Sam was trying to convince Julia to let him into the pilot so he could learn how to fly.
“I agree that it would be potentially useful for you to know how to fly, but observing ONLY. And if you have another flashback memory get out of there. I don’t want to crash. For real, got it!?”
“Yeah, yeah, got it. C’mon let’s go, Sam wants to be a copter pilot,” Sam responded and an image of an excited dog who knows he’s about to go for a walk popped into Julia’s head causing her to smirk a little. She pretended to tap one of the instruments near the pilot’s hand like they do in the movies when a needle is stuck, and made sure to brush against the pilot’s hand which was all Sam needed to make the transition.
After the flight Julia collected the Slip with a handshake, thanking the pilot before stepping onto the tarmac of the Farm where the ExO was waiting for them.
“No flashbacks?” Julia asked quickly.
“No, they seemed to have trailed off. Maybe gone for good hopefully.”
The CIA didn’t really have Executive Officers like the Army but it was a nickname typically used for the most senior training agents on location, which in this case was Jeremy Bilk, whom Julia had texted the day prior but otherwise did not know.
“Agent Cacerek, welcome. It’s an honor to meet you in person. Your reputation precedes you. Do you want to get settled while we we wait for your trainee to arrive?” Jeremy said.
“About that, Jeremy, actually I am the trainee,” replied Julia.
“I see. Always good to stay fresh, I suppose, but from what I hear you could teach a master class on every specialty we have here.” Jeremy looked confused.
“I understand this is a little unusual but let’s stick to the plan. I want to start with the basics and we are going to move as quickly as we can through the skill levels and specialties. Treat me like any new recruit. Okay with you?”
“Sure. Are you going to want the surprise final training test as well?” he asked.
The final training test was a surprise test trainees were put through at the end of their time at The Farm. It was meant to mimic a real event, forcing trainees to react in real time to a rapidly unfolding scenario. A final trial by fire. When Julia had originally gone through The Farm as a trainee, her group had been on their bus, heading home from their training when their final test began with the buses tires exploding. They were given their directives and then had to complete the assignment without further guidance. It was as close to a real mission as it could be, minus the live fire. Even though they had clued into that, at the time it felt very real.
Unfortunately, in Sam’s case he was able to listen in on discussions a normal recruit would not be privy to. Julia hoped to keep the final training test as much of a surprise as possible for Sam, to gauge his real world capabilities. She had purposely distracted herself from thinking about it, so Sam wouldn’t pick up on it, and didn’t want to dwell on it with Jeremy.
“Absolutely. Just like any recruit Jeremy. Now what are we starting with?”
Julia let the Slip take full control of her body and only communicated periodically to help motivate, and “motivate” consisted mostly of yelling corrections during training to avoid her body taking unnecessary damage from the exercises.
When recruits find themselves at The Farm they have already had basic training, at a minimum, in most of the subject matter The Farm will be taking them through. The goal is to hone their skills, add some new ones and then put them through a final simulated, but very realistic, test forcing them to utilize bits and pieces of a large variety of their abilities instinctually. Julia had gone over this with Sam and predicted it was going to be tough for him with his delayed control of the physical body. Even with Julia’s physical abilities and training it would be difficult for Sam to best the well trained experts he would be facing unless he could improve his ability to control her physical body.
The most difficult part of the training, which would be hard for anyone, was going to be the language component. Technically nobody can learn a new language in 3 days or even 3 months but the approach was a crash course with all instructions given in English and then repeated in Mandarin with a few sessions of dedicated language work.
They started with firearms, disassembling and reassembling a commonly issued CIA Glock 22 and a variety of Chinese model weapons. Target practice was next, followed by some dedicated conversational Mandarin instruction. Sam was able to complete exercises quickly when there was time for him to seek out the specific knowledge, already mastered on those topics and exercises by the host, in this case Julia.
However, his improvement in physical control was only incremental, and progress slowed when they got to hand-to-hand combat training. A typical new recruit arrived at the Farm with basic training experience in various forms of hand-to-hand combat. Sam had to bridge the gap with Julia's knowledge.
One of the main goals at the Farm was to sharpen the recruit’s reactions and ability to creatively respond to an unpredictable variety of attacks. The honing of these abilities was conducted inside a large building from which the recruit had to find a way out. In complete darkness, recruits would be subjected to a variety of situations. The absence of one of their senses forced them to think differently and begin to rely on instinct. Each run through the course was different from the last, and targeted instruction would be given between runs to improve deficiencies noted by the instructor.
Sam entered the test building for his first run, and the outer door was closed and bolted. He took a quick look around before the lights were turned off, and then Sam was alone with the pitch black. Sam tried to remember what he had glimpsed before the lights went out, and felt along the nearest wall towards what he thought had looked like a hallway. Where the wall ended, Sam found that there was not another wall abutting it, so he could either walk straight into what he assumed was a larger open space or follow along the opposite side of the wall. As Sam was contemplating this choice, he heard a single footstep, very close, followed by a vicious punch to the solar plexus doubling him over and knocking the wind from his lungs. Sam afterwards identified a series of defensive postures in Julia’s mind that he could have used once he heard someone was within striking distance. While simultaneously lamenting the knowledge delay and trying to get air back in his lungs, he heard a swoosh sound which sounded like something being swung very quickly through the air. To his shock and disappointment, his assumption was confirmed by an impact to his left shin just below the knee with such force that it knocked his leg out from under him, bringing him to the ground. Excruciating pain shot through him, and Sam feared the leg had been fractured. Laying battered on the ground, Sam again found the appropriate response he could have used from Julia’s experience and muscle memory. It would have prompted a quick forward lunging response towards the estimated location of the attacker wielding the club, based on the direction of the sound. Sam could see this reaction historically had a decent success rate at greatly reducing the receipt of damage in similar situations, and which could have setup counter attacks to neutralize the attacker. Although too late, it was good information to have and Sam was now prepared if something similar happened again.
Sam’s improving pace of access to the host’s memories and abilities had worked up to this point, however, under this rapid fire training, Sam could not get or implement the information quickly enough from Julia’s mind to keep up with the real-time barrage of physical attacks.
He needed to start doing something differently.
Sam tested the impacted leg putting a little weight on it and then more as he stood up. Not broken. It would hold, but felt wobbly. Hopefully he could shake it off as he started using it again. Sam guessed that people typically would want to follow and stay in touch with walls, and so changing tactics, he decided to venture directly away from the wall toward what he assumed was the center of the space. Sam hoped this would give him more room to maneuver, and time to react to any noise he would hear. Of course, there could b
e people standing every 10 feet in all directions waiting to smash his head in for all he knew.
Limping slightly, Sam moved forward as quietly as he could, arms held out, scanning back and forth in front of him. The room was suddenly lit up with floodlights, and Sam picked out three people surrounding him before the lights turned off again. The darkness didn’t keep Sam from seeing spots from the lights, further disorienting him. Trying to be unpredictable, Sam sprinted toward where he remembered one of the people had been and went into a slide as if stealing second base. He was rewarded with a hard connection of shin on shin. The target grunted, and Sam heard him fall to the cement floor. The adrenaline rush muted his own pain as his damaged leg took some of the impact. Sam started to rise back to his feet to follow up the attack where he guessed the target was also trying to get up. Halfway up a heavy impact met Sam flush on the face, taking him off his feet in a half backwards somersault. He landed headfirst on the floor, and his body quickly followed to complete the somersault leaving him face down on the floor. Maybe a couple points for originality, but he definitely was going to have deductions for the landing.
Sam’s body, or really Julia’s body, was moving in slow motion at this point, and instinctually Sam rolled to the left. While rising up on one knee he took a hard kick to the ribs followed quickly by another kick to the face. Consciousness was becoming an issue, wavering as he continued to take blows. Stumbling like a drunk, he could feel his grip on Julia’s mind loosening. Sam no longer felt the pain of the continuing attacks. He felt a step removed from control of Julia’s mind as he was pulled into a darkness. Everything was moving in slow motion. He could still control Julia’s body, but there was even more of a delay and disconnect as if using a remote control.
He became weightless as the darkness subsumed him. Now hovering above Julia’s body, he saw her muscles as if the skin was removed, a complete anatomical image of herself, the striations of her muscles laid bare. The notion of time was absent as he watched colors begin to pulse from Julia’s form. Twisting and coiling like a nest of incredibly thin snakes, changing color as they continuously flowed in the form of her body.
Sam suddenly made the connection. He was seeing the flows of her energy, not her muscles - there was nothing physical about this. These were the flows Sam sensed when he entered a host, the rivers he felt for to make a transition. From this vantage he could see there were thousands, millions, of them working in harmony. He saw the impacts from the attackers’ blows compress the flows where they connected.
There were more than he had ever imagined, and it suddenly dawned on Sam that by forcing his way through this incredibly complex ecosystem to follow and find individual flows and information or control, he had by definition been working in opposition to many of the other streams of energy.
Counterintuitively, Sam relaxed, allowing his essence to fall back towards the smooth frenzy of colored currents that were Julia. He was immediately overtaken and disoriented by the vortex of writhing colors.
Forcing himself to remain completely relaxed, there was a crescendo of changing colors and incredibly quick motion which suddenly resolved as he snapped to with a sudden rush of presence and awareness that was Julia. Sam suddenly knew exactly what to do.
The almost overwhelming physical pain was back, but so was Julia’s knowledge and this time it was different. Instead of guiding a kayak through a category 5 rapid, he had become the rapid. Sam had instantaneous access to all of Julia’s abilities and memories, and, oh, what abilities Julia had.
“You’ve been holding out on me, girlfriend,” Sam said to Julia as he grabbed an attacker’s forearm he sensed coming towards his face. Sliding his head smoothly out of the way of the fist and pulling the forearm just enough, he moved his body towards the attacker, pulling him off balance. Without hesitation he released the forearm and quickly spun his entire body in a 360° rotation, smashing an elbow into the back of the attacker’s head. A grunt resounded and then the thump of his body hitting the ground.
Sam could sense a second attacker rushing from the direction he was now facing. He flowed into a crouch and transferred his momentum to a spinning trip kick. It didn’t connect. He sensed the attacker going airborne, jumping over his kick. “Must have night vision goggles - not very sporting” Sam thought as he immediately punched straight upward transferring all Julia’s leg strength through her fist into the attacker above him. An inhuman sounding groan greeted him and continued as the attacker fell to the ground. “Bingo!” Sam said to himself knowing he had smashed the junk, crushed the jewels and squashed the berries.
Quickly reaching down, Sam found the man’s head, snatched off the goggles and slipped them on himself. The room materialized into a palette of greens and he could see the last attacker approaching from the right side, also wearing goggles.
The previous two were outmatched by Julia’s skill, even under the fledgling control of the Slip operating in the pitch black.
With vision, the third attacker was child's play. Sam parried the attacker’s two-punch attack, spun him around and put a choke hold on him. These were training partners not real enemies; no need to hurt them if he could just put them to sleep. “Night night little buddy,” he thought gently lowering him to the ground.
DAY 15
16
AFTER PUTTING THE LAST ATTACKER down, Sam’s hyper focus on the moment relaxed and he became aware that Julia was in the midst of an extreme panic attack. When Sam had integrated fully, Julia had been pushed to the background. It was the realization of her worst fear when initially contemplating allowing Sam in. She was suspended in complete darkness, huddled on the floor in a corner of her own mind from which the only light was a pinprick emanating from the end of an impossibly long corridor. Terrible memories circulated from her childhood when she had tried to retreat to a similar mental safe place during horrific events in which she was powerless.
Sam immediately retreated as much as possible from possession of Julia’s mind and body, jolting her out of her darkness, putting her back in control.
Julia sunk to her knees, head hung, and Sam felt a silent tear slide down her cheek. Although not in control Sam experienced Julia’s emotions. There was a frailty and darkness, a helplessness followed by flashes of extreme anger which became channeled into an incredible strength. These were the most personal of emotions, and Sam felt ashamed to be an intruder, a voyeur who couldn’t close his eyes or look away. The best Sam could do was remain silent.
The lights came on in the room, and Julia managed to gather herself and wipe her eyes as she took off the goggles.
Jeremy’s voice came over the loudspeaker, “Wow! Very impressive, guess we are done with hand-to-hand training. Why don’t you grab a quick bite and rest a minute in the conference room at the far end of the room before we move on.”
Julia got up and walked in silence to the conference room where there were some snack bars, fruit, and a few sandwich options laid out.
Choosing a ham and cheese sandwich, Julia sat and chewed while looking down at the table in front of her.
Eventually Julia asked, “So how much of everything you know from me would you be able to utilize in another host?”
“Not sure, I would have to leave your body for a while and test it out. It has been what, almost two days, since I did the rounds in the think tank folks? I feel like I still can recall a lot of what I on-boarded from them. Of course, that was mostly memory and academic knowledge and not physical type skill knowledge, so I’m not sure if that part is different,” Sam said.
“Well, I sure as hell hope you can retain a lot; my body paid a pretty price for you to get to this point,” Julia retorted, with a bite of real venom. She had a damaged leg, an assortment of bruises on her torso and her face was marred with what promised to be a significant black eye and multiple hematomas. Not to mention the mental tragedies that had been dug up in the process.
“Not sure I would use the word “pretty” but the payoff was huge with the
breakthrough in my integration technique,” Sam said, risking a playful jab.
“Hmpf, I sure hope so,” Julia said, getting up to find Jeremy.
As they started their next exercise, Sam tried to ask if Julia was sure about him fully integrating again. Ignoring the question Julia directed Sam to hurry up so they could cover as much training as possible. Sam figured out he had control over how far away he could push the host from their physical and mental self and vigilantly focused on pushing Julia back as little as possible while maintaining a full integration. Sam could sense Julia panicking less as he got better at the control, all the while managing her anxiety as best she could.
With Sam’s discovery of how to better integrate and have full and instantaneous access to the host’s mind and abilities, the training had accelerated dramatically. Julia guided the training focus toward subjects which she was not experienced with, since at this point anything Julia knew Sam knew. This didn’t leave much to work on, so they focused on learning Mandarin most of the morning and moved up their departure to that afternoon. By slipping into the Mandarin teacher, Sam could accelerate the process, but he still needed to also work with Julia as the teacher’s fluency with that language didn’t translate instantly into something Sam could grasp.
Sam entered the Mandarin teacher and then went back to Julia to practice what he brought back with him for a period. Sam would then enter the teacher again and go back to Julia and build upon the knowledge in that manner. Since this was a private tutoring session, Julia had requested they sit close to each other. She’d lean forward, touch the man’s arm as if listening intently, to facilitate the slips. The amount Sam was retaining increased steadily but the important result was achieving a basic understanding of how a Mandarin thinking process worked which would allow him to be nimble when inhabiting native Mandarin speakers.
The Slip Page 6