Project Orpheus: A Tale of Blood and Feathers

Chapter 8: The Reporter

When Wolf News picked up the scent of something strange, you could bet they'd be hounding people for the answers. That was the image they wanted to present, anyway. It was all about image. The first thing you learned working in media was that anything can be made to look how you want it if you carefully pick and choose what to show, and that how you present a story is as important as the story itself.

He still had no idea how he was going to present this one.

He had been looking through shipping logs for an unrelated investigation, and noticed an awful lot of boats carrying an awful lot of materials to an island that was awfully empty. Some of them were government funded shipments, and that was something that would be of great interest to the viewers of his station.

Getting here had been a pain in the ass. He needed a boat willing to go to this fairly remote island, and not many people were all that interested in it so he had to cough up money. A lot of money for the distance, as it'd turn out.

Still, he was here now, and when he had seen the very advanced dock with the AXIS Labs logo on it, he knew for a fact that something interesting was up here. He had his buddy drop him off at a shore, and from there took his camera and a machete to start making his way through the thicket of the jungle. He needed to be quiet and precise - this was AXIS, they probably had cameras all over the place. He needed to appear as some sort of wild life moving through the brush until he could find the actual facility, and then he could access his next move.

If he was lucky, he could even sneak in and figure out what they were doing. There was certainly a lot of building material being brought here, so there had to be a building, but there was also a frankly obscene amount of livestock being carted to the island. There had to be a place they were all being kept. Or at least processed.

He had been cutting away through the thicket and sneaking through the trees for about an hour, when he finally found a building. It was a large, central sort of building, and it had the logo of Wagner Corp on it.

How had he not heard that Wagner Corp was involved with this? They were always shouting their stuff from the rooftops and very lourd in their movement of assets. The building had some sort of creature standing on top of it. He couldn't tell exactly what it was from here. He looked down to his pocket as he reached for his phone, and as soon as he lifted his head, he saw a pair of leering green eyes staring directly into his own.

"GAH! How the hell!?"

"Hello sir!" Came the cheerful and scratching voice of a young man.

It was a young man, no older than 14, dressed in a very elegant black tuxedo with a green tie that matched his eyes, a silver vest and a white shirt. He also wore two very fine looking white gloves. He even wore a top hat, strangely, with that same green color banding around the part of the hat just above the brim.

"Jesus christ, who the hell are you?!"

"My name is Charles! You're not supposed to be here!"

Ashton took a step back. The boy had the most obnoxious smile on his face.

"Why do you sound so happy about that?"

He tilted his head, his hat tilting in turn. "I'm bored! You're not supposed to be here! I get to do something! That's exciting, don't you think?"

"Fair, I suppose...but you don't need to report me, I swear. I'm just passing by, y'know?"

The boy set his head straight again and tugged at his glove for a moment, his face turning terrifyingly stern as he did.

"Don't lie, sir. I know you're Ashton Briggs, research reporter and investigator for the Wolf News Network, and that you're trying to find out about Project Orpheus." He said.