In the Beginning...

Sorry for the delay on my posting, I had them remove the skin from my fingers and hands and replace it with these special gloves. Much more supple, much better fine motor control. For the first time, I am able to actually type with my fingers and don’t have to use those damn pencils. Perhaps my posts can be more detailed and longer, as needed.

So, I promised on my last entry to mention more about the Beginning, how I came to be in this unique (I hope) position of being undead.

Drake Kampmann, a powerful man running a secret division of the FBI, had approached my chief in the summer of 1998 looking for good cops with no religious affiliations and a need for cash, and my good buddy the chief had narturally thought of me (thanks Chief). Kampmann had laid the deal out before me, essentially join this open-ended task force with the stated goal of being in a position to respond to religious extremists of any stripe in the United States. The deal looked too good to be true, the department got some badly needed cash, and I was offered a nice lure of up to $25,000 a year extra in my salary, directly from the DOJ. Of course there were ‘additional details’ to be divulged once I was on board...but I lost track of any strings that were mentioned when I heard about the extra money. I was married with two kids approaching college age, and a wife who was always trying to squeeze our pennies to make ends meet. But I am sure many of you have been in a similar position and can appreciate the lure of extra cash for what seemed a nice little assignment.

So what was the price of my soul? Well, up to the date of my death, approximately $125,000.

Hmmm...doesn’t seem like such a great deal anymore.

After signing the contracts and memorandums of understanding offered by Kampmann, I was placed on leave for two weeks by my department and sent the following Monday to Omega Project Headquarters, located in a suburban office complex in Fairfax, Virginia. I had a fairly intensive two week training session on dangers posed by various religious extremist groups and their growing influence in politics both inside and outside of the United States. There were about thirty other officers from all over the country in those sessions, all of them professing to be non-religious in any way.

Through the course of those early sessions, I can recognize now through hindsight, we were being evaluated in by our instructors and by unseen individuals as they watched our responses to the training materials and our post-training debates. We were being secretly vetted to make absolutely sure that we were truly unbelievers in any known faith. One guy admitted to being a pagan, from some group called Wiccans, I think, and he was here because his chief considered him a heathen . But he was the first guy shipped back. Strangely, there weren’t any women in this initial group...probably too smart to fall for the lures that prick Drake was casting.

(BTW-he hates it when I use his first name, which is of course why I keep throwing it out there. He prefers Director Kampmann, to which I say, ‘Blow me, Drake.’-he had me by the balls with his money when I was alive, but now I am his showpiece, proof that his horseshit theories actually can work, but I make sure he pays a hefty price for my cooperation now!)

In all, ten of the first thirty were weeded out in the first training session. Those that got shipped back still got to keep their first little incentive checks, but had to sign all sorts of anti-disclosure agreements, to keep the whole project quiet. Amazing how a little $ can work some magic.

Shit, I was sure going to learn the truth of that, over time.

After that first session, we were given a shit load of reading materials and training videos to watch, all pretty pedestrian crap, but we were told that we would be taking some tests and that the first team chosen would consist of twelve officers, so if we wanted to keep the bonuses flowing, we would have to bone up on material and score well. We were also told to keep our noses clean, and stay the Hell out of trouble, both with our departments and with the real world in general. A single bad shooting, or abuse investigation, or even a DUI charge, and we would be booted, no questions asked or answered.

Over the next year, we were weeded down to that first team of twelve. I must say, that we were a pretty tight and sharp group. After the team was set, we entered the tactical phase of our training, and received special training sessions with Tactical Ops teams at a secret location in the Arizona desert, which was some pretty high speed shit. it was during this phase though, that things began to change, gradually. We were fed a special diet of supposed high-protein, highly nutritious food that was filled with all sorts of shit I hadn’t heard of, at least since Advanced Chemistry in high school. We were also given these nasty-ass tasting high protein shakes that we were told to drink everyday back in the real world. Let me tell you, these things almost made me quit right there, but the mighty dollar still held me in its sway, and I choked the things down as required.

Now I know that these things were designed to toughen up my bones and to make small, gradual changes in my body chemistry that would make my body more usable when I died. The better prepared the body is for the things they do to it after you die, the better for Drake’s damn Necromancers, as I call them.

Anyway, by the end of 2000, things were heating up. We had passed all of the tactical training, and had even been called into handle a couple of situations before they became big, public messes. Once the new administration was sworn in, there must have been some sort of green light given for the next phase, because that was when Drake called each us into his office for special one day private meetings.

I’ll stop there, since I want to show Drake in all of his glory with my next post on the subject, we’ll see when i can do justice to that. Meanwhile, I would like to offer to answer any questions you might have (within the boundaries that I am constrained by). You can send those questions by e-mail, or post them as comments. I will try to post at least one response to questions with each post I make, if I receive any.