Behind the Mask

by J. D. Cunegan

  “Vitals are strong,” he muttered with an upper-crust British accent, marking notes on the clipboard in his hand. “The KBG wasn’t kidding; this man is the epitome of human fitness.”

  “And it still won’t matter a hill of beans.”

  Joel Freeman, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer who had been linked to Project Fusion, leaned against a nearby table with a scowl and his arms folded across his chest. He stared at Piotr’s body, his eyes narrowing. The dim light barely reflected off the medals pinned to Freeman’s jacket, and he arched a brow when he and Dr. Roberts locked eyes.

  “Why are you even here?” Dr. Roberts asked. “I thought you were happy to wash your hands of this.”

  “I was,” Freeman said, “til the damn Russians resurfaced.”

  “So you’re here on behalf of Uncle Sam?”

  Freeman pushed off the table, approaching Dr. Roberts and jabbing a finger into his chest. “I’m here to make sure nothin’ goes wrong. Gregor might not be pulling the strings anymore, but if he gets wind of this...”

  “David Gregor is no longer my concern,” Dr. Roberts argued, turning his attention back to Piotr before studying the automated surgical tools hovering overhead. The scalpel had just been sharpened, and the mere sight of the bone saw was enough to give him chills. Project Fusion was almost entirely automated, with few actual surgeons’ hands touching the subject. Because it was such a lengthy, exhaustive procedure, Dr. Roberts had taken great care to make sure it could be executed with as little physical and mental stress on the surgeons as possible.

  Freeman shook his head. “You’re dumber than I thought.”

  “His money’s not paying for this,” Dr. Roberts pointed out, studying the small marks made with black ink running the length of Piotr’s chest, indicating the spots along which the primary incision would be made.

  “And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Freeman paced around in frustration, pointedly ignoring the steaming vat behind him. The liquid titanium that would fuse to Piotr’s skeleton was, in some ways, more revolting than actually cutting him open. The steam rose from the vat, and Freeman cringed when he felt the heat pushing back against him. “So long as the checks clear. Don’t even care if you’re in bed with the damn Russians.”

  “And here I thought Islamic extremists were the enemy now,” Dr. Roberts bit back with a sideways grin.

  “I mean it.” Freeman folded his arms over his chest again. “This shit is gonna get you killed. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday soon, someone’s gonna collect on something you can’t pay.”

  “Tell me something, Joel,” Dr. Roberts began, pressing a series of keys on a black console to bring the cadre of surgical implements overhead to life. Now that Piotr was sufficiently stable, it was time to start the procedure. “You’ve made a life out of following and giving orders. A pretty good life, too. But when was the last time you truly gave a damn?”

  Freeman’s eyes narrowed again. “Excuse me?”

  “What’s your life’s passion?” Dr. Roberts asked, removing his white lab coat and tossing it over the back of a nearby chair before rolling up his sleeves. “Have you ever had anything that drove you out of bed before the sun came up, because you absolutely could... not... wait to get back to work on it? Have you ever loved something so thoroughly that you ate, slept, and breathed it, every single day of your life?”

  “Defending my country,” Freeman answered with a lift of his chin.

  “Defending your country,” Dr. Roberts repeated with a shake of his head. “And where does hiding out in a secret bunker in the middle of the Russian winterland fall into that?”

  “I’m trying to prevent another Cold War,” Freeman argued. “What are you doing?”

  Dr. Roberts shrugged and glanced back at Piotr, whose chest had been sliced open much the same way as an autopsy subject. The scalpel was making an incision along his left arm, which would help with the titanium fusion process. No matter how many times Dr. Roberts had seen this procedure firsthand over the years, it still gave him chills and brought a smile to his face. It was nice to know all of those sleepless nights and two failed marriages had not been in vain.

  “Ensuring my life’s work doesn’t fade into the ether.”

  PRESENT DAY...

  “So you’re a cyborg,” Jill said in a slow, clipped tone. The words felt strange coming out of her mouth. “Like me.”

  Piotr gave a noncommittal shrug, glancing over his shoulder even though they were the only two people in this dank, rundown warehouse. A lightbulb swung from a ceiling fixture overhead, the only light in the whole area coming and going seemingly on its own whims.

  It was one thing for Jill to know this, for her brain to eventually put the pieces together and reach this conclusion. It was another thing entirely for Piotr to be standing in front of Jill, telling her all of this—essentially confirming all of her worst fears about that chapter of her life. Joel Freeman had constantly reassured her that she was the only person to ever survive the procedure, and since she had gone years without encountering anyone else like her, she eventually allowed herself to believe it.

  But as soon as she did, Piotr showed up.

  This assumed, of course, that he hadn’t been lying. But there was no way Piotr could be lying... Jill had seen for herself the things he was capable of, and that was only the case if he had undergone the same experiment she had. No ordinary human could do the things Piotr did.

  Freeman had lied to her for all those years. Why that surprised Jill, she couldn’t say. The man had, after all, tossed her out a fortieth-story window and was once aligned with David Gregor. His duplicity in other matters should not have been such a shock. But Jill couldn’t help but wonder how such a shady, unscrupulous man had gotten into the military in the first place.

  “You said Gregor was a means to an end,” she changed the subject. “What’s the end?”

  A knowing smile crept onto Piotr’s face. “You are.”

  CHAPTER 11

  STANLEY ERIKSON’S OFFICE at The Baltimore Sun was hardly ever clean, but these days it more closely resembled a war zone than an actual office. Stacks of paper threatened to fall off the edge of the desk, and his office phone was littered with little yellow stick-it notes—to say nothing of the mess that was the dry-erase board across from his desk. What started as a pyramid of notes had slowly devolved into a mess of yarn, more stick-it notes, and enough highlighter that Erikson wondered if his office now glowed in the dark.

  And yet, Erikson had no trouble making sense out of the chaos. His decades in the profession had taught Erikson many tools of the trade, not the least of which was taking the tiniest of threads and being able to extrapolate beyond that. It started back in the days when he had to memorize quotes and take them down by hand—no fancy digital recorders at his disposal. Now, it meant looking at the maze of yarn across from his desk, studying the accompanying chicken scratch, and letting his fingers dance over the keyboard to tell the sordid tale.

  This story... this was big. Massive. Far more intriguing than Bounty’s secret identity.

  After all, who didn’t enjoy a good origin story? It was almost as juicy as a giant conspiracy with a shady, potentially malevolent billionaire at the heart of it.

  Erikson had been so wrapped up in his story, the blinking cursor calling his name, that he hadn’t noticed the door to his office swing open. Nor had he acknowledged the presence of Anthony Spencer, the senior editor who enjoyed Marlboros so much that he often went through three packs a day. The constant stench and the fact that he seemed to cough up a lung every minute or so appeared to bother him little.

  “Jesus, Mary, Josef, and the shepherds,” Anthony muttered with a shake of his head. “You catch the name o’ the hurricane that blew through here, Stan?”

  “I’ll let you know after they hand me my Pulitzer,” Erikson cracked, his eyes never once leaving the monitor.

  Anthony shook his head and muttered something under his breath before
placing the unlit cigarette that had been tucked behind his ear into his mouth. He then folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the door frame, frowning when his eyes scanned the dry-erase board. “I already got someone on the Gregor angle.”

  “Not on this, you don’t.”

  Anthony quirked a brow and pushed off the frame. “Alright, Stan... talk.”

  Bolting from his seat, Erikson tossed his glasses onto the desk and approached the board. The sleeves of his gray button-down were bunched up at his elbows, and as he studied the strands of yarn and the disparate notes strewn about, his eyes grew wide.

  “I’m not quite there yet,” he began, “but I’m close. I can feel it. This time next week, we’ll have a front-page expose’ tying David Gregor to business and political leaders in Russia.”

  Anthony shrugged. “And? It’s not like the guy’s president.”

  Tracing one of the yellow threads of yarn with the tip of his finger, Erikson bit his lower lip and grinned in spite of himself. He had been doing this for almost four decades, and the jolt that came with breaking a big story didn’t come as often as it did when he was fresh out of Northwestern... but he felt it with this story.

  With every stone he flipped, with every new source he discovered, Erikson got that adrenaline shot he remembered from his younger days. Even the world’s strongest coffee or most potent energy drink couldn’t replicate that feeling. Only the truth could give Erikson the buzz he was looking for.

  “I can’t actually prove this yet,” he cast Anthony a sideways glance, “but my sources tell me David Gregor financed a secretive cybernetic experiment—one in which both the United States and Russian governments participated.”

  “Secretive cybernetic experiment,” Anthony repeated with a shake of his head. “You realize how that sounds, right?”

  “No crazier than the fact that, right now, the city of Baltimore has not one but two costumed vigilantes running around.” Erikson shrugged his shoulders before reaching for an overstuffed manila folder sitting on the chair across from his desk. Flipping the folder open, he produced the first sheet of paper in the stack and handed it to his editor. “Especially considering who one of them is.”

  As Anthony read through the paper in his hand, the crease in his brow lifted and his eyes widened with the same mixture of surprise and awe that Erikson’s held. He shook his head with a lopsided grin on his face, nodding in the direction of the paper. “You mean to tell me...”

  “Whether he knew it or not, Gregor is at least partly responsible for our resident superhero.”

  Anthony shook his head. “Well, considering they’ve butted heads a few times, either she’s an ungrateful little brat or it wasn’t on purpose.”

  Stepping fully into Erikson’s office, Anthony chewed on his lip as he studied the dry-erase board. His hands slipped into the back pockets of his slacks—a telltale sign that Anthony was deep in thought. Now that he had the basics, the madness before him actually began to take shape. A lot of it was still unsubstantiated—too much for the editor’s liking—but the number of times Erikson had scribbled some version of Call this person back was a good sign.

  Erikson was many things, but one thing Anthony knew from his nearly two decades working with the man: when he caught a scent, when he so much as caught sight of the proverbial bone, he would not stop until that thing was trapped in his jaw. If there was actually something to this, Erikson was the man Anthony wanted on the job.

  “One thing I don’t get,” he chimed in, head cocked to the side, “why the Russians?”

  “Once Project Fusion performed its first successful transplant—on our friendly neighborhood Andersen, no less—the Kremlin caught wind and decided the project was worth pursuing. Before that, America was the only country willing to take a chance on the project.”

  “Unproven cybernetic transplantation,” Anthony theorized, “makes sense the only country desperate enough to sign on was the one knee-deep in two wars.”

  “And once Dr. Roberts finally had a patient survive the procedure...”

  “Bidding war.” Anthony nodded and pursed his lips. “Reignite the Cold War and line Gregor’s pockets.”

  “Until the bodies started piling up.” Erikson pointed at a green string of yarn that led to a newspaper article written in Russian. “Small town outside of Moscow, six soldiers who underwent the procedure were found dead. Cause of death was inconclusive, but the cloud of suspicion was enough to scare off both the Russians and Gregor.”

  Anthony frowned. “Scare off how?”

  “Gregor pulled his funding. He essentially killed Project Fusion.”

  “Dr. Roberts,” Anthony pointed at the name scribbled in red ink and underlined three times. “Wasn’t he...?”

  “The body they fished out of the bay last year,” Erikson confirmed.

  That definitely wasn’t a coincidence; Anthony had been around long enough to know that was a puzzle piece more than anything, and finding where exactly that piece went would likely go a long way toward Erikson getting his piece on the front page – and making up for the fact that he dropped the ball on outing Bounty.

  “One more thing,” Anthony asked, “what about the other vigilante?”

  “That’s my dead end,” Erikson admitted with a sigh. “Every piece of surveillance footage I’ve found of him, he has his mask on. None of my sources know anything outside of the fact that he killed those four police officers and he appears to be able to do all the same things Andersen can.”

  “So Bounty’s not our only Project Fusion success story.”

  “You want my theory?” Erikson leaned back against the chair across from his desk, chewing on the pen in his right hand. Unlike Anthony, Erikson quit smoking seven years ago—and replaced it with the habit of chewing on pen caps. He had lost count over the years of how many pens he had lost that way.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “What if Project Fusion isn’t really dead?” Erikson nodded toward the board. “What if all this is still going on, just... underground?”

  Keeping his gaze on the yarn and the notes and the assorted chaos hanging off the board, Anthony kept his first thought to himself. This sounded like the sort of case that, in fiction, would put Erikson’s life at risk. He dismissed that thought out of hand, thinking that this was real life, but the fact was... they lived in a world of cybernetics and secret government experiments and billionaires meeting with foreign dignitaries, so... was that what the pit in Anthony’s stomach meant?

  Was he right to be worried?

  Journalists placing themselves in danger by virtue of their profession was nothing new, but in Anthony’s experience, most threats were little more than empty words. But if this sordid web actually led somewhere, if David Gregor was in fact in bed with Russian dignitaries, he couldn’t help but wonder if Erikson had considered the implications. Especially since he was known to have had contact with the vigilante.

  “What does Bounty make of all this?”

  Erikson frowned. “I...”

  “Please, Stan.” Anthony offered a sideways grin and a shake of his head. “Just cause I ain’t listened to a police scanner in ten years doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s goin’ on. The vigilante’s a source, isn’t she?”

  Erikson shook his head. “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “Which is the only answer I need.” Anthony placed a hand on Erikson’s shoulder. “Look, you’re gonna keep digging on this, even if I told you to stop. That’s why you’re one of the best. Just... don’t let this thing kill you, huh?”

  Erikson arched a brow. “You never struck me as the paranoid type.”

  “Nah, not paranoid.” A rueful smile crept onto the editor’s face. “Just don’t wanna have to fill your spot with some snot-nosed, pimple-faced blogger.”

  CHAPTER 12

  IF THERE WAS ONE THING Jill hated, it was being the center of someone’s attention. It was one of the reasons she bristled whenever anyone called her a hero�
�whether it was in reference to her military service or her former career. For some reason, that word in association with her exploits as Bounty didn’t make her quite as uncomfortable, but the chill that ran down her spine when the other vigilante called her his end game rivaled any chill she ever experience in the dead of winter.

  In hindsight, being a costumed vigilante was the dumbest thing Jill could have done to avoid the spotlight. But that bed had already been made, and she had already compounded it by telling the whole damn world who she actually was.

  But still...

  “Why?” she demanded. “What makes me so special?”

  “You mean other than the fact that you and I are the only two of our kind in the world?” Piotr asked with a sideways grin.

  It took every ounce of willpower Jill had not to roll her human eye at that. “If you’re that lonely...”

  “You have never wondered if there were others?” Piotr frowned when Jill shook her head. “All these years, and not once have you thought about whether or not you were alone.”

  The throbbing in the back of her head having almost disappeared by this point, Jill huffed a frustrated sigh and shook her head. “Solitude isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” she argued. “I didn’t volunteer for Project Fusion because it was the cool thing to do.”

  “My entire life has been led in solitude,” Piotr explained, glancing at his feet. “Even when I was training in Moscow, with dozens of others my age, I was alone. I never knew their names, never cared enough to ask. We were nothing but soldiers, tools in the neverending battle to return Mother Russia to her rightful place as the supreme nation.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you had a shitty childhood,” Jill deadpanned.