"Dr. Hale, we are glad to have you here," spoke the well-dressed officer. 

He was in civilian wear, trying to blend into the rest of the volunteers at the base. His belt bulged from the Beretta pistol, his personal favorite.

"We are your team appointed by the Eugeniux president himself."

Henry looked him up and down then at the rest of the volunteers, "Well alright. All of you?"

Second Lieutenant Lou Marshall relaxed a bit, and then shook his head. He put his right hand to his mouth and let out a shrill whistle. The volunteers behind him didn’t even notice. They kept moving boxes and supplies around the base camp like it was a giant puzzle. A tent popped up in the distance. A lone stone building stood in the middle of the temporary base with an American flag swaying in the arid wind. A wall encircled the base with a solitary entrance to the North. Dust kicked up at the feet of the two gentlemen.

"Uh, you sure they heard you?" asked Henry as he glanced around while the Lieutenant just smiled.

As Henry turned back to look at the man in front of him, he caught a glimpse of a herculean man leaning against a nearby stack of crates. The beast of a man glared at Henry. His dark brown eyes burrowed into Henry’s light green ones. Henry pushed his glasses frames towards the bridge of his nose with his index finger.

He noticed that he wasn’t adorned in civilian clothes but a tan bulletproof vest with matching fatigues. A few cylindrical grenades hung from his side. A Glock was suspended from his hip in an unbuttoned holster. A camouflaged M16 was flung over his shoulder. His massive forearms were crossed over his chest; his biceps were as large as Henry’s head. 

This man’s physique was opposite that of the Lieutenant’s. He was lean and scrawny compared to the monstrosity, but his smile was sly. There was something about the way he stood that gave him an air of intellectual superiority. He did not quite match up to Henry, but he was close. The man pushed himself off the creates and walked towards the Lieutenant.

"This is Sargent Archer," said the Lieutenant after Henry finished looking him over.

"The name is Chris, but we go by our codenames out here," said Archer as he walked over to Henry and gave him his hand. Henry took it cautiously, fearful for his vulnerable appendage. A slow cracking noise came from Archer’s hand as he rolled Henry’s fingers around.

"Codenames?" asked Henry wincing as he withdrew his hand from the obvious trap.

"Yeah, technically we aren’t even supposed to be here, but your company has more pull in the Army than I knew about," said the Lieutenant.

Henry averted his gaze back to him. He stood there rigid, arms held behind his back. He was formal, strict, and mysterious.

"We just want know if the reports from this area are real is all," said Henry. "So, what’s with the rest of the people here? This visit is supposed to be highly classified."

"To disguise our presence, this area has been requisitioned as a refugee camp. No one but my team and you will actually know what’s going on here."

"Anyone from the local government trying to snoop around?" asked Henry.

"A few, but they bought the refugee camp cover," responded the Lieutenant as he handed Henry a newspaper written in Arabic.

A young man in civilian clothes walked up the Lieutenant and set down a crate with a thud.

"My bad, Sir," spoke the civilian.

Henry glanced up from the paper after getting startled by the sudden noise.

He was shorter, about five foot eight. His dirty blonde hair was short except for the front which was longer and swept to his left. His long, narrow head sat upon slender shoulders. The baggy clothes hid his incredibly fit body among other things. He reached across and stuck his hand out. Henry returned the gesture and shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you, the name’s Ian." 

"Doct-" but Ian interrupted him mid-sentence. "Doctor Henry Hale. I’ve heard a lot about you."

Henry opened his mouth to thank him, but the Lieutenant interrupted him.

"His name is Anvil." Henry scowled; frustrated with the interruptions. 

"Oh, relax Lou. We should know each other’s names; he is putting his life in our hands," intervened Anvil.

The Lieutenant scoffed, "we are on assignment to protect him in an area highly populated with hostiles and one we are not supposed to be in, to begin with. The codenames protect our identity and his."

Ian sighed, "Yes, Sir."

"Speaking of which," continued the Lieutenant, "you will be known as the Doctor here. Got it everyone?"

The two acknowledged the order without hesitation. The Lieutenant looked around at all of the volunteers and then back to Anvil.

"Where is Widow?" 

"She’s up in her web," he responded. The three soldiers turned to the southern wall. Henry followed their gaze, and, after a minute or so, saw what they were looking at.

Perched high on a solitary scaffolding was a woman with black hair. A rifle was in her right hand; barrel pointed at the sky. She wore gray fatigues that blended her into the wall. He couldn’t make out her face even when he squinted. He could guess that she was fit though as most soldiers are. A rope sat coiled in the corner functioning as the only way in or out. Henry estimated that she was about two hundred meters away and high enough to see the whole camp. She tapped her ear, and the Lieutenant pressed his fingers to his.

"Did you get all of that?" he asked into a microphone on his shoulder.

The Lieutenant handed Henry an earpiece which he promptly put in his left ear. He then gave a microphone to Anvil to have it installed on Henry’s jacket zipper.

"Sure did. Resuming overwatch. Widow out," she said into the group’s ears.

"Well, now that we are all introduced, shall we?" Suggested the Lieutenant.

The group made their way towards the stone building. As they got closer, Henry noticed the two guards in front of the door. They were armed to the teeth with unfamiliar gear. Some of which probably came from Eugenix’s Research & Development Department. Henry made a mental note to check in with them when he got back to the United States. 

The Lieutenant approached the door and looked at the two guards. They each stepped to the side revealing a card reader on both sides of the door in addition to the reader on the door. The two guards and the Lieutenant each held their access cards up to their individual readers. Three green lights flashed, and the bolt retracted into the door.

The right guard pushed the steel door in revealing a room covered in medical plastic. Microscopes lined the walls, samples littered the desks, and analysts filled the chairs. As they proceeded to the back of the single room, Henry noticed a rock-like object encased in a glass box. A few feet behind it was a crater that had originally been covered with a blue tarp. It sat crumpled in the back while an analyst collected samples from the ten-foot hole.

"So this is it?" asked Henry. 

"This is it, the Ivanovsky Meteorite." 

"Who would have thought that the secret to Human augmentation lied not in technology but outer space," said Henry as he grasped the glass box. "This will change the course of Human history forever."