“A Chamberlain Sour? Made with Chamberlain Rye Whiskey? It’s tonight's featured drink.”
He held up an ornate bottle. Jayne nodded. “I’ll just… I think I’ll just move on to water now.”
“Not a bad idea.” Merry said as she squeezed through the crowded bar beside Jayne. “Make it two, buddy.”
The bartender set down their two waters. “Closing out?”
“Yep.” They answered in unison.
Jayne took a long drink of water. “I’m not looking forward to this hangover.”
“At least you get to sleep in. Vlad and I have to be up at six to meet with Dr. Ford. They’re putting Burrett in tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about Burrett. And Chamberlain. Ray. Gavin. Damn, Merry… so many.”
“Jayne, you knew this was part of the job. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“I think it’s something I’ll just have to get used to.” Jayne finished her glass of water. “Are we doing the right thing? Locking a man up in his own mind? For, I don’t even know... An eternity?”
“Jayne.” Merry was serious. “Look. Look over there.”
Jayne looked across at Fred, Vlad and Cameron. Vlad was halfway through his famous story about hot-boxing a government transporter.
“Chamberlain? Ray? Burrett? They made their own mistakes, for better or worse. But you see that kid over there?” Merry pointed at Fred. He was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. “That kid is alive because of you.”
“He’s alive because of all of us.”
Merry smiled, tipping her head in acknowledgment. “I know. I just want you to feel better.”
“I do.” She locked eyes with Merry. “Let’s freeze that bastard.”
EPILOGUE
Cryostasis Lab, L45, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
“This place gives me the creeps. I feel like we’re being watched.”
“You’re just high.”
“No, look.” Vlad nudged Merry in the side and motioned her to look up. A security camera in the corner of the ceiling of the observation room watched their every move.
“Stop being paranoid. These people are doctors, after all. They know what they’re doing.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“It’s not your job to trust them. You’re not the one they’re freezing.” Merry folded her arms and crossed her legs. “Although it is so cold in here you might think that.”
Vlad and Merry had been waiting in a blank white room in the front of three rows of theatre seats. The door behind them slid open and shut with a whoosh. Dr. Ford walked in and held out her hand. Vlad looked at her blankly for a moment before realizing she was expecting a handshake.
“Vladimir,” Dr. Ford said in a disturbingly business-like tone. Then she turned to Merry. “Merry. Thank you so much for being our witnesses today of the cryostatic onboarding.”
Merry shrugged. “Well, it just seemed appropriate for us to be here.”
“Oh, I agree. And in addition to that, the Cryo Institute is still held under strict regulations at this time. Human onboarding requires witnesses in the unlikely event that something goes wrong.” Dr. Ford took a seat by Vlad. “But apart from the fact that we are onboarding a human, today’s procedure is rather routine. Shall we begin?”
Dr. Ford’s personality was not helping with the temperature. Merry shivered. “Yes. The sooner I’m back outside in the hot and humid smog, the better.”
Dr. Ford spoke into her comm. “We’re ready, nurse. Commence cryostatic onboarding.”
The blank wall before them dissipated; a one-way window that hid under a wall-mimicking nano-particle cloak. It was not dissimilar to the Hide-A-Hook Merry had installed in the ISA offices not too long ago.
The one-way window gave them a view into a sterile, white laboratory. A nurse and two orderlies wheeled in a sleeping Burrett strapped down onto a stretcher. Merry was almost offended by how harmless and frail he looked. After living in fear for so long, after seeing how the mere thought of him was enough to drive Jayne to the edge, knowing innocent people had been left dead in his wake, she was actually disgusted to see him appear so weak. Even in sleep, Burrett continued to deceive them.
The orderlies wheeled the stretcher by a large container that looked like a cross between a casket and a rice cooker. They locked the wheels in place and stepped out of the nurse’s way.
The nurse spoke into her comm, piping her voice into the observation room. “Subject is in place, Dr. Ford.”
“Excellent, nurse. Go ahead.” The nurse wheeled a tray of medical instruments and syringes over to Burrett and got to work.
“First,” Dr. Ford began to narrate. “We inject the subject with a shot of metoprolol and atenolol. These are beta-blockers. We begin with these to slow down his heart rate, while simultaneously improving blood flow. This will place the subject in as deep a sleep as possible. When he wakes inside the virtual reality world, it will be that much harder for him to realize where he was before we placed him into cryostasis. Like waking up from a dream within a dream.”
The nurse pulled the needle free from Burrett’s arm, dabbed the spot with a cotton ball, and dropped the needle into a receptacle. The nurse reached for a second syringe.
“Next, we inject the subject with a drug we developed right here in the lab, called helioprozexate. This desensitizes the subject’s nervous system for up to 48 hours. It prevents the subject from going into shock when they’re introduced to the extremely low temperatures of the cryochamber. Over the course of eight hours, the subject will reach a temperature of negative one-hundred and fifty degrees Celsius.”
Dr. Ford’s constant use of ‘subject’ made Merry uneasy. This guy was no ‘subject’. This was Burrett! He was a psychopath who killed people, who almost killed two of her best friends. To this quack he’s just another experiment, another justification for more grants, Merry thought. The light of her intense admiration for Dr. Ford faded more and more.
The nurse removed the second needle and moved on to the third. Dr. Ford continued her totally affectless narration. “Next, we give the subject a healthy dose of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and an abundance of necessary vitamins.”
The nurse administered one injection after another.
“Vitamins and nutrients,” Dr. Ford quickly added, “are continually given to the subject through an airtight access port that links to an IV. Waste is removed through a second line.”
Vlad’s opinion of this place was not improving. Each needle, each step in the onboarding process, raised the creep factor for him tenfold. He tapped his foot at lightning speed out of anxiousness. He really shouldn’t have come here high. It was worse than the time he ate four pot brownies at his little cousin’s bat mitzvah.
“Finally,” Dr. Ford concluded as the Nurse reached for the final needle. “We inject the subject with a large dose of dimethyltryptamine. The effects of this drug last no more than thirty minutes, but to the subject, the feeling will seem to last decades. He will live an entire lifetime in less than half-an-hour. It provides the smoothest transition from our reality to his virtual reality.”
The nurse removed the final syringe. It was now time for the final step. The nurse placed an electrode cap on his head. “The VR headset,” Doctor Ford announced with pride.
Once the headset was attached, the orderlies picked up the small mattress from the stretcher, placed Burrett into the cryochamber, and pulled the air-tight glass cover shut. Hoses, attached at the base, injected the chamber with freezing air.
A thermometer by the manual override lock descended into radically low digits. Within moments, Burrett was already trapped in negative twenty-five degrees Celsius.
As the glass frosted, Merry got a good look at Burrett’s face as it disappeared behind his scientific miracle of a prison. For a split second, she swore she saw his eyes twitch open. Before she could even process it, his face was
covered by the effects of extreme temperature on glass. She pushed the thought out of her mind.
“And that’s the process.” Doctor Ford concluded.
+++
Vlad and Merry reveled in the smog outside the Cryo Institute. The dirty, humid heat felt like heaven after spending an hour inside what felt like a frozen, clinical hell. Vlad had called a taxi, but it was rush hour. They’d be waiting a while.
“I desperately need a hit of that.” Merry told Vlad as he handed her a joint.
“It is interesting,” Vlad began. “The VR aspect, I mean. Cryostasis can’t seem to rely on dreams alone. I suspect the subject would eventually run out of acetylcholine and melatonin, the main chemicals that make us dream. At least, that’s my guess.”
“It’s almost like death.”
“But if you think about it,” Vlad continued, “it’d be interesting for something as commonplace as video games. As long as the subject doesn’t get stuck in there.”
“Although that’d be a gamer’s dream.”
“I wonder what would happen. Even a video game can only be programmed with so many variables. And even the unconscious mind becomes aware of patterns. It’s an evolutionary advantage we have. It’s a defense mechanism going all the way back to hunter-gatherer days.”
Merry took another hit from the joint. She was getting deep in the conversation now. “I read about that. Our ancestors who picked up on the patterns of traveling elk herds and the behavior of fish had better chances of surviving.”
The taxi pulled up. Vlad took the roach from Merry for one last hit before dropping it on the ground and stamping it out.
Merry got in first. “I’m sure Dr. Ford and the Cryo Institute know what they’re doing.”
+++
ISA Offices, Malicarsh Building, L45, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Merry’s high was coming down as she entered the office. She hung her jacket up on the Hide-A-Hook and slid her shoes off. On the way back from the Cryo Institute she had wracked her brain with potential cases she was keeping on file. She really hoped Jayne would be in the mood for some easy-money jobs. No more chasing down donut loving psychopaths or defusing bombs. At least, for now. In fact, a cheating husband case would be a welcome change at this point.
But, Merry knew, convincing Jayne of that might be a dangerous case in and of itself.
“How’d it go?” Jayne asked, her voice serious.
“He’s a Burrett-cicle now. Frozen solid, trapped in his VR world.”
Jayne nodded. “Alright. Good.”
“Say,” Merry began. “I was thinking…”
Jayne smiled, “Me too. I’m thinking it’s time we find a new case. I’m ready to get back to work.”
“Wait, really?”
“Of course. All I needed was a long, hot shower and some beauty sleep. I’m good as new.”
“Hell yeah!” Merry was thrilled. It felt like things were back to normal. She set herself down on the settee, and pulled up some porn on her tablet. It had been a long time since she got to indulge in her habit of looking for the weirdest stuff she could find. “In fact, I already have a few leads you might be interested in.”
“That makes two of us.” There was genuine glee in Jayne’s voice.
“Alright! But first,” Merry looked over her tablet at Jayne. “I’m feeling take out?”
“That sounds amazing. But…” Jayne powered down her tablet. “Can we take a rain check? I’ve got a rather important date tonight with a plate of ceviche.”
“More power to you, my friend. That gives me a little more time to catch up on all this good stuff I’ve been missing out on.” She was referring to the dinosaur-teddy bear porn on her screen. Merry thought that kind of stuff was hilarious.
Jayne stood up from behind her desk, and Merry noticed she was already equipped for a romantic night: little black dress, heels, and hair in a bun that would certainly be undone later.
She put on an elegant coat and moved to the door. As it slid open, she turned. “Hey, Merry?”
“Yo.”
“We’re a good team.”
“Yes, we are.”
Jayne smiled. She strutted out of the office, power and energy in every step. The door slid shut behind her.
+++
VR Simulation V21, deep cryo-reality, subject: Burrett, James
Within the endless walls of Burrett’s unreal VR prison, he performed his punishment. He finished building the next pillar of bricks at the end of a long row of brick columns. With the completion of each column, the first in the row, now out of Burrett’s sight, disappeared. He was the first of his kind, a cursed god of the new age, a digital Sisyphus.
Though only a week had passed, Burrett felt like he had been performing the task for a year. Though if Burrett could explain the feeling, it was a year he could not recall the beginning of.
But Burrett was aware… Aware of something, but he did not know it yet. At the pit of his mind, in the lowest depths of the subconscious, nearly non-existent but certainly real, a pattern of words began forcing their way in:
Warden threw a party in the county jail
The prison band was there and they began to wail
The band was jumpin’ and the joint began to swing
You should’ve heard them knocked-out jailbirds sing
Let’s rock…
Transmission from Merry Winterbourne
Hey there,
Merry Winterbourne here.
Jayne has asked me to keep you filled in on everything going on around here. Normally I’d just hack your system to send you everything, but I’ve been told that’s not considered very polite on Earth, so I’ll just get it to you by email… boring, but whatever.
So as your official go-to girl, I’ll send you alerts of when the next instalment of Jayne’s adventures is available to you on Amazon. Or the ‘Zon as we like to call it.
If you’d like to track Jayne through her trials and tribulations as she tackles all manner of shenanigans, then please go ahead and leave your email address here:
http://ellleighclarke.com/Jayne
As you might have gathered, this transmission will be coming from a great distance between our sectors. I will attempt to send you updates in chronological order but sometimes the universe happens, and not everything comes out in order.
An understanding of all things timey-whimey will be useful in such instances.
Additionally, if you have any feedback for Jayne - or the rest of us - do feel free to pass that on through me. All you need to do is hit reply to any of my messages.
I read every communication personally.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Merry Winterbourne
(on behalf of Jayne Austin, Spy for Hire)
Theron Techropolis Gateway Building, L45
Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Author Notes: Ell Leigh Clarke
Austin, Tuesday, 12th March, 2019
Thank yous
As always on these collaborations, I’d like to thank MA for making this series happen. It was a ton of fun coming up with the concepts for Spy for Hire. I especially liked hearing that all the hard work has paid off when MA reports back that the manuscript was so hard to put down that he was falling asleep and bopping himself on the head with his ipad because he didn’t want to stop reading.
It’s been a long time in the making for various reasons, and I’m thrilled we finally got it finished and into your hands – so you that you too can bop yourself with your reading device. Hahah. Kidding. I’m glad you have it though, and I really hope you had a blast reading it.
Lots of people go into making a series like this happen.
I’d like to say a massive thank you to the team of suppliers who made this book possible: Canadian Brittany, Shawn, Mihaela, and Nathaniel.
Thank you, guys! Your hard work, care and attention mean the world to me :)
JITers
Massive, and uber thanks also go out to ou
r JIT team and high commander, Brittany, for all their hard work in making sure the words reach you double-proofed, read and re-read. Thank you so much for all the love and care you put into the process.
We couldn’t do this without you, and it’s a huge weight off my mind when I know you guys have been through a manuscript before we go ahead and hit publish!
Thank you! <3
Reviewers
Mega thanks also goes out to our Amazon reviewers. It’s because of you that we get to do this full time. Without your five-star reviews and thoughtful words on Amazon we simply wouldn’t have enough folks reading these space shenanigans to be able to write full time.
You are the reason these stories exist and you have no idea how frikkin’ grateful I am to you.
Truly, thank you… And I’m writing this based on the reviews we’ve had for all our other series – and praying that you come over to this series and leave us some 5* reviews for this one too!
Fingers crossed.
Readers and FB page supporters
I’d like to also thank *YOU* for reading this book. Your enthusiasm for the worlds and characters is heart-warming. Your words of encouragement and demands for the next episode are inspiring!
Thank you for being here, for the giggles and interaction, for reading, and reviewing. You rock, and without you, there really would be no reason to write these stories.
Thank You to Our Growing Patreon Family
Last and by no means least I’d like to say a huge thank you to our growing Patreon family.
Allan MacBain, Anne Henderson, Brian Roberts, Cynthia MacLeod, Darrell Heckler, David Pollard, James Burrett, Jason M. Greatreaks, Jolie Brackett, Judith Wiseman, Kendra Gilmore, Krystina Prendergast, Lester Nye, Maps Cat, Mary Morris, Nat Thongchai, Paula Fletcher, Russell Peake, and Sandra Chapman.
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