Project CULTIVATE
The documentation for this Cold War project dates all the way back to 1949, when agents from the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency raided the laboratory of an Operation PAPERCLIP Nazi biologist who was, in retrospect, a particularly bad choice for recruitment. Said biologist did not survive the JIOA raid – it was deemed necessary to burn his body on-site and then fill the room with concrete – but his notes were eventually collected, sterilized, carefully copied, then fed to the purifying flames.
Ironically, Project CULTIVATE was not actually directly derived from the notes in question, which were largely incoherent speculation on the best way to summon a “ultrabiological para-metaphysical horizon creature.” Nobody knew what that really meant, and nobody had or has any intention of finding out. But apparently one of the requirements was the need for absolutely perfect human specimens for, well, human sacrifice. That the biologist had a more coherent take on how to accomplish, and that researchers thought that they could recreate safely.
And so they did. A thousand couples across America were carefully chosen and brought in for very specific, far past cutting-edge biological therapy. Someone treated with the CULTIVATE Serum will will sire or have children with absolutely no genetic conditions at all; if two people are treated with the Serum, any children they have afterwards will grow up to be at the peak of human ability. Not quite superhuman, but consistently at the top 1% in virtually every way.
Now this is the point where normally the story shifts to the standard tale of government-derived hubris and paranoia created a league of monsters in human form… only, actually, no. The couples who participated in the project went back home and kept their mouths shut, because after all they got beautiful babies out of the deal and discreet, yet potent financial assistance to boot. The children were observed through regular checkups by Project doctors under domestic cover; it was argued by some that they should be collected and observed in a secret facility, but all the paperwork suggests that such arguments were roundly rejected for at least twenty years.
…And that’s it. The file that all of this came in doesn’t have a document in it that’s dated past 1974. The filing numbers don’t match the local classification system; while the file itself is stamped as being declassified, there’s no matching record of it anywhere and it’s just a rubber stamp on the signout sheet on top of the file. Nobody in your department knows anything about this Project CULTIVATE, either. Not even the Guy Down The Hall that works for the agency that’s not supposed to be working in your particular part of the intelligence world.
Weird, huh?
