Olympus

Chapter 8

Megan had expected quite a number of reactions from her question: shock, denial, deflection, even old-fashioned honesty. But those weren't any of what she got.

Minutes after Megan had put forward the question, all Dennis did was stare at her; and the expression on his face was neutral, like he hadn't even heard a single word she said. She began to feel a little uneasy.

Thing is, it was starting to dawn on Megan that perhaps the man in front of her was someone she would never be able to read. One moment he was friendly, the next he was fierce; one moment open and ready to share, the next sealed off like a crypt hidden down in the very deep levels of the secret mountain base that was Olympus.

Dennis jumped from one demeanour to the other like none of them was existentially who he was and that made her very apprehensive of whom he might truly be underneath it all.

But out of nowhere, he suddenly smiled. "That's two questions, Miss Months," he said like the technicality was what he had been trying to figure out for the past few minutes.

"Take it as two parts of one then," she returned evenly; at least, as evenly as she could be given the circumstance.

He seemed to think about it for a while again; his expression just as neutral as before. "Alright," he finally replied, "I'll let you know what you want."

Dennis sat up in his chair and straightened his suit, not because it was wrinkled though- Megan suspected it was more an habit with him whenever he wanted to say something serious.

"Like I told you earlier," he began soon after, "Olympus is the United Nation's Covert Affairs Department on Threat Assessment and Response's paramilitary division. We're an autonomous unit that monitors the activities of the world for anything that can put it in danger, and respond when such threat arises with every resource at our disposal."

"Resources which also happens to include three superpowered teenagers," she completed for him.

He nodded affirmative, smiling presumably at the way her mind worked. "We call them Homo supernus," he explained. "The Supermen."

Dennis placed his right hand on the top of his desk and immediately, a green light ran through the glass and his palm. "Clearance approved," the AI announced and a section of the top slid open to bring up a black manila folder. He passed it to Megan.

Project Olympus. That was the title on the folder.

Opening it, Megan discovered that it was a collection of detailed information on Jay, Adolf and Kei: their physiological stats, power description and stats, even their medical history. Everything had been documented in details.

Whoever compiled this must have really dug deep into the teenagers' life, she realised.

However, even with the many things Megan discovered about the trio and their superpowers from the folder, she realised that none of it gave her an insight into how they got it in the first place; purposely too, she suspected.

Dennis must have anticipated that she would be curious for it as he passed her a smaller folder from behind his desk just as she looked over the last document in the big one. "I wanted to be sure you wanted know before I showed you," he said.

Megan didn't understand why he would need to say that, but then she opened the second black manila folder and did.

Thing is, the second folder contained documents detailing test results and charts that, if her deduction was right, depicted procedures that shouldn't have been possible in today's world; and a lot of them not even allowed by the research ethics committee. But they were claimed to have been carried out on the teenagers.