by S L Shelton
“Me?” I asked.
“Yeah. Indirectly.”
A few beats passed without disclosure.
“Well?”
“Baynebridge,” she whispered into the phone, stopping me in my tracks as my blood ran cold again.
“What about Baynebridge?” I asked quietly.
“Gaines told the DOJ that one of the sources he and his DOJ partner were working was Quinn Black—Vice President of the Tactical Division at Baynebridge,” she said, still whispering. I wondered if John had cleared her to tell me that or if she just trusted me more since I had provided her with Baynebridge network data.
“Are they bringing him in?” I asked, excited that someone from Baynebridge might be finding himself behind bars.
“Never got the chance to ask a judge for a warrant,” she said with regret in her voice. “He committed suicide a couple days ago.”
I shook my head sharply. “What?!”
“His wife came in Friday afternoon and found him hanging from the ceiling in the basement,” she added. I was still wrapping my head around that bit of information when I noticed the pickup crew signaling me to hurry up.
“Hold on a second,” I said into the phone and ran over to the truck, tossing my gear into the back. “I’m going to walk back,” I said to the driver. “I’ll meet up with you at the hangar.”
He nodded and pulled away as the other jumpers waved at me. As soon as they were a good distance away, I returned to my call.
“Was the scene examined by forensics people?” I asked.
There was a short pause before she replied. “Why would it?” she asked ironically. “It was a suicide.”
I shook my head. “The cops must have gotten photos, right?”
“I guess. I don’t know,” she said and then paused again. “Where are you going with this? It doesn’t matter what it ‘might’ be. We aren’t in a position to ask the questions.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked incredulously as I began walking toward the main base. “Baynebridge tactical sends two guys to my condo in July to abduct me after Gaines was captured with payoff numbers in his possession, then the guy who jumped us in Burbank shows up in Syria trying to get his hands on Cold War era Russian nuclear warheads, not to mention two more hit attempts on me. And now, Gaines reveals a connection to Baynebridge Tactical and suddenly the VP decides it’s time to kill himself?”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Ruth shot back. “But it’s not me you have to convince…it’s the Department of Justice.”
“Shit,” I muttered and began thinking of way to involve myself in this while still in training. “Can you get me the scene photos?”
“Maybe,” she replied quickly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Does John know you’ve called me?” I asked.
There was a long pause.
“In other words, do I start my next conversation with ‘So how’s Ruth doing getting me the suicide photos of Quinn Black?’” I pushed.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t,” she whispered.
“Okay,” I said and thought more on my handicaps.
“Baynebridge has already started their realignment in the face of the CIA contract cancellations,” she said. “I know they’re probably busy cleaning anything out that might be incriminating. They’ve probably already guessed the heat’s coming down after Black’s suicide…even with the bill that’s been floated in Congress to protect them.”
I looked up at a passing helicopter as her information filtered into my brain. I tried to arrange the new information in my virtual spreadsheet but the tone in my ears became too painful to bear, and I had to abandon the attempt almost immediately.
“Wait. What? A bill in Congress?” I asked, snapping my attention back to Ruth.
“That’s right. I keep forgetting that you’re pretty isolated at the moment,” she said sympathetically. “Yeah. A bill has been introduced to block unilateral contract cancellation without committee review and oversight. It probably doesn’t have enough votes to get out of the Senate, but the House is behind it.”
“Who’s the bill sponsor?” I asked, immediately regretting asking since I didn’t have the ability to track any more data in my head without facing the pain of virtual daggers in my already throbbing skull.
“I’ll find out and get back to you,” she replied…much to my relief.
“Thanks,” I said as I stepped onto a paved road. “See if you can get those photos for me, and I’ll work on getting you an update from the account search.”
There was a long pause before she spoke again. “Do you think you could get any information on Black?” she asked.
“You mean from Baynebridge?” I asked.
“No. They will have already cleaned everything out that might implicate him,” she said, lowering her voice again. “I mean the accounts for the transaction numbers.”
“We’re working on those already,” I said.
“No…the recipients of the funds. The US bank accounts.”
“No,” I said firmly and immediately.
Judging by the dead air, I guessed I had startled her with my response.
“I’m not violating constitutional protections.”
“You didn’t have any problem with Baynebridge,” she replied smugly…uncharacteristically so.
“Corporations are semi-legal entities with legal barriers between them and their stockholders and officers, but a person only has the Constitution to protect them. I’m surprised you would even ask.”
“The Supreme Court disagrees with you…corporations are people too,” she said bitterly.
“Well…even the Supreme Court can get it wrong sometimes,” I replied.
“So you are going to decide for them?” she asked sarcastically. “You are going to choose who can be investigated and who can’t?”
“Hey,” I snapped. “I’ll take my hit if I’m caught. But I’m not going to hell for violating individual rights…and this is a clear violation. The rest of it—well, let’s just say that if the corporations actually do get legitimate personhood, a little prison time will be the least of our worries.”
“So that’s a no,” she confirmed.
“That’s a no…unless you can get me a warrant,” I said with a grin. “But try to get me the crime scene photos and send me the name of the bill sponsor.”
“Okay,” she replied, disappointed in my response. “I’ll let you get back to training.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you doing now, by the way?” she asked.
I pulled up my photos and secure e-mailed the jump selfie I took on the way out of the plane.
“Check your e-mail,” I said as soon as I had sent it.
A second later, I heard her laugh. “Awesome!” she said.
“I’ll talk to you later, Ruth,” I said with a broad grin stretching my cheeks.
“Later.”
I continued to walk down the road toward the main part of base and tried once again to assemble all the new information in evidence-board fashion in my head. The tone in my ear became piercing, and this time it was accompanied by a sharp pain at the top of my neck, just behind my right ear.
“What the—”
I squeezed my eyes tight against the assault on my senses as I quickly pushed the data from my mind and waited for the pain to subside. By the time I had walked to the main road, the pain was gone and the ringing in my ear was a minor annoyance rather than center of my attention. I heard an engine behind me and looked over my shoulder to see a Humvee driving toward me, so I stuck my thumb out to hitch a ride.
The driver pulled up next to me.
“Are you headed toward the hangars by any chance?” I asked.
“Going right by ’em,” the young sergeant replied. “Hop in.”
“Thanks,” I said as I got in.
“I see you’re in a jump suit,” he said after a moment of silence. “Get blown off course?”
“Nope,” I repli
ed. “Missed my ride.”
“You a civilian?” he asked.
“National Park Service,” I replied without emotion. “Fire jumper training.”
“Ah. Cool.”
I grinned as I closed my eyes for the short ride back to the hangars.
**
As I drifted off to sleep in my bunk that night, the tone in my ear began to build. I don’t actually remember falling asleep, but at some point, I must have, because the next thing I remember, I was sitting in my condo.
I opened my eyes to find I was in my favorite green chair. My arms were resting gently on its overstuffed arms, and I was slouched down as I did so often, falling asleep in the chair after spending all night working on a program.
It was dark outside. But oddly, I didn’t see the glow of light coming from the streetlights outside nor from the shopping center across the street—it was pitch black outside of my windows.
A clanking of metal from the kitchen drew my attention behind me. What, or rather who, I saw, startled me—it was me.
“What the fuck?” I muttered.
“Do you want some coffee?” he…no, I asked.
“What’s going on?” I asked in reply as I stood and faced him through the open kitchen bar.
“I’ve been having a good deal of trouble communicating with you when you’re awake, so I thought I’d try this and see if it was more effective,” he said.
I walked over to the counter as he set my favorite mug down, filled with steaming coffee and milk…no sugar. Of course, he’d know how I like my coffee.
“It’s too late for me to be drinking coffee,” I said as pushed it back toward him. The mug was hot to the touch, very vividly so.
He immediately pushed it back toward me. “Dream coffee is caffeine free,” he replied with a smirk.
I nodded with a grin and picked it up. He grabbed an identical mug, filled with the same beverage. I didn’t bother pointing out the impossibility of that…I only had one of those mugs in real life. The second one was obviously meant to mirror me.
“We need to chat about a couple of things,” the other me said as he walked into the living room and sat on the sofa.
“It’s about damned time,” I replied after taking a sip of coffee…it was actually quite good. “But first, what do I call you?”
He cocked his head to the side as if I had stumped him with something.
“It’s bad enough you talk to me when I’m awake and I don’t know how to refer to you,” I added, setting my cup on the table as I sat in my green chair. “But here we’re face-to-face. It would be helpful to have a name.”
One eyebrow hooked high in an expression I recognized as one of my own.
“Wolf,” he replied after a couple of beats.
I knew immediately he meant the animal, not my last name. “Fair enough, Wolf…explain away,” I said as I eased forward and put my elbows on my knees.
“There’s only so much I can share with you like this,” Wolf said. “Whether you realize it or not, most of what I share with you is direct neural input.”
I shook my head. “You mean other than your voice in my ear?”
“My voice isn’t in your ear,” he replied matter-of-factly. “It’s direct neural input…just like everything else: the visualization of memory, the flowcharting, the virtual optical overlays, everything…it’s all direct neural input. None of it is auditory, visual, physical, or any other sense for that matter.”
I nodded my understanding. Whatever “Wolf” was, he had hacked my brain from the inside.
“Now what?” I asked. “Any time I try accessing my memory, I’m getting virtual daggers jammed into my skull. The last one left a headache that was still giving me grief when I went to bed.”
“It still is,” he added. “You just can’t feel it right now. But you’re wrong about one thing. The memories aren’t causing your pain; it hurts because you’re trying to use the virtual organization tools I’ve built for you.”
I was confused again. “So it’s not the thing I’m recalling that’s causing the pain, it’s the spreadsheet, the flowchart, and the virtual evidence board…the basket of brain toys I use every day?”
He nodded as he sipped his coffee.
“I thought you were working on fixing it,” I blurted angrily.
He laughed, nearly spitting his coffee out. “It wasn’t long ago that you wanted me out of your head.”
I smiled at his reproach. “I’d like to keep the brain goodies and ditch the voice, please…if it’s not too much trouble.”
He scoffed and shook his head. “You don’t seem to understand,” he said finally, leaning forward to express the seriousness of his words. “I am a part of you. I am wired into every neuron, every pathway, every nerve ending…hell, I bet there’s more of me in your brain than there is of you.”
“Fuck you,” I replied before I could check the anger.
“You do have me beat on that front, though,” he said with amused irony. “The emotion is all yours.”
I was getting more furious by the second. Despite the fact that he was a mental construct in a dream reality, I was tempted to launch myself across the room and kick his ass.
He shook his head in mock disappointment. “And this is why I’m having such a hard time fixing the problem.”
I flopped back in my chair and glared at him.
“Your excitement, anger, fear, insecurity—all of it—it’s making it very difficult to reestablish my connections,” he continued, speaking in a manner which was both comforting and yet somehow threatening.
“So I have to give up the parts that are ‘all me’ so you can rewire my head to your liking,” I snapped. “And in the meantime, I’m supposed to do what? Lay down and go into a coma?”
“That would be helpful,” he replied with a grin.
I shook my head and stared out of the window into the pitch black.
“This isn’t an infection that needs to be cured, Scott,” he said, leaning back to mirror my posture. “We are the same being—we have been since you were eight. And to be honest, if it hadn’t been for me, or us rather, that double dose of S28 you got at age ten would have fried your brain. The condition your mom is in would seem mild. You’d have been a vegetable.”
I looked at him suspiciously, wondering how much of what he was saying was the truth and how much was manipulation.
“It’s all truth!” he yelled angrily.
I smiled. Obviously not all the emotion was mine.
He calmed himself and took another sip of coffee before continuing. “I’m not trying to take over, nor would I be able to without you going into some sort of brain-dead state…and even then, most of your higher functions would have to be intact for me to do anything. You are the captain of this ship.”
I liked that…the captain of my own ship.
“Okay. Let’s say I believe you for the moment,” I said and watched a ripple of agitation flash across his face. Interesting, I thought.
He closed his eyes and shook his head dismissively. “That’s my point. It’s your brain. I’m you. I’m just a little more tapped into your brain than you are consciously,” he said.
“Then what am I supposed to do to make it better?” I asked with exasperation.
“Nothing,” he replied firmly. “You keep focusing on your training and the projects John has you working on. I’ll figure this out.”
My mouth dropped open. You’ll figure this out? I thought. “It’s hampering my performance!”
“Is it really?” he asked. “Think about it. Have you heard the ringing in your ears when you’ve been fighting the instructors or Nick in hand-to-hand? Have you gotten a jab of pain in your skull when you shot a ten-round, dime-sized shot group at the firing range? Have you ever, even once, gotten a headache after testing out in one of your classes with the top score?”
I thought about it for moment. “No,” I said finally, wondering if that meant what I thought it meant.
“Righ
t!” he said with a broad grin. “All you.”
Wow! I felt better all of a sudden.
He smiled more broadly. “Any benefit your alteration is giving you in those areas is either nonexistent or already permanently embedded.”
“How?” I asked, my momentary relief already starting to abate.
“I can’t know for sure,” Wolf replied. “My best guess is that whatever you were exposed to when you were eight was some sort of virus delivery system.”
I stared at him blankly while that information sank in. Dad had been a chemist; GGP Labs was a gene chop shop with government contracts; Dad’s and GGP’s information was sealed and classified by the Defense Intelligence Agency; Dad had voices in his head.
“Don’t forget Roger Gallow,” Wolf added to my thoughts.
I nodded. Roger Gallow, Chairman of GGP Labs, seemed to have an odd sensitivity to my schizophrenic hitchhiker.
Wolf nodded.
“I want to know what that’s about,” I said plainly with no emotion in my tone.
“I do too… But you have to go about it smarter than you did in John’s office.”
I nodded my concession to his point…I had been too rash talking about GGP with John.
“What do you suggest then?” I asked.
“There are two avenues we can approach this from,” he replied, holding out his index finger. “Patricia Jones is still an asset, and Mike Nance is another involved party who died around the same time as your father.”
“I’m not screwing Patricia for information again,” I said as a wave of guilt rolled over me.
“She didn’t seem disappointed with the arrangement,” Wolf replied with a grin.
“No,” I repeated firmly.
He shrugged. “She could still be a source of information.”
I nodded my agreement but suddenly started worrying Wolf would take control of me and seduce her again anyway.
“What about Nance?” I asked. “Gallow mentioned him, and I have a vague recollection of him being mentioned by Dad. How is he connected to this?”
A smile slipped across Wolf’s face that I couldn’t decipher. It was slightly disconcerting. As I was puzzling over his response, the scream of a high-pitched tone assaulted my ears and a stabbing pain materialized at the base of my skull.