The Project, Chapter I
A genetically engineered supergirl breathes her first breath.
By Paul Smith (psmith_101@yahoo.com)

Warning: Only suitable for those over 21 years of age.



"Subject ready," stated a computerised female voice, "Animation process initiated."

* * * * *
In 2100, mankind made its first tentative reach towards other solar systems. The reason was simple: every planet, moon or asteroid that could be made inhabitable was almost filled to capacity. In short, in order to survive, mankind desperately needed more space. The planetary system 'G223' had been selected as the most likely system to be capable of sustaining life. In an international project costing trillions of dollars, the half mile long starship 'Fearless' had been constructed. She had been designed to support her 100-strong crew of scientists and engineers for the duration of the 30 year voyage. On the 17 June 2100, the SS Fearless set off into the unending void of space to explore system G223.

On the 5 November 2155, the SS Fearless finally reappeared on the scanners, 20 years late. A fleet of shuttles were launched from one of Jupiter's moons to give the crew a hero's welcome. However, as the shuttles drew closer to the vessel, it became apparent that all was not as it seemed. The ship was adrift, her hull blackened, with huge holes gouged into the titanium alloy shell. When the crew failed to respond to hails, a shuttle boarded the ship. They found nothing but corpses.

As the video records of the SS Fearless were downloaded, the truth came to light. The crew had safely reached their destination and had found several planets which were inhabitable, albeit with a gravity about twice that of Earth. Unfortunately for humankind, the existing inhabitants didn't take kindly to being disturbed. The captain of the SS Fearless managed to turn the huge vessel around as wave after wave of fighters bombarded the ship with missiles. A torpedo detonated against one of the fuel tanks, the resulting explosion breaching the hull. The crew gasped for air as the remaining oxygen leaked from the damaged ship. Most of the ship's systems had remained undamaged and the ship automatically continued accelerating back to our solar system, reaching a third of the speed of light before the depleted fuel supplies finally ran out. The lifeless hulk had continued to drift in space for a further 35 years until it had eventually reached Jupiter.

Humanity vowed revenge and sent a fleet of battleships to G223. It would be 25 years before they would return. In the meantime, preparations continued for the return strike.

In 2161, the Earth military finally approved the 10 billion dollar budget for the Enhanced Human Genome (EHG) project. Over the next ten years, every living human's DNA was secretly analysed by the project, slowly building up a database which directly correlated how a person's genes effected their abilities (such as intelligence, strength and agility). By 2171, it became clear that it was possible to modify DNA to amplify such attributes as muscle density by a factor of several thousand. When this was announced to the military's scientific advisors, an additional 20 billion dollars of funding to take the project to the next level was immediately approved.

2173 heralded the Project's first attempt to produce a genetically modified human. The male subject was grown in a large transparent tube (called a Genesis Tube) filled with thick blue fluid designed to provide an abundance of everything the growing body could need. As the 'pregnancy' progressed it became apparent that the fluid could not provide enough nutrients for the embryo to grow as it should; the increased muscle density was simply too extreme for the scientists to provide nutrients quick enough. Sadly, the subject didn't make it past the first month.

By 2179, the scientists at EHG headquarters believed that they had found a more rapid way to transfer energy to the growing foetus; the new nutrient-rich fluid was thousands of times more potent than the original had been. Also, to their surprise, the operatives at the EHG project discovered that female genomes had a far greater potential for increased muscle density and, therefore, strength. In fact, a woman's muscle density could be increased by a factor of several million without side effects. There were additional advantages too; females are generally considered to be much less of a threat than males and so would probably be viewed with less suspicion by the enemy. The military realised that the genetically engineered human could also be used as a spy and so the ability of a female to use her sex appeal to gain entrance where a male subject could not also became an issue.

For this reason, the subject had not only been blessed with enhanced strength but also with a body that would fulfill any man's fantasy. Her breasts would beat those of a centrefold, her muscles would be larger and more defined than those of any female bodybuilder, her waistline thinner than that of a supermodel and her face far cuter than that of any girl in the solar system. In fact, the only external sign of her stupendous power was her large muscles (which would, of course, remain concealed underneath her clothing until it was too late).

Based on this evidence, the military approved further funding for the project. And so, on the 5 October 2181, the animation process of Subject II began.

* * * * *
Black. Nothing but black.

Then light. Too much, too bright.

Colours, so many colours. Swirling, focussing...becoming...what?

Blue - shades of blue - people, consoles, flashing lights - all tinted blue.

Bubbles rising past her face, brushing over her skin, thrilling her.

The blue people were watching her. She wondered why.

* * * * *
"Her eyes!" yelped Operator XVI, "They've opened!"

People all around the control room stared at the girl in the tube filled with bubbling blue liquid. Her beautiful eyes stared back at them with an undisguised look of curiousity. Her naked body was utterly breathtaking; huge, incredibly pert breasts sat atop a physique that would not look out of place in a bodybuilding magazine, her long blonde hair floated around the murky fluid, her eyes eagerly exploring the room. They knew for a fact that her eyesight was millions of times better than their own, that she was capable of exploring to a microscopic level of detail with just a quick glance.

Her brain was also enhanced, but not to the same level; she was estimated to be perhaps a hundred times more intelligent than a normal human. Looking at her, you wouldn't be able to guess she was only 5 minutes old; she looked to be in her early twenties, which was the way she would stay for her whole life. Within days her intellect would mature enough for her to be considered 'adult' in that area as well.

"A name," commanded the Supervisor, "we need to give her a name. I propose 'Shannon'. Any objections?"

The Supervisor was not surprised that nobody dared suggest an alternative name. He was also not surprised to find that nobody asked why he wanted to call her Shannon; which was good, because he wasn't about to justify himself to them.

"Shannon it is then."

* * * * *
The girl could feel the vibrations coming through the fluid. She found that her ears could detect the vibrations even more precisely than her body could.

Sound. She was hearing sound.

She heard the noise 'shaa non'; the men seemed to look at her when they made that noise. She realised that she must be 'shaa non.'

She instinctively smiled.

* * * * *
Operator XVI was so captivated by her smile that he failed to notice one of his readouts increase slightly.

As the hours went by, Shannon progressed far quicker than they expected. By the end of day one she was speaking fluent English, with an approximate mental age of thirteen.

Operator XVI found her totally captivating, barely able to take his eyes off her. When she smiled at him he couldn't help himself from smiling back. The gauge on his console continued to rise without him noticing; it was now more than double what it was to begin with. The readout was labelled 'Nutrient Level.'

By the end of day two, Shannon was as intelligent as the most gifted of teenagers - she could speak not only English, but French, Spanish and Japanese as well. Her mind seemed to absorb knowledge like a sponge.

The nutrient level continued to rise, indicating that more and more nutrients were being pumped into the fluid to keep up with the rate her body was absorbing them.

At the beginning of day three, the Project's managers agreed that it was safe to explain to Shannon how she was created and why; at the moment she thought that everybody was created like she had been, that she was nothing special.

The Supervisor approached the tube.

"Shannon?" he said, "Are you awake?"

Shannon had found she didn't need sleep; she had merely been closing her eyes and slowing her breathing to try and 'fit in' with everybody else.

"I am now, Supervisor," she replied, her voice still as erotic to the Supervisor as it had been when he had first heard it.

"There's something we've been meaning to tell you," he said, nervous for the first time in his life, "You're not like us. You're different."

For the first time, a frown crossed Shannon's beautiful face.

"Different? How?"

"It's very complicated, let me start at the beginning..."

He was interrupted by a warning siren. Shocked, Operator XVI actually looked at his console for the first time in almost three days.

"Sir!" he said, "The nutrient level has risen to triple what it should be! The nutrient infusion device is unable to keep up with the level at which Shannon is absorbing energy!"

"My God! How long has it been like this?" boomed the Supervisor.

Operator XVI checked the automatic logs and did the math.

"I estimate that...this can't be right..." he stammered.

"Spit it out man!" shouted the Supervisor.

Shannon looked around the roomed, unable to see what the panic was about. She felt fine.

"...I estimate that she's absorbed...no this must be wrong..."

The Supervisor looked as though he was about to explode with rage.

"...almost a t-thousand times more nutrients than we expected Sir!" said Operator XVI in disbelief.

"A THOUSAND TIMES?!?" screamed the Supervisor, "How did you let this happen?"

"I-I was..erm...distracted, Sir!"

"DISTRACTED? I'll show you distracted! Get him out of my sight!" said the Supervisor, motioning to the security guards, "Seventeen! Take over!"

Another technician stepped into take the place of Operator XVI as he was dragged away from the console.

Shannon was distressed. She rather liked Operator XVI. She wondered what his real name was. She also pondered why nobody ever told each other what their actual names were.

"Five billion!" muttered the Superviser under his breath, "Five billion fucking times stronger! What is the boss going to say about this fucking mess?"

Nobody heard him except Shannon. She questioned her own hearing; could she actually be billions of times stronger than a normal person? True, she was a little more muscular than average (in fact, she was considerably more built than most of the men in the room) but that didn't go very far to explaining why (or how) her strength should be so extreme. She concluded that she must have misheard him; it was the only logical explanation.

Suddenly, the nutrient level gauge exploded, instantly killing Operator XVII. Uncontrolled power flooded into the chamber where Shannon floated, her body seeming to lap up every last drop of the energy.

"Seventeen! Shut it off! You're about to wipe out 50 billion dollars of the government's money!" No response. "Shut the fucking thing off!"

Enraged, the Supervisor turned to Operator XVII and saw his carcass slumped across the smoking console.

"Shit!" boomed the Supervisor, "Eighteen - get that console fixed and turn off the fucking power! It's killing her!"

The power was doing anything but killing Shannon. In fact, she revelled in it. Her muscles were being infused with the power of a hundred suns, enhanced in strength to incomprehensible levels. Despite her ecstacy, Shannon could still hear the clamour from the control room.

50 billion dollars. The phrase rang around Shannon's head. Had she cost 50 billion dollars to...make? She didn't know what to believe - was she a normal woman or was she billions of times stronger than any human who had ever lived?

Operator XVIII pushed aside XVII's smoldering corpse and frantically connected up the console. A bank of computers exploded, throwing the Supervisor across the room.

Shannon couldn't help herself from letting out a gasp of pleasure as the floodgates opened and yet more power gushed into her supercharged body. She was now probably trillions of times stronger than any man alive. Her body shivering with pleasure, she ran her fingers up her physique before cupping part of her swollen breasts in her hands, fondling her nipples in sexual ecstacy.

The Supervisor frantically scrambled to his feet.

"Nothing will take my creation away from me," he yelled, plucking a fire axe from the wall and driving it into the thick power cable that connected the nutrient level console to the Genesis Tube. Sparks flew as the axe glowed red hot under the immense voltage that now flowed through it; the same voltage that flowed into Shannon, seeming to do little more than turn her on. The Supervisor managed to jump free virtually unscathed.

As the last few drops of raw energy rushed into Shannon's body she threw her muscular arms back in ecstacy, unknowingly shattering the G Tube. The blue fluid exploded outwards, splattering against the walls. At this moment the door burst open and the security guards flooded in. Seeing the shattered Genesis Tube, their orders in such a situation were quite clear.

The escaped subject should be terminated.

* * * * *
Shannon lay on the floor, coughing up the gooey blue liquid. The world around her was very different to how she had grown accustomed to it. Gone was the unending blue, replaced by so many facinating new colours.

The sound of a gunshot ricochetting off the floor beside her head quickly bought her back to her senses. Instinctively, she ran.

* * * * *
The guards saw the girl get up, turn away from them and run straight into a metal wall. She seemed not to slow down as her body tore through the thick metal, her legs quickly accelerating her far too quickly for them to have any hope of catching up.

There was a long, astonished pause.

"Supervisor!" shouted a soldier, clearly the leader, "What happened here?"

He briskly jogged down the steps and towards the Supervisor. Snapping out of their trance, the other soldiers followed him. The Supervisor staggered to his feet and stumbled towards the hole in the wall.

"Where do you think you're going?" said the soldier.

"This," managed the Supervisor, "t-this is incredible!"

He ran his fingers over the buckled metal, his eyes wide with amazement as his hand brushed over the jagged tear in the titanium, drawing blood.

"Absolutely incredible!"

"What HAPPENED?!?" boomed the guard, growing impatient.

"This wall is made of titanium, the hardest metal known, and my baby just ran straight through it." said the Supervisor with a hint of pride, "Do you realise, General, that this wall is over two foot thick?"

"W-What?" replied the General incredulously.

The Supervisor rubbed his fingers the full depth of the now exposed metal, totally astonished by the ease with which his 'baby' had demolished it.

"She has the strength of five billion men," said the Supervisor with a slight crack in his voice, "probably far more."

* * * * *
Rob and Dave were playing cards. Rob was winning for the first time in his whole life.

"I'll see your ten and raise you five," he said confidently.

"I fold," Dave reluctantly replied.

"I believe this," announced Rob, "belongs to me."

Just as Rob started to reach forward to scoop up his winnings, the wall beside the gamblers bulged outwards like some kind of huge balloon. Almost immediately, the 'wart' burst, revealing the singularly most attractive woman either man had ever seen. Apparently uneffected by the 5-inch thick wall she had just run through, the muscular goddess slammed into the table Rob and Dave were playing on. The heavy oak table was effortlessly lifted from the floor and carried along by the girl until she slammed into the wall opposite. The girl smashed into the wall with such power that the wood caught between the steel and her muscular stomach was immediately crushed to oblivion by the fantastic pressure. Despite easily resisting all the force the oak table had been able to muster, the wall instantly yielded to the girl's muscular physique, the remaining pieces of the splintered table tumbling to the floor a second later. The woman was gone.

As he looked at the wreckage, Rob could see no sign of his winnings, which had been resting on the portion of the table that the girl had just crushed against the wall.

"Just my luck," he muttered under his breath, "that would happen the one time I was winning!"

* * * * *
Shannon continued to run forwards, ignoring any obstacles she encountered. In fact, she found that she rather enjoyed oblitering objects against her naked flesh. She stuck her right arm out to her side, ramming it into a thick metal wall like it was made of paper. The 4-inch alloy crumpled up against her flesh, shrieking in agony as it was so easily overpowered. Shannon experimentally turned into the wall and continued running forwards, so that she was travelling through the wall parellel to its direction. The thick metal buckled against her torso until the pressure was too great for it to withstand and it was forced to rip apart by her awesome physique.

Shannon was so distracted by the feeling of cold steel rubbing across her nipples that she didn't notice the extra-thick wall that lay in front of her running orthogonal to her direction of travel. Her muscular body slammed into it, casually exerting hundreds of thousands of tonnes of force, tearing through the 3 foot thick titanium in less than a second.

Shannon realised that the floor had suddenly disappeared, with nothing below her feet except blackness. Despite this, she didn't start to fall.

'I must be in space,' she realised.

Air blasted out through the hole her body had just so easily made in the station's metre thick hull as emergency doors quickly sealed off the area. Within a few seconds, all the air from the room had been expelled along with several items of funiture.

Shannon knew she should be dead or dying in the cold vacuum of space. But she quite clearly wasn't; in fact, she was rather enjoying the experience.

Shannon also noticed that she was slowly spinning. She flailed her arms about to try and stop. Quickly realising that she wasn't doing herself any favours, she instead decided to use her super vision to examine the planet below.

To her, Earth at first seemed little more than a blue ball of water, covered with dirty grey splodges of land, the entire planet laced with streaky white clouds. As she looked closer, Shannon could see great cities spanning entire continents with huge buildings dozens of miles tall. Looking closer still, she could see people getting into cars to get to work, or to go out to a party or to meet their loved ones. The vehicles they used could apparently float, allowing the cities to have thousands of layers of traffic piled on top of each other with each car travelling at hundreds of miles per hour. Shannon found she could still examine the lower layers just by 'ignoring' the ones above. Little did she know she was inadvertantly using her X-ray vision. Her eyes drifted to the unending stars that speckled the sky like a million tiny candles. However, her amazing eyesight quickly revealed that they were actually massive flaming balls of gas heated to millions of degrees centigrade.

As she explored the sky, something briefly caught the sunlight, allowing Shannon to examine it in minute detail. It was a spaceship, bristling with weapons. Instinctively focussing on the infra-red spectrum, Shannon found that she could see the ship clearly once again, even though it was still 50 billion miles away. She could also see that there was more than one ship; a quick count revealed that there were almost two hundred of the mile-long behemoths. And they were heading straight for Earth.

Suddenly, Shannon realised that she had stopped spinning. She had now drifted a few miles away from the spacestation she had been created on. There was nothing in sight.

Shannon really didn't want to drift alone in space until she was pulled into a planet's gravitational well. She really wanted to get back onto the station. Almost as some kind of a response to this desire, the station suddenly appeared to be getting bigger, closer.

'I can fly!' realised Shannon as the station loomed in front of her.

As the spacestation grew closer, Shannon took the opportunity to examine it. She immediately surmised that it had been constructed in space, since it was totally unaerodynamic, being basically a huge cube about 2 miles along each edge. As she closed in on the station, Shannon realised that she was heading for the hole she had torn in the thick hull earlier.

She decided not to go in that way because it would mean destroying safety doors with potentially disasterous consequences. Instead, she headed for an airlock. Within a few moments she was floating outside the huge airlock, which had clearly been designed to accomodate an entire shuttlecraft, not just a single person. Shannon pressed the 'open' button and the giant door slid open. She floated into the huge room that had been revealed, and could immediately feel subtle pull of the ship's artificial gravity. However, she didn't fall to the ground until she consciously relaxed her flying powers. As she fell to the floor, the outer door glided back into position and air hissed into the vast room. After a few minutes the inner door opened and Shannon was greeted by a brightly lit docking bay.

Immediately, all eyes were on her; she guessed that it wasn't common for beautiful young girls to come in through airlocks, especially without wearing spacesuits. Or, for that matter, with wearing any clothes whatsoever. There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

"Stay right there!" shouted a guard, the first to come to his senses. He reached for his walkie talkie.

"Security HQ, this is Protector 73."

There was a crackle of static, then a reply.

"Protector 73, this is Security HQ. What is your problem?"

"Security HQ, we've got a rather unusual situation down here in Docking Bay 12."

"P73, please elaborate."

"Security HQ, well this..erm..naked girl just appeared in our airlock," said Protector 73 nervously, "I can't see any signs of a discarded spacesuit. Got any theories?"

There was a long pause.

"P73, I've just been informed that.. hang on a moment.."

Another pause.

"..yes, okay. P73, you have been ordered to detain the girl until we can get reinforcements to the area. She is to be considered armed and dangerous."

Protector 73 was clearly baffled.

"Security HQ, this is P73," he replied, "I don't think you understand - she's completely naked so she can't be armed. I can see that she's very muscular for a girl, but I'd hardly say she's dangerous! Don't you think you're overreacting Security HQ?"

Another pause.

"P73, I've been informed that the fact that she's nude and apparently unarmed has no bearing on the fact that she should be considered dangerous." A brief pause. "I've been told that those muscles of hers aren't just for show."

"Security HQ, is this a joke?" replied Protector 73, a nervous smile creeping up his face.

"I wish," came the deadpan response.

Protector 73's smirk dissolved almost immediately and was replaced by a look of panic.

"HQ! She's gone!"

"Gone!?! What do you mean gone?"

"I mean she was there one minute and gone the next. It's like she just vanished into thin air."

* * * * *
Shannon didn't yet know the limits of her body and so didn't want to risk a direct confrontation with the security forces. When she saw the guard glance away for just a second, she ran. Even she was surprised how quickly she could run when she set her mind to it; she was in the corridor outside the docking bay almost as soon as she had decided she wanted to move.

A guard suddenly rounded the corner in front of Shannon. He was quickly followed by a dozen other men. A gunshot rang out and adrenalin pumped into Shannon's veins. She saw the bullet shoot out of the first guard's gun. Then, something truly amazing happened; the bullet started to slow down. Very soon, it was virtually stationary, apparently hovering in mid-air.

"What the hell is going on?" thought Shannon.

She noticed that all the men were static as well, even the smoke from their gun barrels was apparently frozen in time. Cautiously, Shannon stepped forwards to examine the bullet levitating a few metres in front of her. As Shannon moved closer to the bullet she could see that it was actually still moving, albeit many billions of times more slowly than it should have been. Shannon estimated that it appeared to be moving about two centimetres a minute; not exactly hard to avoid!

Shannon experimentally reached out and touched the floating bullet, her gentle tap causing it to lazily drift away from her. Shannon noticed that the metal had been severly buckled by the brief, gentle contact with the tip of her finger.

"Strange," she observed, "I could have sworn I didn't hit it hard enough to do that."

Shannon suddenly realised that she was now somehow going much faster than she had been before; the metal had deformed because she had, in effect, accelerated it to a few thousand mph in a millionth of a second. Her superhuman abilities were certainly going to take a lot of getting used to!

She strolled up to the soldiers and plucked the gun from the soldier who had fired. Of course, it immediately began stretching apart like melted cheese because of the tremendous acceleration; Shannon found she had to be extremely careful not to accidentally rip it in half. Then, she placed the mangled pistol in the centre of her palm and slowly clenched her first around it. To Shannon, the hardened steel felt like water, and it squirted out from her hand in a similar way as well. She found it strange how much more fragile things were now that she was going so much faster. Still, since she found that she enjoyed overpowering the steel, Shannon wasn't complaining. Checking that none of the slow-moving fragments of the gun were heading towards any of the soldiers, she slowly strolled away.

* * * * *
The General and his troups had been 'lucky' enough to be in the area of Docking Bay 12 when the call had come in from Security HQ explaining Protector 73's situation. They had immediately headed towards Bay 12's only exit. As they rounded the last corner they saw the Subject, as beautiful as ever, standing innocently in the hallway. Still, the General was fully aware of the danger of the situation, and he immediately fired his pistol at the beautiful young musclegirl.

No sooner had he pulled the trigger and the girl had vanished.

"What the?" he managed, nervously tightening his grip on his gun. His fingers snapped shut.

"What the?" he repeated, "Where the hell's my gun gone?!"

His men were just as confused as he was. Then:

"General!"

"Yes?"

"Is this yours?" said a soldier, pointing to a severly mangled gun handle that was embedded a few inches into the thick titanium floor.

The General was truly astounded. He levered out the remains of the handle and examined it.

"It is m-my g-gun," he stammered, "but what the hell happened to it?"

He pointed to the end of the handle were it would normally connect to the barrel. The thick steel had been smeared together and apparently crushed clean through.

"Sir!" said another soldier, "I think you should have a look at this."

The guard pointed to a series of deep holes in the wall around the guards. Extensive scientific analysis would later reveal that these pits were the final resting place of the remains of the General's gun.

"General!" yelled another soldier, "Look at this!"

The General followed the soldier's finger. There, to his amazement, was a distorted lump of metal which was still just about recognisable as a bullet. It had apparently entered the wall not nose first, as the General would have expected, but side first. Now the General was truly amazed; how could they possibly stop this woman?


To be continued...