "He's crazy, I'll give you that, but he's not
stupid."

	Jarvis stood up from behind Jose's desk. "I know that Robert, but I
can't think of a better way to catch him. I'll make my records available to
you before I leave. If you can come up with something better, then let me
know."

* * *

	Preston arrived at his quarters with his six bodyguards in tow.
"Would you guys mind staying out here? I think better with no distractions."

	"Not a problem, Corporal. Yell if you need anything." answered one of
the guards. They lined up three on either side of the door as Preston went
in. He found a stack of disks waiting for him on his desk. "Jarvis." mumbled
Preston. "She kept her word." He sat down and popped one into the datapad
sitting next to them. "Let's see what we've got."

* * *

	"What do mean Corporal Preston isn't seeing anyone? Since when does
he have this kind of pull?" asked a miffed Amy Hiatt.

	"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. But we have strict orders not to let anyone
see him."

	As Amy wished a thousand paper cuts upon the guard, Dr. Rhodes took a
more subtle approach. "I'm Dr. Rhodes, the Chief Medical Officer here on the
Normandy."

	"Good for you, ma'am." replied the Guard.

	Rhodes smiled patiently and continued. "I recently ran some tests on
Corporal Preston and have found some disturbing results. It is imperative
that I speak with him, his life may well depend on it."

	"Lady, you don't know the half of it." answered the guard. "Look, I'm
not trying to be a pain in the rear. I'm just doing my job, same as you." The
guard looked to Amy. "What about her?"

	"She's here for...moral support."

	The guard sighed. "Fine. You can go in. But make it quick."

	Rhodes nodded. "Thank you."

	As they approached the door, Hiatt whispered, "Pretty slick, Doc."

	"I have my moments."

	"I'm missing something. I know it." mumbled Preston. He had read
through most of Jarvis' data disks and had yet to come up with anything. All
the while, he couldn't shake the feeling that the answer was sitting right in
front of him. The door opened and two familiar faces walked in. "Another
visit? And through security this time? People are going to start talking,
Hiatt."

	"Don't flatter yourself. I just want to know what's going on."

	"Can't tell you." said Preston.

	"Ever occur to you that maybe I can help?" Hiatt planted her hands on
her hips, indicating that she wasn't going anywhere until she got what she
wanted.

	Preston glanced at Rhodes. "And what do you want?"

	She held up her medical bag. "That physical you promised me."

	"Not now, I have a mystery on my hands."

	"I'm an engineer, that means I'm great at problem solving."

	Preston stared at her. "No."

	"Look, you're obviously in mortal danger-"

	"Who isn't on this ship?" interjected Preston.

	"True or false, at this moment you are the crewmember MOST likely to
die in the near future?" Preston looked away. Hiatt grabbed his jaw with her
left hand and made him face her. "True or false?"

	"True."

	Hiatt released him. "Now you can go it alone and take your chances,
or you can bag the orders, tell us what's going on, and maybe we can help."

	Preston remained silent for a moment. "Sit down."

	Hiatt began to protest, "Just tell us-"

	"You want to hear this or not?" asked Preston. They sat together on
the foot of Preston's bed. "It began a couple of years ago with a top secret
research program called Project BlaqNite..."