Legacy of a Mad Scientist

by John Carrick

  The first agent stepped to the side. Fox thought he recognized Deputy Director Von Kalt but failed to place him as Stanwood's aide. Then Von Kalt raised the gas gun. It resembled a regular pistol, except for the large canister-like barrel.

  As Von Kalt raised the weapon, his agents raised respirators to their faces. Fox watched dark smoke billowing from the fat little pistol. The gas reached his mind and consciousness abandoned him.

  Von Kalt gestured for his men to secure the area. As he knelt next to the unconscious Dr. Fox, he noticed the gas, heavier than air, growing denser at ground level. Von Kalt tightened the straps of his respirator and searched the doctor’s pockets.

  Wearing blue surgical gloves, Von Kalt patted the man’s clothing and located the object he was looking for. He reached into Fox’s breast pocket and pulled out the prototype device.

  Von Kalt stared at it. He knew what he was holding, the legendary interface - the single greatest item in all of mankind’s history. Was he up to the challenge? Was he worthy?

  Crouched over Dr. Fox, his back to his subordinates, Von Kalt peeled the glove from his right hand.

  When the device made contact, Rudolph felt a tingling sensation, as if everything got both warm and cold. The second thing he noticed was an utter absence of sound. The city had gone quiet.

  He had heard the horror stories about what could go wrong during one’s initiation with the prototype. He’d heard that, in the successful cases, time often seemed to stop.

  Conscious that his men were still behind him and aware that anything he did right now could give him away, Von Kalt remained still.

  He held the device in his right hand, closed his eyes and concentrated. He focused his mind and waited. He knew, if he were worthy, the device would initialize and display the op-sys title.

  A moment later the word METACHRON filled his mind’s eye.

  That was enough. He smiled, pocketed the device and replaced his glove. Slowly, the city’s life returned. Von Kalt heard the sounds of traffic and pedestrians all around them.

  He checked Fox’s pulse and pupils and stood. “He’s good to go. Get him out of here.”

  Von Kalt’s men moved in and secured Dr. Fox. They strapped him to a gurney and loaded into the waiting transport.

  The other patrons would wake feeling a bit nauseous and bloated, but the effects would wear off in an hour or so. In three hours, the compound would no longer even be detectable in their systems.

  Chapter 28 – No Women, No Kids

  Monday Afternoon, July 6, 2308

  Von Kalt landed his transport on the executive lot and carried Fox’s personal effects to Stanwood’s office.

  “Did he have it?” Stanwood asked, without looking up.

  “No. He had nothing, just the usual, wallet, watch, eyeglasses. But why the glasses? No one wears glasses anymore.”

  “Fox has never been wired,” Stanwood replied.

  “Is that a fact?”

  “That’s what they say.” Stanwood rose from the desk and went through the contents of the evidence bag. He opened the wallet and handed Von Kalt the extra key card to the Fox house.

  “You know, maybe Pierce engineered the while thing. He could have been picked up by his own crew,” Von Kalt suggested.

  “Miller and Harris both said he didn’t jump,” Stanwood commented.

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t fake it. No one ever accused him of being stupid.”

  “None of this strikes me as especially intelligent,” Stanwood countered. Stanwood looked Von Kalt in the eye. “Where is it?” he asked.

  “Where is what?” Von Kalt didn’t hesitate.

  Stanwood gestured to the key card, “Do a thorough search of the Fox home. With gloves on, I want you to bring me any amplifiers you might find.”

  “Is that all?” Von Kalt asked.

  “No. Political support for abstracting Fox comes with a price. I need the immediate family members brought in, alive if possible, but in, regardless.”

  “I’ll take a team. But you know what we’re up against here, Alive does not seem likely.”

  “We’re talking about a mom and two kids.”

  “You’ve seen the files, well, so have I. My men aren’t authorized to know why we’re going after them and giving them DOA orders on women and children is not going to go over very well.”

  “The shuttles were registered to the Heart of the City Campground. There are several dozen summer programs running there and some twenty thousand parents and children participating. Unfortunately, their surveillance system is garbage. For now, we’re scanning the campground for any records or camera pops, but I want you watching the house.”

  Stanwood gestured to the card in Von Kalt’s hand. “Once you’re finished with your initial search, take that card out to Abby’s Diner in Eagle Rock. Call me once you get there, and I’ll send our sleeper out to meet you. On the off chance that we don’t find Agent Zelena and her children, I want him waiting in the wings.”

  “What about Fox’s security outfit?”

  “The Washington Security Team has been temporarily pushed out of their residence. There are no agents to log your visit.”

  “But you’re serious about this, going after the wife and kids? Isn’t that a little low, even for you?”

  “It’s not for me. It’s the price of our partners’ cooperation. Besides, without them, we have no leverage on Fox. And if you had any idea who his wife is, you would know that as long as she’s out there, we are a long way from finished with this.

  “Anastasia Zelena was an active spy when Fox met her. He convinced Croswell that he’d turned her and added her to his team. She is the only member of the 3AM Team whose name we do have. No one has ever captured her or interrogated her about anything. She is the worst kind of loose end. And she is extremely dangerous.

  “Not to mention his children… Ashley is an incarnation of the AI Fox created, Code-named Astral. The 3AM Project had to be closed when Astral went berserk and murdered thirty-seven members of the technical staff. She is beyond dangerous. She is a walking time bomb. Tell your men to fire on sight. They don’t get any extra points for bringing her in alive. In fact, if they try and take her alive, they will most certainly wind up dead.”

  “They’re not going to want to gun down a twelve-year-old girl,” Von Kalt answered.

  “The gas might work, but you’ve been warned. Regardless, Fox has enhanced both wife and children with extremely sensitive government technology, and the Attorney General has the documentation to prove it. They are the property of the Republic of the United States.

  “There is also a very high probability that Dunkirk will fail in his mission, but Anastasia would have to reveal the extent of her powers, and when the warrants come through for us to seize the Washington Security residence, we will have it all on tape.”

  Stanwood returned to his desk. “Now, take that card to our Ultra-Man and tell him to keep his ears on. The minute the wife and kids return home, I want them reduced to evidence.”

  “You’re making a mistake. Dunkirk is a freak, I don’t know how you justify keeping him on the payroll.”

  “He understands orders, like when God told Abraham to kill Isaac. He’ll do things you and your men, even I wouldn’t do. If we could find his compatriots, Morgenstern and Gardner, then we’d have a real team. You wouldn’t believe the jobs they pulled down in South America.”

  “I think I might. I’ll let you know if we find anything on Calistan.”

  “The average Camp program is three to five weeks. I think we’ll be fine. After all, we have Dunkirk,” Stanwood said.

  “That’s not very reassuring.”

  “I have every confidence in Martin. I know he’ll follow orders.”

  Von Kalt raised an eyebrow. “You want me just sitting on the house? You want me to just hang out for the next three weeks?”

  “Is there an echo in here?” Stanwood asked. “Fox will have people who come looking for him. It would be
best if you stayed away from White Sands. Stay here; sit on the residence until someone returns. When you see the mother or the children, you notify both Dr. Dunkirk and myself. I’m sending eight agents with you. You’re only job will be to notify me the moment something happens, that will go for all of you. I already have two other teams in the vicinity. No excuses, no mistakes.”

  Von Kalt turned and walked from the office.

  In the hallway outside, he pulled the Metachron from his pocket and looked at it in his hand.

  Von Kalt approached the Fox home. His men waited in the car behind him. He waved the key card at the panel and the exterior door opened.

  Inside, he immediately felt something.

  It drew him directly to Ashley’s room.

  He paused at the door, touched it, listened, and then after a few minutes, entered. He walked directly to the desk.

  The evening sun streamed through the windows.

  Von Kalt stood, transfixed by the center drawer in the raised shelf above the blotter. He opened the drawer.

  He stared at the place where the Micronix was and pulled the Metachron from his pocket.

  Von Kalt stood breathing, looking at the amplifier in his hand, and the otherwise empty drawer. After a few minutes, he closed the drawer, never touching the Micronix. It was right there, lying right in front of him, but he could not take it.

  Von Kalt did a cursory search of the home, but soon left.

  He had some things to think about.

  Von Kalt found the seedy breakfast-diner Stanwood had mentioned, Abby’s, on the outskirts of Northeast edge of Angel City, and called Dunkirk. Von Kalt didn’t see the allure of a twenty-four hour breakfast place, but Stanwood assured him that Dunkirk loved it and always ordered enough to choke an ox.

  For the first hour, Von Kalt resisted the sizzling flapjacks, maple syrup and coconut-flavored coffee. By the time Dunkirk arrived, a full two hours later, he’d eaten his fill and just gotten his check.

  “So you don’t have a problem with this, taking out a woman and two kids?” Von Kalt asked, handing over the key card.

  “No. Should I?” Dunkirk asked. The man’s eyes appeared to be on fire. He seemed to have come down with some kind of summer flu. Weighing a stout two-fifty, Dunkirk was sweating on the cool and balmy night. He twitched and bounced with energy, in the quiet, boring diner.

  “Not very sporting, is it?” Von Kalt inquired.

  “You know who we’re talking about here? Zelena?! If you haven’t heard the stories, you should look her up.”

  “But two little kids?” Von Kalt pressed.

  “It’s not so much about the hunt for me.” Dunkirk scanned the diner, his head swiveling in all directions as he answered. “Sport isn’t my thing.”

  Von Kalt watched him, wondering if he were on drugs or just utterly insane. The Metachron lay heavy in his palm, below the lip of the table.

  “For me, it’s about the moment,” Dunkirk continued. “Every moment is different. They come and they pass, and what was will never be again.”

  “You’re in it for the pain then?”

  Dunkirk touched his nose.

  Von Kalt narrowed his eyes.

  Dunkirk rose from the booth, pocketed the key card and exited the diner without another word.

  Von Kalt remained, bathing in the smells of fired egg, bacon, buttered toast and fresh-squeezed oranges,

  He laughed to himself as he laid out the cash for his meal.

  The waitress looked up, curious. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “My friend loves this place,” Von Kalt said.

  “But he didn’t order anything,” the waitress answered.

  Von Kalt smiled, “I know. The jokes on him.”

  The waitress looked confused as Von Kalt exited the café, laughing to himself.

  Chapter 29 – Solitary

  Ashley’s Journal, Monday Evening, July 6, 2308

  This camp is scheduled right down to the last minute. There’s not a lot of time for chatting and the boys don’t seem to interested in talking to me. I’m the only girl here, and I’m painfully aware of how much I stand out.

  Today I had my first match, Scott. He was one of the ones who raised his hand as having martial art experience already.

  As soon as the whistle blew, he jumped at me.

  I curled up, and his face ran into my knee.

  I didn’t mean to hurt him.

  There was blood everywhere.

  They had to take him to the nurse and call in the janitors to clean up all the blood. It totally was not my fault. I heard one of the Instructors, Lopez, I think; say something about that being an example of lesson number one. He was trying to be funny, but I think it was mean.

  Tuesday Morning, July 7, 2308

  Dr. Fox woke to discover himself in an opaque plastic cell. They'd left him his clothes but had taken his shoes. Light filtered into the room from everywhere and nowhere. There was a small enclosure with a toilet and a sink. He was grateful that he hadn't been sent somewhere more primitive.

  Fox checked his pockets, empty. The Metachron was gone.

  It was just as well. Fox realized it had influenced him. It was different from the Micronix, which he had created and programmed. Having survived the explosion at the Epsilon Facility, which took the lives of forty thousand criminals, it had a different vibe, to say the least.

  Based on his own investigation, Fox suspected that it was, in fact, the facility itself. He theorized that the Metachron had consumed every ounce of metallic alloy present and expelled waste material in the explosion.

  The Metachron was different. He was glad to be rid of it.

  The room was cold and having nowhere special to sit, Fox settled on the floor, essentially the same place he'd awaken. He tucked his feet under his legs to try and minimize the cold.

  Discovering himself in a meditative posture, not particularly tired and with little else to do, he relaxed his mind and focused on his breath.

  Ashley’s Journal, Tuesday Evening, July 7, 2308

  Today we leaned lots of boxing moves, punches and jabs.

  Yesterday was all about blocks and blocking. We even learned how to hold our fingers if we want to do an eye poke. They didn’t teach us anything like this at the last camp. This is downright dangerous stuff.

  Sihing Shou said tomorrow we’re going to learn kicks, but that we want to learn punches first, because we only want to kick after we knock them down.

  Someone asked if that was fighting dirty.

  Shou said he’d rather live dirty than die clean.

  Everyone laughed.

  But then he stopped and said, “My point is, you should only be fighting if it’s a life or death situation in the first place.”

  I thought that was pretty smart.

  Oh, in my match-up, against Chris, he tried to do some fancy kick and sprained his ankle. So he had to forfeit, and I won by default.

  Tuesday Evening, July 7, 2308

  Ross switched his vehicle over to autopilot / roam. He triggered his invisibility phase-cam and climbed out. He activated the gravity harness as he fell away from the car and headed toward his scheduled rendezvous with Snow and King.

  Arriving a few minutes later, the three of them hovered high above the Fox home. Snow and King had been waiting.

  “What the hell is going on?” King asked. “Things are getting fishy in the middle district.”

  Ross pointed out several homes in the neighborhood. “That one is the Bureau, over there we have the NSA, those three are private security, and that one is Stanwood’s personal team.”

  “No shit?” King asked. “Can I tell you, we just got TAD orders the NID? They want us to find Pierce and the device.”

  “So you’ll be on the inside?” Ross asked.

  “I’ve got orders to Jerusalem,” Snow interrupted. “What’s that about?”

  “SecDef says Fox asked to have you reassigned,” Ross answered.

  “Three weeks?”


  “Thank Croswell,” Ross glanced around. “He may not be here, but…”

  “Big Brother is everywhere.” King laughed.

  “And we have another problem,” Ross said.

  “It’s been twenty-four hours since I’ve seen hide or hair of our good doctor. It seems after his meeting yesterday he bought a cup of coffee and fell off the face of the Earth.

  “Out in DC?” Snow asked.

  Ross nodded. “It gets better. Several customers reported nausea, unconsciousness, memory loss and strange dreams.”

  “Sinusoids,” Snow said.

  “Our weapons have fallen into the hands of our enemies,” King asked.

  “Croswell just sent me to Jerusalem and assigned you to our number one enemy,” Snow said.

  “Please don’t go jumping to conclusions,” Ross said.

  “Where’s the footage from the café?” Snow asked.

  “A couple of hours ago, Reid got the footage of the café, thank you. I’m sending to your internal HUDs now.”

  Snow blinked and then closed her eyes for a moment. “That’s Stanwood’s bitch,” Snow said, identifying Von Kalt.

  “That’s right,” King added. “I’d recognize him anywhere.”

  “They just grabbed him off the street?” Snow asked. “Yesterday? And we’re doing nothing about it?”

  “We’re not doing nothing,” Ross answered. “I’ve got Reid on it. We’ll get a location. But you are going to New Jerusalem.”

  Ross turned to King “And you are going to work for the enemy.”

  “I won’t be able to broadcast. I won’t be able to warn you if anything is going down,” King said.

  “It won’t come to that. Oh, by the way, he made that one shot rule a standing order,” Ross said.

  “That’s insane,” King said.

  “What One Shot Rule?” Snow asked.

  “Fox told me that if anyone ever drew on him, that I have to give them one shot before I return fire. He said, ‘That’s the Point of Return Fire.”