Reverse

by Steven Tandberg

  “They haven’t caught your scent yet, make more noise,” said Roxanne.

  Through the earpieces, we heard glass shattering and metal creaking. I nearly ripped the thing from my ear because it was so loud.

  “Was that enough noise?” said Talon.

  “You’ve got two bogies coming up on you,” said Stefan.

  “Only two? I guess we’ll have to up the destruction,” said Red Cloud before hurling a chair through a window.

  “OK, now there are four, wait, seven men coming up on the building you’re in, better make another move.”

  “What about the target building? Any sign of life there?” I asked.

  “Nope, the coast is clear. I’m gonna focus on you guys now. Red Cloud and Talon, you’re on your own.”

  “Just gonna tear some crap up and then we’ll be on our way,” said Talon.

  “Time to go,” said Roxanne while donning the helmet.

  We jogged along the shadows until we came to the corner of the courtyard in front of the building. Roxanne extracted a keycard from her pocket and held it ready. I mouthed, “One, two, three,” and sprinted for the building. Roxanne made it to the door a half second before me and placed the card against the reader. The doors slid open and thank goodness they did. Otherwise, I would’ve slammed right into them.

  The night guard looked up from his desk as I came barreling at him. He managed to raise one hand before I collapsed on him. I wrapped my arm around his neck in a choke hold and pressed my legs around his waist. He slapped at my face with his free arm, but I managed to extract the syringe of sedative from my pocket. I pulled off the cap with my mouth and jammed the needle into his leg. He struggled against me for another twenty seconds until the sedative kicked in. I let him down to the floor and slid him under the desk on his side.

  Roxanne had pressed the elevator button and waited from within the elevator. I joined her and stood in silence as we ascended to the fourth floor. The doors slowly opened to the dark floor. We flipped on our flashlights and stepped out toward the lab. The moment we arrived at the lab my heart dropped. The entire place had been stripped clean. No desks, no equipment, nothing. We continued to the hallway and offices. I kicked in the door to the supposed data room and let out a heavy sigh. Blinking lights of network equipment shone back at me.

  “Coyle and Roxanne, we got a problem,” said Stefan, “two cars just pulled up to the building. No one has gotten out, but they’re definitely watching the place.”

  “K, just let us know if they’re coming in,” said Roxanne.

  I pulled out the small laptop from my backpack and attached a network cable from it to the hub. I ran the program Angelfire had sent and waited for the access.

  “Why would they strip everything from the labs and offices and leave all this equipment?” I asked Roxanne.

  “I’m not sure, but it doesn’t feel right.”

  “Any movement, Stefan?”

  “No, nothing, they’re just waiting.”

  The program dinged, and a file folder appeared on the screen. I searched for documents authored by Coyle’s mom and found a folder titled, “External research.” Within the folder were three files, a spreadsheet, and two documents. I tried opening the document titled, “The Ethics of Stem Cells, How Far is Too Far” but a field for a password popped up. When I tried the other document, “For your eyes only” the same field appeared.

  “You don’t need to read it right now, just copy it,” said Roxanne while glancing into the hallway. “We gotta get out of here.”

  I closed the document and tried to drag and drop the files into a folder on the laptop, but the same password field popped up.

  “Crap, I can’t copy it without the password.”

  “Well, you’d better figure it out quick, Coyle. Four men just got outta the cars, and they’re walking into the building.”

  “Dang it! How am I supposed to figure it out?”

  “Coyle, you have all of your originator’s memories, surely there’s something in them that could help. Use that giant brain of yours.”

  I started from the beginning with the first memories I had of Coyle’s mom. I remembered her pushing Coyle on a tricycle on the sidewalk, his fourth birthday party with a pudding-covered cake, his first hockey practice with his mom watching from the stands. I remembered the warmth of her hugs and how she used to rustle his hair.

  “Hurry up, clone of Coyle, we got seconds not minutes here.”

  I jumped forward in time, to the last year before her death and started scanning the memories. I landed on one that seemed out of place. One evening at dinner Coyle’s mom recited a poem out of the blue.

  “Seeker of truth,

  “follow no path,

  “all paths lead where,

  “truth is here.”

  “Remember this Coyle, it will give you access to truth.”

  I remember both Coyle’s dad and him staring at Mom wondering what on earth she was talking about. His mom then changed the subject. Why wouldn’t she just come out and say it? Why not just tell us the password? Maybe she knew they were listening already?

  I tried the words seeker, follow, and truth, but none worked. I scanned my memory again, searching for another reference to the poem. A memory of Coyle’s mom tucking him in at night shot into my consciousness.

  “Truth is here,” she said and pointed to Coyle’s heart. “Truth leads to us.”

  Heart and family. I typed in the words, first together and then with a space in between, but neither worked. Then the rest of the memory came to me.

  “It’s us four, Coyle. Four in the family.” She then kissed him on the forehead.

  Heart Family four. I tried HeartFami4ly and HeartFa4mily to no avail.

  Finally, I typed HeartFam4ily. The screen flashed once and then a dialog box popped up on the screen. “Welcome, Coyle. I knew you’d figure it out. Be careful to take care of the report in this folder. Trust no one.” A warmth spread through my heart. Coyle’s mom was special, someone pure.

  “Download that crap and let’s get outta here. Something is wrong, very wrong,” said Roxanne, breaking my connection to Coyle’s mom.

  I clicked on the files and dragged them to the folder on the laptop. As I did another dialog box popped on the screen. “Thank you once again, Coyle, you’re a tremendous help.” A Somatotech logo then appeared.

  “Crap!” I said just as the screen went black. I searched around the computers in the room and found a small box with a single network cable hanging from the router. I turned it over and found Somatotech’s logo printed on the back. I tried to turn the laptop on, but the screen remained black.

  “Coyle, you all need to get out of there now! You’ve got at least ten guys coming in. I’ll provide cover.”

  “Disconnect and let’s go, Coyle!” yelled Roxanne.

  “We don’t know if it’s on here. Let me try again.”

  “No, we go now!” She snapped the laptop shut and ripped it from the router. I grabbed Somatotech’s device and ran toward the elevator.

  “Going down leads to them, we gotta go up.”

  “Up leads to nowhere,” I yelled.

  “It’s the only chance we have,” she said and pressed the button for up.

  We waited on either side of the elevator doors as they slid open, ready to pounce on anyone inside. No one came out. Roxanne glanced in so fast her head snapped back and forth in two milliseconds.

  “Clear. Let’s go.”

  We jumped in and pressed the tenth floor, the very top of the building. The elevator slowly ascended and at the tenth floor we both squeezed against the walls out of the view of the opening doors. Again, no one emerged.

  We ran out onto the floor and followed the signs for the exit to the roof. Roxanne kicked the door down, and we both hoped it actually led to the roof rather than the dummy doors on Coyle’s mom’s floor. The door clanked down onto the metal platform connected to stairs leading upward. We sprinted up, skipping entire flights of s
tairs and burst through the door at the top. That’s when the firing began. We could see the flashes of light from the muzzle of Stefan’s rifle in the parking garage. I followed Roxanne as she searched the roof for a way down, but we found none, only the stairwell we’d exited.

  “Stefan, are there any men on the eastern side of the building.”

  “Yes, three. Four entered, three are outside the entrance, and another three are circling on the western side of the building. The three out front have taken cover.”

  “What do we do?” I asked Roxanne, my heart racing and sweat building on my brow.

  She looked calm, collected as she search her surroundings. “We jump,” she said and ripped a pipe that stuck out of the roof.

  “Jump?”

  “That building is about thirty-five feet away; we can make it.”

  “Make it to where? The roof is at the same level. There’s no way we could make it.”

  “Not the roof,” she said and hefted the pipe like a javelin. Her arm snapped back and then forth, releasing the pipe. It sailed straight toward the building and pierced a window on the fifth floor.

  “What the? We have to jump down there? Five floors down?”

  “Seven floors, remember we went up from the tenth?” She winked and backed up twenty paces. She shot forward before I could get another word in and leaped from the edge of the building. She sailed through the air head first and crashed into the remaining glass of the window. Into the dark of the building she disappeared.

  “Oh crap,” I said out loud and stepped back to spot where Roxanne had taken off. My heart beat nearly out of my chest.

  “Coyle, get over here,” Roxanne whispered. Her breathing sounded labored.

  I lunged forward taking six large strides to the edge and pushed off. My stomach felt as if it flipped into my chest as I dropped through the air with my bag containing the laptop sailing behind me. I looked at the building as I approached and instantly recognized that my trajectory would have me slam into the window of the sixth floor. I flailed my arms and legs to achieve air resistance. It wasn’t enough, my face and chest slammed into the space between the floors but my legs flipped into the gaping window. I blacked out instantly.

  “Coyle, wake up you piece of crud,” I heard Roxanne’s voice. A rush of energy surged through me, and I shot upright. My eyes bulged out, and my fist clenched with the rush. Roxanne removed the needle from my leg.

  “Get up, we’ve got company.”

  I jumped up and nearly hit the ceiling. Blood trickled out of a gash in my forehead and slipped into my eyes. I pressed the edges together and stopped the bleeding as I followed her deeper into the building. My muscles felt energized as if I could go on forever. Man Dr. B’s cocktail does the trick, I thought.

  “Stefan, pick us up at the corner of 19th and Victor in fifty seconds. Red Cloud and Talon we need some cover fire,” she spoke clearly and without the slightest hint of anxiety. Each of our team answered in the affirmative through the earpieces.

  We found the far eastern stairwell and skipped entire flights on our way down. She stopped on the second floor and sprinted through the lab. We made it to the window at the northeast corner, and she picked up a lab stool. I reached out and snatched it from her grasp.

  “My turn,” I said and slammed it through the window.

  She didn’t hesitate. With a simple hop, she flew out the window and onto the grass below. I followed, scraping my shoulder on some of the jagged edges.

  Shots rang out, some in our direction and others toward the building. We sprinted past the library and bullets shattered the glass behind us. I dove over a bike rack, pushed off a rail and spun in the air as the rain of metal showered around me. Roxanne kept a few strides in front and shifted from side to side. We reached Uvalda Court, one block from our meeting point when we heard a car screech out behind us. I glanced back and saw Stefan accelerating toward us. More shots came and made contact with Stefan’s car. The rear window shattered, but Stefan maintained his course. Red Cloud and Talon came into view, hunkered down behind a concrete railing of a set of stairs. They took turns flipping up and unloading a clip at our assailants. We reached the intersection just as Stefan pulled up.

  “Get in! Now!” Stefan yelled as he hit the brakes.

  Roxanne and I dove inside, and Stefan slammed on the gas pedal. He turned onto the grass and came up behind Red Cloud and Talon. Each of them fired off another ten rounds and then jumped into the car.

  “Well, I guess we’re two cars down,” said Red Cloud.

  The sound of sirens came at us from behind just as Stefan punched the car back into gear.

  “We gotta switch out this car,” said Stefan as he pulled out onto I-225 going south. Two police cars and one SUV pulled in about half a mile behind us.

  “Do you have one stashed?” asked Roxanne.

  “Not on this side of town,” said Stefan.

  “Then we’ll get ours. Take the 6th Avenue exit and go south.”

  Stefan followed her directions that led us to an industrial park.

  “You guys sure love the warehouses,” I said.

  No one responded. Talon and Red Cloud stared out to our pursuers who, because of the skillful driving of Stefan, trailed about a mile behind. Stefan turned three more times, and Roxanne led us into a complex of three warehouses.

  “Head to the one on the far right,” she said. “Open door three on building A3,” she spoke to someone through the implanted earpiece.

  A garage door opened on the side of the building, and Stefan directed the car in. The door shut the moment we crossed the threshold. Once inside, my eyes slowly adjusted to the light from four utility lamps on the ground. Six cars ranging from a Civic hatchback to an Escalade sat parked in a row before us.

  “Take your pick,” said Roxanne, emerging from the car.

  “I’ll want this car back,” Stefan said while closing his driver’s side door.

  “Of course, once things have died down we can come back and pick it up.”

  Stefan walked over to the Escalade and inspected the wheel wells, siding, and hood.

  “Stefan, don’t waste your time. Of course, there are trackers on all of these vehicles. Medital already knows your location from the trackers we placed back in the day. We just need to get outta here,” said Talon.

  Stefan just shook his head and climbed into the driver’s seat. We all followed.

  “Open door one of building A3,” said Roxanne.

  A door at the far end of the building opened, and Stefan peeled out toward it. The lights from the police cars shone from a few blocks away, but we got on I-225 from another on ramp and soon were on our way.

  “Pull out that Somatotech device,” said Roxanne. I turned my backpack around and extracted the four-inch black box. Roxanne grabbed it and ripped the top off of it.

  “Hey, why so rough?” I asked.

  She inspected the insides and pulled out a chip. “GPS tracker.” She snapped it in her fingers.

  “Then why didn’t they know where we were?”

  “Our cars have GPS jammers,” said Stefan.

  “And this car?”

  “Same,” said Roxanne.

  “So, how do your trackers work?”

  “Cell towers. Medital has technology that constantly triangulates using cellular signal. It’s always on and accurate to within fifty meters.”

  I pulled out the laptop and tried turning it on once again. Nothing. I hoped Angelfire could work some magic with it. Did Somatotech now have access to the report? How did they know we were coming?

  36 Relation

  “You, my cloney friend are in luck,” said Angelfire, who had been working on the computer for the two days.

  “Please tell me you got it working,” I said.

  “The program trashed the CPU, but the hard drive is intact. But, it looks like the files are encrypted with some serious encryption. Coyle’s mom knew some serious code. I’ve never seen this type of encryption before.
I’m assuming you know the password.”

  “That I do,” I said.

  “And?”

  “Sorry Angelfire, until I read it, I’m not letting anyone else.”

  He scoffed but relented and sent a laptop with the hard drive from the old one. When it arrived, I carried it carefully to my room as if it were a sleeping baby. My heart raced as I turned it on, found the folder and put in the password. I opened the document titled, “For your eyes only” with two quick clicks.

  Dearest Coyle,

  If you are reading this, that means I’m dead. For that, I’m truly sorry as I know growing up without a mother would be tremendously difficult. I always knew I’d give my life for my work, but I assumed it would be just my time and energy. It’s my dedication to the human race that has placed me in my current predicament. I’ll go into it further below. But first I need to make something very clear. Coyle, you will need to be the rock of our family. Your father won’t be able to handle my passing well, as I wouldn’t if he passed. We’re both prone to depression. I love your father dearly; he’s been my constant support throughout our marriage. He’ll need the support now, as will your brother Greg. Be that rock.

  If I’m dead, then I need you to know who killed me. The Government of the United States murdered me, specifically a branch of the CIA, which deals with protecting the scientific interests of the nation. Somatotech approached me because of my gene therapy work. They promised a salary comparable to my university salary and would only require two weekends a month. At the time, your father and I were desperate to pay off my student loans and succumbed to the temptation of seemingly easy money. Oh, if only I could go back!

  My work there started off quite benign. I focused on gene therapy treatment of certain types of cancers, similar to my work at the university. We had a good cohort of patients who were responding quite nicely. About two months into my work there, they asked me to see a female patient who apparently had developed a photosensitivity as a result of one of their therapies. I indicated that I would need to see her medical chart, but they refused. They wouldn’t even indicate whether this was a result of one of the gene therapies. I told them to send her to a dermatologist and that without knowing the therapy there was likely no possible way to treat it appropriately. From that moment I knew something was off. I began looking into the different areas of research they performed. One day I ran into another colleague from the university on Somatotech’s facility. I knew he focused on stem cell treatments at the university, so I assumed he was doing similar work at Somatotech. I used some of the natural talents God gave me and managed to confirm that fact.