by Max Swan
“You can see me?” Paul said thinking, and it hit him. “You’re in that helicopter aren’t you, Mary?”
“Yes, you always were a clever man, Richard. Too clever for me anyway, until now,” Mary said in a strange tone.
Paul pushed the accelerator and increased the distance between the copter/car and the helicopter.
“Mary! Mary, listen we can talk about it on the ground,” Paul said, feeling his stomach churn as the realization of what’s happening gained on him.
Mary sounded calm, almost cheerful in her response. “I wanted to talk once, but you made me have an abortion. Afterward, you dumped me for that blonde slut. I wanted to talk then, but you didn’t wanna listen. Are you listening now, Richard? Are you?”
“Mary, this isn’t the answer,” Paul said gaining distance from the helicopter.
“What does she want?” Lieb asked from the passenger seat.
Paul put the phone on his chest and turning to Lieb said, “I think she wants to kill me.”
Lieb went pale before Paul’s eyes, he pulled out his own cell phone and began dialing a number.
“Kill you?” Marcus said from behind in total shock. “Richard, that helicopter has machine gun turrets. She’s gonna kill us all.”
“Not if I can help it, Marcus,” Paul said, and again accelerated leading her away from the city. He put the phone to his ear and said, “Mary, I have others with me. If you try anything you’ll be harming innocent people.”
“You made me kill our baby, Richard, our innocent little baby. Now you have to die, it’s the only way,” Mary said.
The machine guns on the helicopter fired at them, and Paul knowing the maneuverability of GFM vehicles better than anyone, evaded the bullets.
“You can’t run from me forever, Schleeman,” she screamed down the phone.
The word ‘Schleeman’ hit Paul like a punch, releasing the information he had stored in his neural implant. It became clear, the Vaman whom planted the sludge bomb is controlling Mary.
Lieb stopped shouting down his own phone at someone and turned to Paul saying, “Head for the coast. If we get her over the sea, the Air Force will take her out.”
Paul felt stunned. This isn’t her fault, he thought sadly, she’s being used, again. Sure she probably did harbor some bitterness towards the Professor for what happened. This poor woman though, had something else stoking the fires of her hate. Something not human at all, as far from human as you can get. It has fanned her spark of bitterness into an inferno of wrath, to make her perform this act of vengeance on its behalf. Fucking Vaman, Paul thought, mustering his own hatred.
“Mary, they’re going to kill you if you don’t stop this,” Paul said into his cell turning the car toward Port Phillip Bay.
She laughed. “You’re going to die, like our baby.”
She fired again, and a few bullets hit the copter/car but did minimal damage. Paul continued evasive maneuvers, to thwart her attempts to destroy them. Marcus screamed like a girl in the back seat, cowering behind Paul and Lieb. They heard a couple of air force jets flying toward them.
“Reinforcements at last, step on it, and get her over the sea,” Lieb said, looking excited now.
Paul grudgingly did it, and she followed continuing to fire her guns at them. With the water beneath them now, Paul knew Mary didn’t have long to live. He wanted to cry for her. A puppet, used by one of the deadliest races known to man.
“They’re targeting her now,” Lieb reported from his phone. He looked around at the helicopter.
Paul put the cell to his ear again and said, “Mary, it’s not too late. Stand down, or they’re gonna kill you.”
Mary kept coming, though. “You have to pay for my baby, Richard.”
The helicopter blew up behind them, as a sidewinder missile fired from an air force fighter jet took it out. Paul closed his eyes and dropped his head, tears ran down his cheeks.
“What the fuck just happened?” Marcus asked, being the first to speak.
Paul shrugged. “Another of my crazy ex-girlfriends with a grudge.”
Lieb laughed. “You really know how to fuck with women’s minds, I’ll give you that, Richard. I guess no one ever told you the saying: hell has no fury like a woman scorned!”
Marcus shook his head, his face screwing up in disgust as he looked at Paul. “I think its best we return to the Forcedes factory now. God knows how we’re going to spin this one in the press. How you always manage to turn moments of greatness, into moments of pure embarrassment astounds me, Richard,” he said.
Paul sighed heavily. “Marcus, will you shut the fuck up.”
Lieb turned and looked back at Marcus saying, “Yeah, shut the fuck up, Marcus. I saw you cowering back there, like a fucking little girl.”
Marcus sat back, folded his arms, and turned and looked out the window in a huff.
Looking at Paul wide eyed, Lieb said, “This test flight has been an outstanding success. The way this vehicle handled during all that, was superb. Richard, you’re a fucking genius.”
Paul forced a smile knowing he had more important matters to attend to. “Of course I am, it’s about time someone acknowledged it. Not like my fucking retarded colleagues at Melbourne University.”
Marcus gave a deep sigh and shook his head again, but kept looking out at the window.
“You don’t need those assholes. With the Octavian’s behind you, the skies the limit. So are you in?” Lieb asked excitedly.
The car dropped smoothly from the sky and touched down in front of the hanger where it began. The suits rushed to Lieb’s door, opening it, and frantically inquiring about his health. Only Lieb’s health, Paul thought. Alan Lieb turned to them and shouted making them all go quiet.
He turned to Paul holding out his hand saying, “So are you in?”
Paul took his hand in his, and said, “Sure, why not.” They shook hands.
As Lieb climbed out, he said to Marcus, “He’s mine now, Marcus. Your goose has finally laid a golden egg, and you get nothing. Fucking nothing!” He began walking away with his lackeys, laughing at Marcus.
Paul climbed out too, and spotting his car, started walking toward it. Someone grabbed his arm, and he turned to see Dr. James standing behind him.
“What do you want now?” Paul said, forcibly pulling his arm from Dr. James grip.
“The plans, Professor,” he said pointedly.
“Plans?” Paul said confused.
Dr. James sighed in annoyance. “The plans for the GFM. I’m led to believe you’re working for us now? So we want the plans to the GFM, so we can build more of them. That’s how it works in the private-sector.”
“Oh, I see,” Paul said, reaching into his pocket pulling out a USB stick, and handing it Dr. James. “The plans are on this drive. Now I have something to attend too, so may I go?” Paul asked.
Dr. James glanced at the stick, and shrugged. “Won’t the authorities be wanting to talk to you about that helicopter business? Maybe you should stay for now?”
“They can contact me and arrange an interview. I have some personal business to attend too,” he said, turned and walked to the car and got in.
He pulled out his cell and hit Jane’s icon, she answered saying excitedly, “What the fuck happened up there?”
“Another ex-girlfriend of the Professor tried to kill me,” he said, as he started his car holding the cell to his ear with his shoulder.
“What?” she blurted.
“Look, I don’t have time to explain, I put some anti-meld metal helmets in the shuttle you’re in. Put one on now, and have the other one ready for me,” he said as he sped back toward the gate.
“AMM-helmets? What’s going on?” she insisted.
“We have a fucking Vaman infestation, Jane, the saboteur is a Vaman,” Paul announced.
“Oh fuck, you’re not going to like what I have to tell you next,” Jane said.
“What now?” Paul asked, feeling his stomach drop in anticipation.
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br /> “The real Professors gone missing,” Jane said.
Chapter 15
In a private hospital in Berlin, an attractive nurse in her late twenties sat watching the various monitors that showed the vital signs of her patient. She efficiently recorded the numbers on her chart, and tried to understand the prognostications that the Doctors had written in her patients’ notes. The patient looked strange, his head is bigger than a watermelon, and according the Doctors notes his brain is just as big. What astounded the medical staff the most is between his brain lobes sat a metallic object the size of a cell phone. The nurse had seen many strange things in her career, but this topped them all. The patient known to her as Richard, was in a coma when the ambulance brought him to the hospital, and that’s how he remained. The Doctors had no idea what had happened to this man. The best Neurologists in Europe had examined him and went away perplexed by the mystery.
The monitor suddenly alarmed, and she looked at it, then at her patient in the bed. Richards’s eyes were open, and he were looking around the room. The nurse stood, and walked to the bedside grabbing a hand that waved in the air.
“Richard? Richard? If you can understand me, squeeze my hand,” she said.
He did not respond initially, his eye’s filled with confusion as they darted everywhere. He screamed, as if in pain, clenching his eyes shut.
“Richard, if you can understand me, squeeze my hand,” she repeated.
His head turned and looked at her, as if trying to focus. As she were about to say it again, he squeezed her hand.
“Gut, can you speak? Tell me your name?” she asked.
He looked at her, but kept clenching his eyes open and closed. After a moment he croaked, “Rishard… S-Starr.”
“Gut, Richard,” she said in a strong German accent.
“Water,” he croaked.
The nurse poured some water into a glass, and placed a straw in it. She held it to his lips, and he sucked deeply feeling the awful dry taste in his mouth dissolve away, much to his relief. Richard sighed with pleasure as she removed the straw. The nurse put the glass down and went to her desk, and picked up the phone. She held it to her ear, watching her patient while she waited for someone to answer.
“He’s awake,” she finally said.
Richard found it hard to concentrate. He had the worst headache he’d ever had, while his sight and hearing seemed extremely sensitive. His head throbbed, so he reached up to rub the area. As he felt his head, his heart leapt in his chest, as he realized something isn’t right.
“My head! My fucking head! Oh my God, what did he do to me? What did that monster do?” he screamed sitting up, and moving around wildly.
The nurse picked up a syringe from a tray, and rushed to his side. “It’s all right, Richard, you’re safe now,” the nurse said to sound reassuring.
“Fuck off! Leave me alone!” he screamed as two more nurses ran into the room.
Going either side of him, they grabbed his arms and held him down. The nurse injected the drug into an IV port, in seconds he felt drowsiness overtake him, and he stopped struggling.
One of the other nurses said, “Der Arzt ist auf dem Weg.”
“Gut,” she replied thinking, I can’t wait to hear how Richard explains what’s happened to him.
*****
“So none of you have actually sighted the Professor for the last week? What the fuck is going on up there?” Paul said to Nadir from the shuttle as they flew back to Jane’s base of operations in Melbourne.
Nadir frowned deeply. “Major, do you have any idea the work we’ve all been doing up here while you’ve been planetside? Not even Ship noticed he was gone.”
“This Vaman has to be the most powerful we’ve ever come across, to befuddle our minds so easily. It’s lucky we’re still alive!” Dexter shivered.
Nadir turned his head to face the screen, his eyebrows lowering and pinching together making the wrinkles on his face move. “So I guess this means your plans to have Captain Blake and myself face a firing squad have been foiled, major.”
Paul sighed rubbing his hand on his forehead, while clenching his eyes shut. Looking back at the camera he said, “I guess it’s pointless to repeat that I’ve never accused you of anything. But if it means anything to you, Colonel, no one is more relieved than me to learn that you and Captain Blake are innocent.”
Jane stiffened in her chair to a point of rigidity. “Respectfully, Colonel, the circumstantial evidence did point in your direction. The Major was merely doing his job, and doing it well I might add.”
As Nadir stared down the screen at them stony faced, a tense silence hung in the air. His grudge against Paul isn’t going to be so easily forgiven it seemed, even in the light of knowing a Vaman had been messing with them since they left Bolaris.
“I found a used neural implant insertion pack in my quarters, and Mr. Crimpson tells me that a Brainiac Neural Implant is missing from medlab12,” Nadir said.
Paul and Jane looked at each other wide eyed for a moment. “So the professor must be dead?”
Dexter said, “It should’ve killed him, that’s true. But with a Vaman helping him it’s possible he could be alive.”
“But how?” Jane asked.
“The psychic ability of the Vaman could mitigate the effects of the implant, theoretically speaking,” Dexter replied.
“But why a Brainiac model, Dex? Why not a regular one?” Paul asked.
“The computer logs show that a large amount of technical data has been accessed recently. I think the Vaman has filled the implant with data, and plans to give it to the Garan’s when they arrive,” Dexter said.
“It’s using the Professor as a data mule?” Paul said feeling sick. That’s all we need, he thought.
Nadir said, “I have sent some drones to search for the output signal of the implant, but our chances of finding him are slim.”
“I suggest we leave him, for now. We need to get that Vaman first, and trying to do that on Earth will be too difficult,” Paul said.
“Yes, it’ll be easier to hunt here on Ship. But are you sure it’ll put itself at risk now that it knows we’re onto it?” Nadir asked.
“Sir, the Vaman has tried to kill me several times now, it won’t stop until I’m dead,” Paul said.
“Than what do you propose we do?” Nadir asked.
Paul gave Nadir a slight smile. “I’ve heard you’re fond of fishing, Colonel.”
The shuttle reached Jane’s base of operations in Melbourne to find the house surrounded by police cars with flashing lights. People were all over the place.
“Oh fuck, looks like the Vaman has tipped off The Pedigree about Captain Barrett too,” Paul said relaying the images back to Ship for Nadir to see.
“Initiating IEH Protocols,” Jane said.
The ‘In Enemy Hands’ (IEH) protocol is safety mechanism used in all EMC technology and equipment, that prevents an enemy from reverse engineering technology. Once activated via a signal, the equipment affected will self-destruct via the release of a volatile acid that destroys the equipment from the inside out. As they watched the front of the house from the shuttle, several men were dragged out by their clothes and a hose turned on them. The officers affected had limbs literally dissolving as they screamed in agony. The acid isn’t water soluble so the hoses did nothing. In a matter of moments the men died, continuing to dissolve until only a bubbling puddle of slime remained.
“Jesus, those poor bastards,” Paul said.
Nadir said, “Captain, shut up shop there, you can finish your work from Ship.”
“There’s still the Kingslake safe house. That’s pretty isolated, so she could work from there,” Paul suggested.
“They shouldn’t trace it to us, as I rented that place via a false identity,” Jane said hoping Nadir would agree.
“OK, but I’m recalling all shuttles, and activating IEH protocols for all our other locations, except the Kingslake safe house,” Nadir said.
“Do you think they have the Professor?” Jane asked, looking at Paul.
Dexter cut in saying, “If the Vaman is looking for someone to protect its asset until the Garan’s arrive, The Pedigree would be the logical choice.”
Nadir grunted. “We’ve been outplayed from the start. Time to get back in the game. You know what you have to do,” Nadir said cutting the signal.
*****
Richard recovered quickly from the anxiety attack as the syringe the nurse injected him with contained serup. The medical staff didn’t know this. A Doctor explained to Richard that his brain is more than three times as large as an average adult male brain, and they had no idea why. They questioned him about the object in his brain, but Richard knew nothing about it. All he could remember was that he’d been kidnapped, and held to extort money from his father in-law. Someone had helped him escape, however, he didn’t know whom. The Doctors showed him newspapers from the last few months to prove his story couldn’t be true. He looked at the articles with total confusion. To his astonishment, and according to the papers, he’s discovered quantum-relativity, and invented flying cars. He vehemently denied that the person in the papers is he. The Doctors looked as if they thought he’d gone mad.
A few days after he came out of his coma, he sat out of bed in a chair. He looked in a hand mirror at his head constantly. Richard’s head isn’t a pretty sight. Aside from being large, he had also lost all his hair. The top of his head looked so big, that his face looked small, by comparison. His bald scalp appeared bulbous, making him look like a mad professor from the cartoons.
The sun streaming through a window fell across his lap felt pleasant. The door suddenly opened and in walked his Doctor, followed by a group of men who all shuffled in standing around him awkwardly, staring at his head.
The Doctor spoke, “Professor Starr, it’s good to see your recovery is progressing.”
Richard shrugged. “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, Doctor.”
“Allow me to introduce the man paying for your treatment.” The Doctor gestured toward a tall, handsome man of Mediterranean heritage, dressed in an expensive suit. “This is Mr. Julius Octavian.”
Richard held out his hand. “Forgive me if I don’t stand, Your Highness, but I’m afraid my legs are still wobbly.”
Octavian raised an eyebrow at Richard referring to his royal title, but took his hand and shook it. “That’s fine, Professor Starr, it’s good to meet you.”