Back in 2017, Kevin Blackmon was in the IBF basement. The only person aware of his existence at the time, was Dr. Thomas Eakran.
This was possible thanks to the layout of the IBF basement that allowed Eakran to hide things, even from his employer and the CIA overseers who wanted to believe that they exerted some measure of control over the man.
The floor plan of the basement was shaped like a capital letter I with one long corridor in the middle where the main laboratory was located, and two corridors about half the length of the long one at either ends. The half corridor at the north end was for patient rooms and the other was used for storage and there was a smaller laboratory space.
While Eakran had trusted a few of his employees with the knowledge of the secret compartment in his office where he hid various alien devices that was difficult to detect without looking for it, he never told anyone about the secret hatch in the floor of the south corridor. No one but Eakran and Kevin will know that the hatch ever existed.
When he first arrived at the IBF, Kevin was in bad sorts. He wanted to die because he had violated Alia by impregnating her with a baby that he made with his preternatural ability, and he was sure that Eakran would be the death of him. Eakran could not kill him because he knew even before he analyzed the device very thoroughly for months, that it was as much a part of Kevin as he was part of it and neither would function properly in the absence of the other. Early prototypes like the dark matter manipulator were made on Eakran’s homeworld of Druont with limited operational ability to prevent mass replication of flawed designs. The dark matter manipulator was a masterpiece and Eakran marveled at the way it incorporated itself into Kevin’s neurocircuitry, it was a wondrous device and Kevin was lucky to be the first one to integrate with it. Eakran envied him.
Kevin was angry to still be alive after months under Eakran’s lab equipment and Eakran satiated him one afternoon. This was before the resurrection of Darker that changed the doctor and eventually set him on a different course. The two sat inside the secret apartment that was underneath the basement and hidden by the secret hatch.
“I can take you to Druont. You can meet your maker. I’m sure he would be very interested to know where his device ended up.”
Kevin looked at him curiously.
“You know the guy that made this thing? Are you friends or something?”
“Before I left my homeworld, I worked alongside a durine called Belfrat 15. He was working on this very technology, only when I left, it was not near completion. Imagine my shock to see this technology on Earth. If you chose to stay alive, I can take you to Druont when I return.”
“I’ll stay down here,” Kevin said nodding. There was an exit to the outside from Kevin’s sub-basement apartment that connected to the basement exit to the outside.
He and Eakran met regularly for Filot lessons; Filot is the native language of the Druintes; and Kevin read many books about Druinte history that Eakran either translated or wrote from memory if the texts were unavailable.
Kevin was brought to the CZS in late 2018.
Even though he hadn’t been a visible part of the IBF community, he was often spotted by others in the vicinity when he took long runs through the area. It was on one of those runs that he was confronted by an unmarked van that blocked his path. Men in dark clothing and shades got out and he immediately wrapped them in thick ropes.
“What do you want?” he asked roughly as the ropes squeezed the men tightly.
“Our boss wants to talk to you.”
“He asked us to bring you back.”
The men spoke between groans of pain as the ropes tightened even more.
“Whose that?” Kevin asked
The men screamed in agony and he loosened the ropes a bit so they could answer.
“You come with us, you can find out,” one of the men said as he breathed loudly.
“He knows you, and your doctor friend,” another of the men said.
“Not well enough to send someone who could do what he wanted.”
The men laughed and Kevin was proud of his quip. But they were laughing at Kevin’s ignorance of the forces in play.
Suddenly, Kevin felt punched in the face and it broke his concentration. There was no one near him that he could see, but as he looked for the fist that hit him, the ropes fell from the men and they seized on Kevin and knocked him out with a needle as another man emerged from a van. It was a man called Tin and he could command the spirits of the dead.
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