Discovery: Proton Field #1

by Laurence Dahners

  As Kelley’s purse swung his way Aleks was already diving out of his chair and scrambling under the next table. The pistol barked twice nonetheless. Aleks felt the thumps as the slugs hit him in the chest. I’m done for, Aleks thought as he rolled to watch. She shook the purse off her gun and ejected the magazine out of it. She slapped a new one in.

  Snatching a woman’s coat off the back of the lady’s chair, Kelley slipped into the coat, then pulled off and tossed a wig. A short haired brunette now, she merged into the panicked rush for the door.

  The last thing Aleks saw was Kelley dropping the gun into the pocket of the coat, then reaching down and snapping the heels off her shoes. They must have been made to break away like that, he thought as the lights dimmed.

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  Joe was most of the way to work when he heard a husky female voice from the back seat of his car. “Take your car off AI Joe,” it said.

  A chill washed over him as he glanced into his rearview mirror. There was a pretty, though hard-looking woman back there. Why didn’t I see her when I got in the car?! “Wh-who are you?” he stuttered, a horrible certainty welling up inside of him.

  Something cold pressed against his neck and she said more emphatically, “Shut off the car’s AI Joe.”

  Joe told the car to allow manual driving and took the wheel. She said, “Turn right.”

  Joe braked and started to turn right, wondering whether he could push the door open and roll out while it was moving slowly. His hand shifted to the door handle…

  “I’ll pull the trigger if you even crack that door,” she said calmly.

  Sweat breaking out on his forehead, Joe pulled his hand away from the handle and finished turning the corner. “Where do you want to go?” he said in a resigned tone.

  “Pull in and park in that empty slot,” she said emotionlessly.

  Joe didn’t want to park because he’d be next to another car. Its proximity would limit his car’s door opening and make exiting slower. He steeled himself to try to jump out as the car turned into the slot but the woman coolly said, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Joe settled for parking at the far right edge of the slot—something the AI would never have done—so his door could be opened as widely as possible. As he told the AI to put the car in park he felt a sharp prick in his neck. Jerking away, he yelled, “What the hell?!” He put his hand on the door handle.

  “Just a little something to ensure your cooperation Joe,” the woman said. He heard her window rolling down. “That medication’s going to make you feel weak. So, if you try to run, you won’t get very far. Now, I want you to tell me which people at Miller Tech understand this fusion stuff they’ve got going.”

  “You know, the FBI knows all about you people,” Joe said, hoping that if she didn’t know the feds were involved it might frighten her away.

  “The FBI are a long way from here Joe,” she said matter-of-factly. “But I’m in your backseat with a gun to the back of your neck. I need you to start talking before I get irritated. Who understands fusion?”

  Joe realized that she hadn’t been lying about the injection. His muscles were twitching and he felt weaker. He felt himself slumping in the seat and realized there was no way he’d be able to run away. “I don’t know…” he tried, desperately stalling for time.

  “Joe,” she said, “I need you to understand who you’re messing with here. I’ve already killed Aleks Orlop, known to you as John Smith, and three of the FBI guys who were guarding him. Aleks let me down by trying to lead the FBI to me. Now, you’re starting to let me down. I’m the kind of coldhearted bitch who’d kill you just because you irritated me. And, if you get me really pissed, I’ll kill your wife and those two kids after we’re done. So, who understands fusion?”

  Joe was starting to find it difficult to breathe. Panic started to set in. “Jesus! Um, Sevii does,” he said with a gasp. “She’s the one that…” another breath, “came up with it.”

  “There you go,” the woman said, as if she were reassuring a child. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, who else?”

  “Dr. Saigler, maybe?” Joe worked to take another breath, “Mitchell too?” He gasped, “I don’t know!”

  “Thanks Joe,” the woman said brightly and patted him on the shoulder. He felt another prick in his neck. “Antidote?” he huffed hopefully.

  “No Joe, sorry. I’m afraid it’s just a lethal dose of the same stuff.” She patted him faux sympathetically again, “But you’ve been cooperative enough that I’ll leave your family out of this mess.”

  Oh God! Joe thought as he felt his muscles twitching and weakening further. Desperately short of breath, he sagged against the door as he heard the back door open. She got out. Seconds later he heard another car door open and close, then that car pulled away.

  As Joe heaved to take one more minuscule breath, his last thoughts were, She just wanted me to park here so she’d have a short walk to her car…

  Chapter 6

  Arlan felt irked. Joe normally beat him to work, but this morning he hadn’t been there. What’s more, he still hadn’t shown up. Arlan had had to contact the head of the admin pool and ask her to send someone over to man Joe’s desk. Apparently Joe wasn’t even answering calls to his AI. When the assistant from the pool had proven clueless on yet another issue Arlan had thought with some frustration, You’d think, after committing a firing offense and being let off, Joe’d be tending to business!

  Arlan was talking to his AI and framing another search for data the assistant couldn’t find, when he saw the temp assistant standing nervously in his doorway. “What?” he said, letting his irritation show.

  The assistant said, “Agent Foster from the FBI is here and would like to talk to you?”

  Even more irritated that the assistant had failed to tell him the FBI had an appointment, Arlan said, “And you didn’t tell me they were coming because…”

  “Um, they don’t have an appointment… but, he says it’s very important.”

  Arlan felt a cold chill. And Joe’s missing! He stood, “Send him in.”

  When Foster stepped through the door, he closed it behind him. Arlan suddenly worried that he couldn’t know for sure who the man was, but the agent pulled out a badge and showed it to him. Rather than just glancing, Arlan looked at it carefully to make sure the picture and the name matched. With some trepidation, he said, “What can I do for you Agent Foster?”

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Joseph Barker, uh…”

  The agent paused and studied Arlan as if to be sure Arlan knew who Joe Barker was. Arlan nodded, but didn’t trust himself to speak as a lump slowly congealed in his stomach.

  “Mr. Barker was found dead in his car along his presumed route to work this morning.”

  “Oh God!” Arlan said as an image of Joe’s wife exploded across his memory. He hadn’t seen Joe’s kids for years, but remembered them as teenagers at company picnics. “Foul play?”

  “Not clear. No signs of trauma. His car was parked, though badly as if he did it under manual control. We might not have heard about it yet except the guy in the car next to Joe’s couldn’t get into his car. He saw Mr. Barker apparently sleeping in the vehicle, and when Mr. Barker wouldn’t respond to knocks on the window he called the police.” Foster shrugged, “The police notified us.”

  “You think he might have had a heart attack then?”

  Foster didn’t say anything for a second, then slowly shook his head, “Maybe, but the timing’s far too coincidental.” He sighed, “I have more bad news, I’m afraid. Last night a team of our agents attempted to apprehend the next person up the organization of the spy ring who recruited Mr. Barker. We had already turned Mr. Barker’s contact and that individual set up a meet for us with the contact’s handler in St. Louis.”

  “The guy got away?” Arlan said.

  “Woman,” Foster said. “She not only got away, but she killed Mr. Barker’s contact and four of our agents while doing so.” Fos
ter paused while considering Arlan, “It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that she could easily have driven here from St. Louis overnight. She could have been the one who killed Mr. Barker this morning.”

  “Oh… Holy crap!” Arlan muttered sickly, feeling his buttocks clench against a sudden loosening of his bowels. Could she be coming after me? Aloud he said, “Are you thinking she’s a threat to people here at Miller Tech?”

  Foster nodded slowly, “It’s hard to fathom why she would’ve felt it necessary to kill Barker. But… she killed one of our St. Louis agents going out the door of the restaurant. Since the agents had been completely unable to contain the outrushing crowd after the shooting in the restaurant, she’d already made good her escape. We, uh, think she may just like killing people.”

  Arlan closed his eyes and squeezed back a sudden need to urinate. “And she might be coming here… So we should… what, send everyone home?” He opened his eyes in order to be able to see Foster’s reaction.

  Foster’s eyes widened as if he’d been startled by the idea. “Oh! No, that’d be a terrible idea. In their homes they’d be completely vulnerable to one-on-one attacks. We’re bringing in a team to protect your main building here. We’d like to take the important players in your fusion technology to a safe house. We’d also like to take their close family members there. We don’t want her to be able to capture them for leverage.”

  Arlan soon found himself arranging a small conference room so that Foster could make a presentation to the fusion team. Over in the auditorium one of Foster’s fellow agents would talk to the rest of the people at Miller Tech. Miller went off to gather Myr, Vinn, Ellen, and the techs who normally worked with them.

  Busy, they didn’t want to come, but agreed with wide eyes when he told them that Joe was dead and had probably been murdered. In the conference room Foster told the team about Joe and about the killings in St. Louis. He showed them some poor quality images of an attractive woman they’d gotten from Aleks and the FBI agents’ lapel cameras.

  Myr found herself sitting, listening to the FBI presentation and feeling like she was in some kind of surreal dream. In the pictures the woman who they said had killed everyone looked like an expensive hooker. Certainly not how Myr had ever pictured a murderer.

  Myr just couldn’t get her head around why this woman was killing people. She could grasp that the woman might want their technology but it didn’t seem like the murders furthered that goal. Maybe she’d gotten trapped by the FBI guys at the restaurant and had killed them to escape… but why kill poor Joe?

  “Ms. Sevii?”

  Myr turned her eyes back to Agent Foster, realizing she’d drifted off into her own little world. “Sorry,” she said. She lifted her eyebrows interrogatively, “Yes sir?”

  “It’s okay. I know this has all been quite a shock. I’m trying to get an idea how many family members you’d be bringing to the safe house?”

  “Safe house?”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said patiently. “We believe that you’re in significant danger and some of your closer family members might be at risk of being held hostage. We’d like to move you to a location unconnected to your previous life. A place where you’d be harder to find and where we can protect you better until we catch this woman.” When Myr didn’t say anything for a moment, he said, “Dr. Miller tells me that you have a mother and a handicapped brother that he’s aware of. Is there anyone else that she might use as leverage?”

  “Um… no, I don’t think so. My grands, aunts, uncles and cousins all live pretty far from here.”

  Myr found herself assigned to Agent Dalrymple, an eager young FBI man. He was supposed to take her to pick up her mother and Connor, then take them all to the safe house. Myr eyed him as she walked down the stairs. Any day but today and I’d be thinking how cute he is, she thought. On this day, however, she wondered whether this handsome but inexperienced looking young man would have the chops to protect her and her family from the kind of stone cold killer Foster’d described.

  As they left the building Myr turned toward her car. Dalrymple said, “This way ma’am, we’ve got a Suburban for you, your family and Dr. Saigler.”

  Myr looked around and realized with some surprise that the “we” referred to Vinn and another FBI agent who were right behind her. I’m freaking oblivious, she thought. I need to pull my head out before we actually run into any trouble! She said, “Hey Vinn, are we picking up any of your family?”

  He shook his head, “The closest one’s in Denver.”

  Myr looked at the other agent. He looked forty, fit, and somehow… hard. He introduced himself as Agent Newhouse. Myr thought Newhouse’d be a lot more protection than the young puppy assigned to her if things went in the soup. “Young puppy!” she snorted at herself. Dalrymple’s at least as old as I am and a lot older than Vinn.

  They arrived at a black Suburban. Her hand on the door handle, Myr turned to the agents and said, “My brother won’t be able to ride in this, you know. He’s got muscular dystrophy and uses an electric wheelchair. We’ll have to take my mom’s van.”

  The two agents looked at one another. Newhouse said, “Not a problem ma’am. Once we pick up your mother and brother, Agent Dalrymple will ride with you in the van. Dr. Saigler and I will follow you in the Suburban.

  When they pulled up in her mother’s condo complex, Myr opened her door saying, “I’ll get them and be right back.” She pointed, “The handicap van is that gray Dodge in the disability parking slot.”

  Dalrymple got out as well, “I’ll go in with you.”

  Myr’s initial reaction was to say she didn’t need help, but then she turned to look at him. A dawning realization swept over her. The agents think it’s possible that the killer woman’s already here! She thought that if that were the case, she’d a lot rather have Newhouse with her. She considered making the request, but then decided she didn’t want to act like a nervous Nelly. She chided herself; rationally she knew there was no way she could tell which of the two agents would provide the best protection. She turned and headed up the walk.

  Approaching the door, she told her AI to open it.

  Apparently startled when the mechanism she’d installed for Connor power opened the door, Dalrymple stepped to the side of the door frame and pulled her with him. He quietly said, “Let me enter first. I’m wearing a bulletproof vest. You tell them I’m coming in so they’re not startled to see a stranger. Don’t say I’m FBI, just that you have a guy with you.” Dalrymple pulled a weapon out of a shoulder holster and held it down behind his right thigh.

  Deciding that his suggestion sounded reasonable, Myr nodded. She called out, “Mom, Connor, I’ve got a guy with me.”

  Dalrymple stepped all the way across to the other side of the doorway, then stepped back the other way as he entered. Heart thumping, Myr stepped through the door behind him. She didn’t want her mother to panic seeing Dalrymple without her.

  With great relief, Myr saw her mother and Connor sitting at the kitchen table. She told her AI to close the door, thinking she didn’t want anybody sneaking in behind her.

  Myr blinked. Carol and Connor had horrified looks frozen on their faces.

  A woman stepped out of the kitchen with a long stick in her hand. Myr recognized it was a pistol with silencer just before the woman fired it. The report was loud, though not as loud as Myr’d expected.

  Myr hit the ground behind the coffee table, thinking it didn’t offer nearly enough protection and wondering if she’d been hit without feeling it. She’d heard that people often didn’t know they’d been struck by bullets.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dalrymple hit the floor as well and thought he’d scramble over behind the recliner. Myr thought that’d be good since their being separated would split the woman’s attention.

  But Dalrymple only twitched. To her horror, Myr realized the bullet had hit Dalrymple.

  Shit!

  The woman with the gun advanced on Myr, keeping the weapon poin
ted at her. Unable to think of anything else to do, Myr lifted her hands and tried to look harmless. Cheerfully the woman said, “Hi, I’m Kelley. You must be Myr Sevii?”

  For a moment, Myr considered denying it. Deciding that’d be pointless, she nodded.

  “Get up, get up,” Kelley said brightly. “Are there any more where he came from?” she said waving her gun in Dalrymple’s direction.

  Myr nodded again and slowly stood up.

  “Come, come, sit with your family,” Kelley said, airily waving at the table where Carol and Connor were sitting.

  Myr looked at Dalrymple. He’d stopped twitching, but she could see he was still breathing. His face looked… odd, but Myr couldn’t see a bullet wound. She said, “Can I check on…”

  Kelley gave a dismissive wave, “Oh no, don’t bother. He’s not gonna make it. I’d put a mercy round in him, but you know…” she shrugged, “no more noise than necessary. Come, sit.”

  As Myr moved slowly to the table she forced herself to look at the bubbly woman who held them captive. Psychopath, she thought. I thought psychopaths were almost all men? “Almost” might be this woman’s loophole. The blonde woman had short hair and a long but not unattractive face with a smooth complexion. She looked flushed. Excited, Myr thought. She loves killing.

  Myr sat down, “What do you want?”

  Kelley practically bounced up and down, “Well first,” she waved at Dalrymple, “how many more of them are outside?”

  “I don’t know, quite a few,” Myr lied sullenly.

  “Oh now… I don’t think you’re telling me the truth,” Kelley said. If there were a bunch of them, they’d already be busting in, guns a blazin’.” She waved the gun at Dalrymple, “Why, I’ll bet he’s the only one.” She snickered and, put on a fake southern accent to say, “Well Ah do declare, Ah believe they done sent a boy to do a man’s job.”