“All fueled up and ready to go, sirs,” the man said, clasping his hands behind his back.
“Did you function check the miniguns and communications?” Eugene asked as he dumped his load-bearing vest in the back seat of the lead vehicle.
“Yes, sir.”
“What about snacks?”
“Sir?”
Eugene set his hands on his hips. “It’s a three-hour drive. Did you pack energy drinks and snacks?”
“N—No.” The man backpedaled toward the door leading into the main building. “But I’ll go get some from the break room.”
“And water,” Jarrod added.
The man swallowed and addressed Eugene instead of Jarrod. “There is a gallon of water in each truck. Do you need more?”
“Yes,” Jarrod said. “Five gallons should suffice.”
The guard hesitated. After a long moment, he nodded and hurried through the doorway.
“I need to talk to HR,” Eugene mumbled. “They can’t keep hiring the first idiot who qualifies for a security clearance.”
Jarrod turned his head and stared out the open bay doors. He moved forward with featherlight steps, as if walking on broken glass, and stopped just shy of the threshold. His armor pooled at his collarbone, and black tendrils began to climb his neck.
“What is it?” Eugene asked, slamming the SUV door.
“Are you still searching for Agent Janson?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because she’s here.”
Janson gripped the high fence and pulled herself over the top, landing on the asphalt behind the sprawling trauma and rehabilitation center. She held the pistol grip of a Mossberg 930 Tactical shotgun with one hand and the fore-end with the other. The shotgun was loaded with eight high-velocity 12-gauge slugs—not armor-piercing, but packing enough punch to put Jarrod on his back if she managed to land a shot. She also wore an FN Five-Seven pistol on her hip with a high capacity magazine, but she doubted it would come into play. Neither weapon was truly lethal to Jarrod. If she was going to kill him, it was going to be with her bare hands.
As she approached the building, Eugene, Yuri, and Eli gathered around her target and stared out at her. Because of their puzzled expressions, she couldn’t tell if they were happy to see her, or angry, or afraid. It didn’t matter; she wasn’t here for them, and there would be time to talk when she was finished with her task.
Still, it stung to see Eli standing next to Jarrod. She couldn’t rationally expect him to disobey orders and choose her side over Eugene’s, but it still felt like betrayal. She blinked and shook her head, clearing away the pointless thoughts—if she was going to do this, she needed to be in the moment.
Her boots scuffed the pavement as she came to a stop ten yards away from the group. She held the shotgun at the low-ready and raised the barrel an inch. “Gene, Eli, Yuri…get out of the way.”
Eli was the first to speak, and his voice was choked with sympathy. “Janson…what have you done to yourself?”
She glanced at him for a split second before returning her attention to Jarrod. She understood Eli’s shock—she wasn’t wearing the contact lenses, so her eyes were as dark as the bottom of a well. Her skin was a darker shade of gray than it had been the week before, and her skin was puckered with pink scars from the surgeries she had undergone.
Reaching over her shoulder, she lifted the metamaterial hood and tucked it beneath her chin. She’d had the foresight to pack the lightweight armor before leaving Hillcrest and was thankful for the mask. Eli’s pity and disappointment were distractions she didn’t need. “I said, move out of the way. This doesn’t concern you.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Eugene said. “We can talk it out and get you the help you need.”
“Help? You’re standing next to the man who killed Clint, and you’re offering me help?”
Eugene raised his chin. “That’s right. Jarrod made a mistake—a big one—and we’re trying to fix his screwed-up brain. And you’re making a mistake right now, but we want to help you, too.”
“This isn’t a mistake.” Janson shook her head. “This is justice. And I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
“Is that so?” Eugene replied. “And where do you think Ford would be standing right now? With you, or with us? Where did he stand in Siberia?”
Clint’s image appeared in the loading bay. The hallucination stepped forward, his chest out and his head held high, taking his place next to Eugene.
Janson gripped the shotgun tighter. “No…” she whispered. “Not now…”
Jarrod followed her gaze to the empty ground next to Eugene then glanced back at her. He spoke in a level, emotionless voice. “You are not well, Agent Janson.”
It was too much. Her hatred for Jarrod had reached a boiling point days ago, and hearing him pass judgment was more than she could bear. She snapped the shotgun up and squeezed the trigger.
Somehow, Jarrod knew she would try for a headshot. He ducked, and the slug whipped past him, crashing into the bulletproof glass on one of the SUV’s.
Thanks to the nanomachinery in her brain, the passage of time seemed to slow. She felt the next slug feeding into the chamber and the bolt sliding into place, and she pulled the trigger the moment it was ready. This time, she aimed lower, and the slug glanced off Jarrod’s ribcage.
There was an explosion of shrapnel as the slug disintegrated on impact, showering Eli and Yuri with tiny metal fragments. Janson winced, and her finger hesitated above the trigger.
Jarrod took advantage of the brief pause and leapt away from the group. It was a mistake on his part—when he was airborne, he had no way of changing direction. In a fraction of a second, Janson calculated where he would land and brought the shotgun around. She pulled the trigger a moment before his feet touched the ground, and the slug slammed into his chest.
The force of the impact sent him flying, and she squeezed the trigger before gravity could bring him back to earth. A half-smile formed on her lips as she pulled the trigger again and again, pinning him against the steel fence. This was going better than she had hoped.
When the shotgun expelled its last shell, she tossed it aside and drew her sidearm. She aimed for his head, which again proved futile. The 5.7mm round glanced off the fence where Jarrod’s head had been. Her target pushed off the fence, closing the distance between them. She adjusted her aim and fired again, and the bullet struck his chest. But the lightweight round lacked the force to slow him down, and he continued to close in, his arms outstretched. She got three more shots off before his clawed hands closed around the pistol and literally tore it in half.
She blinked and took a step back, raising her hands to protect her face. To her surprise, Jarrod didn’t follow. He threw the pieces of the Five-Seven aside and lowered his hands.
Janson clenched her teeth and launched herself at the living weapon. If he wanted her to go on the offensive, she was happy to oblige. The last time she’d fought him hand-to-hand had not ended well, but she was a different person now. She was faster. Stronger. Better.
Her right jab narrowly missed his cheekbone and struck sparks off the armor covering his ear. She followed up with a left hook, which hit him in the collarbone. There was a muffled crack, and Jarrod stumbled back.
Janson kept her momentum going, aiming a knee-strike at his ribs. Jarrod shifted his hips and leaned back, making her miss wide and right. She recovered in an instant, planting her foot and launching a sweeping kick. The blow landed on the outside of Jarrod’s thigh with enough force to push him off balance, and she used the opening to hit him in the sternum with a right cross.
Jarrod toppled backward but pushed off the ground with his hands and landed back on his feet. Somewhere, outside of Janson’s concentrated sphere of focus, someone started to shout.
“What are you doing? Fight back!”
It was Eugene’s voice. And it flipped a switch inside of Jarrod.
Suddenly, his ebony armor was cov
ered with rows of three-inch spikes. His legs coiled beneath him, and he pushed off hard enough to leave cracks in the asphalt.
She had no time to react. He hit her like a freight train, driving her into the fence, which dented behind her. Jarrod lashed out with a flurry of punches, and it was all she could do to fend off the blows. She needed room to maneuver; she shifted her hips before bringing her left knee up. It hit him in the stomach and knocked him back, but the spikes on his armor pierced her metamaterial bodysuit. She stifled a cry of pain then threw an uppercut that sailed past Jarrod’s chin.
He responded with a shin-kick against her injured knee, and she collapsed to the ground. Before she could recover, Jarrod reached toward her face, and she suddenly felt a rush of cool air. He had stripped her metamaterial hood off and was standing over her with his fingers sharpened into talons.
“What are you waiting for?” she spat. “Do it! Kill me! It’s what you were made for, isn’t it?”
Jarrod moved the talons closer but didn’t touch her skin. She recoiled slightly, and the ebony barbs followed. She froze, and so did Jarrod. What the hell was he waiting for?
Footsteps pounded against the pavement, and Eli and Yuri appeared at the edges of her vision. As Eli looked on, shaking his head, Yuri knelt and uncapped a hypodermic needle.
Janson’s eyes narrowed. What was happening? Why hadn’t Jarrod killed her?
The needle entered her skin, and Yuri said, “I am sorry. This is for your own good.”
25
San stood at the end of the steel bed, his face a mask of grief as he looked down at Janson. She was awake, and her black eyes stared straight at the ceiling. Thick steel cables around her wrists and ankles held her in place, but she was free to lift her head if she wanted to. She hadn’t spoken a word since the sedative had worn off, despite San’s repeated efforts to talk to her.
“It may not seem like it now,” the director said, “but there is still hope. You can get better, in body and in mind. And I hope that someday, you will find it in your heart to forgive me.”
She blinked but didn’t speak.
After a long moment, Eugene cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, San, but the mission is still waiting. Do you mind if I take off?”
“No. Do what you have to. I’ll make sure she is taken care of.” San glanced at Janson. “I’m going to have one of the medical doctors take a look at you. And, if you don’t mind, I’d also like to have you examined by a staff psychologist.”
When she still didn’t respond, San hung his head and turned away. He followed Eugene into the hallway, walking alongside him until they reached the elevator.
“Good luck out there,” San said.
“Don’t worry about us. Worry about getting Janson well again.” Eugene stuck out his hand to keep the elevator door from closing. He leaned in closer and spoke in a low voice. “She didn’t do that to herself—the cutting and the eyes. Someone is helping her enhance herself, and I’ll give you one guess who it is.”
“You’re probably right,” San said, glancing down the hallway toward Janson’s room. “I’ll visit the Operations Center and look through the security footage to see if I can find proof.”
“If you ask me, we should revoke his security privileges and lock him up.”
San nodded. “It may come to that. But I want to make sure he wasn’t threatened into helping her, first.”
Eugene took a step back. “Let me know how it turns out. And I’ll be in touch when we’re mission-complete.”
San waved goodbye, and the door slid shut. Eugene felt a sudden weight as the elevator sped toward the surface, and he took several cleansing breaths. At least Janson was safe and would get the help she needed. Maybe, in time, today would be nothing but a bad memory.
The elevator’s glass doors opened, and Eugene stepped into the secure room on the ground floor. A minute later, he was walking into the loading bay.
Eli, Yuri, and Jarrod were cross-loading equipment from one SUV to the other. It wasn’t ideal to travel without a spare vehicle, but they couldn’t take a vehicle with a shattered window, either.
Eugene watched as Eli placed a pair of radios in the front seat and Jarrod hefted a five-gallon jug of water into the back. “Are we ready?”
Eli nodded. “All set.”
The team leader glanced at the parking lot outside the bay door. “Then let’s try this again. Hopefully, we won’t have to deal with any pissed off supersoldiers this time.”
No one laughed. Yuri climbed into the driver’s seat, and Eli took the seat beside him. Eugene limped around the vehicle and took the seat across from Jarrod in the back, next to the jug of water. As the vehicle rolled out of the secure lot and onto the street, Eugene rested his head against the window. It was a three-hour drive to their objective, and he would need every minute of it to get his mind right.
The psychologist let out a sigh of exasperation, set his notepad down on the table, and stood. “I’m sorry, Ms. Janson, but I have patients waiting for me upstairs. I’ll have to come back this afternoon.” As he excused himself from the room, he muttered, “I hope, by then, you’ll be willing to talk.”
For the first time since the psychologist arrived, Janson shifted her gaze away from the ceiling tile. It felt strange, being so uncooperative, but then again, she wasn’t used to being held prisoner. Exhaling slowly, she closed her eyes and tried to get some rest. It had been a long, painful week, and every bone, muscle, and joint in her body ached.
After twenty sleepless minutes, it became clear that the questions racing through her mind would not give her a moment’s peace. Why didn’t Jarrod kill her when he had the chance? Was it possible that they had found a way to treat his condition? And if so, could they find a way to treat her?
She shook her head. Killing Jarrod was the right thing to do. During her time in black-ops, she had doubted the morality of her actions on several occasions, but this was not one of them. Jarrod Hawkins was nothing more than a malfunctioning lab specimen, and he needed to be put down before he could hurt anyone else.
There was a knock at the door—the gentle, polite knock of a doctor visiting his patient. The camera on the ceiling ceased its steady hum, and the steel door slid open. Dean Wagner stepped inside; his face was grim and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead.
“What are you doing here?” Janson asked, raising an eyebrow.
He wrung his hands together. “I need to speak with you. I’m afraid director Torres is going to discover the true nature of our relationship.”
“Does it matter? I told you before, you have nothing to worry about. I’ll take the fall and tell them I forced you to help me. We don’t have a ‘relationship.’ I threatened you, and I assaulted Jarrod. None of this can come back on you.”
“That might have been true in the beginning, but things are not so simple. Not now.” Wagner took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If Doctor Torres digs deep enough, he’ll realize the truth—that I was personally invested in the outcome of our experiments.”
Janson narrowed her coal-colored eyes. “This is news to me. I had no idea you wanted Jarrod dead.”
Wagner shook his head. “I have no qualms with Four-Seven-Charlie, even though his regrettable escape cost me my position as director. But I was…curious what the outcome of your confrontation with him would be. I am, at heart, a scientist. And I’m interested in comparing dynamic battlefield technology.”
“Meaning?”
Wagner grabbed a rolling chair, moved it closer to Janson’s bed, and sat. There was a tinge of excitement in his voice as he explained, “Subject Four-Seven-Charlie was not meant for conventional warfare. His skills, tactics, and capabilities were all designed to fight terrorism.” Wagner glanced around the room and held up his hands. “This entire facility was funded for and built because of the rapid spread of terrorism in the past few decades. The American people had lost touch with the repugnance of war between modern nations, but ongoing terrorist attacks
taught them to fear radical militant groups. The conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria changed our perspective. Our enemies weren’t fighting us out in the open with tanks and helicopters, they were hiding in caves and jungles—using guerrilla warfare to inflict maximum damage on opposing forces and innocent civilians alike. We needed a weapon that could fight terrorists on their own terms, a smart weapon capable of differentiating between combatants and non-combatants in an undefined battlefield. Subject Four-Seven-Charlie, by all accounts, has served his original purpose magnificently, albeit without a direct line of supervision.”
Janson shook her head. “What does that have to do with me?”
Wagner leaned in closer. “Your training and enhancements are far more suitable for conventional warfare. And, unlike Jarrod, you have maintained a strict devotion to your country and your chain of command. At least, until a few weeks ago.”
She scowled at him. “Get to the point.”
The surgeon leaned back slightly and adjusted his collar. “Yes, well…what I’m saying is, you are the future of war, not him. The old paradigm of ideological terrorist attacks inciting military response is quickly vanishing. Americans don’t fear terrorists the way they used to, so the spotlight is returning to our more traditional enemies. And rightfully so; China, Russia, and the United States have all been working behind the scenes to equip militant groups in an asymmetric battlefield—but the real fight is between the world’s most powerful nations. The wars of the future will largely be fought in the realm of cyberspace. Technology, not manpower, will determine who the victor is.”
He took a deep breath and continued on. “But, as always, there will occasionally be a need for physical violence. And large standing armies are becoming more and more expensive to maintain. I believe kinetic military operations will be carried out by a select few, biologically and mechanically enhanced soldiers. People like you. Or perhaps people like Four-Seven-Charlie.” He pushed his chair back a few inches and studied her. “That’s why I was so intrigued when you came to me and expressed your desire to kill him. He has proved to be an unstoppable force in combat, but he is impossible to control and lacks any respect for authority. We spent billions to create him, and we still don’t have a viable blueprint for the perfect soldier. But if you can kill him and prove you are a superior design, then our nation will have the weapon it needs to ensure its safety and security for decades to come.”
Heir to the Nightmare Page 13