by Mikayla Lane
“You guys just passing through?” the private asked the unusual group as he looked at the badges.
The man in the wheelchair, missing both legs and part of his left arm, nodded his head.
“Yeah, we’re starting out on a road trip and we decided to camp here for a few days while we plan the rest of the trip,” he said.
“You guys got cable TV access at your campgrounds, so you were our first stop with football season in full swing,” another one of the group said with a grin as he looked at the brochure for the recreational area.
The private smiled and nodded his head.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice out there—and quiet this time of year. You guys should be able to have some fun,” the private said with a smile as he handed them back their badges.
Once the men found the campground, they parked the RV and set up their equipment.
The man in the wheelchair turned to look at the other three.
“David needs to know all about this place. So don’t scrimp on the details. You know what to do to get this done,” he said as the men nodded and left the RV.
Hours later, in the basement area of the Army Intelligence Center, a man deftly maneuvering around on a prosthetic leg was finally stopped at a basement elevator—one that went down, not up.
“Sir, I don’t know how you got down here, but you need to leave,” an armed guard said as he radioed for backup.
The injured warrior grabbed his chest with one hand, feigning surprise, and held the wall with the other.
“Thank God, son. I got lost and kept getting turned around! I can’t find the guys I came in here with. My mind doesn’t work the way it used to since I got back from Afghanistan,” he said as he put a hand to his head.
The guard’s stance softened as he looked at the man’s prosthetic leg.
“It’s OK, man. I know what that’s like. I have a friend from basic who is going through the same thing. My buddy is coming, and he’ll help you get back out of here,” the guard said as the man shifted his weight from his prosthetic.
“I was trying to see the museum in here. I don’t know how I got so turned around. You’d never know that a few years ago I was an excellent tracker,” the man said, rubbing his prosthetic leg like he was in pain.
The guard never noticed the camera hidden in the artificial limb that was allowing the man to take detailed pictures of the entire area, guard locations, and security measures inside the building.
The man in the RV was receiving the images being provided by each of the three men while they “accidently” appeared in places they shouldn’t be, compiled them, and sent them directly to David. At the same time, he was using the free Wi-Fi to hack into the NETCOM systems and stream the information directly to David.
The last message David received was one that made him laugh.
“We’re staying until you get done what you need done. Call us if you need a distraction. We may not be whole by their standards, but we can still wreak some damn havoc. So give a bunch of gimpy buddies a break and give us something exciting to do.”
David kept his friends on speed dial.
Chapter Two
Mikey stared at the ceiling and gritted his teeth to keep from spewing invectives at the crazy bastard hovering above him.
Another day, another torture from the king of bastards, Mikey thought as he tried to block the pain.
“If you would just tell us where they are, this could stop,” Donald said with a wicked smile.
When Mikey still didn’t say anything, Donald drew the blade farther down his thigh. He smiled in glee as Mikey tensed and clenched his fists against the new set of bonds holding him to the table. The last ones had only lasted a day before he’d broken out of them.
Mikey forced a laugh, only because he knew that the men on the other side of the mirror would mock Donald, and his only joy these last few weeks was needling the bastard who tortured his mind and body at all hours of the day and night.
“You ignorant ass. At this point, I’d rather die than tell you anything,” Mikey said before he spit in his face.
For a moment, Donald looked stunned, and he woodenly wiped his face with both hands before he shrieked in rage and drove the knife into Mikey’s thigh, inches from his manhood.
Mikey hissed for a moment before he started laughing.
“And you’re supposed to be the best we got for intelligence? You’re nothing more than a spoiled, sadistic asshole who couldn’t hack it as a real soldier so your rich, political father bought you this cushy job instead. Why? Was it easier than trying to cover up all the puppies and kitties you killed or the girlfriends you beat up because they laughed at your little dick?” Mikey said through gritted teeth, using the taunts and accusations that he’d heard from the laughing men behind the mirror.
Donald shrieked again, but this time the door burst open before he could use the scalpel he’d grabbed off the nearby table. Several soldiers wrestled him out of the door before a lieutenant colonel came inside and stood beside Mikey.
“Get that cleaned up,” he ordered someone as he studied Mikey.
A male nurse came inside, gingerly pulled the knife from Mikey’s thigh, and quickly bandaged it as the lieutenant colonel paced the room. When he was done, the nurse scurried quickly from the room.
Lt. Col. Marcus Ballard stared at the young man on the table for a moment.
“Tell me again how you ended up in that forest,” Marcus asked.
Mikey gritted his teeth and flexed against his restraints.
“I told you people that a hundred damn times already, you son of a bitch!” Mikey ground out.
“Watch your tone, boy, I’m still your commanding officer,” Marcus barked out.
Mikey burst out laughing before he glared at the man who’d been ordering his torture.
“You lost the right to that respect when you decided to use me as your personal lab rat! Fuck you!” Mikey yelled, fighting against his restraints until his wrists began to trickle blood from the stress.
Marcus felt pretty confident in the restraints and grabbed the young man by the throat, choking him.
“You can either work with me, or I can just end it now,” Marcus threatened.
Mikey stared up at the man with hatred in his eyes as he clenched his fists, the middle finger on each hand raising at the officer.
Marcus saw the offensive gesture and finally let go of Mikey’s throat. It was obvious that the threat of death no longer had an impact on the alien/human man on the table. Marcus could well understand why after what Donald had put the man through over the last few weeks. It didn’t change the fact that he needed answers.
Marcus sighed and decided to try a new tactic.
“Look, kid, if you’re telling the truth and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe you’re right and you were infected by something in that ship. If that’s the case, it makes those things even more dangerous to our country, and we need your help to find out if we’re going to find a cure,” Marcus said, seeing the interest flicker in the young man’s eyes.
Thinking that he may have found a way into the kid’s confidence, Marcus sat down beside the young man.
“You’ve had an exemplary record, son. You’re been a good soldier. You have to realize how this looks from our point of view. We’re fighting an invasion of these things, and until now, we had no idea that they could infect us,” Marcus said, keeping his tone even.
Mikey had struggled to see how it looked from their point of view for weeks. He’d tried to help them figure it out so they could help him, but instead they’d made it worse. Each time they tortured him, he could feel something in him becoming stronger as if being in danger was intensifying whatever he was infected with.
He looked up at Marcus, not trusting the man at all.
“I begged you to help me. To get this thing out of me. Instead, you tortured me! You let that sick bastard carve me up like a damn turkey!” Mikey ground out.
Marcus
shook his head, wondering if the kid really did have no idea what happened to him and if he really had been infected. All he knew was after what the kid had been put through, he should have cracked by now. Even if he could heal fast, it didn’t stop him from feeling the pain before his body healed.
“Look, tell me again what happened, and maybe we can figure out a way to help each other,” Marcus said, trying to get the kid to cooperate.
It didn’t matter to his employers if Mikey had been infected or not, he was still going to be studied and eventually dissected so they could learn more about the creatures causing them so many problems. But the kid didn’t have to know that, and it would be better if Marcus could get him to cooperate for this at least.
Mikey felt his head tingle before he heard the voice whisper through his mind.
“He lies. He means to get you to cooperate before they do worse to us. Do not trust him,” the voice said.
Mikey didn’t need the voice to tell him what he already knew. The weeks he’d spent in that bastard’s company had taught him one hell of a lesson about his worth to his country, and he wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting them again. If he’d ever had any doubts about how badly veterans were treated, they were gone.
Mikey turned to Marcus and sneered.
“You are no better than the bastards who infected me. At least I didn’t fight and almost die for them before they fucked me over, so go to hell,” Mikey said before he doubled his efforts against his restraints.
Marcus sighed and walked out of the room. He’d seen the kid’s interest in figuring out how he’d become infected so he had hope that if they changed their tactics, they may be able to get him to cooperate.
Marcus barked out orders to those standing around the hallway and moments later Mikey’s gurney was being wheeled down a long hallway and into a different room.
Marcus nodded for the staff to leave the room and he moved to stand next to Mikey.
“Look kid, if you’re telling the truth, then now is the time to prove it. You can help us, or we can go back to trying the other route again, and I’ll bring Donald—” Marcus said, but didn’t get to finish.
“I won’t attack anyone. Sir. I want to know what the hell happened to me out there and how to fix it,” Mikey said, not daring to hope that he’d be let go.
Mikey wasn’t stupid; he’d seen the locks on the door when he was wheeled in the room, but even if he was still locked up, at least he’d be able to move around.
Marcus nodded his head and turned away while the catheter was removed from the kid. When the nurse left the room, he turned back around and released the wide buckle on his right wrist. He stepped back when the kid yanked his arm to his chest and rubbed it up and down.
“Thank you,” Mikey said as he reached over to get his other hand.
Marcus stepped closer to the door as the kid finished removing his restraints and jumped up to stand on the other side of the bed.
Mikey paced on the other side of the gurney from the Lt. Col. needing to move but not wanting to scare the man into having him drugged and restrained again.
I’ll die before I let them do that to me again, Mikey thought.
“Tell me what happened that day, kid,” Marcus prompted.
He knew what the kid said happened; he’d heard it a hundred times since they started trying to break him. There was something about what he said that kept niggling at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t place what it was. Marcus was hoping that hearing it again might help him to figure it out.
“I was going hiking. The road was closed, there was a deputy and a military unit that had no designation on their sleeve. I went to the nearest base, and Sarge went back with me to see what was going on. We went to the same roadblock, only this time it was a bunch of ROTC kids. We parked on the side of the road, I saw a freaking UFO, and next thing I know the damn thing is a blazing fireball coming right at us . . . then I was here,” Mikey said, running his hands over his head.
“What made you go back to the forest? Why didn’t you report it to your commanding officer?” Marcus asked.
Mikey looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
“And say what? I saw a UFO and some ROTC kids? You think I’d have ended up somewhere better than this if I’d said that?” he asked, spreading his arms wide to show the room.
Marcus chuckled and nodded his head.
“Good point. But you did say something to this guy, Sarge?” he countered, seeing the slump in Mikey’s shoulders.
“Yeah, I don’t know why. I was drinking and was pretty pissed off that after being overseas I couldn’t even go on vacation. Trust me, if I knew then what my curiosity would lead to I would have done it differently. Poor Sarge,” Mikey admitted with a shake of his head.
“What do you know about your . . . infection?” Marcus asked, changing the topic to try and trip the kid up.
“Damn, I wish I knew something. I feel weird,” Mikey said, flexing his arms and feeling stronger than he ever had before.
“Weird, how?” Marcus wanted to know.
Mikey had already discarded the idea of telling anyone about the voice in his head and focused on the physical changes he’d noticed over the last weeks. Some of them anyway.
“I feel stronger. Like I took steroids or something, and I can see better,” Mikey admitted, leaving out the part about his hearing. He didn’t think they needed to know that he was spying on their conversations.
Marcus nodded his head. He already knew those things because the doctors told him about the physical differences in the kid, but he was impressed that Mikey had been honest about it.
“Are you willing to let us do some tests?” Marcus asked, wondering how far Mikey would go if it was a setup.
“I’ll do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t entail anything I’ve already been through and doesn’t involve having that bastard around,” Mikey quickly agreed.
Marcus chuckled and tried to pretend a more casual appearance around the kid to put him at ease.
“If you’ll cooperate, I’ll keep Donald away from you and make sure things don’t get out of hand again,” Marcus lied.
“He’s lying!” the voice in Mikey’s head shouted in his mind, causing him to flinch.
Mikey tried to cover it by forcing a shudder.
“Yeah, knocking off the torture crap would be a plus. Start your tests,” Mikey said, thinking whatever they had planned couldn’t be worse than what he’d already been through.
Marcus motioned to someone in the hallway, and when the soldier entered the room, he whispered in his ear.
Within minutes there were a half dozen people in the small room all with clipboards and barraging him with questions. Marcus whistled to get everyone’s attention.
“One at a time,” he ordered, watching Mikey’s reaction to each question.
His first thought was that the kid was exceptionally bright. He was calm and articulate in his answers, responding to each with the same tone of voice and without hesitation. It told Marcus that either the kid had been trained to avoid giving himself away or he was telling the truth. He hoped it was the former and not the latter, because if Mikey was telling the truth, the ramifications to humanity would be devastating.
Marcus pulled out his own mini notebook and jotted down a few notes for himself. Namely, he wanted the kid’s blood retested. He wanted every strand of his DNA mapped by breakfast and probabilities of infection and containment models by lunch.
Mikey tried his best to ignore the voice in his head as he answered the questions being thrown at him. Some he couldn’t answer at all; others he skated over as smoothly as he could. As much as he wanted to cooperate, he had to agree with the voice in his head—none of these people could be trusted.
He’d learned during the first few weeks that these people had no honor or decency for their own. He could understand if they thought he had an infection and were containing him until they could figure it out, but the torture they’d put him
through had been unspeakable and unforgivable. So while they quizzed him, he studied them and the questions they asked, gathering his own information so that he could possibly escape.
Mikey had no idea where he’d go or even where he was or if he’d get far, but the unknown was better than torture, and he’d take death over it any day. It wasn’t like he had family—or even friends—who would miss him.
The hours tied to the bed had given him a lot of time to think, and he realized how different he’d always felt from the other kids growing up. Mikey wondered how long ago he may have been infected. He’d never had the normal childhood illnesses and never really been sick. Until his first tour in Afghanistan, he’d never even broken a bone.
His adoptive parents had always been thrilled with him and bragged that he was smarter and stronger than the other kids. His mother called him gifted. Mikey preferred to call it like it was—he was lonely, never really fitting in with anyone. It’s why he’d joined the army to begin with. He wanted a place where he’d have something in common with others.
“I know where we belong, and it’s not here,” the voice whispered in his mind.
Mikey was tempted to listen. He wanted to believe it, but he knew better than to trust the voice in his head—or anyone else for that matter. He’d already made that mistake, and he wouldn’t make it again.
Instead, he studied each of the people asking him questions, some so personal as to be humiliating, but he gritted his teeth and answered them all. The whole time Mikey studied each person and pretended not to listen to the strange voice in his head. But he couldn’t deny the voice had some interesting things to say about the people with the clipboards, things that might come in handy later.
Most of all he studied the lieutenant colonel. Mikey knew that of everyone in this room, it was the lieutenant colonel who was responsible for what had happened to him during his captivity. Everyone else was under his orders and wouldn’t have done those things to him without the lieutenant colonel ordering it.